Planning for 2010-11 :: Math, Grammar, and Reading

I am continuing on with sharing my plans for our next homeschool year from this post.  Adrienne used Teaching Textbooks for the first time this past school year and it worked very well for us. Andre will be switching from Singapore Math to Teaching Textbooks this year and he is looking forward to it! Celeste will be starting formal math instructions with Miquon Math. I am looking forward to teaching her math using this curriculum. I hope it will be a good match for us.

For Grammar, Andre and Adrienne have been using Growing with Grammar. We will continue with this program because it works.

For Reading, I will have to split this topic into two sections.

First is the practice of Reading Aloud. I believe this is an important skill, and I have required reading aloud practice from Adrienne and Andre since we started homeschooling five years ago. We have used many different texts for this practice, sometimes just picture books from the library that happened to be in our basket, other times readers, textbooks from other subjects, or small sections from novels. We started using the Elson Readers two years ago, and have enjoyed them, so we will continue on with them. Adrienne and Andre haven't quite finished the two books that we already have, so we will work on these.

Celeste, who is continuing with learning how to read using the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, will be using the Elson Readers Primer for extra practice. She likes to read other books besides her practice lessons but sometimes it is difficult to find easy readers at our local library that are to her level. I think this will be a better match for her.

The second part of Reading is literature. I asked Adrienne and Andre to come up with a list of books they wish to read for this coming year. We viewed some online book lists, and looked at our bookshelves as well. Andre pulled out his Dangerous Book for Boys and pointed out the book list at the back to me. The only request I had is that they chose some "classics". Here are their lists below.

Something new that we will be adding this year to our Reading is a commonplace book for each of the children, and for myself. I found the idea from Harmony Art Mom's blog. It is based on Charlotte Mason, and I think it will be a great way to record their reading and a wonderful new way to narrate. We have used narration in the past for many subjects as well as for literature. For us it works great. We even have our own narration cube, a great little helper! These commonplace books can be filled with written narration, drawings, quotes, opinions or reflections.

We haven't written down a list of the books that I will be reading aloud, but these are more for fun. I do know that we want to continue reading Peter and the Starcatchers (Peter and the Sword of Mercy) and the next Percy Jackson (The Titan's Curse).

Next time, I will share our writing plans, art and music appreciation.