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Saturday, June 25, 2011

So Where are We? Choice curriculum/Getting back into the routine.

Well it looks like we have the Arabic picked out, Math, Science, and English picked out. This leaves handwriting, Islamic Studies, Social Studies, Arts and Health.
I have all but decided that we will learn Spencerian Penmanship because it will be an art as well as a tool for communication. I think I really need to spice things up for penmanship otherwise we'll be miserable.
Also I figure for arts just making sure we have various art projects going on regularly. I will just let it be mostly child directed inshallah.  Say we love reading Three Little Bikers, maybe we can make a puppet show of it, or are leaning about the food groups, painting a poster about it, or we write and learn a little nasheed about what good writers do. Things like that.
Also I am thinking that SS and Health do not need to be done every day. Ideas i have for them are teaching one subject, a few times a week and then when we have mastered the concepts and skills do the other.
We could have one week with one subject and one week with the other or One day with one subject and the other a day or 2 later.
As far as IS goes I think we will do Quraan everyday, and other subjects on certain days. Maybe Aqeeda on mondays, that kind of thing.

This brings me to Mondays. Mondays are the hardest day of our week because he is often tired coming home from a fun weekend at Dad's. It seems also to very important that with in the first few mins that he walks in the door that he gets started on school work. If he does not he has a hard time with the transition back to Mom's house all day. I tend to want to chat with his step mom about what he did on the week end and what not. I guess I will just have to give her a call later in the day. 

Friday, June 24, 2011

Addition facts

By the way we are currently working on addition facts, and again thrift store finds save the day! I  picked up Addition (ISBN 0-7696-4451-1) It has a CD with useful, but obnoxious songs to help the student.  The cover, really covers all the contents.
I also have the subtraction one. I paid a dollar a piece for them. It seems to be paying off, I ask him before he begins if he want to listen to the CD. He has +0 down and just about has +1, has a hard time remembering the name of 12.  I think in another week he will probably be more than ready for +3.  He has just been giving the answers orally. 

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Handwriting

So the options seem to be, first of all, do we want to continue manuscript or move to cursive?
I gave an impromptu lesson in cursive today. He though it was cool. I wonder if it would be easier because connecting letters is already familiar to him via Arabic.

 I think it would be cool to learn how to write in the older style, Spencerian.  It also seems to lend itself to learning calligraphy more readily. It might force both of use to slow down and really pay attention to letter formation. (My hand is aching just thinking about handwriting.)

This is Engrossers Script


Just for fun
Of course there are more moder scripts like D'Nealian


So if we learn cursive, what is the end goal? Simplicity or beauty? I think it just depends. If he is capable, beauty because this could be one more way to express himself, on the other hand if it is just not with in his abilities then simplicity would be the obvious choice.  Simplicity would allow him to read cursive and take notes faster.
I still think making beautiful handwriting the goal could be a wonderful choice because it could become an art form, as I mentioned before.
MMM I think I am going to poll people on facebook. 

English Curriculum

So until some other amazing thing comes along, which tends to happen but I dobt it will beat these choices, I decided we will use Scott Foresman Reading 2nd grade for the first 16 weeks, and then Harcourt Collects for the second 16 weeks. And since we homeschool year round to a greater or lesser extent I the remain 20 "official" days are easy to add in.

SF Reading includes, phonics, comprehension, writing, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, web quests and test taking skills (I am not to worried about the test taking skill parts because while we probably will do the state tests occasionally we may not as they are optional.)

H Collections includes comprehension, grammar, spelling, writing, web quests, and phonics.

 As far as penmanship goes, this is a septate issue.

New goodies from the thrift store!

I picked up Mathematic in Action grade 1!  It is the pupil edition. (Just recently realized edition and is spelled with an "e" >< boy I feel dumb, lol.) It is of course an older publication but it really doesn't take much to tweek it into more advanced standards.
I also got Addison-Wesley Mathematics grade 2, The American Nation student text book. So now I am set to go as far as American history. (We won't be covering that for a bit yet inshallah.)
I got a nice calculator for school work as well.
I have so much fun doing this kind of stuff!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

So where are we? Curriculum choices

So we will use, inshallah
Arabic: Madina Arabic reader, using Iqra Reader as a supplement for writing and conversation practice.
Math: How We Use Numbers, supplementing with various materials including Teddy Bear Time, Calvert Math Practice and Enrichment Book and Head for Success.
Science: Scott Foresman Science


Decisions yet to be made, reading, IS, SS, penmanship, writing, and arts.
These will be relatively easy because I pretty much already know what I am planning. I have 4 or 5, 2nd grade reading books. I just need to compare what they cover to I know if I want to use them all and/or what order.
As far as writing I think we will just pick up where we left off in the writing book from Moore Education and IS I just need to decide on weather I want to use one of the books I picked up (PDF) and supplement with all the goodies I have or just use the goodies I have.  As far as handwriting goes I would like to just buy something but thats not very probable. If I can find a series of handwriting videos and use those and various tracing, drawing and maze type pages. For Social Studies, I think I will just work those ideas and concepts int IS, inshallah. But I would like to introduce geography concepts. I am pretty sure he will think they are cool anyway. We'll see.

Monday, June 20, 2011

I found something wonderful!

This is a book I got at a used book store today. It is similar to Ray's Arithmetic or First Lessons in Arithmetic but uses modern language. It was published in 1934 and is titled How We Use Numbers: The Triangle Arithmetics A Second Grade Number Book. It was published by The John C. Winston Company Philadelphia. I am pretty sure this is a k-1st grade book. The first page has a picture of 3 children and a pig in a pen.
It reads


Ned, Betty and Dorothy
Ned is nine years old.
Betty is seven years old.
Little Dorothy is only four.
The children love their home on the farm.
They make pets of all the farm animals.

(This was very easy for my son to read. We talked about the picture then went to the next page.)
On page 2 there is a picture of a a girl tossing a ball in the air in front of a lovely house.
It reads:

Tossing a Ball
Betty can toss and catch her ball ten times
without missing.
She counts:
one two three four five six
  1      2       3       4      5    6
seven eight nine ten
    7       8        9    10
How many times can you toss and catch
your ball without missing?
Try to bounce your ball ten times without
missing.
How far can you count?


This is the cover


You can see what it is like. Very simple, straight forward and allows him to act very independently. It covers counting to 1000, writing numbers, making sets, addition and subtraction, greater than/less than skip counting, time, money,2 digit addition and subtraction, place value, measurement and more. There is a lot of built in review and many many hands on activities.
A randomly selected page





Another page

A review page


The back

His scratch is from a cat.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Passwords for various text books and links

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=82095303
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=82095304
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=82095381
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=82095505

English
Languages of Literature Grade 6 http://www.classzone.com/books/language_of_lit_gr06/index.cfm?state=MD
Languages of Literature Grade 7 http://www.classzone.com/books/language_of_lit_gr07/index.cfm?state=MD
Languages of Literature Grade 8 http://www.classzone.com/books/language_of_lit_gr08/index.cfm?state=MD
Health
Teen Health Course 1 http://glencoe.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0078697603/student_view0/
Teen Heath Course 2 http://glencoe.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0078697611/student_view0/
Teen Health Course 3 http://glencoe.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/007869762x/student_view0/
Spanish
Realidades 1

Web Code jck-0001


http://www.phschool.com
Realidades 2

Web code jdk-0001
http://www.phschool.com
Realidades 3

Web code jek-0001
http://www.phschool.com
French
Discovering French Bleu 1 http://www.classzone.com/cz/books/french_1/book_home.htm
Discovering French Blanc 2 http://www.classzone.com/cz/books/french_2/book_home.htm
World Studies
A Message of Ancient Days
World Studies 6
http://www.eduplace.com/ss/hmss/6/index.html
Across the Centuries
World Studies 7
http://www.eduplace.com/ss/hmss/7/index.html
Creating America
World Studies 8
http://www.classzone.com/books/cas05/index.cfm?state=MD
Math
Math 6 http://www.glencoe.com/sec/math/mac/mac01/course1/
Math 7 http://www.glencoe.com/sec/math/mac/mac01/course3/
IM http://glencoe.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0078738180/student_view0
Algebra 1 http://www.glencoe.com/sec/math/algebra/algebra1/algebra1_05/
Algebra 2 http://www.classzone.com/books/algebra_2/index.cfm?state=MD
Geometry http://go.hrw.com/gopages/ma/geo.html

This is a link to Math Expressions resources

http://www.iusd.org/student_resources/Mathematics.html There is the workbook, vocabulary and homework book.

Links to Free Math Books (1st grade)

I am on the great journey of selecting math curriculum. I know that I could buy something, or I could just kinda do an ad-hoc kind of thing but I want to do neither. I want it free, not counting the cost of printing and manipulatives. I want it to be very interested to my son and preferably scripted or at least very heavily outlined. I am not very comfortable with math and I want my son to love it and do well with it. (The opposite of me.)
There are actually quite a few options out there. We could use a very old fashioned text book like First Lessons in Arithmetic published originally by Brothers and Company. The Grammar of Math is a site that a private school teacher has made video lessons and supplemental materials to accompany the book. I think she uses the book in her class room. There are other similar books that I like. For example First Lessons in Numbers, Oral and Written by Benjamin Greenleaf, A.M. The problem with it is that it does not cover geometry or algebra. I covers measurement and somewhat covers money. There are other books that do cover these areas but the money part is out dated. Pictures of money from when I was a child are out dated so one can imagine.
There is the MEP program. It looks a little in appearance but it seems to be primarily activity based and would take quite a bit of preparation. They use it in Hungary and the UK. A similar program is CSMP.
And of course there is the typical school books. I will just list them rather than give much info as they are all kind of similar anyway.

  • Go Math Florida TE (Intended for children that are either up to 2 years behind their peers or more than 2 years behind their peers.) This is the TE. Here is an index of many other resources that go with it. Take your time and explore.
  • Go Math Florida Student edition. 
  • Think Math TE
  • Think Math Student addition
  • Math Expressions
  • Math Expressions TE A cool thing about this one is that you can access a lot of resources that go with each lesson by clicking the resources button. Tests and everything.
  • HSP Math NC I don't like how this one id displayed, but NC is known for the best schools in the US.
  • HSP Math NC TE It seems to be very similar to the Harcourt book we had.
  • CA Mathematics McGraw ID camath01 password redwood Has a student handbook. This is a site that has mini lessons and games to accompany the book.  D6FFE73DD6 is the code to link and had the text book with audio available and occasionally links to the games page under the resource button.
  • NCERT Mathmagic is made by a government agency in India I believe. Scroll down to Class 1, which is for 6 to 7 year olds.
  • Georgia Math ID fcsfirst password fcsmath 
  • Math Connects D6FFE73DD is the code. F765640977 or AEF03A3C25 for 2nd, A838535E8A or DA4F562186 for 3rd, CB77A58EB7 or E3488CCEF0 4th, A7B8EC5CE9 or E3F898A3AB 5th, A8FBM1C38F or F066E2B8F1 6th, A84CFF6287 7th.
  • HM Georgia Math ID 1classdekalb Password dekalbstudent1 you can change the grade by changing the number