2013-2014 Pearson Academy First Day of Class

It's that time again.  School has started!  We have a brand new school room now that the boys have been moved back upstairs. I'm hoping the new space will help a bit since all the furniture is more kid-sized and the littles now have a place to play out of ear shot of the Jack.  Here are the obligatory first day pics and the curriculum we're using this year. 

 This guy is in third grade.  Thank God for grades at church or I would forget half the time.  Between the varying levels he does in all the curriculum I can't keep up! This promises to be a challenging year for him -- he's reading 99 books in 36 weeks! And that's not including any "for fun" reading he may do!  This year Jack's curriculum is:

Math -- Singapore 4A&B, standards edition

Reading/Writing/History/Geography/Worldview -- Tapestry of Grace, Year 3, lower grammar level

Bible -- How to study your Bible for Kids by Kay Arthur

Grammar -- Growing with Grammar, level 3

Chinese -- Mandarin by Rosetta Stone

Typing -- Typing Instructor for Kids

Handwriting -- A Reason for Handwriting C

Science -- Apologia Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day

Not a lot of change from last year as far as publishers go. We just added in a few subjects.  And it wouldn't be the first day of school if I wasn't already wanting to change something...but that will wait for another time ;)

 This little man is officially in Kindergarten, although if you ask him he'll tell you he's in first grade.  Some of his curriculum is first grade work but some is Kinder.  We are actually using this year to see how he progresses.  If he flies through stuff like he seems bent on doing, this may actually count as his first grade year.  We don't want to rush him or push him but I can only pull back on those reigns so hard! Sam's curriculum this year includes:

Math -- Singapore 1A&B, standards edition

Reading/Writing -- Institute for Excellence in Writing's Primary Arts of Language

Bible -- ABC Jesus Loves me (a free online curriculum)

Science -- Apologia's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day

Sight Words -- a whole mess of stuff I've gathered ;)

Typing -- Typing Instructor for Kids

Spanish -- Muzzy Online

Last but not least, Little Miss isn't schooling much at home.  But she was not about to be left out of the picture taking this morning!  Grace will attend preschool two days a week but that doesn't begin until September.  The other days of the week she will be working through some Rod and Staff preschool books, Get Ready for the Code A (prequel to Explode the Code), busy bags and art projects.  She's also going to spend quite a bit of time in mommy's lap reading books.  We are slowly introducing her to Spanish through Muzzy Online, but only because she asked.  The same is true of typing.  I don't expect her to type at all but perhaps it will help with letter recognition and she likes it.  If ever she decides she doesn't, it (and Spanish) are easy to leave out.

Our schedule this year will be a little different than in years past.  We are only schooling Monday, Wednesday and Thursday on the "traditional" subjects.  Tuesdays we will participate in a local coop where Sam will do some Five in a Row, and Jack will work on Texas History and Science of Simple Machines.  Fridays are for enrichment and we will work on Health (it's that time for Jack...sheesh!), science (experiments with dad, fun lessons like nerf gun physics, lego building, etc), and humanities (artist studies, composer studies, cooking lessons, etc).  I'm figuring that by the time it all gets added together, the days will count as a very full school year.  

All in all the first day went well.  We all struggled to get the cobwebs out and as Jack said, we needed to "figure out how to get [our] brains working again."  even mom! It's now lunchtime and the kids are all basically done with the boys finishing up some co-reading during quiet time.  I'll call it a GREAT first day!