New School Year

In July, I posted my final first grade curriculum plans. Hah! I should know better than to put the word "final" on anything. My outline is more of a fluid document and always has been. Well, anyway, Samuel begins Latin School (although they don't actually learn Latin until the 2nd grade) next week. Here is what we began last week in order to ease us into my plans for the home part of his education.

Christian Studies
He signed up for Awana Club. He will also be reading from "The Beginner's Bible". There is a strong Bible component at his school with most copywork and memory work relating to the Bible in the early grades. And, we attend church as a family.

Math
I still don't have a real plan for this because the living math way has been working for us. His school curriculum is Rod and Staff.

Music
We heard George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue on the radio on the way to the library so we checked out a CD and the Mike Venezia book on Gershwin. At school, he will have music twice a week for lessons in basic elements of music, including ear training, note reading and choral performance. We are debating whether to also join the elementary choir at church.

Reading
Finished up two books on his summer reading list, "Floss" by Kim Lewis, and "Wind in the Willows" adapted from Kenneth Grahame.

Literature/Poetry
We began "The Mouse and the Motorcycle" by Beverly Cleary.

History
I had not planned to do Ancient History; however, I found The Story of the World, Volume 1 on ebay for a good price (remember me mentioning fluidity in my plans?). This past week, we read the Introduction and the chapter on Nomads. I did a search for books to supplement this and hopefully some of them will come in this week. Tonight, I am reading him the story of Jericho from "The Beginner's Bible" because when the book mentioned Jericho as one of the first cities, he did not know about it.

Nature/Science
We have been going back and forth between reading books from the library about African animals and reading "Poor Mrs. Quack" by Thorton Burgess. We also made a trip to the zoo last week and the week before.