School Planning for Abby

We've accomplished quite a bit this week: planted more in the garden, deep cleaned the laundry room, Thomas' room, and one of the bathrooms, switched out the winter clothing, and worked on vacation plans and school plans.

One of my favorite activities in the winter and spring - planning for the upcoming school year!

Abby will be in the 2nd grade next year. Where has my baby gone??? She's doing so well with her reading and math. She begs to work on Five in a Row. She loves learning and having school. What a fun student to have!

Here is what I have planned for 2nd grade, so far:

Language Arts: Reading with Pathway readers - she'll be in one of the 2nd grade readers. As a part of reading, I had been planning to use Explode the Code with her, simply because I've been using it with Thomas, but I see she really won't need it. We will work on reading fluently and won't start spelling until 3rd grade, which is my usual plan. I think she'll be able to start on some writing using the Institute for Excellence in Writing program - we'll only work on Units 1 & 2. For handwriting, we'll start cursive using A Reason for Writing, which I already own. And this next year, we'll start some dictation, probably using our current Five in a Row book. Abby has been narrating her Bible stories and we'll probably continue in that vein this upcoming year, since it's something she enjoys doing and I enjoy having a part in.

Math: Math U See Beta. In case I haven't said it before - WE LOVE MUS!!

History: In our home, history is our favorite subject. Thomas has been through the TruthQuest American History for Young Students with Carrie, but he was about Abby's age when he started it, so he'll go through it again with Abby. I'm working on buying the books I don't already own or the library doesn't have and I'm excited about using this read-aloud program with a new student.

Science: The only science we will do is our Five in a Row science lessons. Along with daily living, it's plenty.

Five in a Row is a given. It's so much fun to do this with my youngest daughter! Normally, I don't plan the books far in advance, since I like to choose a book that goes along with whatever is happening at our house at the moment. I'll choose the first couple of books right before school begins and plan out the lessons, activities, and meal and make my shopping list for little supplies we might need.

Bible: I'm planning to continue with Bible stories and character stories. This year we've been using the stories from the Just for Kids Bible, then she colors a picture which I print from Calvary Chapel's website (extensive!), she narrates the story on the back of the paper and we put it into a notebook to make her own Bible story book. We're almost finished with that book and will probably try to use my husband's old Egermeir Bible Story book. We like story books from Rod and Staff for character instruction and own several which we will continue reading daily. In addition to the things I do only with Abby, she takes part in family prayer times, our daily study of Proverbs (we study in depth one verse a day from the chapter corresponding with the date), and scripture memorization.

We will continue with the ever-popular read aloud weeks and fine arts weeks, which includes art and music appreciation. And she'll continue fiddle lessons with sister Rachel, hopefully entering her first competition in October.

At some point during summer vacation, I'll work on the chore chart and she'll get a few more chores. She will continue to learn to cook, too.

The only things on my shopping list for her are the books we'll use for TruthQuest.

While I'm off school, I'll look through the new math book, look at what I want to do for the first few weeks with IEW, TruthQuest, and FIAR, figure out exactly which Bible story book will work best for narration, and read up on dictation, since I haven't done this with Thomas, and plan the first lessons we'll do, clean out her school box and put the new books in, along with some new pencils and erasers and a notebook for dictation, and start planning the year's fine arts weeks. I'll think about what chores to add to her day and think about which things she needs to learn to cook (I'll post about general home ec plans later). I'll make a page for my planner notebook which lists all her subjects and my plans for the year and I'll prepare the new planbook and work on plans for the first month or so.