Curriculum choices for 2012-2014 school year- Age 6

It's that time of year again. You know, back to school, or for us, time to get back into the homeschooling groove. We took the summer off, although we still did a TON of reading. (I will have to post A's summer reading list soon), some fun experiments, and did a unit study on pioneers. But now we are both ready to get back into the swing of things. I am still not sure when we are starting. Originally we talked about starting after Dh's parents visit. That would be a second week in September start for us, but I think we are both pretty ready and I am thinking about starting not this Monday, but next. This coming week, we decided, we will hole up in the house, make blanket forts, and read all week. Sounds like heaven for both of us.

Since everyone has been talking about heading back to school, or out in the blog world everyone is talking about their curriculum choices for next year, I figured I should jump on the band wagon and post ours.

We are homeschooling A again this year. She is currently almost 6 and a half and would be entering first grade based on her age. As you can see from our curriculum choices, we are working on a 4th-6th grade level in most subjects.

Math-
We will be trying something new this year. After going through several lessons on the website and declaring she "LOVES it". we are going would Teaching Textbooks
Math 4 Teaching Textbook

We will be starting with grade 4. I went back and forth about whether we should purchase grade 4 or skip right to grade 5. There are still some things in grade 4 that it would be helpful for her to work on, and some of this will be review. I figure we can skip over those lessons and just take the quizzes on those sections to double check her knowledge base. I am fairly certain we will moved though this and start grade 5 sometime after Christmas.
I am really excited that she will be working independently on the computer for this subject as we are approaching a level of math soon that I would be more comfortable helping her if she needs it, than actually teaching the entire concepts myself.

Science-
I am really excited about science this year, as is A. Probably because I told her we would be dissecting organs this year. Well, if you know A- who has dissected salmon hearts and the stomachs of many a fish and duck- then you know this is right up her alley!

We will be studying Human Anatomy and the History of Medicine.
Our core curriculum is coming from WinterPromise
The program is aimed at 4th-6th graders. 
So many wonderful books came with it. Including....

The Way We Work

The Body Book by Scholastic
 

The Human Body for Every Kid

Detective Science
 

and
Exploring the History of Medicine
 

It also came with an instructor's guide laying out a schedule for teaching and a student work text. 

We will also be adding the use of the Max Axiom, Super Scientist series.

  
These look fantastic for a child who loves comics as much as A does. I plan on using "The Basic of Cell Life", "Decoding Genes", "Viruses", and "Bacteria"
I think theses will really add to our core curriculum.

And remember I said dissection? Well here is what we will be doing.
 A fetal pig dissection is helpful for anatomy studies because the size of the organs make them easy to find and identify. It is also interesting to do because a lot of the internal anatomy is similar to a human's. 
We will also be dissecting a sheep brain, a sheep heart, and a cow eye. A is very excited for this hands on aspect of our science, and I feel great that I will be feeding her appetite for learning!

And last, but not least, we will be doing quick daily science sheets from this book.
This way, I make sure she is still hitting all the normal topics covered in elementary science.

Geography-
We will be using Daily Geography Practice for Grade 4

 

Writing-
For writing we will be doing several different things this year. A will be doing daily journaling, as well as occasionally writing on her own blog. We will also work on learning how to write reports from various subjects she is studying. To help with the mechanics of writing, we will be using another Evan-Moor Daily Practice Book.

 
And depending on how life is going and A's interest, she may participate in NANO -National Novel Writing Month- in November.

History-
Last year we studied Early American history. We made it through westward expansion and the Oregon Trail. This year we will be continuing our studies using the same book as a spine with lots of living books added to complete our studies. This worked well last year and the Complete Book of United States History gave some great information and facts that we were able to build upon though wonderful literature.

Language Arts-
A gets a lot of exposure to the fundamentals of language arts through wonderful quality literature. I like to just make sure we touch on the actual terms for things. We will be using a simple and quick 5th grade workbook to cover basic grammar, vocab, and practice inference based reading questions.

Literature-
Literature and reading will be a vast selection of wonderful books, stories, and poems selected by both myself and A.

Well, I think that about covers what all we will be doing this year. We both can't wait to get started!

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