Hunter's Homeschooling Curriculum and Activities

 Words cannot express how absolutely thrilled and blessed I am to be a homeschooling mom this year.  As I've watched from the sidelines and seen the progress so many of our friends have made over the past few years as homeschooling families, the Lord told me in a still and quite voice to trust Him and be patient.  I've yearned to home school since Hunter was three-years-old and now I can't believe that the Lord has seen fit to finally make it happen!  SO HAPPY!!

It was decided that we would start slowly and get acquainted with homeschooling just one child this first year and allow Nathanael to experience the structure of being in an official school classroom.  The plan is that I will get my footing with Hunter this year and bring Nathanael into the mix next year in first grade, or at the very latest, the following year for second grade.   My hope is that I'll be ready for him next year as a first grader. 

I spent a good deal of time praying and researching and thinking about what curriculum to use for him this year.  I knew right off the bat that I wanted to join the Classical Conversations weekly homeschooling co-op that so many of my friends' children have thrived in.  The classical method is one that I completely agree with and goes back to the roots of how education was accomplished in our country in a one room school house, with everyone studying the same information at different levels of understanding and LOTS of drilling and memorization.   Our modern education system is a far cry from doing it that way anymore and our literacy rates and overall intelligence as a culture is a reflection of that decline.

 Young Hunter is in the grammar stage of learning according to the classical model and this means that his mind is a sponge, ready and able to memorize huge amounts of information.  So, in Classical Conversations he is memorizing a new fact or piece of information each week in each of the following categories:

• Geography (lots of mapping skills too)  - This year the focus is on Europe and Asia
• History Sentence- This year the information is taken from modern times from 800AD to the present.
• Timeline - A chronological timeline of 161 major acts and facts in history from the creation of the world to the present including all the US Presidents
• English Grammar - Includes all the definitions and usage rules of all the parts of speech
• Latin - Includes verb endings of the first conjugation
• Science - This year it's all about biomes, environmental science, and space.
• Math - Skip counting (multiplication facts) through 15s, geometric formulas and various units of measurements and their equivalents.
• Ephesians 6:1-24 - The entire passage will be memorized

Whew!!  
Being that Classical Conversations covers a thorough amount of subjects, the recommendation for a classical student is that the rest of the academic focus is put on the three "R's":  Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic!  So, that's what we do besides CC memorization. And it's a lot!

I got some really good advice regarding language arts and math at the Teaching Them Diligently mini-conference that came to Ft. Myers in June.  Based on the advice I got I decided to purchase The Logic of English, which is a complete program that covers reading, spelling, writing, and grammar all in one curriculum.  I had a lot of reading and assimilating and figuring out to do in my mind as I acquainted myself with this program.  Now we've got the first lesson under our belt and we're ready to move forward a little more quickly.  There are 40 lessons total in the program and you can go at your own pace.  I don't have a goal yet as to how many lessons we'll complete this year, but I'm guessing around 20. 

As for Math, the official curriculum recommended by Classical Conversations that is classical in nature is Saxon.  However, I was told that another curriculum called Christian Light (published by Mennonites) is nearly identical in many ways to Saxon and is less expensive.  Being that I would like Hunter to finish two math curriculum this year (Math is his strongest subject) I decided to try out the Christian Light for the first half of the year and go with a more fun, literature based curriculum in the Life of Fred for the second half of the year.   Three weeks into the year and we're on track to do just that.  Yay!

I have to say that Hunter is an absolute delight to teach as a student.  He is very blessed with a long attention span, great understanding, and an intellect that won't quit.  Everything is coming quite easily to him which makes it very easy on my end as his teacher.   Although, we're only 3 weeks into it and probably still in the honeymoon stage, but so far so good! 

Our daily routine looks like this after Nathanael goes off to school:

• Practice singing and memorizing a hymn of the week
• Read a passage out of the New Testament with Mommy (We started in Matthew)
• Journal on the day's Bible passage or on a topic of choice.  During journal time we're focusing on developing proper sentence structure, spelling, punctuation, staying on topic, and the elements of a well-written paragraph.  This happens at the kitchen island bar while mommy does the morning dishes and straightens the kitchen. 
• Recess outside with Levi
• Guided reading with a book that is appropriate for Hunter's reading level.  Right now he's reading Horrible Harry in Room 2B. This also happens at the kitchen bar.
• Language Arts or Math
• Lunch
• Language Arts or Math
• CC Memory Work on the computer or listening to the CC memory work songs of the week on the Ipad while doing a puzzle or other quiet activity
• Cursive using these books from Classical Conversations

 So, I snagged this little number at a garage sale a few years ago for $8 and have been using it for various things, but now it's homeschool curriculum central!   Our favorite thing pictured is the black art caddy or "Man Things" as Hunter likes to call it.  It has everything we might need at our finger tips including art supplies, tape, scissors, stapler, hole punch, stickers, and a paper cutter.  It's made things so much easier with that thing around when we're doing our work at the bar or at the table. 

 First day of CC homeschooling Co-Op!  There are 8 students in Hunter's class:  5 boys and 3 girls. 

Outside practicing the scientific method with the class and Hunter's tutor:  Mr. Van Slyke. 

Setting up an experiment to see how planets orbit around things.

Geography mapping skills in CC.  There is a big emphasis on this. 

One more thing I forgot to mention about CC is that each student does an oral presentation EVERY week.  At Hunter's age level it is expected that he will have a 50/50 mix of topics that are academic or fun in nature.  For his first week Hunter decided to do a demonstration on how to make a paper airplane.   I plan on videoing them every week so we can see how he improves over time with his public speaking skills.  :)

 Here's Hunter all set to take his first math test with his Christian Light math curriculum and his new pink eraser.  He did pretty well on it with a score of 96%!!

And last, but certainly not least, Hunter is enrolled in the Saints Physical Education program for homeschooling students.   It's on Friday afternoons from 1pm - 4pm and Hunter absolutely LOVES it!  Below is a picture of him on the first day with his buddy, Christopher, who he went to daycare with as a baby.  They have between 60 and 70 students enrolled in the program this year!!!

It meets at a local park and the students are divided up by age level.  Hunter is on the 7 and 8 year old team.  They focus on the same 4 activities for 4 weeks in a row and then they switch to 4 new activities.  The first activities in the rotation this year are archery (with balloons to pop on the targets!) capture the flag, kickball, and 4-square.  Hunter totally pumped to be doing archery as he's looking forward to a hunting trip this fall with his daddy and it's a perfect fit for him to get polished up on his bow skills.

There are so many things that I love about Hunter being in Saints, but the one that stands out the most is the fact that there was a lack of opportunity to get exercise and play with other children in public school.  Hunter had to bring a pencil and paper to write in PE class and he was only allowed to run in special circumstances in PE and in recess.  Recess lasted about 13 minutes and PE was only 2x a week with very little physical activity.   Saints, on the other hand, gives him an opportunity to learn traditional playground games and sports with children his own age with plenty of time to play!!!  Saints affords him more outside play than he was getting all week long in public school.  Not to mention the coaches there are caring, godly examples of fine men and women for my son to be around.  I am so glad he loves it and I can see it being a part of our homeschooling routine for a very long time.

That's the plan for this year in a nutshell!  I am humbled and thrilled to be able to have a front row seat to watching this young man grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord!   Woo hoo!!!!!!