Today is the first day of school! I am really excited for this year, and so are my kids. Here’s what we have planned:
I am doing Sonlight first grade for Miss (Core B). I am always drawn to a literature-based rather than textbook/workbook-based curriculum, and that’s what I love about Sonlight. So far I’ve had to spend quite a bit of time organizing and figuring out my plan for exactly how to implement it, but I suspect that’s because I’ve added a bunch of stuff to it and decided to try to use workboxes for much of our school assignments.
Basically, I’ve come up with a plan in which we all do our religion, calendar, history, poetry, art appreciation, and reading for science together, first thing. Then the girls will go to their desks and start going through their workboxes. I have all of Miss’s math, phonics, spelling, handwriting, and worksheet questions in her workbox drawers, along with a few other fun activities (Hot Dots, Star Wars readers and workbooks, saints activity pages, etc.).
The girls will be instructed to go through their boxes one drawer at a time, starting at the top. They can’t open drawers further down until they finish the one they’re on. When they finish each drawer, they move the magnet on the bar from the left to the right and go to the next one. I think (hope!) they will find this fun and make the school day more exciting and interesting for them.
I think this will work really well for Miss, because she can read the instructions I write down for her in each drawer. I suspect it will be a little bit harder, especially at first, to get Lass and Sis going with this system, but I’ll give it a try anyway. At least at first, they have fewer drawers filled, so we’ll see how it goes.
After they get through their workboxes, I’ll read the day’s read aloud to them over lunch (our first one for the year is Charlotte’s Web). And that will be it, except they have extracurriculars some days in the afternoons (piano, gym, choir, art).
For Miss, the additions I chose to the Sonlight core (history, language arts, religion, science) are Horizons Math and Handwriting Without Tears. I’m already planning to switch her handwriting book though, to Writing Our Catholic Faith, which I just discovered yesterday and absolutely love! I’m also going to supplement her reading work by continuing with her All About Reading Level 2 (AAR) curriculum that we didn’t finish last year. The level of the readers that come with the first grade package from Sonlight is far too easy. I’m going to have her read them anyway, because they go along with her spelling words, but she can do the whole week of Sonlight readers in one day, and the rest of the week I’ll fill in with lessons from AAR.
I have added a specifically Catholic Faith and Life series to supplement the religion portion of Sonlight, and we’ll be doing lots of reading about saints and feast days. I also got Miss a Good News planner so we can learn about the coming Sunday’s Mass readings and she can keep track of her activities each week. We’ll be using Art Masterpieces: A Liturgical Collection for art appreciation and a DVD art course done by some nuns, which ties art with our Catholic faith and history (I can’t find the link for this anymore).
And that’s about it for Miss in 1st grade.
I’ve decided to start Lass in Kindergarten. She’ll do all the Sonlight curriculum with her sister (as will Sis) for the start of her day, and then her workboxes will have some math worksheets from Seton’s Math K for Young Catholics, some BOB books, her AAR Level 1 curriculum (which she will bring to me to do with her), Writing Our Catholic Faith for handwriting, and other fun activities similar to those in Miss’s boxes. She’ll also be using her sister’s first grade readers, which are more in line with her reading level than Miss’s.
Sis will be doing the pre-reading level of AAR (if I can ever find it in one of the boxes I packed away!) a few coloring pages, and various other fun activities.
I’ve got to go put some first-day-of-school cinnamon rolls in the oven and wake up my kids. Wish me luck!
I LOVE your plan for the workboxes/drawers/moving magnets! If only I could have a system like that for my 23 5th graders…. our day could look very different! 🙂 Thanks for sharing all of your plans and resources- it looks like you have a great year ahead!
Great ideas! You’re so organized and it seems that you have everything neatly planned out. I like that you will be preparing them for the Sunday Mass reading too! This would be a good post to share with my homeschooling daughter (5 and 7 year olds). The drawers and moving magnet are a great addition to give them a sense of accomplishment, while the order of the drawers will keep them curious. 😉
Thanks, Birgit. They loved the drawers! And they enjoyed learning a new word for the Mass reading on Sunday – “Ephphatha”!
I love, love, love this post. How fun! Designing and organizing curriculum is so fun. And to do it in your home, with your own kids (and cinnamon rolls), it just sounds so magical. It totally isn’t for me. I could never do it. But I love that I get to read about it from you! You are going to have a fabulous school year. What lucky little girls.
Thanks, Liz. I was actually a little bit surprised by how awesome and fun our first day was! I was just talking with them the other day about the old preschool co-op. We have good memories of those days 🙂