Summer and Next Year Homeschool Plans

I’m almost done planning for next year, Praise God! I’ve been blessed to find some great products that I like and the children love, so for the most part we are going to continue using those with a few new additions. I plan to still remain as hands-on as possible and keep simple yet fun.

This summer we’ll participate in the Harkins Summer Movie Program and the local library summer reading program and weekly shows. I’ve also complied a list a craft activities to provide some indoor entertainment. We’ll also have a scheduled pool day. The Arizona summer is no joke and bored is a bad word in my house.

Here’s the line up for next year:

Quran/Islamic Studies
We will continue our study of the Prophets of God through the summer. Memorization work will include Surahs 108, 110, and the Refuge Prayer for the start of next year.

Penmanship
Copywork will resume through the summer and next year. Amir will begin cursive writing instruction in September. Yasina, if she is ready, in January. I plan to use Handwriting Without Tears to start Amir off. I’ll use Zaner-Boser for extra practice and copywork when he’s ready.

Reading/Phonics
Explode the Code is still working well, and I have no plans to stop that train. I’m ordering the last 4 books next month. We discovered Real Kids Readers at the library and the children really like them because the pictures are of real children. The twin’s reading skills are progressing nicely which is more important to me than anything. Reading truly is a gateway skill. Also, both children read aloud to me every morning.

I also plan to add the Beyond the Code workbooks series to our routine next year. The product is published by the same company as ETC, but focuses on reading comprehension skills.

We are currently reading Stuart Little by E.B White aloud. When we finish we’ll watch the movie. I haven’t decided what we’ll read aloud next. Amir and Yasina want to read The Complete Collection of Winnie the Pooh, but I wanted to save it until Sana is a little older so I don’t have to read it twice. Honestly, I really didn’t appreciate the importance read alouds until we read Charlotte’s Web. Now I’ve read more picture books to my children than I can count, but reading a story in chapters forcing the children to first remember what happened, then make deductions about what will happen next. Also the influence of quality literature on their vocabulary and my children’s speech patterns is simply profound.

Spelling
We’ll keep using Natural Speller which provides you with lists of words with the same spelling patterns for Grades 1-8. Instant pudding test and spaghetti noodle practice have made this subject a fav in my house. We also use letter tiles to practice and keep a spelling notebook where we record words.

Grammar
We’ll continue using Growing with Grammar, completing book 1 and moving on to GWG 2. We’ve been doing this orally for the most part and have been enjoying it. I’ve found this curriculum to be very well thought out and logical. The exercises are age/grade appropriate and provide plenty of practice.

Math
Math U See is still working for us. I’d like for us to have the addition facts through the 9s memorized by the end of the summer. We’re currently working our way through the Alpha and Beta levels, taking a break here and there to concentrate on money, time, and measurement. Our current routine looks like this:

Counting to 1000 in increments of 100

Skip Counting with Number Snakes 2s, 5s, 10s

Fact Review--I say 2 + 2 is . . . , they scream 4 or we spread out printed numbers on the floor, I call out a problem and they run, jump on the answer, and say it out loud. The Math U See website provides an online drill. I’m looking into some more computer games for review.

Math U See lesson/worksheets (usually 1, sometimes 2 a day)

Science
Next year we will be studying the human body using two experiment, hands-on activity based books, Head to Toe Science by Jim Wiese and Easy Make & Learn Projects: Human Body by Donald M. Silver, Patricia J. Wynne .

Geography
We’ll study 10 more countries next year. Traveling the world one country at a time is so much fun.

History
After our study of the prophets, we’ll begin a formal history study rooted in the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad. I plan to utilize The Theology of Time lecture series heavily. I found this DVD series created by an FOI that I may use as a spine for our study.

Latin Roots/Vocabulary
We’ll keep studying roots words and most our vocabulary words are taken from our readings.

Foreign Language
Spanish and I have a love/hate relationship. I really want my children to learn Spanish, but I can’t find a curriculum that suits me. I need something inexpensive, but open and go, so I don’t have to do a lot. Know anything that could fit the bill?

Fine Arts
I smell piano lessons on the horizon. I haven’t blogged a lot about it, but our artist and inventor studies will continue.

Lastly, I would like to add some computer software from The Critical Thinking Company sometime next year. Now that reading skills are established, I really want to focus on problem solving, reasoning skills, and critical thinking. I'm already sold on the Editor-in-Chief program, I'll let you know what I decide upon.

Ok, let's hear it, homeschoolers what are your plans for summer and next year?

Weekly Report 6-10

School has been chugging right along. I fell off on my weekly reports when our computer was down. Please bear with me as I catch up. We've really been enjoying our studies, and I thank Allah (God) I see so much progress.

Quran/Islamic Studies

We have continued our Prophet study. Over the past few weeks, we discussed and acted out the stories of Hud, Saleh, Abraham, Lot, Issac, Ishmael, Jacob, and Joseph. Most of this was review, but this time we were able to talk more about the deeper meaning of these narratives. We had so much fun acting out the stories.

I have pictures to post later.

Penmanship

Still going here. Yasina is showing some progress, and Amir is still doing well with his copywork.
I've doing some research on lefties and have a some ways to help Yasina such as making sure she does not have to write over the binding of notebooks and showing her how to space her letters.

Phonics

We are almost done with Explode the Code books 1 and 2 for Amir and Yasina respectively. I've already placed the order for books 3 and 4. Amir will be moving on to book 2 and Yasina book 3.

Grammer

I found I was a little too ambitious in this area for our first term. We went through nouns and verbs fairly quickly, and I really thought they had a fair understanding. Well, when we went to cover adjectives and adverb, I would ask them to name a noun so we could brainstrom adjectives to describe it. They couldn't name one. Red Flag! Halt! So this term has been devoted to nouns and verbs exclusively. Next term we will move on to adjectives and adverbs.

Spelling

Spelling has been very successful. Chocolate pudding is the medium of choose for practicing words.

Math
This is the area I'm seeing the most progress in along with reading. We've create a Number Sense Routine for our daily math lesson:

Counting to 100
Mr. Greedy Mouth (Greater/Less Than problems)
What's Missing? (ie 45,__,47)
Place Value Practice
Skip Counting using our Number Snakes

Then we practice our Addition Facts.

Science

We completed our study of the Earth's biomes or ecosystems. We are currently studying the weather with a special emphasis on natural diasters.

Geography

We're in Brazil!

Circle time

I finally figured out what the problem was with vocabulary. Instead of using a random word list, I'm going to now pull words from what we are currently studying. I think if the words are more relevant it will be easier to incoporate them into our daily speech thus making them stick in our little brains!

Spanish

Although we still watch Dora, we gotten back to using our tape program. Yay.

Fine Arts

We are currently studying Ms. Sarah Vaughn and Mr. Alvin Ailey

Weekly Report 5

Very light week, this one. On Tuesday, we celebrated the birthday of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, so no school. On Wednesday, we had an appointment early in the morning so we didn't get a lot done. Thursday was what I like to call a Read and Watch day. We read a lot of books and watched our library videos. That counts as school too, right? I hope so. Well, this is what we were able to accomplish this week:

Quran/Islamic Studies
We completed our study of Prophet Noah. The children love acting out the story. Poor Yasina always gets stuck with a supporting role, because Amir likes to pull the "but I'm the boy" card!

Math
Continued our counting practice (to 100, skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s). We spent a lot of time on greater than/less than this week. We've also started memorizing addition facts (0s, 1s, Doubles, and those that make 10).

Penmanship
Same ole, Same ole here, but going well.

Phonics
Amir's reading is really progressing. I. am. so. happy. You just don't know. It's like a light bulb just clicked on and he got it. He is doing 2 lessons a day from Teach your Child to Read in 100 EZ Lessons.

Yasina is still doing great is this area. She wanted to do 100EZ Lessons as well and get in some cuddle time. So I started her out a few lessons ahead.

Explode the Code is still going well. I'm going to order the rest of the series, 8 workbooks total.

Spelling
Spelling just did not get done this week. :-( So I'll pick up last week's list, this week.

Grammer
We learned about using verbs in different tense: past, present, and future. I'll have to share our fun little exercise for this.

Science
We completed the Polar/Tundra Biome. We'll start Forests next.

Geography
I found some great dvds on Russia that I'll share later. I'm learning alot on this one.

Circle Time
Nada!

Fine Arts
Zip!

Spanish
Huh?

We'll be hustling this week to stay on track. Busy, Busy, busy.

Weekly Report 4

Another solid week! We're almost halfway through this term, and I'm feeling pretty good about this schedule. My husband's days off are the hardest to stay on track, but somehow we manage to work it out. I can't say enough for what one-on-one attention and instruction does for children. This is one of the major benefits of homeschooling. It is so easy to make strong areas stronger and attack any area where they are weak.

Well, here's an overview of what we did this week:

Quran/Islamic Studies
Amir has completed his recitation of Surah 103. Yasina is still working on it.

We continued our study of Prophet Noah. We'll spent next week acting out favorite parts of the narrative.

Penmanship
Amir is holding steady with copywork. Yasina is showing some improvement with the Kumon workbook.

Spelling
This week's words were bad, ask, stand, and hand.

Phonics
Amir is working on short u. Yasina is working with blends fr, br, and tr.

Grammer
We've been playing the Verb game all week. In the verb game, the children pick a verb and act it out. We love action words.

Math
We've been counting to 100 strictly from memory. They had a much harder time than I expected with this. We played What's missing, where the children have to tell me what number is missing from a 0-10 number line. In MUS, we're stilling learning to make 10 with addition.

Science
We're studying the polar regions. We watched a couple great videos and did a fun peguin craft.

Geography
Greetings from Russia! This week we talked about the climate, terrain, the Kremlin, and St. Basil's Cathedral.

Fine Arts
It was nice studying you Mr. Parks and Ms. Waters. Next week, we begin learning about Louis Armstrong and Romare Bearden.

Weekly Report 3

We worked ourselves into a nice little gruve. I am so happy I did all that planning and organizing over the summer. It is so paying off!

Quran/Islamic Studies
Still working on reciting Surah 103. I give about one more week.
We finished talking about Enoch/Idris. The children found the name, Methuselah, just plain hilarious. Sometimes I say it just for the laughs. LOL We've begun discussing Noah. I've found this narrative beautiful in giving the children an example of what it means to trust and have faith in Allah (God)'s promises. Noah was truly a model of patience.

Penmanship
Amir is still doing well. We've been paying attention to the letter "s" lately. His look like 5s. I purchased Yasina a Kumon handwriting workbook for lowercases letters. We just started it, but she likes it. I do too. I've just been trying to get her to understand the difference between writing letters and drawing them. She has to learn to control the movements.

Math
We worked on Making 10 using addition in Math U See. I also have to add we work on numercy skills each day as well; counting to 100 from memory, skip counting using our Number Snakes which is just a chain of Post-it notes, and greater than/less than.

Phonics.
I heart Explode the Code. I guess ya'll can tell when I use something, I really have to like it!
Amir is working on short a and short i review. Yasina is still doing beginning blends. Amir's reading is progressing. I almost want to say we've had a breakthrough, but don't stop praying! LOL

I've added 10 minutes a day practicing sight words with the Sight Word Buddy.

Grammer
We finished Nouns this week, for now. We'll start verbs next week.

Spelling
This week's word were black, at, bat, that. Each child got 100%.



Geography
We've left India. (post coming soon) Enroute to Russia!

Science
Completed our study of grasslands. The polar regions are up next.

Circle Time
Vocab words are wiggle, remaining, signs, wing, remind.
Latin root sol-sun.

Spanish
Our Spanish has been reduced to watching Dora which is actually very effective just not what I had in mind. We'll get this train back on track next week.

Fine Arts
Only one more week with Mr. Parks and Ms. Waters.

Weekly Report 2

Great Week! Here's the breakdown:

Quran/Islamic Studies
Continued Surah 103. Both have the first two verses memorize, we just need to work on the last and biggest one.

Finished discussing Adam and started discussing our first prophet, Enoch/Idris. There is not much written about Enoch, so we'll try to finish him and move on to Noah this week.

Math
We got a baby intro to algebra with solving for the unknown. Both did great.

Penmanship
Amir continued to do well with copywork. My special attention with Yasina is paying off. We spent the whole week relearning, Aa. She can write the letter, but just does not pay much attention to the details, like not stopping at the top or bottom line. So staying on her is helping.

Phonics--Explode the Code
Amir finished short a and moved on to short i. Yasina started working on a new set of beginning blends. Amir's reading is picking up as well.

Grammer
We covered plural nouns this week and happened to catch a wonderful espisode of WordWorld that was all about the powerful letter "s." The show sealed the deal for me! I gave them "s" cutouts to add on to nouns they wanted more of. (Yeah I know I just ended a sentence with a preposition in the grammer section. LOL)

Spelling
This week's words were than, plan, man, am.

Circle Time

Greek root word was mega meaning big.

Science
We covered grasslands this week after we finished deserts.

Geography
We're in India!

Spanish
Continued Greetings, numbers, and began to review colors.


We also took a field trip this week to the AZ Science Center. The children had alot of fun. They had the coolest Forces of Nature exhibit. I'll post the pics later this week.

Weekly Report 1

This week was great! The children were excited and enthusiatic. I've been ready to start weeks ago, but I wanted to stick to my plan. Here's the play by play. . .

Quran/Islamic Studies
Continued Memorization Work including Surah 103, The Time
Discussed Adam and acted out stories

Math
Still waiting on our Math U See Alpha book, so we reviewed topics from Primer that I know we'll do in Alpha. This week we reviewed Place Value, Adding units (ones), tens and hundreds. I personally love the way MUS teaches place value. It's fun and brings a really abstract concept right down to a young child's concrete way of thinking. Both children are really doing well here.

Penmanship
Surah 103
Amir really excels here. He did a great job. Yasina, not so much. Next week, I'm putting the copywork book on hold for her and going back to formation, letter by letter. I just figured out she was a leftie this summer, so I know that has a lot to do with why her handwriting is straight up terrible. Ya'll, it is really bad! I'm thinking of ordering Handwriting Without Tears, but I'm going to see how she is doing after some intense one-on-one first.

Phonics
Explode the Code is going great. Yasina is in Book 2 working on beginning blends bl, gl, and fl. Amir is in Book 1 doing short a.
Typical boy, we ran into some trouble this summer with blending words. He can read, but it is labor. We went back to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 EZ Lessons for him. We started with this and it was working well. Then at about Lesson 37 or so, I thought we had it, so I quit. Bad Mama! So we started from the beginning, he knows the sounds, it's just something about putting them together that is just hard for him. We did have a major breakthrough this week, he read a Level 1 reader by himself! It took two hours, but he did it. LOL! Just kidding!

Yasina is a Reading Rockstar! She flying through books these days, doing beautifully in this area.

If you have beginning readers or just started down the path, I can't recommend Leapfrog Letter/Word Factory videos and Starfall.com enough. These are two great resources for learning to read that we used. I'm also feeling the Montessori method of teaching as well. I'm sure I'll be posting it for Hassana in the next few months but Barbara Curtis has a nice plan in her book, Mommy, Teach Me to Read.

(Most of the following, I'll be posting more later.)

Spelling
This week's words an, and, can, ran. Both children did really good.

Grammer
We began discussing nouns this week.

Circle Time
Vocabulary Words were shady, relieved, pucker, sight, and whistle.

Our root word was OCT meaning number 8.

Science
We began a study of biomes, starting with deserts.

Geography
Reviewed continents and oceans

Spanish
Hola!/What is your name?/My name is . . .
Spanish numbers 0-10

Fine Arts
Our artists this month are Mr. Gordon Parks and Ms. Ethel Waters.