Next year plans...

We are officially past the half way point of our BJU K5 curriculum. Naturally, I'm thinking about next year. 1st grade will add a lot more subjects, which seems a little daunting to a mom that feels like just doing math and reading is plenty right now! Here are my thoughts for next year:

Math: we will stay with BJUP. We love the math and I don't think we can do any better elsewhere.

Handwriting: we have used 2 handwriting programs so far: Handwriting Without Tears and BJU's K5. I certainly don't want to add yet another handwriting program! HWT was a good program and I wonder if I gave up on it too soon. However, DD5 has adjusted fine to BJU's handwriting structure, so we will continue with it. I worry about adding too much handwriting for 1st grade, when public/private schooled children are expected to write so much more! I purchased BJU's K5 handwriting program but haven't used it this year (I felt that Phonics had enough handwriting involved in the lessons). So I am tempted to use our K5 handwriting program for our 1st grade handwriting practice. Afterall, my goal right now is to have an avid reader. I think the handwriting part of it will naturally catch up when my dd is older.

Phonics: welll.....still considering this one. So far we have used a little bit of Montessori method, Reading Reflex, Hooked on Phonics, and BJU K5 Phonics. I have trouble using something for phonics & sticking with it! (obviously...) Finally, for kindergarten year, I determined that I would purchase & use BJU's program for ONE ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR! We've made excellent progress. We've moved forward at times when I would've held us back. We stayed on a lesson when I would've skipped and moved forward more rapidly. My main problem in this area is knowing when to move forward. BJU has been a blessing in that area: I just didn't know when we had tackled something enough to move on. Now, we just move on anyway. And DD5 has done fabulous! However, there is sooo much that I didn't use from this program. I've learned that I am NOT a unit study kind of gal. I didn't like using the stories about the families of Pine Hill, and I didn't use the puppets, or the songs. I really tried to limit our lessons to a 15min presentation, which meant cutting out another 30 mins or more of presentation in the book, as well as most of the activities. Can I possibly justify spending $135 on a program that I use less than a third of the lesson each time? I'm torn on the workbook pages: they've been bright, colorful, and simple. They've given us some extra reading practice when I might not have given us any practice for the day. However, I'm starting to feel sort of workbook-paged out, so I am thinking about limiting our workbook pages for 1st grade. Afterall, I think I'm in this homeschool thing for the long haul and we are not a school. So...I am thinking about using (yet another program) Phonics Pathways. I am also looking at The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. Of course, looks like we will get to skip the first half of the book in phonics pathways, having already covered VCC (ann), CVC (cat), CVCC (cuff, duck), and CCVCC (stuff, flock) words.

Spelling: might use BJU's spelling, haven't decided yet.

Reading: you know what? Just getting "Easy to Read" or "I Can Read It" books from the library and having my dd read the words I point to works really well for us! So if I don't use BJU's phonics next year, I won't use their reading program either - we'll just practice out of real books. Cat in the Hat, etc. make for great practice, even if she can only read 10% of the words.

Science: I'm real tempted to unschool this one for the next year or two. What do they teach in science for public school 1st grade? The 5 senses (well, duh, don't we do that every day at home? LOL), living vs non-living things (another duh!), plants (plenty of hands on experience here!), Animal kingdom (I think we've already filled this quota, since DD5 loves animals!!). Maybe life cycles (another topic beaten to death in every day life), weather & water cycle (again, DD5 asks me every day in the car - "mom, how does it rain?") So what I'm saying is: I think we've done it already and I think we continue to do science daily. If I feel the need, we might use an experiment book, just for kicks.

History: Definitely NOT BJUP!! I hear great things about it & its just my own personal opinion here, but I do NOT want to study American History for the next 6 years! Gag! I think we'll just use real books & narration for this one, using a chronological timeline. If I feel the need for more, maybe we'll buy History Pockets from Evan-Moor (which look so cool!!) I will use The Well Trained Mind order for teaching (starting with ancients).

I think that's in for our subjects for next year. I'm sure we'll add some extras along the way (currently we're studying sign language). I would love to add music/piano to our list! We'll see...