Starting Tues! Here's the FINAL plan...

It's the final plan, but I'm sure it'll get tweaked!! We'll run year-round, 6 weeks on, 1 week off.

SONLIGHT CORE 1 BIBLE
SL 1 HISTORY
SL 1 SCIENCE
SL 1 READ-ALOUDS
HWT 1
HORIZONS MATH 1
SWR

Extras (i.e., things in spare time, just for fun, when kids need a little direction!):
PIANO - Music for Little Mozarts (Alfred)
ART - HOW TO TEACH ART TO CHILDREN (Evan-Moor)
History Pockets (Evan-Moor) - optional
Story of the World (? optional)

What's next?...Sonlight!

We opted to use Sonlight's Core1 for my 5yo. Its due to arrive any day now. Once I get myself organized, we'll get started. I have no idea how we'll balance all the great reading with an active, impatient 3yo around!

We ordered the complete everything-you-need core, which comes with math. Surprise!! I would've sworn 1 week ago that we were using BJU's math for 1st grade. Looks like we are using Horizons math, for now. I'll also have SL's LA, which sounds very good - I'm not sure whether we will use it though, or if we will alter it by slowing it down. I've found that repeat readings with my dd work wonders for her reading. So it is important that we focus on easy reading assignments and fully master them before we move on to the next. It gives DD5 a feeling of accomplishment to be able to fluently read a book that she stumbled over at first. So we'll see on SL's LA.

I need to get myself on a schedule! I've been floundering in all of my house-hold, school, and other duties. Partly because I've been researching curriculum for 6+mths now. I'm so relieved to have made a decision, and to know that all of it is planned out & arriving in a box. I just hope it works for us!! In general, I've found a literature approach seems to make us all happier than a workbook approach.

Fluency

I think (after a full year of trying different things, and researching, and worrying) I finally discovered the magic tool for developing fluency. The tool is: have the child read, and re-read, and read again the same book until they can read it perfectly. I think my downfall with BJU is my intense focus on always reading new words, doing all the workbook pages, but focusing very little on the readers. I think it would've been better if we had read the BJU readers several times a week, even if that meant skipping a few workbook pages. I've noticed that the more we read a particular book, the more DD5 reads it fluently, and less words are sounded out. Eventually, she will have seen enough of the same words over and over again, and will recognize them instantly in new books. At least, that is the plan:) Hope it works!!

We Finished K!!

We finished kindergarten!! We ended Phonics early - we did units 1-5, but did not complete unit 6. BJU has Unit 6 as optional, anyway. We did finish our math, from beginning to end. I feel like this was a big accomplishment! I was so excited to finish; now I am left with a small twinge of sadness and the feeling of "what now?" We actually had a full week or more of math left, but upon hearing that we were almost done, DD5 said "let's finish it tonight!" It actually took us 2 days to finish (she wanted to keep going, but got tired out after 3 workbook pages, so I insisted that we finish the next day). She was so excited about "graduating kindergarten". She even decided herself that she should have a reward, and the reward would be that the whole family sits down and plays Barbies with her. And so we did. Now she is insisting that we should start 1st grade this Sunday! LOL. I'm not sure why she is so motivated, when she gave me such a hard time throughout the year. I realize now the importance of small rewards to motivate her to keep going. In retrospect, I could've offered more praise, and small rewards for meeting certain goals.