Lydia's Homeschool Plan

Lydia is in the second grade this year and is moving to a little more independence. She is loving working straight through and seems to be enjoying the fact that she can read completely on her own. The fun workbook types are still her favorite part of school.

Bible - She reads a page out of Children's Guide to the Bible by Robert Willoughby. It is a general overview of the Bible with a few scientific and historical facts through out.

Math - Saxon 2. In the past we have had the girls do Saxon 1 in Kindergarten and 1st grade, then start Saxon 3 in 2nd and 3rd grade. I chose to slow Lydia down because I wanted to try to avoid overloading her later on. (That seems to have caused a lot of frustration for Sarah and Mary.)

Science - My Body Workbook. This is a workbook that has copies of lots of different organs in the body. We traced a life size cut out of Lydia, taped it to the fridge and she glues the organs where they are supposed to go. When we finish that next week, she will start back reading the Nature Readers put out by Christian Liberty Press. She will copy vocabulary words and draw pictures in her own science notebook. My opinion on science at this age is that it should be fun and basic. For the younger ones, I'm happy with science if they have been in the kitchen cooking.

History - Our Nation Under God is put out by Christian Liberty Press. I like their history books for the younger grades because they are sweet and focus completely on God.

Handwriting - A Reason for Handwriting At the end of the week, Lydia writes a Bible verse on a coloring sheet that she can give away.

Spelling - Spelling Power workbooks have been great. I don't stress the need to memorize the spelling rules because honestly, I can't think of any reason they are necessary.

Reading - This is Lydia's favorite too. First Favorites from Veritas Press gives some really fun activities to do with books that we already love.

Spanish - Our dear sweet friend, Natalie, is teaching the girls. We'll start going to her house next week for more formal lessons. But for Lydia, that means just playing the Spanish game and reading board books in Spanish. (The Spanish game is - using flash cards, the girls compete to see who can get the card correct first. We play it every day after lunch and it gets quite competitive.)

Music - Lydia is in her third year of piano at Funderful World of Music and loves it! It is never a problem to get her to practice.


By the way, the "body" on the refrigerator has a shorts outfit that Lydia colored to cover up her organs when we have company :)

Spanish

At the beginning of this school year Sarah started learning Spanish to satisfy GA requirements for high schoolers to have two years of a foreign language. I wanted to expose the younger girls to some of it also so that they could get a head start with it too. We have a Hispanic family in our church and I know in our society it would be very helpful to know Spanish. Just yesterday, while waiting in line Rachel helped a bank teller with a man that spoke only Spanish. She has learned a good bit over the past few years and was glad to be able to communicate to him to show his driver's license to get his check cashed.
Rachel took the Spanish class at her school just to get it checked off of the requirements list. The class spent most of the year watching movies with Spanish subtitles and learned pretty much nothing. Then when it was time for Rachel to go to Honduras we bought the Rosetta Stone curriculum (yes, very expensive) to help her know more of the language. She did the crash course, but left not ready to converse very well.
When it was time to think about foreign language for Sarah I thought we would just try the Rosetta Stone again and I asked my friend Natalie to check in on her to make sure she was going in the right direction. Natalie lived in Honduras for many years and went to a language school for missionaries and their families. I'm not sure how it happened but over the past school year we have been meeting every week with Natalie to learn, play games and just "do" Spanish. We have all but completely abandoned the Rosetta Stone curriculum. She has been so creative in making up games to teach us and encouraging us to try new words. It is amazing how fun it has become to all of the girls. Every day after lunch I play the Spanish games with the girls and if we don't have time to do them, the girls are disappointed. What started out to be a class for Sarah has become a family experience. I am learning with the girls and am trying out sentences on our Spanish speaking friend at church. He even brought me some work to translate into English to help me more. I'm sure he gets a kick out of a truly Southern girl with an accent try to speak his language. (Hannah's accent is worse than mine though.) So the moral of this story is forget the fancy curriculum, get a friend and jump right in.
And to Natalie - Gracias mi amiga amable. Tu tener intelligente muchisimo. Yo neccisito tu ayuda.