School’s Out For Christmas!

Sing it with me now… “School’s out for Christmas. School’s out forever.” Okay, so maybe that’s not how Alice Cooper sings it, but our 2009 school year is coming to a close. I thought it might be a good time for a recap of what we’ve done so far in second grade.

We finished Saxon Math grade 2. Yea!! When we start back to school in January we will officially be doing third grade math. We look forward to the challenge. Having the flexibility to move ahead at Mary Anneliese’s pace is one of the reasons we chose home schooling in the first place. So, yes, we are a grade level ahead and feel no obligation to slow down just so that she will be working at the same pace as her other kids her age.

We are working and reading our way through the Old Testament: Genesis through Joshua. We are currently on the book of Numbers. We have studied the great Bible lessons of the canon, and are currently observing the orderly nature of God. He has all the tribes of Israel in their family groups, each one with his own family, each tribe in its place around the tabernacle. We’ve studied how each tribe has its own job to do. They are not responsible for answering anyone else’s calling except their own. The Israelites continue to grumble, complain, be ungrateful, and rebel against Moses and Aaron’s authority. And yet God keeps on giving them another chance when they turn back to Him. He has so much mercy toward them!

Besides reading the Bible, we also spend huge quantities of time each day reading classic literature. We’ve read Cheaper By the Dozen, A Cricket In Times Square, Anne of Green Gables, The Little Princess, Sarah Plain and Tall, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Mary Anneliese loves reading the American Girls series, as well.

Memory work is another big component of our day. We use Andrew Pudewa’s methods of poetry memorization, along with Harp and Laurel Wreath as a source of excellent poetry. We have learned works by Robert Louis Stevenson, Shel Silverstein, Christina Rosetti, and others. Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening, Psalm 100, Whole Duty of Children, At the Seaside, Merry Sunshine, Who Has Seen the Wind, BandAids, Happy Thought, Our Brother Is Born, Birthday of a King, and Luke 2:8-14 are selections that we have memorized and review regularly.

This year, we switched to Shurley English, and I have been so, so happy with that decision. Shurley is a much more challenging curriculum than what we were using. Shurley jumps right in to the parts of speech, and moves quickly ahead with writing complete sentences and paragraphs. It incorporates vocabulary words, aw well as synonyms and antonyms. It is definitely challenging, but that’s what we were looking for. Because of the fast pace and amount of new concepts introduced, we will have to pick up the pace with English in order to finish it by the end of the year.

We keep a journal and write in it everyday. We also use Susan Wise Bauer’s Writing With Ease Level 2 for writing. It focuses on reading long passages from classic literature and learning to write a few sentences summarizing the passage. It is not a difficult curriculum, and we are moving right along in it. We should easily finish it by the end of the school year.

We chose Considering God’s Creation for our science curriculum this year. It has proved to be an excellent choice. It teaches science from a Creationist world view. It incorporates scripture into each science lesson. We do LOTS of hands-on activities, which I believe is so necessary for really understanding science. Students keep a science notebook into which they put all of their notes, observations, drawings, research, etc. We have studied the creation of the universe, all about the solar system, composition of the earth and all other planets, and are now moving into the plant kingdom.

We stayed with Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer for history. This year we are on volume 2, which starts with the fall of Rome. We absolutely LOVE this curriculum. I began giving tests in history this year to see how much we are retaining. I think this was a good move. Last year, although we enjoyed the book and activities, we didn’t really store the material in our long-term memory. Testing has solved that problem. I use the review questions in the activity guide to write my tests.

Our extra-curricular activities have increased this year. We do a home school ballet class on Mondays with the Briarwood Ballet. We are currently are involved in Upward cheerleading, and will do soccer after the holidays. We continue our Wednesday missions and children’s choir activities, and just finished two Christmas by Candlelight performances. We have attended many theater performances including Scrooge: The Musical, The Little Tin Soldier, Charlotte’s Web, and Little Red Hen. We added piano to our fine arts curriculum, and MA has really enjoyed it. We saw a fabulous exhibit at the Birmingham Museum of Art entitled Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. It was a partnership between the Museum and Yale University. It included works from American history. We studied the orchestra using a fabulous book called Story of the Orchestra by Robert Levine.

Now that the weather has turned rainy and cold, it has become harder to work in as much PE as I would like. We have to get very creative! We use our church’s indoor playground, our Wii, and make the most out of sunny days when we get them. Thank goodness for ballet and cheerleading that provide some much needed indoor exercise during the cold weather.

I’ll start my home schooling series in January. Don’t forget to send me your questions and comments if there is anything you want to address in the series.

Happy Monday!