Convention & a Peek at 2nd Grade

(Vender Hall, Midwest Homeschooling Convention, Cincinnati OH,
at least what I could fit in my lens)

A couple weeks ago, I spend 3 fabulous days at the Midwest Homeschooling Convention. I was energized and motivated. I was able to narrow down, with difficulty, the speaker list to fulfilling talks; Susan Wise Bauer (Don't miss her if you get the chance!), Dr. Jay Wile, Jim Weiss, and Homeschool CPA just to name a few. I spent several hours in the Vender Hall researching my lists of curriculum try to figure out what would fit G best. Here are some of the items I came home with...

Summer: The Magic Kingdom by Vacation Education is a Unit Study of The Magic Kingdom written by a homeschool family. As we are going to Disney this fall, I thought this would be fun to do.

Language Arts: I have tried to keep out as many worksheets as possible in our homeschool. We do most things orally except for math and handwriting. But do you know what I recently found out? G likes them!! Maybe they are just novel right now. So for now that is the direction we will go. We have finished our Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading and I was trying to decide how to reinforce those lesson. I received an Explode the Code off of Paperback Swap and it is fitting the bill. Right now it is so easy that G doesn't have to think too hard about it. He really enjoys them. So I bought the rest of the set. I hope to use 3 next year and 3 in third grade. G is also enjoying Draw Write Now, the first of which I bought at a used curriculum sale for $1. The other book we are using now is Queen's Language Lessons for the Very Young. G asks to do more of it each day so I snatched up the next book when I saw it at convention. This is a Charlotte Mason style Language Arts text which covers picture study, poetry, copywork, and grammer. Because we already do copywork with DWN I skip the copywork lesson in LLVY. Also, I am not a fan of the lines they provide for writing. If I did do the copywork, I would have him write it on separate paper.

Social Studies: We are sticking with Story of the World- the Middle Ages. We really enjoyed and learned alot this year. I also picked up the Who in the World? Biographies and 4 Jim Weiss Cds (King Arthur & His Knights, Masters of the Renaissance, The Queen's Pirate: Elizabeth 1 and Sir Francis Drake, Shakespeare for Children). I am really excited about The World of Columbus and Sons. This is an anthology of stories of history that happened at the same time Columbus lived. This is what I love about Chronological history.... while A was happening in the world so was B & C.... facinating. I also ordered some literature to add the Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare I bought last year.... Leif the Lucky and Beowulf.

Science: We will continue the Well Trained Mind's Science schedule so 2nd grade is Earth Science. I have tons of resources in the basement because this is one of the topics I taught in public school. I did pick up Professor Noggin games for Space and Earth. These are trivia games I recently read about. Each card has 3 easy and 3 hard level questions so parents or older siblings can play fairly with younger kids. You roll a die to choose whether to ask question 1, 2 or 3. If you answer your question correctly you keep the card... the one with the most cards wins.

Math: We will continue with Math U See- Gamma. I am so pleased with this program... I am not sure about the new fancy covers. I like to fold back my teacher's manual ready for the next chapter each week... the new ones are hardback. The new fonts and double sided pages are nice though. I also splurged on a completer set and the wooden storage boxes. I thought having at least 10 of every block would be helpful for multiplication.

I am getting really excited to start planning! This is our last "formal" week of school... our 180 days will be done. We will continue MUS Beta through the summer but ETC and LL will drop or be done only occasionally. I hope with the Library's summer reading program coming up that he will start reading on his own. I know he has the skills but doesn't have to desire yet. This is one thing I don't push... it will come.

What are you all up to? Any ideas for next year?