Tuesday, March 9, 2010

2010-2011 Curriculum

I can't afford it. No matter how cheap someone can find it, we just do not have the money to buy any sort of curriculum in any subject. So, what do I plan to do? Completely pull it out of my butt and do the lesson plans myself. I think my brain just imploded.

I am at a complete loss. OK, maybe not a complete loss, but I'm still at some sort of a loss. Lily is supposed to be in pre-K next year. She was going to go again to the preschool that she is going to now, but she's been deliberating because shes been bored out of her mind. We are almost completely done with her Kindergarten workbook. She's been retaining everything; I'm super proud of her. So for now, I will be "reviewing" most of what she's learned in pre-K and K, and starting 1st grade work with her next year. There are some things I want to make sure she understands and has in her head before "leaving" Kinder.

I have NO IDEA what 1st graders learn, so I'm pulling ideas out of thin air right now:
  • I've planned time for Foreign Language (which will be Spanish, French, German, and Chinese)
  • We will have time for Phonics/Reading, Writing & Spelling, sentence structure
  • addition and subtraction as well as skip counting; sequencing and sorting
  • I'm thinking of covering the Human Body for Science; muscles, digestive system, nervous system, skeletal system, endocrine system, the like. The weather and seasons, astronomy, states of matter.
  • Start off with US history in the fall, starting with the States, and then Iowa and Nebraska and working from there. Later doing Britain, medieval times, Ancient Greece and Rome.
  • I want to make time for art, music, and physical play.
Once I have a schedule set out for when to do what and for how long (like Foreign Language will be an hour long: 15 minutes per language) I'm hoping to be able to plan out the ENTIRE year. If any of you readers out there do, or have done 1st grade, what have you done and do you have any advice? All comments are welcome!