Emily's First Grade Year

We'll be starting up school soon. This year, I have one in High School, one in Junior High, and Emily just starting out. She is so different from my other two. She loves workbooks and is one of those kids who makes the mental leap from basic phonics to reading. I honestly don't know how she did it, but she'll take on any picture book we have and start reading getting it mostly right! She also doesn't like to play by herself much, so being with us and having more school work to do will probably be a good thing. Here's what we're hoping to study this year.

Bible: Long Story Short by Marty Machowski - We'll go through this as a family and work on memorizing the book of Philippians. Then while I work with Evan on some English, Amy will read to Emily some of the great Bible devotion books we have for little ones starting with God's Mighty Acts in Creation.

Math: Saxon 1- I love Saxon for grades 1-3, we already have the teacher's book and all the manipulatives, so this was a no brainer choice for me. Emily loves the Kumon books though, and we have several on math subjects, so we'll probably supplement with them as well.

Language Arts:
-Phonics: She finished up Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons last year and just loved it. I'm going to follow it up this year with Phonics Pathways just to make sure she doesn't have any gaps in the phonics and to help her with the more complex words.
-Grammar: We love First Language Lessons. Evan can still chant the list of helping verbs and linking verbs that he learned from this book.
-Handwriting: We'll continue with the Italic series.
-Writing: We're going to try Peace Hill Press's Writing With Ease book 1. I like having a lesson all scripted out for English so I bought the workbook as well.
Spelling: I bought Spelling Power for Evan then realized that it would be perfect for Emily too! She has been asking how to spell out words, so I think she's ready to start a spelling program.

That looks like a lot of language arts for a 6 year old! But most of the lessons are super short and we'll just keep working a little at a time. That's the plan anyway. If God has a different one, we'll change it up.

Science: Amy is studying Biology with friends using Christian Kid's Explore Biology. I'm going to have her follow along and do the coloring pages and experiments with Amy and her friends. If I was just homeschooling Emily, I'd go back to the section in the Well Trained Mind for first year Biology. I loved looking up a different animal each week, studying and reading about them. But I don't thing with everything else going on, that I'll really have time to do that. Plus we already own the CKEB book.

History: We'll be going back to The Story of the World. I loved going through it with Evan and Amy when they were little. Amy was so little that I doubt she remembers much. She'll sit in on it too, and then do some additional work that's more challenging. But I'm hoping that Evan and Amy will sit down with her and read library books about the ancient world.

Fine Arts: She'll be going back to choir and piano lessons. She loved both of them this past year. And we'll keep reading through The Gift Of Music and listening to Classical music. I'd like to have the kids do some painting this year. Since I have no training in that area, I'm not sure yet what book to use. Emily I'm sure would be happy just to paint wooden boxes! She loves to get out the paints.