It’s That Time of Year Again

Yes, it is April.  Supposedly it is spring, but you wouldn’t be able to tell by the weather (though our grass seems to know it is spring!).  Those things aside, it is the time of year where I get the overwhelming desire to plan our next school year!  (Yes, it is the simple things in life that make me happy.)

Here is the thing…I love to plan curriculum, research curriculum, make schedules, plan lessons…it is kind of addicting!  The thing I don’t like so much is the teaching part.  I don’t mind the teaching part, if I have kids that actually cooperate and there are no tears or bad attitude or flying pencils. THEN, I even kind of enjoy the teaching parts too. 

When they cooperate, they are pretty cute.

My goal this upcoming school year is to streamline our curriculum, get Bekah ready for Kindergarten, and have Elizabeth working at her true school level, not necessarily the grade she should be in.

We started this process with spelling.  Elizabeth is an amazing speller.  Often times her errors are only one letter within the word.  We have been going through, level by level, her spelling books.  This has been great, even though I have contemplated skipping a book or two.   Elizabeth loves spelling and the program we use.  We are currently using A Reason for Spelling. 

I originally picked this curriculum because I love the weekly stories that we read together.   I also love that the verse that goes along with the spelling program is also the verse used in A Reason for Handwriting.   However, since we often do more than one spelling lesson in a week this doesn’t usually work out too well.

The other day I gave Elizabeth the placement test for A Reason for Spelling.  She is currently working in Book D (4th grade).  She should be working in Book F (grade 6).  Come fall, this is where we will be, our last year of spelling.  She was a bit upset (because she likes the stories), so I told her she could just read the out of the teacher’s guides the stories she will miss (I already bought Book E) and she was okay with this. 

One subject down….many more to go.  Stay tuned for more posts about curriculum :)!  Up next, math….