Our Plan 2009-2010: Overview

It's been quite awhile since I posted our History plans for this coming year and I am realizing that I am just not going to have the time to post about each subject we will be studying this year. (I really like to be able to look back at those posts.) In addition, I need to continue spending all of my "extra" time figuring out a schedule for these plans and trying to get our home back in order (it has been really slow going since we have been gone so much on the weekends and I've needed hubby's help)! So, here is a quick overview post of what we will be using when we begin again next month :


Religion ::

• Saint Joseph Baltimore Catechism
  
• Angel Food for Boys & Girls Volumes 1-4 (using Jen's wonderful list of corresponding stories for the Baltimore Catechism lessons)
  

Celebrating the Liturgical Year ::

• Saint of the Day Story from Saints: A Year in Faith and Art. (We also read from Saints for Young People for Every Day of the Year Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 during dinner each night -- the version we have is out of print, however Pauline Books has reprinted these books (with a few revisions and new pictures), so here is the link for Vol 1 and Vol 2.)
• Calendar Magnet In Honor of the Saints
• Various Catholic picture books, Copywork and Coloring Pages
• Various Feast Day, Nameday and Baptismal day celebrations including lots of Catholic Cuisine
• Various ideas from Mondays With Mary A Celebration of Marian Feasts Throughout the Year, Catholic Mosaic: Living the Liturgical Year With Children, Celebrating the Faith in the Home, and A Year with God (As well as my other planning books!)
  
• The Jesse Tree during Advent
• The Advent Calendar
• The Jesus Tree during Lent
• Our Lenten Calendar
• Celebrate the 50 days of Easter
• Year of the Priest Faith Folder
  

Math :: (This was extremely hard for me last year. My kids, on the other, LOVED the program and so I am giving it another year... Hopefully we can make much better progress.)

• Right Start Math (level A with the girls)
• Right Start Math (complete level B and move on to level C with the boys)

Language Arts ::

For my older boys -

• Handwriting For Young Catholics 2 and 3
  
• Spelling For Young Catholics 2 and 3
  
• English For Young Catholics 2 and 3
  
• MCP Phonics Level B and Level C
  
• Wordly Wise Grade 3 Set (for Captain)
  

For my girls -

• Along the Alphabet Path
• Handwriting without Tears Hands-On Materials
  
• (I am still trying decide between Alpha-Phonics: A Primer For Beginning Readers and Sound Beginnings for Phonics with Twinkle Toes... I really wish we could just hire the tutor to come back for the girls or that I could be trained in the Lindamood-Bell method!)
• The Bob Books and other various readers for practice
  

All together -

• Prima Latina

Science ::

• Exploring Creation With Astronomy (Young Explorers)
• Corresponding Lapbooks for Lessons 1-6 and 7-14
• Various Science Experiments and Projects
  

History ::

• American History
• World History
  

Geography ::

• Globe and the Blackline Maps of World History Book and CD with our World History Course
• G is for Geography (I have decided to purchase a few of the books as, and IF, I can...)
• State-by-State Scrapbook (Using supplies from a dear reader!! Thank you Beth! My children are thrilled!!)
• Great States and Great States Junior
  
• Maps, Charts, and Graphs States and Regions Level D
• Geo Puzzles: USA and Canada, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America

Our Plan 2009-2010: American History

In addition to studying World History this coming year, we will also continue to study American History as well. I've bounced back and forth over whether or not to continue studying both American and World History at the same time... I've decided that, for us, 3 years in between courses is just too long. Plus, my boys LOVE studying American History. Since it is their favorite subject, we will continue working through American History at a slow pace, when time allows.

We have finished reading the list of books from last year's plans. However, we never did get around to making the lap books I had hoped to make with the boys... Between the Advent, 12 Days of Christmas, 12 Commandments, Lenten, St. Patrick, and St. Joseph Lap books, my children, or more accurately I, was pretty much lap booked out! ;) (Looks like I never did get around to posting pictures of them all, did I?!) Anyhow, since they have been so very interested in learning more about the American Revolution, I have decided to loosely follow the wonderful history plans for Colonial America & The Revolution Period over at Serendipity this coming year with all of my children, as well as create an American Revolution Lap Book with the boys.

I ordered a few of the books off of the booklist, but I'm mainly going to stick with what we have and what I can borrow from our library. I sure wish that the suggested books for the "Geography Block" were available at our library, but they are not. :(

To simplify the Lap Book preparation, I ordered the Time Travelers: The American Revolution CD. It includes 11 different Lap Book projects, as well as so much more!

Another addition this year is History Through the Ages Record of Time. (I ordered one for each of the boys from Rainbow Resource.) I am really excited about this book! We have been creating a few simple wall timelines, as well as history notebooks, but I think it will be really nice to have a timeline in a durable book format for long term use. Plus, the children will easily be able to add names, dates, important events, figures/drawings for both our World History and American History studies at the same time, tying it all together.

Our Plan 2009-2010: World History

This past year, we all really enjoyed studying Ancient History using RC History's Connecting With History Volume 1: Creation to 63 B.C. We didn't get to near as many hands-on projects this year as I would have liked, but we have all really enjoyed reading and discussing the recommended books! I just love that, with this program, we all work on the same time period together each year, based on a four year rotation and the Teacher's Guide provides everything you need for Kindergarten through High School!!! (Each student has individual assignments based on their current grade level.)

We still have four more units to finish during the summer, but I went ahead and ordered Connecting With History Volume 2: The Arrival of the King and His Kingdom, which we will begin in the fall. Volume 2 consists of a total of 7 units, so I am hoping we can get through units 1-4 before the baby arrives in December, and then we will finish the remaining 3 next year.

"An in-depth study of the New Testament and Early Church history, this volume emphasizes the life and death of Christ as the central point of history and goes on to show the birth and spread of the Church as the Body of Christ, and its perseverance and growth through persecutions. The Church moves forward into the medieval period of history, spreading to new nations and replacing the Roman Empire with the Holy Roman Empire."

Here is the list of books we will be using this year which are for the Beginner Level, Grades K-3:

Teacher's Resources:

• Volume Two: The Arrival of the King and His Kingdom (63 B.C. - 1066 A.D.)
• Timeline Cards (63 B.C. - 1066 A.D.) - from RC History
• Report Pages and Blank Timelines - from RC History
• Blackline Maps of World History

Core Text:

• A Life of Our Lord for Children
• The First Christians: The Acts of the Apostles for Children
• Founders of Freedom (Land of Our Lady)
• Once upon a Time Saints
• More Once upon a Time Saints

Reading List:

• Spend the Day in Ancient Rome: Projects and Activities that Bring the Past to Life
• How to Be a Roman Soldier
• Mary My Mother
• Good Saint Joseph
• Jesus With Us: The Gift of the Eucharist
• The Miracles of Jesus
• The Parables of Jesus
• Pompeii...Buried Alive!
• St. Meinrad
• St. Paul Coloring Book
• Saint Peter the Apostle
• Apostles of Jesus
• Vikings: Dress, Eat, Write, and Play Just Like the Vikings (Hands-on History)
• We're Riding on a Caravan
• Who Were the Vikings
• Ancient Rome (Modern Rhymes About Ancient Times)

Supplemental:

• Christopher: The Holy Giant
• Good King Wenceslas
• Jesus
• Leif the Lucky
• Mary: The Mother of Jesus
• Just Like Mary
• Ancient Rome (Modern Rhymes About Ancient Times)
• Saint Patrick
• Saint Valentine
• Saint George and the Dragon
• The Holy Twins
• The Story of King Arthur
• The Sword in the Tree

Audio CD’s/Cassettes and DVD's:

• Ben Hur: A Race to Glory - DVD
• Celtic Treasures
• King Arthur and His Knights

A few of the core texts above are also used in the Grammar Level, Grades 4-6. Even tough Captain will be in 3rd grade, since we have already read many of the books on the K-3 list, I went ahead and ordered the books for the Grammar Level as well. We probably won't use all of them this year, but they will be great to have in the future!

Core Text:

• A Life of Our Lord for Children
• The First Christians: The Acts of the Apostles for Children
• The Old World's Gifts to the New
• Heroes of Gods Church

Reading List:

• Augustus Caesar's World
• People of the Bible: Life and Customs
• City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction
• The Silk Route: 7,000 Miles of History
• St. Philomena (Coloring Book)
• Gladiator
• I Believe: The Nicene Creed
• Color Your Own Book of Kells (Coloring Books)
• Life in Celtic Times
• Step Into: the Viking World

Supplemental:

• Cleopatra
• Adventures of Saint Paul
• City of the Golden House
• Saint Benedict: The Story of the Father of the Western Monks
• The Man Who Never Died: The Life and Adventures of St. Peter, the First Pope
• Galen and the Gateway to Medicine
• The White Isle
• Brendan the Navigator
• Beorn the Proud
• Son of Charlemagne
• Beowulf
• D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths
• King Arthur: Tales from the Round Table
• The Blackbird's Nest: Saint Kevin of Ireland
• Ben Hur (Radio Theatre)
  
  

The pictures do not reflect all of the listed books... More keep arriving each day, creating quite the exciting atmosphere in our home!! I am sure I could have borrowed some of these from the library, but I haven't been doing the best with returning the books on time, and since I plan to use this program with all of my children I feel it is worth investing in these great books!

It should be another fun year!

Building a Ziggurat

This year the boys have been studying Ancient History. Even though we haven't had a whole lot of time to devote to History this year, the boys have really been enjoying listening to the books and starting their own Book of Centuries.

They have been begging to do another History art project though, so the other day I handed them Old Testament Days: An Activity Guide and asked them to choose a project. They decided to build a ziggurat.

A ziggurat was a terraced pyramid several stories high. It is thought they were first built around 2500 BC by the ancient Sumerians, who lived in a region which now forms part of southern Iraq. The ziggurat was the tallest and most important building in a Sumerian city. The temple priests would walk up long rows of stairs to get from one level to the next.

Anyhow, it ended up being fairly easy to build. Here are the materials we used:

• Empty rectangular boxes of a variety of sizes (we used a tomato sauce box, a cereal box, a hot cocoa box and an empty box of tea)
• Glue (we also used a bit of tape)
• Paintbrushes
• Craft or Tempera paint, brown
• Measuring Spoon & Cup
  
• Cornmeal
• Permanent Marker

The boys stacked the boxes and, with daddy's help, hot glued them together. Next they painted the boxes brown.

After the first coat was dry, they made a mixture of cornmeal and paint (1 TBS of cornmeal to every 1/8 cup of paint) and added a second coat which gave texture to the walls of the ziggurat. When it was all dry they added stairs up the side and a door at the top.


The boys had a lot of fun building their ziggurat, and they are already asking, "What can we make next!!??"

Our Plan: American History

In addition to studying World History this coming year, we will also continue to study American History as well.

We have been studying American History each year, and although, it was definitely time to move on and add another period of time to our studies, I didn't want to completley stop studying our National History. Plus, it was our favorite subject this past year...

This coming school year we will have an American History block one afternoon each week. I just LOVE the American History plans over at Serendipity, but this coming year I think we will just continue our study of Early American History using Beautiful Feet’s program as a guide (we worked through the first half this past year) and supplement with the following books marked with an *.


Here is the list of the books we will be reading:

• Benjamin Franklin
• The Ox Cart Man*
• Paul Revere’s Ride*
• And Then What Happened Paul Revere?*
• The Boston Tea Party*
• Shh! We’re Writing the Constitution*
• A More Perfect Union
• George Washington
• Boys and Girls of Colonial Days
• Long Ago in Colonial Days*
• If you lived in Colonial Times*
• Colonial Kids: An Activity Guide to Life in the New World
  
• Winter at Valley Forge
• George Washington’s Breakfast
• The Courage of Sarah Noble
• The Matchlock Gun
• Abraham Lincoln
• Meet Abraham Lincoln
• A Picture Book of Abraham Lincoln*
• Buffalo Bill
• The Fourth of July Story
• The Star Spangled Banner
• American History for Young Catholics*
• America My Country*
  

In addition to the above read-a-louds, I picked up the following beginning readers for the boys to read on their own:

• Abe Lincoln and the Muddy Pig
• Abe Lincoln's Hat
• Ben Franklin and His First Kite
  
• Sam the Minuteman
• George the Drummer Boy
• Paul Revere and the Bell Ringers
• John Adams Speaks for Freedom
  
• Thomas Edison to the Rescue
• Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express
• Davy Crockett: A Life on the Frontier
• Wagon Wheels
  
• The Josefina Quilt Story
• The Long way to a New Land
• The Long way Westward

(All of these books are only $3.99 each, and Amazon has a special where you can get 4 of them for the price of 3, with free shipping with a $25 order!!)


And since we LOVE all audio stories, here are a few we will be listening to this year:

• Old Sam, Thoroughbred Trotter
• Your Story Hour CDs
• American Tall Tales
  
• Thomas Jefferson’s America
  
• Little House on the Prairie Series
• Johnny Tremain: A Story of Boston in Revolt
• Wee Sing America
  

I also hope to have the children make a couple more American History Lap books. I am thinking maybe one on Benjamin Franklin, one on life in Colonial Times, or possibly one on the American Revolution... We'll see.

Will you be studying American History this year?? I'd love to hear what you will be using!