Adding to the Curriculum -- and long term lesson plans

We started second semester at Totus Tuus last week. Although we had a month for break, did I sit down once and lesson plan for 2nd semester? Of course not! So two days before we began, I did a week of lesson plans. A little short sighted. The problems:
1. DG reads too fast -- no books in the house for him to read (unless you count rereads)
2. 1st semester DG was prepping for 1st Confession and then working on his religious medal award for scouts along with reading through The Secret of Mary explained to Children, but he finished all of this during 1st semester.
3. He know all his states and capitals (doesn't sound like a problem does it?), but it was suppose to take him all year.
4. A mouse ate his bean plants that we were suppose to be charting the growth of and running other experiments on.
5. I tweaked the music curriculum for the year but knew I needed to look more in depth at it over break. I didn't.
6. RA memorized a year's worth of poems in a semester.
7. PG wants to start "school".

So conclusions and solutions:
I decided tonight was the night to solve the problems.
1. Go through book lists and reserve books at the library. Done!
2. DG is making his 1st Communion in April. Last year he studied the 1st Communion catechism. So we will re-start St. Patrick's Summer (we have never gotten past chapter 3 and the content is so meaty there is enough in two pages sometimes to last us all class). Do vocab provided my the parish. And use the section on the Eucharist from www.familycatechism.com to prepare for the sacrament.
3. At the end of the 1st semester, we made a list of the 50 states in order of their becoming a state and posted them. We also made a list of the state's in order of their "birthdays" by month. The idea being each month we would learn a little about each state. When we had moved, a dear friend (thanks Debbie) gave us the Colorado and Indiana books of state alphabets. We love them. Our library carries each state. I decided to check them out. Then I went to the publisher's website and found a teacher's guide for each book that is fabulous!!!! http://www.gale.cengage.com/DiscoverAmerica/guides/
I showed DG. We are really excited.
4. I still need to buy more potting soil to replant and we need to catch the mouse!
5. I reviewed the music curriculum and we should be fine!
6. I went through the two anthologies I have at the house and found some appropriate poems.
7. I pulled out the old faithfuls -- Slow and Steady and Before Five In a Row. Poor 3rd child, they get so neglected. DG did all the Slow and Steady activities and RA was read all the Before Five in a row books. But I am back on track and planning to move a third desk into the school room in the morning (why not tonight -- the light bulbs are burned out in the schoolroom and I don't have replacements!)
I feel somewhat accomplished. I'll let you know later how it all works out!

Great tips for homeschooling moms and just mom's in general!!

http://theten0clockscholar.blogspot.com/2009/09/8-habits-of-happy-homeschool-mama.html

Time for a new post

So I thought it was time to post again (although I think Beth is the only one who reads this).
Last week we took a field trip with the Co-Op group to Traders Point Dairy. The kids loved it and learned some new things. Like: when they fed the calves out of a plastic tub with lots of nipples attached, the calves headbutted the plastic tub to try to get the milk to come faster (my mom says, "Oh like cats when they push there paws against their mothers", I'm think "CATS? what about my children?")
And the dairy had free range chickens (Fr. Dominic, I'm still waiting for that homily) and DG asked how they got more chickens if they collected the eggs (He found it interesting that they let the chickens lay eggs wherever they wanted). They told him if they didn't collect a lot of the eggs, there would be no where to walk because there would be chickens everywhere.
We also learned we like Chocolate milk straight from the dairy. I think RA was looking for the chocolate cow.
Oh, and they liked that they learned we aren't born to eat candy and cows aren't born to eat grain. Cows are born to eat grass. But I think cow pies that come from grain fed cows are far better than cow"pies" that come from grass fed cows! Yuck!!!

First Day of School

These smiling faces jumped out of bed to go to Mass yesterday on the Feast of St. Helen and the first day of Totus Tuus School. DG began 1st Grade using Mother of Divine Grace Cirriculum. RA is using Five in A Row and Slow and Steady - Get Me Ready. Their first day consisted of: DG - Math, 30 minutes of reading (not all at once), Handwriting, Religion, Poetry, Literature and Music RA - Being Read the First day of Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel and discussing how still drawings can depict movement, making an Aa puppet, color by number, and dot-to-dot.