2009 Summer Reading List

I'm planning to have Autumn pick 6 books to read through the summer but maybe she'll read more! This is the list she'll be picking from and the AR ratings:

Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren) 5.2
I Am Amber Brown (Paula Danziger) 4.2
Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon
Amber Brown is Feeling Blue
Amber Brown Sees Red
Giants Don't Go Snowboarding (Debbie Dadey) 4.2
Lulu's Hat (Susan Meddaugh) 4.1
The Fishy Field Trip (Brian James) 3.4
Three's A Crowd
A Purrfect Princess
I'm No Fraidy Cat!
The Magic Finger (Roald Dahl) 3.5
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Stolen Diamonds (David A. Adler) 3.8
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Television Dog
Judy Moody Was in a Mood (Megan McDonald) 3.5
Ruby's Wish (Shirin Yim Bridges) 3.3
Andy Shane and the Very Bossy Dolores Starbuckle (Jennifer Richard Jacobson) 3.3
Surprise Island (Gertrude Warner) 4.2
The Yellow House Mystery (Gertrude Warner) 3.2
The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (Dr. Seuss) 4.0
Always Room for One More 4.3

2nd Grade Plan for Autumn (2009)

LANGUAGE ARTS
Learning Language Arts through Literature

Phonics, Decoding, and Word Recognition:
5. Read grade-appropriate materials aloud with proper expression and intonation.
Some titles:
Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Reading Comprehension:
4. Identify rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, simile, and metaphor in poetry. Read and recognize limericks.

I'm Nobody! Who Are You? by Emily Dickinson
Lots of Limericks by Myra Cohn Livingston; Margaret McElderry
The Random House Book of Poetry for Children by Jack Prelutsky
A Surfeit of Similes by Norton Juster; William Morrow

MATHEMATICS
Saxon Math 2

HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY
Beautiful Feet

SCIENCE
Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy by Jeannie Fulbright

ART
Art Through Children's Literature by Debi Englebaugh; www.lu.com/tips
Kids Create! Art and Craft Experiences for 3- to 9-Year-Olds by Laurie Carlson
Drawing with Children by Mona Brookes
Discovering Great Artists by MaryAnn F. Kohl and Kim Solga

MUSIC
Music Theory for Beginners by Emma Danes

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION
1. Be familiar with the elements of good nutrition and the structure of the food pyramid.

The Edible Pyramid by Loreen Leedy
Good Enough to Eat: A Kid's Guide to Food and Nutrition by Lizzy Rockwell

Miscellanious:
Merriam-Webster Dictionary for Kids - online student dictionary
Bookworm - game published by Oxford Games, Ltd.
Cyberguides - www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/cyberguide.html (This may be helpful with Heidi.)

Kindergarten Plan for Heidi (2009)

LANGUAGE ARTS

Reading:
Phonics, Decoding, and Word Recognition:
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

Some great alphabet books:
The Absolutely Awful Alphabet - Mordicai Gerstein
The Accidental Zucchini: An Unexpected Alphabet - Max Grover
Animalia - Graeme Base
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom - John Archambault
Curious George Learns the Alphabet - H. A. Rey
The Disappearing Alphabet - Richard Wilbur
Dr. Seuss's ABC - Dr. Seuss
Eating the Alphabet: Fruits and Vegetables from A to Z - Lois Ehlert
Q is for Duck - Mary Elting
A World of Words: An ABC of Quotations - Tobi Tobias

Reading Comprehension:
1. Be able to order pictures in proper sequence for telling a story.
2. Listen and respond to a variety of age-appropriate texts, including fiction and nonfiction books, myths and legends, fables and folktales, and poetry.

Some good Kindergarten Level Books to read aloud:
Bedtime for Frances - Russell Hoban
Blueberries for Sal - Robert McCloskey
Caps for Sale - Esphyr Slobodkina
The Little Engine That Could - Watty Piper
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel - Virginia Lee Burton
Millions of Cats - Wanda Gag
The Runaway Bunny - Margaret Wise Brown
Stone Soup - Marcia Brown
The Story About Ping - Marjorie Flack
The Story of Ferdinand - Munro Leaf
Tikki Tikki Tembo - Arlene Mosel
The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle

3. Know the definitions of title, author, and illustrator. (Hah! She hasn't even started K yet and knows these.)

Writing:
Peggy Kaye's Games for Writing
Draw Write Now?

Listening and Speaking Skills:
1. Follow simple oral one- and two-step directions.
2. Retell familiar stories.
3. Invent and tell fantasy stories or recount stories about real-life happenings.
4. Memorize and recite short poems and rhymes.

Study Skills:
introduce kids to the many uses of the public library (she's been a pro for a long time)

MATHEMATICS
Saxon Math 1 (with manipulatives?)

HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY
Beautiful Feet

SCIENCE
Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy written by Jeannie Fulbright

ART
1. Be able to name and describe colors, shapes, and lines and to identify these in works of art.
2. Observe and discuss famous works of art by a variety of artists from a range of historical periods.
3. Experiment with a range of art techniques and media.

MUSIC
Start piano lessons & general group music lessons.

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION
1. Know the importance of exercise, cleanliness, good nutrition, and sleep.
2. Participate in age-appropriate athletic activities.

GENERAL KINDERGARTEN RESOURCES

Books:
Homeschooling: The Early Years - Linda Dobson
Kindergarten at Home - Cheryl Gorder

Computer Software:
Dr. Seuss Kindergarten (a full year of math and reading lessons)

Programs and other Resources:
Teaching PreK-8 Magazine - www.carolhurst.com/products/teaching.html

Autumn's First Grade Evaluation

As per Home Learning Year by Year by Rebecca Rupp, my evaluation of Autumn's first grade year. These are just the guidelines for first grade, a list to give me an idea of where we're at.

Of course, it is based off of a typical school year in public school and what they would be learning and as such, includes some areas that we will be focusing on at our own pace. (For example, she knows how to write, but we will be saving diagramming sentences and parts of speech for fourth grade -- something I feel strongly about and have read about it Dr. Ruth Beechick's The Three R's.)

Autumn is reading at a 2nd/3rd grade level and at a 1st grade level in all other subjects. This being our first year of homeschooling, me being pregnant, and everyone adjusting to the new baby -- I am very pleased.

LANGUAGE ARTS
Reading:
Phonics, Decoding, and Word Recognition
1. Knows the sounds of all the consonants and both long & short vowel sounds. Knows the common digraphs and common consonant blends.
2. Sounds out one-syllable words
3. Can read root words and additions with inflectional endings (look, looks, looked, and looking)
4. Knows age-appropriate sight words.
5. Identifies and uses contractions.

Reading Comprehension
1. Reads and understands grade-level-appropriate material.
2. Can answer who, what, when, where, and why questions about what she reads. Gives accurate oral accounts of fiction and nonfiction works that she has read by herself or heard read aloud.
3. Knows the literary terms plot, setting, characters, hero, and heroine, and can identify them in her reading.
4. Enjoys a wide range of literature read aloud, including fiction and nonfiction books, multicultural folktales and legends, fairy tales, fables, and poems.
5. Can define and use a book's table of contents.

Writing:
1. Prints all uper- and lower-case letters legibly, using proper spacing.
2. Writes words and sentences, using proper spacing, capitalization and punctuation.
3. Can identify nouns, verbs, and adjectives.
4. Spells simple three- and four-letter words from dictation using phonics skills. Knows spelling of first grade-level sight words.
5. Can identify synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms.

Listening and Speaking Skills
1. Listens to, restates, and follow two-step directions.
2. Retells stories in proper sequence.
3. Participates in short dramatizations: charades, pantomimes, plays.
4. Memorize and recite short poems and rhymes.

Study Skills
1. Knows the uses of a dictionary, encyclopedia, and card catalog (do libraries even USE off-line card catalogs anymore?!)
2. Puts words in alphabetical order according to first letter.

MATHEMATICS
Number Theory:
1. Recognizes and writes the numbers 1 to 100.
2. Counts to 1oo by 2s, 5s, and 10s.
3. Uses tallies for counting.
4. Identifies ordinal positions from first through twelfth.
5. Compares and orders numers 0 to 100 using the terms greater than, less than, and equal to.
6. Understands place values for 1s, 10s, and 100s.
7. Identifies halves, thirds, and fourths.
8. Makes and interprets simple picture and bar graphs.

Operations:
1. Experiments with the addition and subtraction of whole numbers through 20 using manipulatives and number lines.
2. Knows the definitions of sum and difference and the names and use of the + (plus) and - (minus) signs.
3. Knows basic addition facts through 10 + 10 and corresponding basic subtraction facts.
4. Understands the commutative property of addition: that is, numbers can be added in any order.
5. Successfully solves simple equations and word problems.

Money and Management:
1. Recognizes pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.
2. Is able to determine the value of a given set of coins up to 25 cents.
3. Recognizes dollar and cent signs; uses decimals in writing money amounts.
4. Uses calendars to identify days, weeks, and months.
5. Tells time to the hour and half hour on a standard clock. Understands the difference between AM and PM.
6. Is familiar with the uses of common measuring instruments, such as a scale (weight), ruler (length), and thermometer (temperature).
7. Compares and orders objects by length, weight, and volume using both standard and nonstandard measurements.

Geometry:
1. Identifies and draws common two-dimensional shapes: circle, triangle, rectangle, and square.
2. Identifies figures that have lines of symmetry.
3. Correctly uses position words to describe location: right, left, above, below, inside, outside, in front, in back, over, under, and so on.

HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY

Following Beautiful Feet and their timeline.

SCIENCE

Followed Noeo's Biology I course this year. Will be using Apologia's Exploring Creation with...Series for the next several years.

ART

1. Knows the primary colors and how these are mixed to produce secondary colors.
2. Is familiar with the elements of line, shape, texture, space, light, and shadow.
3. Is able to identify different kinds of pictures: portraits, still lifes, abstract art, and landscapes.
4. Studies the works of a selection of well-known artists.
5. Experiments with a range of art techniques.

MUSIC

1. Understands rhythm and melody, pitch, dynamics, tempo and timbre.
2. Memorizes and sings simple songs.
3. Listens and responds to selections by famous composers.
4. Knows the four families of instruments in the orchestra: strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion.

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION

1. Understands the importance of good nutrition, adequate sleep, cleanliness, tooth care, and regular exercise.
2. Can skip, run (without falling over), and throw and catch beanbags and balls.
3. Participates in athletic indoor and outdoor activities.

Apologia Astronomy & Botany Giveaway!

These are AWESOME science books. We will be using them in the fall ourselves and are really excited.

Apologia is now producing notebooking journals that accompany each of the elementary science books. Both Botany and Astronomy are now available. You can see samples on the Apologia website here:

These journals are beautiful spiral bound notebooks that will save you time and money. You won't have to print and keep up with your child's notebook pages, buy and maintain page protectors, or purchase and compile binders...everything that makes notebooking time-consuming and labor intensive for mom. Also, your child will adore having their own notebooking journal.

Each of the notebooking journals include:

• A daily schedule for those who like to have a plan or would like their children to complete the book on their own
• Templates for written narrations, the notebooking activities and experiments
• Review Questions
• Scripture Copywork, with both print and cursive practice
• Reading lists and additional activities, projects, experiments for each lesson
• An appendix with beautiful, full-color, lapbook-style Miniature Books
• Field Trip Sheets to keep a record field trips
• A Final Review with fifty questions the students can answer either orally or in writing to show off all they remember and know at the end of the course.

See the sample pages here:

Botany

and

Astronomy

Jeannie is giving away four Astronomy Notebooking Journals and four Botany Notebooking Journals to bloggers who post about this on their site. Visit her blog to learn more about this contest.