Oak Ridge Academy 2013-2014 Curriculum

A new year has begun and I’m really excited about it.
We are following an informal classical homeschooling style and I used that as my guide while I was picking out this year’s curriculum. For more information on Classical Education please click here.
I  began my research for curricula about 6 months prior to the beginning of the school year and finally settled on:

Core

The Growing with Grammar (Level 1) series for Language Arts.
   
I chose to start Hayzel in the 1st grade level although he already had completed a 1st grade language arts curriculum last year. This curriculum is way more comprehensive than the previous one and it fills in a lot of the gaps I didn’t even know were missing.
I like the way the lessons are set up. Each Lesson is broken up into 5 days with weekly spelling tests every Friday and periodic exams after every major section in Grammar. This portion of Language Art usually runs about 45-60 minutes. Additionally, I have set Hayzel up with a few pen pals which he will be writing to throughout the year and will be included with his LA portfolio. For Spanish immersion Hayzel will be learning the alphabet in Spanish as well as their phonetic sounds.

Saxon Math 2 for Math.

I had a hard time deciding which type of math to teach. My husband helped me and we ended up choosing a mastery approach because it made the most sense for Hayzel’s learning environment. Prior to purchasing, Hayzel did a placement test and tested into the middle of 2nd grade level for Math. However, I am making him start the book from the beginning as he could always used the review. There is a lot of repetition on concepts Hayzel has known for years such as the days of the week, month of the year, and saying and recognizing the numbers from 1-100. Instead of making him repeat this stuff everyday in English, I changed up the lessons by making Hayzel learn and review them in Spanish.

Odyssey History: Ancients Level One for History

This curriculum took a lot to get started because its more a guide rather than curriculum. I had to buy quite a few difference resources in order to use this curriculum. They included:

• The Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History
• A Child’s History of the World
• History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations
• Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors
• Ancient Israelites and Their Neighbors

So far its been well worth it and we’ve been using all the resources to complete the lessons. To help with Spanish immersion, I try to teach Hayzel as many Spanish words as possible throughout the lesson such as tribe= La tribu civilization= la civilización  ancient= antiguo

Finally, R.E.A.L Science Odyssey: Life Level One for Science.

This curriculum is a lot of fun and is easily adaptable to Hayzel’s level. He is able to read most of the content and do all the labs with no problems. It consists of lots of experiments and crafts. Science days are his favorite so far this year. For Spanish immersion Hayzel watches science video related to the subject of the day in Spanish and practices science Spanish words.

Extracurricular

For Physical Education Hayzel is enrolled in various sports.  At the end of summer he was given a choice between soccer and baseball and he chose soccer. This is third season and he aged of the division he was in last season. This year, not only is he required to participate in all practices and games (per mom’s rules) but he is being held accountable for being a team player and contributing to his team by cheering for them and being an active participant during playtime. That means that when before he was allowed to goof off and have fun, now he is expected to listen to the coaches, do what they ask of him and strive to become a better player. We will also be learning more about soccer as a sport (mom needs an education too!), how to be a good or bad loser, and the value of good sportsmanship.
Aside from soccer he is also doing a basketball clinic in preparation for the winter league where is learning the fundamental of the sport such as dribbling, passing, and shooting. Finally he started Karate over the summer and will continue to learn it year round.
I tried my hardest to be part of a co-op this year, but all my plans for that fell through at the last minute. Instead Hayzel is currently participating in 2 classes which take place once every other week. The first one is called Wee Wonders and is offered at our local Audubon Society. Wee Wonders is a series of classes that takes place every fall and spring and combines hands of activities, crafts, stories, and outdoor discovery. For the fall the series will be focusing on Autumn in New England, and exploring the color changes in the leaves, animal migrations, and animal harvesting for the winter.
The other class is called Brickapolooza and it is extremely interesting. It’s pretty much a Lego building class. The classes are themed and encourage the kids to think creatively and collaborate with their mates to come up with unique solutions to solve a variety of problems. The first series of classes will be focusing on Machines. I’ll be posting more on that later. The class is run by Eric the owner of Brickapolooza in Tyngsboro, Ma. He drives up to our area and brings all the supplies the kids need. He is pretty amazing and Hayzel loves the class.

That pretty much sums up Hayzel’s curriculum for this year. So far I am pretty happy with my choices and Hayzel seems to enjoy them too.

Catch-up.

In my defense....
Nope. I got nothing. 
We're still here. We're still homeschooling. We still go out and do all sorts of things, I've just been really lax about taking pictures. . It has been brought to my attention that I “have been slacking on my blog”. And it warms my heart to learn that people actually read and miss my posts. So here is a recap of what we’ve been up to these last 2 months-or what I’ve captured on camera anyway.

In February, we worked on Valentine’s Day Cards. Hayzel was very good about signing each card himself and it took him about 4 days to sign about 30 cards. Unfortunately, I was extremely scattered brained around this time and only the out-of-towners received theirs because I made it a point of mailing them out. The rest, I recently found in one of my purses still waiting to be delivered.



The day after V-Day, we went to a dinner theater to watch, “The Little Mermaid.” This was the first time we’d ever been to Chucky’s Cinema and it was such a hit with the kids, that we’ve gone back twice since then. One a month they have a special showing of a Disney movie where families with young children can bring their kids without fear of having to leave because they are being too loud or causing a distraction. The seats are super comfy and we get to have lunch while we’re watching a movie. Here’s a few pics of our first trip to Chucky’s.



And of course the group shot:
 
I’m sure by now everyone knows Olivia, but I think this is the first pic with Grace (tallest of the bunch) and her brother Will. They are part of our homeschool group, so you will see them in various pics through out this post.

The following week, we had a meet up at Grace and Will’s house for Birdfeeder activity. Amanda (G&W’s mom) set us up outside with plenty of supplies to make different kinds of birdfeeders.






 
When his birdfeeder was done he hung it up on a tree branch for safekeeping and off he went to explore the “woods” behind Amanda’s house.





Around Valentine’s Day, I had set up Hayzel with 2 pen pals. My hope was that this would help his penmanship. Shortly after V-Day, Hayzel got his first letter from cousin Adri who lives in NY.





He was really excited and the next day, he wrote his  response:

And off we mailed it.
But.
I forgot to add postage.
So it came back to us, and it has been patiently waiting to be sent out again.
For the past 2 months.
I know. I fail.
Heyde and Adri, it will be mailed by the end of this week. I promise.
Hayzel also has another pen pal, Jayden who lives in NYC. While we haven’t even started the first letter to him, it’s on my list of things to do in the very near future. I promise Tia and J!

The end of February brought some nice weather to the area. So off to the park we went for a play date and “picnic”. I put that word in parentheses because according to Hayzel that was not a picnic, “because we didn’t sit on a blanket on the grass and no ants came.”








In March our homeschooling group began a small co-op. 2 Fridays a month we meet at a space we rented for that purpose and the moms take turns in hosting the co-op with a different theme. The first one was hosted my fellow hsing mom Vanessa. Her co-op had a theme of “Traps and Pulleys". She provided us with an abundance of supplies to make traps for “bad guys”. The kids had an amazing time and co-op is a favorite in this house. We’ve had another co-op hosted by Tania, where we explored the 5 senses. The next upcoming co-op will be hosted by yours truly. The theme I chose to do was “recyclable games”. We’ll be using recyclable trash to make bowling pins, a bean bag toss, and various games. Hopefully it goes well and I’ll make sure to snap plenty of pictures. In the meantime, here a few pics from the first co-op.





At the end of March one morning, we had a play date at Olivia’s for some sun catcher painting:



That afternoon, we surprised the kids with a trip to a circus that came to Concord. The tickets where ridiculously cheap and now I know why. In my opinion, it sucked, it was too short, and they were at least 20 mins late in starting the show. But, it was a fun experience for the kids and all I can say is I’m glad they had fun.






So that pretty much brings us into the month of April.
I will be making a separate post on Hayzel turning 5. This is a tough one for me to write, but hopefully I will have it up by the end of this week.
Thank you to everyone who continues to keep up with us.
Happy, Brian?