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.

Week 6 Activities

On Monday evening Hayzel and I made fall leaves cookies I found the recipe for on Pinterest.

I had some leaf cookie cutters on hand.

Yum!

I may have over mixed the dough and the colors didn’t stand out like I wanted them to, but they were delicious and its something I will try to make again.

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Tuesday afternoon we had a little visitor.
Lucas came over and Hayzel has tons of fun playing and taking care of him.

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On Wednesday afternoon, C and J joined us for rainy day crafts.
We made 2 fall themes projects.

Jayden was a little grossed out by the brown paint

Hayzel had an itch on his forehead while painting

"Uh oh!"

My little temperamental artist hard at work.

Brushes had to be provided for the glue because the idea of touching it was too much for a certain someone.

Cait's finished Fall Scene project

Hayzel's finished Fall Tree Project

We ended the week with a trip to the Discovery Museum on Thursday and a relaxing day with dad on Friday. Both Tball and Soccer were cancelled to due to rain over the weekend.

Week 6

On Monday 10/08 Hayzel started school by doing a review of fractions.

Per his request, we played a quick game of Fraction Memory.

Then it was time for his 2nd Chapter Test.

He scored a 95 on a twenty question test. We went over the question he missed just so that I could make sure he fully understood why he got it wrong, then we were finally done with Fractions! For now at least.
Afterwards, Hayzel and I read some books on the four seasons, concentrating mostly on fall.
Earlier that morning Hayzel and I had driven Sr. to the airport. so we went online and through the use of Delta Airlines’ flight tracking system we tracked dad’s airplane as it flew him to his destination.

In the evening we baked fall cookies. 

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Tuesday, Hayzel worked on geography. He learned how to give directions using North, South, East, and West.

Next, he began the introductory worksheet on the next chapter in math: Operations.

Finally, he did a LA module in T4L consisting of words with the er, ir, ur sound.
I also gave him a list of 5 spelling words to write out.

We ended the day with a play date with our favorite little guy, Lucas.

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Wednesday, Hayzel starting things off by completing a book report for the book, “Buster on the Farm.”

Then he did some spelling/penmanship work.


In geography, he learned about the compass rose.

I showed him how to find it in various different maps.



Then he made his own.



In the afternoon, due to rain, tball was cancelled and we stayed indoors for some Fall crafts.

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On Thursday morning, Hayzel worked on  math terms. He learned the meaning of plus and minus signs, number sentences, addition and subtraction, and how to determine whether a number sentence is true or false.
He supplemented that with module on T4L and a worksheet.

In the afternoon we headed over for our first science class of the school year at the McAuliffe-Sheppard Discovery Museum in Concord. The classes are part of a year long study of the Earth and its galaxy. Thursday’s program was on:
Earth were we explored its land, water, ice and atmosphere.

Learning about the polar ice caps

A visual on ice core dating

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Review on the water cycle

Water cycle demo

Rock demo

Rock scratch test

Presentation illustrating how the atmosphere works

soda can atmospheric pressure experiment

Earth and it's atmosphere. The air in the baggie represents the atmosphere surrounding the Earth.

This was a pretty interesting class and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

The next class calls for:
The Moon: Discover Earth's closest neighbor - its features, how it changes through the month, and its role in eclipses.

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 Friday was a review day.  He continued to work on number sentences and his spelling words. He did another book report and watched a few videos on the seasons.

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Below is a screenshot of Hayzel’s T4L report for the last 2 weeks.

Math

Language Arts

Another week down!