Fall Changes

Since we schooled all through the summer, I thought I would change things up a bit for the Fall.  We will still be using Heart of Dakota's Preparing book twice a week, but the other days we will be adding some fun and different work.

The first thing I am adding is Heart of Dakota's Drawn Into the Heart of Reading.  It uses genre units to expose students to a variety of literary styles and it includes story element lessons to focus on a different element for each genre. 

I chose an adventure book to start her off.

I bought Meet the Masters last year but we only had time to work on three of the artists. I plan to start it up again this year and try to do one artist per month.

It is a great program that uses a three-step process to learn about the artists and their techniques.

Right now we are reading a book about constellations, so I was thinking of starting Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy once we finish that one. 

I've heard some really good things about Apologia and this book and workbook look excellent!  I'll be excited to get started on it!

We love these books by Critical Thinking Company. 

This year we will be using the Think A Minutes Book A2.  These fun critical thinking problems only take a few minutes to complete and they really make you think.

Something else I thought would be fun to work on is  Writing Strands.  It introduces the skill of giving thoughts and experiences to others in written form.

I am hoping that this will help enhance her writing, which she loves!

Lastly, I was going to use the book Creating Books with Children.  It's a six week, book-making unit study where children will study authors and illustrators while creating their own books.

It would be fun if we could actually make a real book, not just a couple of pages stapled together.