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Home Ed Program and Booklist 2015

posted on: Saturday, 11 October 2014 @ 11:08am in

It’s that time of year again and I’m doing it all in one post this time round.

10yo (Year 5) next year

9yo has been finding his yr5-6 maths book generally easy but some parts are challenging enough that I am going to keep one year ahead and see how he goes. He’s been pretty much on track with English, most of his challenge seems to be the tedium of writing full sentence answers and a continued reluctance to practise writing though his writing can be neat when he wants it to be. If he starts finding the 5-6 books too easy I’ll bump up to yr7 to see how he goes and back down again if that’s too hard.

As he’s older he can do a bit more bookwork now and will be doing 2 pages of English, 2 pages of Science and 2 pages of Maths per day (or just 1 if he does the Yr6 books) for $5/week. Once a week he can count doing quests in School of Dragons as science bookwork and the maths mission in Khan Academy as maths.

English

We’re going to continue with the yr3-4 books (unless they become too much of a drag in which case we’ll discontinue) from this year and add to the collection:

The first two to see if he whinges less if there is something more colourful to look at and the third one because he needs a lot more practice on handwriting and doesn’t write normally.

Maths

Continuing to use the yr5-6 books we’re using at the moment, and throw these in to see how he copes:

The mental maths book is to see if we can identify the processes that seem to be inefficient as he is generally good at mental maths.

Science

Weekly activities

  • 2x 1hr football training
  • 1x football game
  • 1x 1hr gymnastics
  • 1x park meet with other homeschoolers
  • 1x visiting great grandmother
  • 1x library
  • 1x kung fu
  • 1x 30min piano lesson

8yo (Year 3) next year

7yo has been really easy to do bookwork with. She has an alarm set on her ipad to alert her of things like bookwork and bedtime in case she loses track of time (not that it helps when she’s not near the ipad but the organisational thought is there) and is often the one telling me it’s time for bookwork if I don’t put out the call at 9am on the dot. She’s on track with maths and science (though her enjoyment of the former depends on the activity) and a year ahead in English for things like spelling and vocabulary but needs work on some writing skills and comprehension.

She will continue doing one page out of a book in English, Maths and Science for a total of three pages per day for $5 at the end of the week. Once a week she can do quests in School of Dragons for science bookwork, maths missions in Khan Academy for maths bookwork and Reading Eggs/Reading Eggspress for English bookwork.

English

Continuing with the yr3-4 English books we were using. Additionally getting the following two Targeting books as while she does practice writing of her own accord in various things that she does I think she needs a bit of work on some letter formation, and to see if she likes the Targeting books better, worse or no different to the Excel ones.

Maths

I’m going to try the Targeting books to see if the colours and the cross-referenced ipad app help make maths better.

Science

Weekly activities

  • 1x 1hr gymnastics
  • 1x park meet with other homeschoolers
  • 1x visiting great grandmother
  • 1x library
  • 1x kung fu
  • 1x 30min piano lesson

Additionally there will be a 1hr horse riding lesson every month.

6yo (Year 1) next year

5yo is recognising letters and some sight words and is able to write and recognise part of his name. He seems to get place value (he once got frustrated with me as we were at the train station and I didn’t hear him when he asked me what came after 29, which he then described as “Two nine” and I misheard it as “Two nines” and thought he meant 99, and finally he yelled “you know, 10 plus 10 plus 9!”) and knows how to count on (if adding five to six, he counts from seven on his fingers). He struggles a little bit with patterns. Reading is coming along, he’s doing better than 9yo at the same age but not as well as 7yo. He currently recognises most letters and letter sounds and most sight words. He’ll be doing one page out of each subject for $5/week.

English

Finishing off the Reading Eggs 3-4 books we have, then moving on to 5-8 and a bunch of Reading Eggs My Firsts.

That should theoretically keep us going for a couple of years, and this time I don’t have to worry about getting mixed up with 7yo’s books (they had the same books for a while and some idiot didn’t write their names in them).

Maths

Finishing off the Maths Seeds 1-4 books we have, then moving on to 5-8. In the event he looks like he’s going to finish them before the year is out I’ll queue up:

Weekly activities

  • 1x 1hr gymnastics
  • 1x park meet with other homeschoolers
  • 1x visiting great grandmother
  • 1x library
  • 1x kung fu
  • 1x 30min piano lesson

Excursions

We try to do excursions (or beach/swimming place trips when the weather is warm) every weekend when JJ is home so that we have one adult to follow 5yo and one adult to look at things more carefully with the big kids. In addition the bigger term excursions have been working pretty well this year so definitely planning more for next year.

  • April: Whiteman Park Village orienteering course
  • July: New Norcia
  • September: Gravity Discovery Centre (because I dropped the ball this year)
  • November: Perth Zoo or Gould League if Perth Zoo don’t do homeschoolers
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