Our Plan for Second Grade

Remember when I told you my big plans for First Grade? Well, I went back and wrote in updates on that post telling what we actually ended up doing, and how things went. You can read it here. 

Today I'm sharing what we'll be studying next year, because

Language Arts: 

This year we are using Presidential Penmanship for writing. It's a neat program because after purchasing ONE CD (a printable file), you've got handwriting/ copywork covered each year from K-12th grade. Pretty cool. I printed and bound the copy work book for 2nd grade. 

Let's Learn About Ancient Egypt!

Here are a few of our favorite books, activities, and online resources for learning about Ancient Egypt...

Online Resources

Explore Ancient Egypt! You've got to visit this site!! We took a virtual tour through the Great Pyramid, walked around the Sphinx, and visited other tombs and temples with 360 degree tours. It was excellent!! Thank you PBS!

Discover the world of Ancient Egypt playing our games! Explore the Egyptian landscape, join an exploration expedition through Egyptian tombs, dress like an Egyptian queen or craftsman, translate hieroglyphics, and run a temple store! My son loved these games from National Museums Scotland!!!

Our Favorite Books

Visualize World Geography Review

Over the school last year, we've been using Visualize World Geography, which is really unique program that utilizes pictography to help you mentally map and memorize all the countries in the world. You know how you can always find Italy because it looks like a boot? Well, this program has pictographs for every country in the world, and you learn them by watching a video for about 10 minutes per lesson. The official site has more info, video samples and testimonials for you to get a better grasp of the program. We saw it at our home school convention and loved it. Kindergarteners have used it. College students have used it. It is for anyone of any age who wants to memorize every country's location. Older students may take the entire course (learning every country in the world) in a year, but since we are using it at elementary level we only did the 20 lessons over Africa this year, with review days in-between. Another year we'll use it to learn countries in the Middle East. It's flexible like that. I will warn you that it is not cheap. But... we will be using this for all our kids over the course of many years.

So after using it this year, here's my take on it...

The good:

• The kids like it!
• It works! 
• It's doable.
• You can use it with all your kids together, regardless of age.

The not-as-good:

• The DVD's are not professionally made. The actors are high schoolers and the video quality is, well, not exactly fabulous. 
• I think it is considerably over-priced, considering the video quality. If the videos were professional then their price point may be more appropriate.  You're basically paying for the concept of it more than the actual execution. 

The way we've used it so far is learning the countries in one continent, over the course of a year. To turn it into a social studies course, I added in the appropriate chapters (about whichever country we were learning) from Material World and What the World Eats by Peter Menzel. (I highly recommend using these two books along with ANY geography program! Read more about them in this post!) The combination of Visualize and the two Peter Menzel books made for a really great Geography and Social Studies course.

My only beef with this program is the price but since we've already purchased it then that is behind us. I'm glad we purchased this program because my kids are learning to locate the countries. Just from casually joining in when he feels like it, my three year old can locate more countries now than I could locate in college! That says a lot. My kids aren't old enough to be horrified by the video quality (or lack thereof), but they ARE learning their countries happily and painlessly and that is worth a LOT!

My Favorite Resources for Learning About Africa

We are studying Africa this year, and loving it! Here are a few of my favorite resources... 

 
Wonderful Books

A really neat book recommended from SCM (Simply Charlotte Mason) is Material World by Peter Menzel. It's a unique project from a talented photographer who traveled the world to put a face on the human condition from all around the planet. He features a statistically average family from a variety of countries all over the world, and includes large portraits of their family, home life, and all their material possessions. (See in the photo below the entirety of this family's earthly possessions.) It's eye-opening to see just how much and how little people have from different parts of the world, and interesting to get a glance into their daily life. We'll be using this book for the African families it features this year, and families from other countries in our geography studies in the years to come.

Our Plan for First Grade

I thought I'd share what we'll be studying this year because...

Language Arts: 

I ended up writing a program of my own with a lot of help from The Three R's by Ruth Beechick. We'll be doing much of what you can read on my Writing page.

For reading, we'll keep going at his pace with easy readers. We're also going to use the Victory Drill Book, for practicing phonics, spelling, and word-building. Just for fun, I'm getting DICEcapades Word Pirates for game days. I am a believer in practicing skills with games rather than flash cards. It's more fitting for young children and doesn't zap the life out of school.

How to Organize Right Start Math Manipulatives!

Isn't it fun to get packages in the mail? I love getting school supplies like this! This is the box we got from Right Start Math...

After receiving it I wondered how in the world I'd organize all that stuff in a way that was uniform and accessible. I googled it and checked on Pinterest trying to find a storage system I liked and kept coming up short. After looking at a variety of storage containers from several different stores, I ended up finding JUST the perfect thing, and the price tag was minimal. I imagine I'm not the only mom who has wished for a good Right Start organization system, so I thought I'd share what I came up with.

Right Start Math Review

We have been using Right Start Math this year, and are loving it! Right Start takes a unique approach to math that just makes sense to me and I love seeing my son do well with it. (Here he is with little brother tagging along.)

Here is a glimpse into their philosophy:

•  "Informal mathematics should precede paper and pencil work. Long before a child knows how to add fractions with unlike denominators, she should be able to add one half and one fourth mentally." Instead of putting lots of abstract worksheets in front of a Kindergartener, we're working hands-on with quality manipulatives. A lot of them. 
• "The only students who like flash cards are those who do not need them." Amen to that. We use games, not flash cards, for practice.