Our Curriculum

I just can’t tell you how much Selena is so loving her curriculum. We went with the first grade PACE sometimes known as ACE. I am so glad I chose to jump up one grade, while right now it is very simple for Selena as far as the reading goes, it will get more difficult as time goes by. Now I did order only the Science and History. It is not a text book, but very similar to the LifePacs which are disposable. There is 12 booklets to each subject, with activities from coloring, picture and word matching, dot to dot, reading, phonics, and writing. For the first time I feel Selena is totally engaged in all aspects of her school work. Each booklet focuses on a Bible verse, with the story or information supporting that verse. They actually repeat the verse daily, and as it starts out they maybe finish writing a key word, to eventually writing almost the entire Bible verse.

As you can see from clicking on the pages above, that Selena has the opportunity to circle the correct answer, but we are asking that she attempts to write them. Some days are more successful then others, but she is finally over coming her anxieties of trying to write, and having fun with it. I like the less formal way she gets to learn to write over the writing programs we have purchased that she just does not get into.

Besides these two subjects we also are reviewing phonics by reviewing word families that she was working on last year. This year she is much more interested in this, and it helps that we have the white board up so I can write the words on it rather then reading them just from the lists in a book.

Math, she is using her math book last year, for learning to write her numbers. It also covers the basics of simple addition and subtraction including telling time, basically all the math one would expect to find in Kindergarten. I make it more of a challenge by doing much of our math from the white board or again creating problems that need our math buddies and manipulates to solve. I probably will order the first grade math from PACE after Christmas, I wish I would have ordered it when I ordered the rest of her curriculum.

We then come off with lots of ideas for Unit studies that include our geography. As you read yesterday our first Unit study was on Sheep, which fit in very nicely with our curriculum.

We are really looking forward to so much fun and learning this year.

Our Curriculum Choice

Now that we are settled into the idea that we are homeschooling again, I began to shop curriculum. Today while following up with our Pediatrician, she referred me to A.C.E. curriculum. While her children go to public school she also homeschools them in the evenings. I guess that makes sense, beings she is from China…and coming to the United States she found the education system rather lacking.

While looking through Christianbook.com I found a lot of the A.C.E or PACE curriculum. As I looked through the sample pages I was sold on the material. We ordered the First Grade Science and History curriculums. They are so rich in pre-reading and writing, while they cover the core subjects, and knowing that I have plenty of math curriculum I didn’t see at this time the need for anything more.

Until we get our books we will enjoy a lot of reading, start some math, and continue to work on crafts as well as writing. Selena continues everyday to work in her AWANA handbook, and showed off to her Pediatrician her reading ability from her handbook. Her Pediatrician reminded me that this handbook is actually geared for 2nd grade.

We still struggle in the area of the classroom setting, and from what we’ve been told so far from both the Pediatrician and the Psychologist, we might just end up being full time homeschoolers, and fit in as much organized and unorganized group learning and playing in our schedule as we can. I will say since all this came about it looks like our homeschool community is trying to get more things going, with skate parties every other Friday, a harvest party scheduled, and I look forward to meeting one other mom for a time of kid play as well as brainstorming on other things we might incorporate for all the homeschoolers in our area to enjoy.

We have had our stresses, as far as working with all the doctors as to could we be dealing with other issues, such as ADHD or Autism spectrums, but it seems pretty clear that we just have a child who is too bright for her own good, and who is dealing with a lot of issues surrounding her mom, that she truly just doesn’t understand. We see some pure classic sensitivities and behaviors that are seen in many “gifted” children. Will we have her tested down the road, you know at this point, I will say it is a good possibility, so that we can understand the complexities of Selena better. Right now though we are taking it day by day, week by week, and allowing Selena through play to open her world up as to her emotions, feelings, angers, and fears. We do know that no matter what it is that drags her down at times, she is still a very bright, beautiful, and happy child.

Our Curriculum

When I sat out to find a curriculum for us to begin using with Selena I didn’t want one that was too full of fluff, I truly wanted one that would zone in on the basics, one that we could add our own interests, and ideas to. At first I wasn’t sure about Keepers of the Faith but I just kept going back to it until finally I told myself I won’t know if this will be a fit for us or not until I get it in my hands and we try. When we got it, at first glance I still was not sure if Selena would truly take to it or reject it. We have had to make a few adjustments, and of course there was the actual teaching Selena how to use the curriculum before I began to see that my choice was the right choice.

At first Selena was not into the phonics at all. I can’t say I blame her on first look of the book with all its lists of words, there are review pages that do incorporate the words into stories, but the lists by far out way the actual stories. The only thing that Selena asked me was if I would make flash cards instead of her reading out of the handbook. At first I wasn’t sure I wanted to make flash cards, but after making the first set, and seeing how much easier it is to teach Selena to slow down and truly sound every letter of the word out instead of depending on memorization, I have to admit that her suggestion was the best suggestion she could make. I like their approach, as well as the fact that at the back of the book they do give all the rules to the English language. Many of the words Selena does know, but she has found it quite challenging at times to break the words down by phonically sounding out each letter. She has also found numerous words she has never heard before. She quickly asks what these words mean, so we grab the dictionary and look it up.

I see Selena beginning to slow down a bit in her independent reading, to sound out the words she isn’t sure of. I also see her vocabulary increasing. I think the fact that she is learning new words, that we have incorporated the use of the dictionary, and that she sees how this is improving her reading ability in such a short time, has been a huge plus for her to keep plugging away.

Look how difficult the words get as she moves on through the workbook. Of course the idea with this is to teach her first to break a word down into syllables, and pronounce it from there. I see a lot more dictionary work in our future.

The one thing that Selena truly did have a bit of a problem with was the handwriting. Most of the curriculums we have seen start with learning to write capital letters. Selena just did not feel comfortable yet with learning the lower case letters. No problem for me, we just jumped ahead to the upper case handbook and will work a little backwards.

I think it is cute how Selena is making up her own little rhymes to help her remember how each letter is formed. I figure whatever works, is just fine with me. 

There are a couple other books one on Christian Character, and her handbook that we have glanced at and done a little work out of, of course we will begin to dig deeper as we go along.

I love the fact that we can spend as much or as little time we want on the fundamentals, then we can come off with whatever our hearts desire to make our school day interesting and fun. I do want to add that I did add some Kumon workbooks for early math to our curriculum, since this curriculum doesn’t start any sort of math study until next year.

Over all I am very pleased with our choice, while it seems at times we are repeating things that Selena already knows, I see her connecting with the curriculum, and I love that we are free to throw in as much about the world around us that we desire, we can read all the materials we want to read and not worry about particular lists of recommended books.

I would truly recommend this curriculum to any homeschool family, but I do want to express I believe it is very important that you know your child’s learning curve and style.

I was not asked nor provided anything for this review. The review expresses my own opinion.