READING
At this point we don't really do any structured reading. We do, however, read a TON! Most of the books we own are horse related, but we are building up our collection of dog books as well. If we need or want something else, we check them out of the library.
MATH
We recently discovered a website for horse lovers called, Horse Lovers Math. Emma works with our friend Skylar on Tuesdays and the Horse Lovers Math is something they both enjoy.
Emma is plugging away on the grade 2 Math Mammoth work book. She's technically 3rd grade, but we are still trying to get this book done. It's slow, tedious and often times really boring. But, the information builds nicely and it's easy to just work through a few pages at a time.
I recently signed Emma up for Splash Math. It's a website that she goes to and practices math. So far she enjoys it (which makes it worth every penny) and the practice helps her grasp the concepts. There are also math-ish games on their that she likes.
Emma is plugging away on the grade 2 Math Mammoth work book. She's technically 3rd grade, but we are still trying to get this book done. It's slow, tedious and often times really boring. But, the information builds nicely and it's easy to just work through a few pages at a time.
I recently signed Emma up for Splash Math. It's a website that she goes to and practices math. So far she enjoys it (which makes it worth every penny) and the practice helps her grasp the concepts. There are also math-ish games on their that she likes.
GEOGRAPHY
For a few years now, we have been using a geography worksheet that I created. We call it Horse Geograpy. We have also created a similar sheet that is more general so that it works for any animal.
HISTORY
We use Story of the World (SOTW) for our history and it also includes a lot of geography. We have the MP3 version as well as the activity book. To be honest, I think when we are ready for Vol. 2, we will probably skip the activity book as we don't use it as much as we should.
SCIENCE
We consider the Horse and Animal Geography sheets as science for the simple fact that one side deals with learning about a specific animal. We occasionally do random science projects and she gets a bit of science from the homeschool co-op that we participate in.
GRAMMAR/WRITING
We have two different curriculum that we alternate between for grammar and writing. One is First Language Lessons (FLL)and the other is Writing with Ease (WWE). While FLL is great at teaching the basics of nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc., it is incredibly boring and slow. Granted, it is meant to be for first graders, but that might be it, but still. WWE is more interesting and has more to do with the act of writing and reading comprehension, but again, we are not awesome at knocking out the lessons.
For spelling we are using this list. We typically do a spot quiz on Monday's to see how she does with the words, then incorporate them into all our writing throughout the week. For example, when she writes her letter or post card of the week, she will add one or two of her spelling words.
Cursive. There is debate out there as to the need for cursive, but Emma likes it so we work on it. Gramma made us some worksheets for Emma to work on, so that is what we do.
GAMES
Games are a huge part of our homeschooling. Here is an old post from 1Mar12 about how we used games as a form of education . We have gotten better since then about playing games most every day. Our favorite lately is No Stress Chess. Strategy, critical thinking, sportsmanship and more all in one game. We also love Blockus, Mancala, Minotaurus, Great States, Forbidden Desert, and more.
What are your favorite ways to sneak learning into your kid's days?
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