2011-2012 School Year Books and Resources
Second grade for First Son and First Daughter's last year of preschool
Second grade for First Son and First Daughter's last year of preschool
Mainly from Mater Amabilis, Level 1A (which covers second and third grade)
School year completed on May 11, 2012
School year completed on May 11, 2012
- Program for Achieving Character Education along with stories from The Book of Virtues and The Moral Compass. Read my review.
- Memory Book - includes poetry, memory verses, catechism questions and other items that seem appropriate (like the Ten Commandments which we memorized in first grade). I wrote a post at the end of the year on First Son's second grade memory work.
- Math
- Saxon Math 2 - Read my review.
- XtraMath.org - Read my review.
- Math Games and Books
- Faith / Religious Education
- Scripture - Devotional reading from Living Faith Kids twice a week. Read my review.
- Catechism - We'll be using Faith and Life 2: Jesus Our Life. I have the old versions of both the teacher's manual and the student book so I printed out a list of the revisions thoughtfully provided by Ignatius Press to make sure we understand the Mass. Read my review.
- Preparation for First Communion
- I'm thinking of reading The King of the Golden City in addition to our catechism.
- First Son (and First Daughter) will also be attending PSR classes at our parish.
- The religion supplement from CHC's second grade lesson plans and the Mass Book Holy Card set.
- Advent - The Way to Bethlehem and The Life of Mary. (Oh, these are wonderful!)
- Lent - Catholic Tales for Boys and Girls. Read my review.
- Easter - The Way of the Cross: A Story of Padre Pio.
- Saints - Read and narrate about the saint of the day twice a week. Read my review of these books.
- Western History - Connecting with History Volume 2
- American History - I had planned on using unit studies from Serendipity, augmented with Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans, but after one unit (on Native Americas), I remembered I didn't really like unit studies. So we switched gears and started using A First Book in American History as a backbone, augmented with a few other picture books and activities. The goal is to make it up to the Civil War by the end of second grade.
- Geography and Earth Studies
- Mapping - Maps, Charts and Graphs, Level B, Neighborhoods
- People and Places: Europe
- Earth Studies
- Regular visits to a creek
- Rivers and Oceans
- Pagoo
- English / Language Arts
- Reading - First Son will continue reading to me once each day. I'll be posting his books semi-regularly.
- Handwriting - Handwriting 2 for Young Catholics
- Writing - The Complete Writer: Writing with Ease. Read my review.
- Grammar and English Language - Primary Language Lessons. Read my review.
- Spelling (I don't think explicitly teaching spelling is true to Charlotte Mason's philosophy, but I am oh-so-tired of spelling every little thing for First Son. Hopefully this will help.) - My Catholic Speller. Level A. Read my review.
- Literature
- Tales
- Classic Myths to Read Aloud: The Great Stories of Greek and Roman Mythology (one of my favorite books). Read my review.
- The Blue Fairy Book
- Reading Poetry
- Family Read-Alouds
- Audio Books
- Science
- Noeo Biology I. Read my review.
- Nature Study - Really and truly this year we are going on regular nature walks! Twice a term we'll be visiting our river and we'll probably have at least one nature walk to a different location during the month.
- Latin - Prima Latina. Read my review.
- Music and Music Appreciation
- Composer Study with Music Masters. Read my review.
- Piano - John W. Schaum Piano Course: Pre-A : The Green Book
- Vocal Studies - homeschool choir
- Art and Art Appreciation
- Child-Sized Masterpieces
- Making art at home - The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas
- Preschool for First Daughter
- Montessori Activities
- Lots and lots of reading
- At least one classic picture book a week, selected by Mama.
- Reading around the world (suggested by Mater Amabilis) with one picture book a week from different continents:
- Term 1 - Africa (list of the books)
- Term 2 - China, Japan and India (list of the books)
- Term 3 - Central and South America (list of the books)
- Free play
- Learning to read - We'll be continuing the lessons in The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading.
- Participating in history, science, read-alouds, composer studies, etc
- Household Tasks
- Chores
- Baking
- Gardening
