School's a startin'

TOG Yr1Redesigned Week 1 - looks daunting when I type it all out. But this is what I have committed to for the next school year. I'm very excited about it! However, DDs were not nearly as excited when I sat down today to show them how things were going to work this year. They love the topic - in fact had checked out books on mummies on their own this summer without knowing that was on the agenda. They love the idea of using the computer for their vocab words (they will be looking them up at Wordsmyth) and doing SOS for science. But when I opened up the pages of TOG stuff and showed them what the LG and UG assignments looked like, their eyes about bugged out of their heads! "All that work, that's too much, I'm going to die if I have to do all that," were the comments received. Now, realistically it isn't that much more than before. Last year we did more reading together because I spent the first half of the year pregnant and the second half of the year nursing a newborn. Since I was sitting on the couch anyway, might as well read their assignments together. This year they will be doing more reading on their own. But I'm not backing down. I think TOG is going to help prepare my kids for future learning in college, on the job and in life. And if it takes a four week fog, or longer, for them to realize that I'm serious, then so be it.

For this first week, we are actually taking two weeks to complete it due to the fact that we have VBS at church next week. Plus, with so much new stuff I figured I'll need to work with them a little more to begin with. So here is what our Week 1 will look like:

Princess S (LG)
Climbing to Good English pg 90-93 (where we left off last year)
Math-u-See Beta Lesson 7
SOS Science - Lessons 1 and 2
Three pages of handwriting practice of the cursive letters a, b, and c
Reading: Egyptians, The Nile River, several pages from Old Testament Days
Her SAPs (student activity pages)
Hands-On Activities: making notebooks, salt dough or cookie dough map (haven't decided which yet), Egypt coloring pages
Writing - learning about nouns

Princess E (UG)
Easy Grammar 4 - memorizing prepositions (ongoing) and pg 3, 5, 9, 11, 13 and 15
Math-U-See Gamma - Lesson 1
SOS Science - lessons 1 and 2
Three pages of cursive review letters a, b, and c
Reading: The Nile River, A Place in the Sun (5 chapters), Ancient Egypt Make it Work (several pages), Geography from A to Z, What the Bible is All about for Young Explorers(several pages), Usbourne Internet-linked Encyclopedia of Ancient World (several pages)
Her SAPs
Same hands-on stuff as above
Writing - reviewing nouns and learning steps in the writing process

I am not starting Laura until next week. We will be doing the letter A next week and reading books about them. I'll post them later.

Blessings,
Jennifer