Lesson Planning - in a hurry

Originally when we started talking about pulling Ben out we thought we would wait till the end of the month... but he begged to start right away. So I am pulling together our first 5 weeks right now... Our biggest focus is on phonics and math -- beyond that I wanted something that would be fun for a 7 year old boy to get into -- so I picked Egypt and Greece. Gods, heroes, mummies, mysteries -- great stuff. Since Ben loves both art and non-fiction these are easy eras to cover. Lots of potential projects. Lots of time curled up on the couch reading books.

Phonics: Barton Reading and Spelling System, Explode the Code
Reading: Henry & Mudge books, Frog & Toad Books, Little Bear books, graded readers sent home from school
Copywork: Lines from memorized poems
Memorization: various poetry, 1 poem/week
Math: Math U See - Alpha
Nature Study: Guidebooks, gardening, journaling
History/Art/Music/Geography/Literature/Science: Ancient Egypt
Wk1: Modern and Ancient Egypt: Introduction to geography and archeology: Where is Egypt? What does it look like? What is ancient egypt? What is a timeline? When was ancient egypt? How do we know about it?
Wk2: Everyday life in Ancient Egypt: What was everyday life like in Ancient Egypt? What did people do? What was life like for kids? How did people communicate?
Wk 3-5: Pharaoh, Mummies, Gods, Temples and Tombs: Who were pharaohs? What were the Egyptian gods? Why did Pharaohs make mummies? Why did they build pyramids? How is a mummy made? What is inside a pyramid?

Out local used bookshop is having a big sale this weekend so I am off to buy some books on Egypt and Greece (our second unit).

Unfortunately we also have to start with a little testing. We needs to see what Ben's accurate Word Count Per Minute reading level is so we have some way of judging objectively if what we are doing is working. Ms M last measured him at the end of December and his WCPM was 22 (that of an entering first grader). In Georgia the minimum standard is 60 WCMP minimum by the end of first grade.

2 comments:

MoscowMom said...

Wow, Katya. A lot of changes. It will be a lot of work to homeschool Ben, but perhaps not any more than it already is to parent a struggling son?? The homeschooling unit you've put together looks great so far. I'm glad you're not working so you can do this for him :-) You were so good at putting together "homeschool" activities when our kids were toddlers; you'll be great.

Good luck with everything!!!

Anonymous said...

That is so funny. When I was about Ben's age we studied ancient Egyptian history in school and I found a small book in the library called "One day in the life of the ancient Egyptian boy". I loved that book, I still remember it and almost can visualize the pages (and that is about 50 years later). My guess now that the book was very silly and pedagogical - but at that age it did not matter to me - I loved the details and god knows what else, perhaps being able to connect to such a far away life through the small details which seems to be common and understandable
Olga