The Beginning of a New School Year

I'm a little behind on things.  In mid August, I started planning Matthew's grade one year, but plans were put aside in the events of the past three weeks.  As a result, the school room I've been working on in the basement isn't done yet, and I'm woefully behind when it comes to prepping for the academics of this school year.

In August, I decided that we would work on each of the following areas over the course of the school year:

• Social/Recreational
• Community
• Spiritual
• Physical
• Academic (language arts; science; math; art; social studies; a smattering of geography)

I haven't worked out all of the specifics yet, but we decided to start school this week anyway.  So, on Sunday afternoon, I put together a basic plan for the next two weeks.  To be honest, I have no idea how this compares to what other homeschooling parents might do to start off grade one.  But here was the plan for Monday and Tuesday:

Monday

Language Arts:
- Matthew reads an early reader to me (he can choose one of five options that I pick)
- Have him choose six dolche sight words to work on this week and practice
- Explode the Code workbook (2-3 pages)
- Practice printing letters A-E (upper case and lower case)
- Ruth reads first few chapters of chapter book of Matthew's choice

Math:
- Math U See - begin lesson 1

Physical:
- Hockey practice in afternoon

Miscellanous:
- Puzzle - start 350 piece together
- Read about falcons and falcon recovery to prep for Tuesday's field trip

Tuesday

Language Arts:

- Matthew reads an early reader to me (he can choose one of five options that I pick)

- Work on the six dolche sight words of the week

- Practice printing letter F-K (upper case and lower case)

- Ruth reads the next few chapters of chapter book of Matthew's choice

Social/Physical/Science:

- playtime and picnic with friends

- field trip in pm: falcons and falcon recovery

Tomorrow, the flooring I picked out a month ago will be installed in our newly built basement school room.  Once that's done, I can get the baseboards in, and start to organize and decorate the room.  It won't be a fancy room, by any means, but it'll be great to have a designated space for school work...the kitchen and dining room tables didn't work terribly well for us last year.  I'm hoping that the classroom will be ready in the next few weeks, and I'll be sure to post pictures of the finished look (I already took the 'before' pictures a month ago when the room was being used for general storage).