Alex will be promoted to second grade at the beginning of June. Because we’re year-round homeschoolers, though, we begin programs whenever it seems to make sense; since January we’ve started both chemistry and a full grammar-based Latin curriculum because Alex demanded them. We also promote in math and spelling whenever the previous book is finished. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for big changes at grade promotion.
Here’s what we’ll be continuing for second grade:
Math: Of course the delightful Beast Academy will be the core of Alex’s math education. Unfortunately, however, they’re not able to release the books as fast as we’re able to complete them. For that reason, we’ll be supplementing with our previous curriculum, MEP. I anticipate that Alex will be mostly done with third grade work by Christmas.
Science: We’ll continue with Real Science Odyssey: Chemistry, doing lessons jointly with Alex’s friend B. That will probably also wrap up around the end of the calendar year. When we finish chemistry, we’ll begin an earth and space science course of our own devising. (Sadly, purchasable elementary science curricula don’t seem to be very meaty.)
Latin: At some point this spring, Alex rebelled against Song School Latin, which she decided was for babies. We replaced it with Lively Latin, a grammar-based Latin program which has her declining nouns and conjugating verbs. She loves it. She’s speeding through the program and using her Latin whenever she gets a chance. Lively Latin intersperses English word study and Roman history in with the Latin language lessons, which Alex enjoys.
History: We’ve been moving veeeery sloooowly through Story of the World Vol. 2: Medieval Times. I am hoping that we’ll be able to pick up the pace over the spring and summer.
Language Arts: Alex will continue using All About Spelling and Writing With Ease. Our writing goal for the early elementary years is for Alex to master writing well-formed sentences with correct spelling, punctuation, and usage. She finished Writing With Ease 1 and has moved into level 2, in which she is taking dictation of model sentences from excellent children’s literature. Writing With Ease is also teaching her to distill a reading passage she hears into an oral summary that covers the essential points.
We’ll also be adding some new materials for Language Arts in second grade. More about that in my next post.
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As usual, your organisedness leaves me gobsmacked. When Alex rules the world, can I have a minor administrative post?
I assume that once you hit a bit in medieval history that catches Alex’s interest, you’ll either burn through hundreds of years in a couple weeks, or spend a couple of months on some random two weeks in Prague in 1327 or something. History is really cool when you hit the bit that fascinates you.