Initial Academic Plan for Kindergarten

Very initial look -- off the top of my head!
Of course, many more things to consider for Kindergarten than academics but I haven't planned them out yet.

Reading:
GOAL: 
To move from current level of slowly blending cvc words to:

• being able to recognize basic level K-1 Dolch words
• read cvc, cvcv, cv, and several cvcc words
• continue learning the phonics sounds of each letter and blends (from All About Spelling)
• want him to feel that he likes reading!
  

Sources:
Games for Reading by Peggy Kaye
Headsprout (online)
100 Easy Lessons
Leapster Star Wars Reading
Evan Moore Centers:  Phonics and Literacy (both K-1)
Some sight words

Books/Literature:
GOAL: 
To have him enjoy great books, the sound of language, artwork, creating books...

Sources:
Audio books
Magic Tree House
FIAR books


Hand Writing:
GOAL:  Improve handwriting so that it becomes more fluent.  Currently working on numbers and most lower case letters.  (Upper case letters are all recognizable).
Probably need to do a bit on hand position

Sources:
Games for writing
Handwriting without Tears -- manipulatives
LEGO, clay, sand/rice writing, sidewalk chalk, paint

Math:
GOAL:
To continue to explore numbers, quantities, measurements, and relationships between them
Continue to work on time and money
Place value, multiplication and division, writing number equations, functions, patterns, geometry...

Sources:
Evan Moore Math Center (K-1)
Maria's Math Club?
Singapore Math/other workbooks when it's helpful
Decimal Street games
100 chart
Add in some homemade Montessori methods?s

Science/History/Geography:
GOAL:  Explore all topics on a regular basis to get the "hooks" for more indepth learning later on.  Might be interesting to do 2 week units on topics -- alternating between Science and History?  Maybe a "theme of the 2 weeks" to focus all reading/internet videos/activities/games on...

Options:
Life cycles
Space
Magnets
Electricity
Water
Sink/float

Egypt
Greece
Rome
Vikings
Great Wall of China
Medieval Knights/Castles
Renaissance

Other:
Building
Animation
Tae Kwon Do?
Bicycling
Yoga?

Initial Plan for 10th Grade

Current plan (and this could definitely change!  I'm at the "extremely optimistic" phase!):

Literature/English/History/American Civics (2 credits):
English (Literature/Composition) and History will focus on American History and Civics.  The following sources will be used in combination to cover the topics.
The Great American Bestsellers:  Books that Shaped America
Institute for Excellence in Writing:  US History-Based Writing Lessons Civil War to Present
Connect the Thoughts:  History VII - American Civics—An Owner's Manual
Thinkwell's American Government

Geometry (1 credit):
Math-U-See Geometry

Biology (1 credit):
Pre-College Course in Hands-On Biology by the Contemporary Science Center
Supplemented with the following texts/study guides
Thinkwell's Biology
Campbell's Biology:Concepts and Connections

Spanish II (1 credit)
TBD

Electives

• Game Design (1/2 credit)
• 2D and 3D game design
  
• Personal Finance (1/2 credit)
• Physical Education (1/2 credit)
• Basic Engineering (CAD, Programming, ME, Robotics)
  
• Basic Business (marketing, graphic design, public speaking, presentations, meetings)

Montessori Materials Links

An excellent blog about making your own Montessori things at home...
http://homemademontessori.blogspot.com/search/label/math

What are "Grammar Filling Boxes"????
And other discount montessori things...
http://www.alisonsmontessori.com

I really like these number/place value boards
http://www.montessoriland.com/site/1270021/product/ID_%202051

Shiller Math -- look at this a bit and try the first year diagnostic to see where Jm's at or how useable it is:
https://www.shillermath.com/sm3/showitem.php?itemcd=K01-DL5-0408


--

Unit Study: Star Wars

After my 5 yo has totally immersed himself in all aspects of Star Wars for the past 8 months, I finally decided to write it up in more educationalese so I felt a bit better about the process!

 

Literature:

• Critical analysis of plot, character and settings – and their consistency across the original movies, Star Wars the Clone Wars, and Star Wars LEGO wii.
• Exploration of character – is C3PO patient? When does Anakin become angry and is that what made him go to the dark side?

 Reading:

• From the Wii game: how do you spell each of the special options that need to be turned on and off (“Force Blasters,” “Poo Money,” “Invincibility”).
• Star Wars Reading for the Leapster: sounds of letters, blending, spelling, sight words.

Science:

• Discussion of body parts essential to keeping your body alive
• Life cycles and familial relationships (who is who's mother versus sister versus wife)
• The difference between a droid and a human.

Social Studies:

• Weaponry -- who carries what types of weapons and what are the pros and cons of each.
• Habitats and cultures of societies on various planets.

Math:

• Comparison of patterns between levels and episodes
• Calculating how much money it takes to get a new character on a Wii game
• Star Wars Leapster Math: addition, subtraction, place value, time/clocks

Philosophy:

• Exploration of philosophy
• Meaning of peoples' innate tendencies toward good and evil
• Meaning of life and death
• When people “turn bad”
• Why, why was Anakin angry?
• What is the difference between a droid and a human in terms of what they feel?

Drama

• Playing Star Wars with friends – each episode and each series, depending on who was alive and whether they were on the good side or the dark side
• Set design with LEGO's and DUPLO's
• Performance for Book Club about Boba Fett

Art:

• Drawing Yoda, various other Star Wars scenes

Music:

• Singing the Star Wars theme at all times of the day, including 6:45 am as a wake up song.
• Learning to distinguish by ear between those who “can’t sing Star Wars theme songs” and those who can.

Technology:

• • LEGO Star Wars Animation using iKitMovie

The requirement of this unit study is 14 hours/day of immersion for several months.

How to create a highschool Nutrition Class

Steps one would go through to create their own highschool class -- using Nutrition as an example:

1.  Look up sample syllabus examples to see what other courses cover and see if there are some good resources out there -- look at their textbooks, the topics they cover, etc.  Pick and choose...
("nutrition syllabus" = search terms -- can specify high school as well but not as helpful for nutrition -- sometimes helps for other topics)

http://ocw.jhsph.edu/courses/humannutrition/index.cfm
http://faculty.deanza.edu/liechtybarbara/stories/storyReader$105
(plus one attached that I couldn't figure out how to link to)

Look at some university programs:
http://www.ncsu.edu/foodscience/acdprg/u-nutrtn.html

2.  Figure out if you want it to be a full credit or a half credit (60-80 hours vs. 120-140 hours)

3.  Find a "spine" -- what you use as a basis of topics that you build from or if you want to create your own spine of topics
(remember -- you want to have multiple sources, multiple viewpoints so you get a good perspective of the topic -- not just one book's "bias"):

A textbook?  (search for "nutrition textbook" -- gives a good idea of the main topics -- here's an example but there are lots available)
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Human-Nutrition-Society-Textbook/dp/063205624X

Reviews of nutrition books:
http://www.todays-women-and-health.com/10-nutrition-books.html

Some favorite video or online sources:
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/search/search.aspx?searchphrase=nutrition

Decide if you want to add human anatomy/physiology with it:
http://www.ed2go.com/waketech/online_course/hap/detail/Human_Anatomy_and_Physiology.html

or search for "free online course materials nutrition" and get a list like this:
http://www.nafwa.org/lma/directory/Free_e-Courses/Nutrition/Nutrition.php


4.  Find something to supplement with:

Supplement with videos:
http://movies.netflix.com/WiSearch?oq=nutrition&ac_posn=-1&v1=nutrition

Science:  http://www.khanacademy.org/

Field trips:  
NCSU -- here are several faculty involved in their cross-departmental nutrition program:
http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/food_science/acdprg/index.html

Duke Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition & Metabolism Center
http://stedman.mc.duke.edu/modules/stedman_about/index.php?id=1

Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
http://www.sph.unc.edu/nutr/

5.  Create your own syllabus.  Include a description of what it will take to get a "C," a "B" or an "A."  Maybe a "C" is to read 1 book, watch 3/4 of a DVD course and write watch one movie.  Or an "A" is to complete a 6-week ed2go class on Human Anatomy and Physiology; read 2 popular nutrition books with different perspectives; create a blog with weekly tips/information about nutrition that lasts a minimum of X months or XX blog posts...???   

Get started!  And enjoy!

SolidWorks and Project Based Learning

Project-Based Learning - Making SolidWorks Meaningful to Students
by Elise Moss

A good description about how/why to do project-based learning.  Interesting idea that the students should have 80% of the skills in place in order to pick up the other 20% successfully in the project.  Wonder if it could be more like 60% of the skills?

http://www.solidworks.com/includes/swworld/presentations_/proceedings_display.cfm?sid=24555

Squishy Circuits

Here's a great way to make circuits and talk about conductors and insulators -- by making playdough recipes that conduct and don't conduct electricity.

Very, Very Cool...

http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/apthomas/SquishyCircuits/index.htm