Our First Week of School

Well, we successfully completed our first week of first grade this week!  I am still homeschooling, but have enrolled Mary in River Springs Charter School.  Because of that, I am required to adhere to the school's calendar and keep attendance!  Yikes!  I even had to come up with a PLAN for the year.  OK, I would have done that anyways, but now I feel some greater obligation to actually follow it!

I am thrilled to be involved with River Springs.  Although the school's administrative offices are located in Temecula, there is a learning center in nearby Costa Mesa. They offer many classes at the learning center.  Mary will be taking Passport to the World.  She will be able to learn about the customs, dress and food in different cultures around the world.  Another benefit of the charter school is that I will be able to meet with a credentialed teacher every 20 school days to receive feedback/suggestions on Mary's education.  Another great plus is that the charter school maintains an account of state funds for Mary, which can be used for curriculum, supplies, sports, lessons, field trips, etc.  The only restriction is that funds cannot be used for Christian materials.  We still have freedom to choose our curriculum, but if the materials are of a religious nature, we must purchase those ourselves.

We had a pretty grueling first day, which consisted of going to the park and meeting other River Springs homeschool families in the area!  (River Springs services five large counties in Southern California, but this park meeting was primarily people residing in Orange County.)  I even took the camera planning to take some pictures of our first day and came home having taken zero pictures.  Since we didn't receive any of our new school books until 3pm on Tuesday, we waited until Wednesday to begin.  We are still waiting for our science materials to arrive, but I already have lots of wiggle room in the schedule anyways:)

I plan to use the following materials with Mary this year:

Language Arts
First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind V2
McCall Crabbs Standard Test Lessons in Reading Book B
Writing With Ease V1
Spell to Write and Read (beginning in O-1)
Reading selected titles from Hand That Rocks the Cradle

Math
Saxon Math Intermediate 3

History
Story of the World V2

Science
Apologia Science Zoology 2 (Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day)

Life Skills
Horizons Health
Baking (Mary has already mastered brownies!)
Soccer
Swimming

Special Interest
Draw Write Now
English from the Roots Up  V1


I am continuing to use The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading with Maggie (although I slip in phonograms rather than following the text word for word.)  Maggie is also really interested in learning to write her letters, so I have ordered her A Reason for Handwriting.  I also plan to begin Saxon K math with Maggie this year also.  Maggie's books should arrive with Mary's science books hopefully by the end of next week.  Then, the big juggling act will really begin!!!