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Grade 2

September 2005 - June 2006

Between April 2004 and September 2005 school happened in stops and starts and often very slow and easy because I had our third child in May 2004 and we decided to put her before homeschooling since the kids are so far ahead already. It was difficult adjusting to having three children and trying to juggle doing two different homeschooling curriculums while taking care of a baby and nursing. But we did get some school done. During that time, Justice's ability to read blossomed. By November of 2004, he was reading chapter books voraciously. He loves to read and can now read anything. He has also developed the capacity to do almost all of his schoolwork on his own. Which is such a blessing because now I have time to teach Haifa. He has kept up his language arts, math, and reading (the core skills that need to be mastered during the grammar stage of a classical education). He has also shown great interest in history and has read his history textbook: The Usborne Book of World History on his own throughout this past year. However, we have not done much science. I'm not too worried about it. I'm hoping that in higher grades, once our youngest child is more independent, we can catch up in that subject area. We have been reading books about science, we just haven't done any science experiments.

In September 2005, we started into homeschooling full force again. Justice is given a To Do List every day and must complete it on his own. If he ever has any questions or needs help, he is free to ask me. Quite often he has to wait until I am available to address his needs. He works at the dining room table with sisters running around, playing and distracting him. But we are all adjusting well to the routine and it is very manageable. He sometimes takes his schoolwork to his room for privacy and concentration, but not often. Our school day starts after breakfast and prayers. We don't look at the clock. It just happens when it happens (sometimes that's even after noon). There are ten minute breaks between each lesson for him to do whatever he wants (but I never set the timer and sometimes those breaks are 30-60 minutes long). He also plays outside for a while at noon. Some days, Justice will have completed his schoolwork before I even come down for breakfast. But most days, he doesn't finish his Reading and Mandarin (but completes the rest of his list).

Monday and Wednesday, his To Do List is as follows:

Spelling: one page of Spelling Workout Level C (Grade 3 Level) and a spelling test. Spelling is done first because it is the subject he dislikes the most.
Math: one lesson from Singapore Math Level 2B and correction of mistakes in the previous days lesson.
Vocabulary: half of one lesson from Worldly Wise B or C
Dictation: write three sentences dictated by Mama from a book he is currently reading.
Reading: half an hour spent reading a book I have assigned to him. These books come from the Sonlight Level 2 Advanced Readers List.
Mandarin: half an hour spent learning Mandarin using the Rosetta Stone Software on the computer.

Tuesday and Thursday, his To Do List is as follows:

Spelling: one page of Spelling Workout Level C (Grade 3 Level) and a review of misspelled words or creative writing assignment.
Math: one lesson from Singapore Math Level 2B and correction of mistakes in the previous days lesson.
Grammar: one lesson from English for the Thoughtful Child
Reading: half an hour spent reading a book I have assigned to him. These books come from the Sonlight Level 2 Advanced Readers List.
Mandarin: half an hour spent learning Mandarin using the Rosetta Stone Software on the computer.

Friday, his To Do List is as follows:

History: two pages read from The Usborne Book of World History Justice writes a narration page about what he learned in his "Justice's Book of World History" which he is creating and a picture illustrating things he learned.
Science: several pages read from The Usborne Complete First Book of Nature
Art: several pages read from the Come Look with Me series.

We often do a little history on other school days because Justice loves it so much. Justice also draws daily, mostly with pencil crayons. He also reads many books for pleasure throughout the day and night (often staying up past midnight).

Justice is also systematically memorizing the Hidden Words by Baha''llah.

Justice completed the following curriculum during his
Grade 2 school year:

Math: Finished Singapore Math 2A and 2B.
Reading: Read 11 Sonlight Level 2 Advanced Readers (good quality short novels). And many, many books of his own choosing including the Encyclopedia Brown series, the Narnia series and some of the Boxcar Children series.
Writing: We began the year doing dictation twice a week but quickly dropped it. He has enough practice with handwriting doing his other schoolwork and his spelling is above average - I believe because he reads so much. We also started doing Writing Strands 2 but dropped it because it was too difficult a work load.
Spelling: Finished Spelling Workout B and half of Spelling Workout C.
Grammar: Finished English For The Thoughtful Child and Easy Grammar Systems Grade 2 Review.
Science: Read Usborne's First Book of Nature, Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia, and began My Pals are Here Science 3A.
History: Read Usborne's Book of World History from the beginning until the Greek Civilization (the Ancient Civilizations).
Art: We read Come Look With Me: Enjoying Art with Children, A Child's Book of Art and learned some new drawing and colouring skills with Art Skills (the Crayon Set) which we purchased from Sonlight.
Music: We listened to CDs from Putumayo and their Kindermusic classes - sang and danced.
Foreign Language: Finished the 11 lessons of Unit 1 in Rosetta Stone Mandarin. Learned some common phrases in Mandarin and went to Beijing for 2 weeks in the summer and was able to practice those common phrases. We also learned to sing the Baha'i prayer "O God, Guide Me" in Mandarin.

Justice also learned how to manage his finances. Tracking how much allowance he receives on what date, which funds it's allocated to, how much is spent and when, how much he has in each of his funds at all times.

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