Almost Ready!!!!!

School is going to start very soon here at the Gilliland household.We have been getting ready for this for a few months now. I have been spending pretty much all my time with last minute details of gathering supplies, making lists of what is needed to buy, (you should have seen Mark's face when I said we had everything other than paper, pencils, a few folders, poster board, balloons and plaster of paris-PRICELESS!!!)


For our main core of curriculum we are going with Konos. It is a unit study that incorporates pretty much everything other than math and phonics. Some of the units are heavy on history, some on science, some on art. We are studying Wisdom, which covers electoral process, Founding Fathers of our country, and Safety for the first semester. The Bible portion covers David (which also covers Saul, Bathsheba, Abigail and Nabal and David's sons), Solomon, and Kings of Israel and Judah.For the second semester we are studying Courage which covers the early Christian church, Reformers, and the American Revolution.




We will be doing lots of reading of stories that talk about Wisdom (or lack thereof)


One of the coolest things about Konos is their timeline.

It helps to show where everything "fits" in history. The only disappointing thing to me was that not all of the presidents were represented by a timeline character. So being the perfectionist mom that I am I have created the missing ones. Some of them look pretty good. However, JFK looks somewhat like the mutant love-child of Mr. Spock and Ronald Regan.

from left: Chester A. Arthur, FDR, Eisenhower, JFK


We are planning to read about presidents and their families during this semester.


Since our unit study is not going to cover much in the way of science, we are using Apologia Exploring creation With Astronomy. I must be insane for picking this one. Don't get me wrong-it is fabulous!!!! It is very informative and very God honoring. It is just that my kids (Nathaniel especially) are already such space enthusiasts that I am probably never going to go a whole day without hearing space facts.


Nathaniel and Benjamin really got behind on their English last year at school. (they started saying things like much instead of many etc..) So we are using Shurley English (a year behind their actual school grades) to compensate.


We are using Math U See this year. Nathaniel is doing Zeta, Benjamin is doing Beta, and Samuel is doing Primar. Reading reviews of this you quickly learn that everybody either LOVES or HATES it. There is no middle ground. So far I am in the camp of loving it. I have always thought of myself as being bad at math and that I just could not "get" it. Spending just a few minutes looking at the teacher's manual and watching the video and I get things that I should have gotten many moons ago. I was all excited the other night saying "I can't believe it!!! I GET math!!!!" Mark warned me not to get cocky and I said that I was not being cocky-I was excited and there is a big difference.


One thing I really like about Math U See is the blocks. You can actually see your math problems being built.


For phonics Samuel is learning with Zac the Rat and pals at Starfall. We ordered him some books and and a game, but they also have tons of stuff on their website for FREE. I also like to go to DLTK and Kidzone to get him worksheets for free. I have even used the custom tracer page maker to print Benjamin cursive worksheets of his name, memory verse, and individual letters.


For Bible time, we are supplementing what is suggested by Konos with Faith To Grow on by John MacArthur and using some Beginner's Bible activity cards.



Last but certainly not least- here is what what keeps it all together. My trusty big binder. It has several pockets so I can have one for things to do immediately, plus separate pockets for different types of worksheets (a pocket for colors, one for shapes, one for letters, one for numbers, one for cursive, one for holidays, and more). Without something to keep me organized I can really fall apart quickly.


So there you have it. This is what I have been the last few months. We have learned to hunt and gather supplies. I learned when I got my Rainbow Resource Catalog that I could have saved tons of money by ordering things from them. Of course it came after we already had everything.