Sunday, August 9, 2015

Play-based Scope and Sequence - THP Giveaway

So many people expressed interest in a Scope and Sequence for A Year of Playing Skillfully (AYPS) that I thought I would give it a shot! Below I provided an example of how I organized the first month, September, which you can receive as a free trial from their website, isn't that fun? [September Free Trial]

And in publishing it I decided there could be no better time for a book giveaway.  Now I realize that most of you who are navigating to this post already own The Homegrown Preschooler - and know how awesome it is - so this is your time to share it with your friends! 

By "Scope and Sequence" I mean a simple outline set up by week that gives a suggestion of what activities to complete together.  I did my best to group activities by a logical theme and order.  If you have purchased the entire curriculum and would like assistance putting together a sequence that works for your family, please feel free to contact me.  I am happy to help.

Click the link or the picture for your own PDF that outlines the first month of AYPS.

A Year of Playing Skillfully

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MDfKJ73cYhkfIoxhwJ16RIg4uc2qTP1boZCfyQo9NeY/pub?output=pdf

 The Homegrown Preschooler Giveaway

 
Now for the added bonus - don't have your own copy of The Homegrown Preschooler yet? Leave a comment below telling me why you love Play-Based Learning or a suggestion of how to improve the Scope and Sequence.  I will draw a winner and ship out the book to you in time for the new school year.

As mentioned previously - I typically post our week's lessons here as a reference point for myself and my husband, like this: Week at a Glance.  You are welcome to follow along.  And I am slowly but surely getting back to crafting, sewing, and knitting so a few of those posts will hopefully come along too. Enjoy!

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Scope & Sequence (In Progress)

For this year we are preparing for First Grade (6 y/o girl - G) and Preschool (almost 4 y/o boy - J). We are now officially required by Texas to include Reading, Writing, Spelling, Math, and Civics lessons into our schoolwork, not that we weren't including this previously, but now we have to be able to prove it.

G is reading right at a Kindergarten level and loves the Hooked on Phonics program.  She is a Math whiz and Singapore Math works well for her.  She enjoys seat work that "feels like school".

J disagrees.  He's very active but has just recently taken an interest in his sister's seat work.  He plays well on his own, which is good because sister likes to have absolute silence when working on seat work, but unfortunately brother's independent play time does not always coordinate with her desire for silence.  Handwriting has also been a challenge so we took some time off and will be returning to letter formation this year.

In an effort to address both their needs and integrate programs I am working on a Scope and Sequence for our activities and lessons.  It also helps should I ever have to present our curriculum to the state. Brother wants to do anything that sister does, but sometimes that interferes with both of their learning.  I plan to use a Quiet Box to keep him learning in a separate space from his sister when she needs to focus.

We are using:
I supplement from a number of sources, such as Sid the Science Kid coordinated Science lessons and Doodles Ave Lonestar State coloring books for Civics lessons.

I split the organization into three pages:
  • First Grade (items only G completes; J joins for Shared Reading)
  • Preschool (items only J completes, G joins for Literacy at her choice)
  • Combined
These are a work-in-progress that I will update with additional activities and links over the next week or two.  We intend to start after Labor Day with our new school year.

A few things to note - since we live in Texas certain activities are earlier/later than may be usual in other parts of the nation.  For example, we have to pick apples early, but our foliage won't change until very late.

Very shortly I will also post a weekly outline similar to what we used last semester: Week at a Glance