Curriculum 2011

I am not one who would draw up a yearly curriculum for my homeschool. Instead, i usually let N lead- i follow what he is interested in and cash in on that. That said, i do have a general blueprint in my head so that i know where we're heading. Here's what we'll be doing in 2011.

Reading

N is profficient in his reading. He can read a book independently. So i am just going to continue to read and read and read to increase his vocabulary.

Spelling

N can now commit to spelling. I will be doing more of this next year using my Melissa and Dough wooden alphabets.

Handwriting

From my last post on this till now, N has been showing improvements. He can now write 'i', 't', 'T' and 'o' on paper! Im encouraged! I'll be doing lots of alphabet tracing on chalkboards, doodle board and iphone of course -no tracing on paper (i'll explain why later)!

Mandarin

I have been overly reliant on his mandarin teacher. After some review, i realised the teacher has been teaching him words that he already knows. So there's not much progress in this area. I will be using my mandarin flashcards that i bought some time ago and we'll do some activities with it. We'll also up our reading and conversing in mandarin (urrrg).

Maths

N is at a level that i never intended him to be. This year alone he has learnt how to count up to 1000, polygons and add & subtract simple equations from just knowing numbers up to 20 and basic shapes in the begining this year. Honestly, i think he is going too fast for my liking. I may want to slow down and just do more revision rather than moving on to the next topic. Then again, if N shows strong interest to move onward, i will still follow his lead. Frankly, i do not know what's next in this area. We'll see. But in general , im using Singapore's curriculum for primary school as a guide.

Geography

N still shows very strong interest in this area. His favourite book is still the Atlas book. We will be using this book to study the capital cities of major countries and famous landmarks around the world. We'll also continue with our sorting countries by continent activity. I have bought 2 sets of (world & Europe) map puzzles, we'll be using that to identify the locations of major countries on the map.