want to start afterschooling next year

[caedmyn]

My 5 year old DD will start going to a private school next year that use A.C.E (Accelerated Christian Education) curriculum and Saxon math. She already knows how to read and write. I'd like to come up with an afterschooling program that focuses on the areas that I feel A.C.E. is weak in (history, science, and literature & writing). I'm kind of at a loss on where to begin though! I have looked a little bit at the Sonlight programs and that seems like the type of program I'd prefer, mostly reading and discussion. So my questions...

 

1. Any suggestions on where to look for or how to put together a program like that to supplement history & science?

 

2. If anyone is familiar with A.C.E. curriculum I'm open to suggestions on other areas or suggestions to work on to supplement it.

 

3. Any other suggestions or links to good reads on starting afterschooling would be appreciated!

[BabyBre]

I'm not familiar with A.C.E, but I am piecing together history from SonLight to use in afterschooling. Here's what I do.

 

I prefer a trivium cycle so, for instance, I'll use SonLight 6 World History Part I for the next two years with ds (grades 4-5) and dd (grades 5-6). This one level of SL covers ancient and medieval history. Using the 4-day SL schedule, we can simply go slower, taking 2 years to finish this 1-year program. I'll dig up the readers and read alouds from the 5-day schedule list and from the WTM lists to fill in if the pace becomes a little too slow for dc.

 

Considering all the subjects we cover in our afterschooling, this allows us to stay on track with a quality program, doing history 2 days a week plus a project I pull from somewhere (SOTW, Kids Discover magazine, etc), and readers and read alouds at bedtime. This has worked well for us so far - it's already perfectly scheduled for me and I don't have to cut anything out.

[fairytalemama]

We have no completion schedule, but here's what we're doing with my 5 year old daughter:

 

1. Finish Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading (my daughter can read too, but I just want to make sure we're totally solid phonics wise). We're at around lesson 190 out of 231.

 

2. Continue to do read alouds at bedtime. I have our read aloud list posted to my blog here which is drawn from Sonlight, Ambleside Online, The Hillsdale Academy, and whatever else we feel like reading ;). We just finished The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe today so we'll be moving on to something else.

 

3. Add in Singapore Math 1A. My dd's school is a public school that teaches using the Montessori method so they use both Montessori math and Everyday Math (which is required by the district). Everyday Math (because of all the horror stories I've heard on this forum) scares me so we'll be working in a little bit of math each week.

 

4. Over the summer we're going to do "Mommy Camp" using Story of the World 1 with the activity guide and R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey Life. I'm just planning on having a good time with it and focusing on all the fun activities with the kids. I haven't purchased these yet, but I have friends that LOVE them. If it goes well, we'll keep doing it every summer.

 

I'm so excited about our summer history and science plans. I'll let everyone know how they go once we get underway. :001_smile: