"Whatchadoin?" #3, English

English is kinda a funny subject if you ask me.  It contains a myriad of mini-subjects that are taught at different points in the schooling spectrum.  Reading, writing, grammar, spelling, phonics, handwriting, literature, and vocabulary all show up under "English."  To add to the complexity, many of these small components have thier own curriculums or are left out of all in one curricullums.

It can be a bit tricky trying to figure out which components you want to work on for the year.  After debating with myself and weighing the options here is what we've decided to try this year.

First spelling, as a student I was awful at spelling.  Every week I dreaded the pretest, then diligently wrote out the words over and over and over... only to still miss them all on the post-test.  It was terrible!  So as a teacher I put off teaching spelling as long as I could.  When I found out about All About Spelling I was so excited.

This is our third year using the program and I love it.    The combination of using tiles and phonographs with scripted lessons has made the program easy to use and easy to understand.  We will be making a few changes as we go this year.  I want my natural speller to be able to move a bit faster and my just like me speller not to get discouraged.

Next handwriting, cursive for my 5th grader and manuscript for my 2nd grader.  We will be using daily handwriting practice workbooks from Evan-Moor.

I bought the student books this year because, honestly, I got tired of making copies.  Besides with only two students paying more now for something I might not use again doesn't make sense.

For anyone who hasn't used the daily practice books I like the format.  Just a small bit of copy work with a common theme each week.  This will be something the girls can do by themselves while I'm cooking or cleaning.

Finally writing, I found a writing program online that I used last year also.  It has a good balance of writing and grammar.  The only down side is it has to be printed out.  I had a few weeks I forgot to buy ink  last year so we had to skip writing, oops.  This year I printed it all out ahead of time.

We will be taking a break in October and November for NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month). Last year Charry had a blast and wrote a fabulous story.  This year I am more prepared with my Young Writers Guides all printed out.

We will spend October doing activities and developing the story line with the guide.  Then in November they will be on their own creating a novel.

You may have noticed reading and literature are not on the list there are a few reasons for that.  Mostly I haven't found a curriculum I like.  So instead I'm making an effort to read the classics at bed time.  It helps that most classics are available for free on the Kindle. 

So there are the plans, I'm not sure how they will change through out the year but I look forward to finding out.