Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Planning Builder's Fourth Grade Year Part I

Who knows how many parts this series will have? Hence, the part I. I know there's going to be at least a Part II, but as far as breadth of the topic, we could end up on Part XXII. However, I have a family, and children whom I homeschool, so alas, we will never get to see a mere Part X. Mercifully.

Enough musing, let's get ready to plan. The first thing I do when I plan, since I'm a highly visual type, is create a presentation. I do this on a Mac, and I use Keynote, but any good presentation program such as Powerpoint will do.

I scour sites such as Tanglewoodeducation.com, Penny Gardner's book links, this list of living books by grade, my own copies of Books Children Love and The Well Trained Mind, and set to work.

I choose books that not only are important for his level of development and above his reading level, but that also include good values in them and are of literary value. I put the cover of the books so I can immediately recognize, at a glance, what book I will need. It is also visually appealing, which is important to me.

These are the books that we are reading for Literature Read-Alouds this year:

I, Juan de Pareja
Five Children and It
The Jungle Book
Andrew Lang Fairy Books (once a week)
The Phantom Tollbooth
The Wind in the Willows
Little Lord Fauntleroy
Heidi

This list does not include History books that he himself reads. I also have other books for back up if we happen to be done. Next time I can show you what else we are going to do/use for History.