New Stuff!!

Two boxes showed up from Calvert this morning, and the child was excited to open them and paw through all her new stuff. She was really excited to see that this year's history does *not* have a workbook like the 4th grade history did--she really did not like how that was set up and we had a few disagreements over getting it done.

In addition to the 5th grade curriculum, I got her the Adventures in Reading, Grade 5 set, which has a number of additional books, most of which slot right into her curriculum. I also got her the Adventures in Art set. We had a difficult time with Art in 4th because I couldn't always envision what the assignment required, and didn't always have the materials needed. With this set, we get a separate lesson book and all the materials needed to do all the projects--including printmaking! I am hoping we can not only use this, but incorporate the lessons in the set with the lessons in the Learning Guide manual. We shall see how it works.

Looking at Calvert's suggested schedule this year, it looks a bit easier to follow for us than last years, and has a nice slot already in it where we can add the Latin and Logic. Gotta love scheduled independent study time :)

We are still waiting for her Math program to get here, but it was ordered from a different company. She is excitedly waiting for that now, along with the extension stuff I ordered from them like a build your own paper tee-pee village and other things like that.

Sadly, I didn't win the drawing for six months free tuition for S-H-I-N-E Middle Grades Collaborative , and I can't afford it this year, but I am making plans to budget for it next year--it looks like a supplemental program in which she could thrive, and would serve the same purpose her Gifted program did in VA.

Plans for the Disney trip in the spring are also underway, and as soon as Disney Youth Program updates with their spring schedule, I am going to see if there is anything in their classes that she might want to do. Among her current career goals currently is the idea of being an Imagineer, so seeing them in action could be pretty interesting for her.

Once I go through her science book for the year I am going to see if any of the Disney Imagineers videos fit what she is doing, or Bill Nye, The Science Guy ones. Hopefully I will be able to get a good price through the Disney Movie Club on them. I know they have some of the Bill Nye ones.
I am starting to print notebooking pages for her now that I have her books in front of me so I know what exactly what she will be covering. I am still trying to figure out what style timeline I want to use, but I think the one from NotebookingPages will let us warp them to what we envision the easiest.

I still need to pull the ancestors I want to include in history for her, but now that I have her history book, I know what time and places to pull.

Ok, I guess I am excited about the new curriculum too. :)