Core 2

From Life Take 1:


2006-2007: My oldest son is moving right along through the cores at a pace of one per year despite the fact that he is a year younger than the SL recommended age. He loves learning and while it is true that he would get more out of it if he were older, I am still satisfied with what he is retaining. We all get more out of something if we come back to it with a little more wisdom and experience in out lives. That's why I continue to learn from the cores as well.
The boys have been anticipating this core for about 3 months now. They are fascinated with knights and castles at the moment. They can't wait to learn more about them.
Each year, I ask my children what they want to learn or what improvements I can make to their learning experience. This year the request was for more hands-on things to do. I am trying to make their wish come true and have added quite a bit of hands-on things.
Core 2
Readers 2 Intermediate I was surprised to see that this level still contained some level readers. SL tends to schedule these books with light reading and then a longer chapter book and then back to lighter leveled readers throughout the year.
Readers 2 Advanced
Sonlight Science 2 I love SL science but some people may have problems with the dinosaur book SL includes with this level. Pre-read it and decide for yourself whether or not this is a good fit for your family.
Classical Writing - Aesop A We are really enjoying this LA program. It is exactly what our family needed. We made 1 slight change though to better fit my sons needed for not a lot of handwriting in one day. Instead of doing the entire writing project on Friday. We space it out over the week. Monday we do the outline, Tuesday the rough draft, Wednesday we edit, and Friday my son types up his final draft and creates a picture to go along with the Fable. This is working great for us!
Classical Writing - Poetry for Beginners A This was originally recommended to be the second semester to Aesop A. The recommendations for this have recently changed and it has been moved to a second semester with Homer. I have not yet decided what to do with this.
Math-U-See Alpha, Beta, and Gamma? We have tried a ton of math stuff over the year. Please see school subjects for more information on why we choose this for this year. Alpha and Beta are both a review for my son and I am expecting each to take him around 1-2 months to complete.

Primary Grade Math Challenge I love this book! This is a great critical thinking math book and I highly recommend that everyone purchase this no matter what program you are using. It is fun for the kids and challenges them in a way I have seen no other book do. There is a follow-up book to this for older children.

The Story of the Orchestra Well... I am finally getting around to this. About time, right? :-) Debra has a great schedule for this. I will have to see if she will let me share it with all of you are not. If not -- you will have to ask her for it.

Art With A Purpose I found this last year at Rainbow Resource Center for about $5. It is a cheap easy to use art program. You need 2 packets. one to create samples for your child and one for your child. This teaches all the basics of art that I never thought of teaching. It also introduces art terminology. We will be using level 2 this year.

Color the Classics - Composers II There is 1 more book in this series that I am hoping to add to our year and then we have completed this series. I really like it a lot! We will also be finishing up the Christmas one from last year.

Prima Latina The DVD is instrumental for my family in using this program despite the fact that the teacher has a Southern Drawl. So far we are not finding the CD so helpful but that may change as the year goes on. Not all the vocabulary words are included with the flash cards. Teachers manual for this level is optional.

Signing Time I have recommended this several times already but just in case you haven't heard yet. BUY IT!! I love this program for teaching young children American Sign Language. They have a series to teach infants as well. There are free lesson plans and worksheets to use on their website. As well as activities. They are coming out with more and more videos all the time and now it is on PBS as well.

The Amazing Pop-Up Geography Book This is a great book! But for an older child who can be very careful as there are lots of flaps, strings, things to spin, pull, push and more in addition to the pop-ups. This is a really fun book to look at geography. Not sure how educational it is but lots of fun!

Computer Basics This book teaches basic computer terminology and parts. A great introduction to the computer. We will be studying more about computers in the future.

The Kids Guide to First Aid This is great! A simple book that teaches kids the basics from what is an emergency to have to clean a scrap. Includes some hands-on activities as well.

Life Skills for Kids This is one book that I wish I had purchased when my kids were still PK age. Well --2 of them still are but I wish I had it when the oldest was in PK. It has a lot of tips on how to help your children to grow up to be independent in a variety of different ways. Includes suggestions for chores for toddlers.

History Odyssey - Grammar Stage Middle Ages This is a history program that combines CHOW and SOTW along with some hands-on things. Since if it is not in a schedule then it probably won't get done -- I needed this for all the things I plan on using this upcoming year.

Equate A math version of scrabble. We spend a week using this as a review during our math time prior to moving up to the next level book.

Scrabble Junior We are using the junior version with my three year old to teach blending, recognize letters, etc. It is an interesting game we made up. My older one does spelling with this. He could use the regular version but alas -- I went with this to combine them.

Ant Farm We ordered our ants with the coupon we got from Insectlore but never received our ants and we have been waiting for 2 months now. I emailed the company and I got the ants within 3 days of my email. About half died within the first day, the rest died within 4 days. In other words -- our ant far was a big flop!

I Dig Dinosaurs This is so much fun! We got the t-rex version. It took us about 3 nights to un-dig all the bones. Another night to put it together and paint it. I used several books about archeology with this and we recorded our findings using a grid sheet. Guessed how we might put it together and what our dinosaur might look like. We used this along with the first 2 weeks of Science 2 when we were learning about dinosaurs. We ran out of paint. It you are planning on painting your model only 1 color - you will need to buy more.

Hands and Hearts History Kit - Middle Ages Love this, love this, love this! I only wished I had used it last year when so many people on the SL forums recommended it. It is worth the money I spent and more!

and.............


Usborne Books

Here is the list of Sonlight Usborne Books for Core 2 and Science 2.

Usborne Living World Encyclopedia

The Usborne Book of Knowledge

Science Activities, Volume 3

Time Traveler

Usborne Book of World History
Teacher Resources I used for the year are:
These are the books that I purchased for me this year. To help me learn more about homeschooling and to become a better teacher.
When They Rise Up
Generation Joshua
Life Skills For Kids
What Your Third Grader Needs To Know
The Latin Centered Curriculum

Other Supplements:
100 Things to Know about Knights and Castles We got this from the library as an introduction to our new core book. It was great! It has a good overview of the middle ages, quizzes about things covered, and some simple activities to do.

Usborne Supplements:

You can purchase these from you local consultant, retailer, or me!
The Great Castle Search Along the lines of an I spy book. Not a lot of learning is going on but it is fun for the kids and sometimes you just need some fun! The Great History Search Along the lines of an I spy book. Not a lot of learning is going on but it is fun for the kids and sometimes you just need some fun!
Uncle Pete the Pirate (Young Puzzle Adventures)
Uncle Pete's Pirate Adventure (Young Puzzle Adventures)
First Encyclopedia of History (IL)
1001 Things to Spot Long Ago Along the lines of an I spy book. Not a lot of learning is going on but it is fun for the kids and sometimes you just need some fun!
Puzzle Journey Through Time This is a fun book to do but not much learning is happening.
Puzzle Castle This is a fun book to do but not much learning is happening.
Puzzle Dungeon This is a fun book to do but not much learning is happening.
The Usborne Castle Jigsaw Book This is a great book for those who love puzzles!!
Castle of Intrigue Stories of Pirates
Treasure Island (Young Reading CD Packs) My boys love listening to things on CD and these stories are no exception. I tortured my oldest son (according to him) by making him read the book before listening to the CD. : -) The much rather just picture it in their heads without the book.
Gulliver's Travels (Young Reading CD Packs) My boys love listening to things on CD and these stories are no exception. I tortured my oldest son (according to him) by making him read the book before listening to the CD. : -) The much rather just picture it in their heads without the book.
Knights (Young Reading CD Packs) My boys love listening to things on CD and these stories are no exception. I tortured my oldest son (according to him) by making him read the book before listening to the CD. : -) The much rather just picture it in their heads without the book.
Pirates (Young Reading CD Packs) My boys love listening to things on CD and these stories are no exception. I tortured my oldest son (according to him) by making him read the book before listening to the CD. : -) The much rather just picture it in their heads without the book.
The Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor (Young Readers 1)
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (Young Readers 1)
Stories of Knights (Young Readers 1)
See Inside Castles This one comes highly recommended from several people I know. If you want to buy a book about castles -- this is the one to get! This is one of the books on my wish list as well.
Aladdin and his Magical Lamp (Young Readers 1)
True Stories of Pirates better for Core 7
Stories of Pirates (Young Readers 1)
The Story of Castles (Young Readers 2)
The Story of Ships (Young Readers 2)
Tales of King Arthur (Young Readers 2)
Treasure Island (Young Readers 2)
Robinson Crusoe (Young Readers 2)
Gulliver's Travels (Young Readers 2)
Make this Model Trojan Horse
Make this Model Medieval Castle
Stories from Shakespeare
King Arthur
King Arthur's Knight Quest
Tales of Robin Hood
Tales of King Arthur (Paperback Classics)
Elizabeth 1 (Beginners)
Castles (Beginners)
Knights (Beginners)
Knights (IL) (Discovery)
Who Were the Vikings?
What were Castles For?
Alexander the Great (Famous lives)
Florence Nightgale (Famous Lives)
Victorians
Viking World
Castles (IL)
Knight's Handbook
Explorers (Famous lives)