Starting P4/5

Hannah has gone twice through the P3/4 curriculum that we started in February. Nanny Kathy usually does the read alouds in the morning while I do the teaching in the afternoon and Nate does bible and sometimes helps with science/social studies. We talked about whether we should wait until January, but we’re all ready to move on. So we are starting the P4/5 curriculum today. I had already bought everything we needed at the beginning of the year because I was concerned Hannah would be too bored with P3/4. She really enjoyed the stories even though we had already read quite a few of them, and only needed a little bit more academic stimulation. Instead of moving to P4/5, we stuck with it and added in handwriting the first time through and started the Sonlight Language Arts for Kinder the second time through. We aren’t done with LAK yet, so we’ll just keep going through that at Hannah’s pace.

Hannah’s achievements from P3/4 and her completed lapbook are here. I didn’t really take a lot of pictures of her work. She also does a lot of art, those are in her scrapbook album.

P4/5 is called “Exploring God’s World” and is supposed to introduce her to a ton of concepts, cultures, stories, and people. Nothing in depth in any area, but touching on a lot of things to expose her. The science has “experiments”, which I hope Hannah will enjoy. More like exploration and discussion and less like what people normally think of as the mad scientist with the chemicals that go boom. Example, the first one is for her to hold an ice cube, talk about and describe it, and witness as it melts in her hand. 🙂

P4/5 seems to have a little bit more content than P3/4, but I think we’ll be able to keep the schedule we’ve been using already. We’ll have to try to be a little bit more structured in order to achieve our goals for each day. I’ll probably see how this week goes and then decide if we are able keep the pace without stress or if we need to try to cut back in some areas. It’s set up for 36 weeks, which leaves us with lots of time for vacations, sick weeks/days, letting one week take two, or just redoing some of the weeks or experiments after we’ve gotten through other parts. I’ve heard of some families saving all the science until the end (which doesn’t sound like fun to me, but I could see with the experiments taking a little bit more time to set up and do that it is one of the easier areas to wait on).

Following is the list of books in this year:
American Tall Tales
A Treasury of Mother Goose Rhymes
The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book
The Complete Adventures of Peter Rabbit
Milly-Molly-Mandy Story Book
Stories from Around the World
Eric Carle’s Animals Animals
Children’s Book of Virtues
A Child’s Book of Art
The Classic Tales of Brer Rabbit
Uncle Wiggily’s Story Book
Family-Time Bible in Pictures
People
Stories from Africa
Things People Do
The Gods Must be Angry
Then and Now
New Toes for Tia
First Thousand Words
ABC
Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is?
What’s Smaller Than a Pygmy Shrew?
How Do You Lift a Lion?
How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World
Why Do Tigers Have Stripes?
What’s Under the Sea?
The Berenstain Bears’ Big Book of Science and Nature
The Year at Maple Hill Farm
Developing the Early Learner, Volume I, II, III, IV
P4/5 Instructor’s Guide