My Body: This is a huge hit. We traced Mia's body on butcher paper. The book provides organs to copy, color, cut out and place on the body. We do one organ each day, which provides great motivation to get to the school room and get started. I don't know what I'll do when we're finished (which will be tomorrow). The book contains blurbs about each organ, but we're using different library books, such as Usborne First Encyclopedia of the Human Body, to add more depth. Since the book is reproducible, I'm sure we will revisit this project in a year or two.
Horizons Math: So far, we both like this even though it's largely been review to this point. We're 24 lessons in and haven't run up against much that is new. But they are beginning to introduce money, time, and addition, so we'll see how that goes.
Graded readers: Mia can read about any word you put in front of her, but needs lots of practice with reading fluency. After wasting $18 on the sweetest little set of hard cover phonics readers that she absolutely refused to read, I discovered that the Step Into Reading and All Aboard Readers that we already had (or that the library has by the hundreds) were the way to go. All that repetition in the phonics readers is just coma-inducing boring. Apparently lots of kids like it, but not mine.
Not Working:
History for Little Pilgrims: I was looking for a simple overview of history, since Mia has no interest in the various historical periods like pioneers or ancient Egyptians that seem to interest so many other kids. This book seemed to fit the bill, but it is way too religious for us. Mia's been traumatized by the continual mention of "your history, which will end when your time on earth ends..." Seriously, do we need to dwell on death with a kindergartner? It's a strange combination of too old for her (heavy theological concepts), and too young (not enough detail). Written for the four-year-old future divinity student.
Update: Body project complete:
