John & Samantha: Kolbe Academy

John and I attended a Catholic homeschooling conference last month and after speaking with a representative and looking at curricula, we decided to enroll L & O in Kolbe Academy. It's a private Catholic school in Napa California, but they offer programs for homeschooling families as well. The benefit of having them enrolled is to start creating official records--in the case that we should move to a more strict state, and eventually for high school transcripts when applying at colleges...wow hope that doesn't come for a while!

I liked their program and decided although Lucas is only 5 and would've started Kindergarten this fall, since I have worked with him the past year, I knew he was ready for 1st grade material. So Olivia, although 4, is enrolled as a kindergartener, and Lucas as a first grader. The most convenient part of Kolbe is that they give you daily lesson plans already made up for you. I needed that organization. I bought this binder and thankfully their syllabus and lesson plans were already hole-punched :) Check it out--Olivia has 3 subjects: Language Arts, Math, and Religion (she shares in Lucas' science lessons), and Lucas has 8 subjects:
Math, phonics, spelling, reading, english, religion, science and geography. Therefore, his part of this folder is probably 3/4ths.

The books are many, but the price wasn't bad. It's a 12 month curricula but gives you the freedom of doing school year-round, or on the traditional schedule, and of course you can get extensions if needed. I have deciphered most of the coding for books and paperwork and report cards.
This year's books:

An example of a week's lesson in one subject (we typically do all 8 subjects a day)--This is religion:

I am glad I properly assessed where they are at in their studies and they enjoy it so far. The part I was nervous about was the math program they use is called Singapore Math. The methods used for teaching the basics are a little different than the American method of which I learned and have already begun teaching them. I was hesitant about having them 'un-learn' the way I taught to borrow/carry numbers etc. But so far, Lucas is picking up the lessons quicker than expected without confusion. Singapore math emphasizes mental math, which enables them to quickly do math problems in their head, and not be intimidated by word problems. I guess the American method is more written out with all the carrying and borrowing etc. We will see if this becomes a problem.
This week his math book introduced the concept of "number bonds" which are sums of a given number. I understand the idea behind drilling number bonds into memory, helps to do 'mental math' quickly later on in more difficult arithmetic. Lucas picked it up and easily did this number bond chart! First I asked him for a number bond of 4:

Since he understood, I asked him to make all the number bonds of 6, and he did! To make this more impressive, he is using our toy money I bought at target last week. I am glad he understood the denominations (of pennies, nickels and dimes at least..) and why they are useful :)

This was his chart for number bonds of 10--sorry my camera either takes pictures out of focus (it focuses and then goes back out of focus when I take it..) or the flash is so bright my kids can't keep their eyes open..:(

This was the math book I had him working on 3 weeks ago before we started this curriculum...so I guess this is the "american method" for math basics. I was so proud of Lucas for learning and enjoying math, I hope this new way doesn't turn him off. (sorry don't know why blogger rotated the pic)