This is Week #3 of our Homeschool Vlog Hop on YouTube and so far its has been going better than I ever could have expected. We have 31 participants and counting. For those interested in seeing what the parents have posted so far here is the link to our every growing Playlist . So because this year my family is taking on a majority unit study approach to implementing our curriculum I ended up with two video post that were twenty minutes each. And I still was not able to share everything and all my resources. So I decided to share a more detailed description of this years curriculum here on my blog along with helpful links for those interested.
Math
2yr Old son- Montessori type math activities from my Pintrest boards Montessori Inspired and Preschool/ Kinder Activities
4yr Old daughter- Singapore Essential Math KB and Primary Mathematics U.S. edition 1A she will also join along with my 2yr old for some Montessori type math activities as well
6yr Old son- Singapore Primary Mathematics U.S. edition 2A and 2B
9yr Old daughter- Singapore Mathematics U.S. edition 3A and 3B
Extras:
Scholastics Mega- Fun Card- Game Math by Karol L. Yeatts
Primary Mathematics Challenging Word Problems 3
Base 10 Book( came in the base ten starter kit by Learning Resources )
Big Book of Math by Dinah Zike
Activities from my Pintrest Board Homeschooling Math and Notebooking Math
* We use the Home Instructors Guide with all levels of the Singapore Primary Mathematics U.S. edition. Half of the program can be found within the instructors guide. Singapore Essential Math K levels include instructions at the bottom of each page so their is no separate instructors guide. So for a complete year of math lessons you will have 2 Home Instructors Guides, 2 textbooks, and 2 workbooks with the Singapore Primary Mathematics Program. Placement Test are available on the Singapore Math website.
Unit Studies
* All of my Unit Studies have a Pinterest board attached to it. I am using Pintrest extensively this school year to organize all of the free and cheap online resources available to us homeschoolers. In the past I have had hundreds of freebies bookmarked in my favorites on the computer but never fully utilized them to their greatest potential. Pinterest is a great organizational tool that I highly recommend for anyone to get the most out of the online resources. I also include pins of our library list of each unit by pinning the titles from Amazon. Since I am still gathering materials for my unit as time goes on some boards have lots of pins whereas I have not began to pin on others.
Here are some of the spine resources that will be used in our units as well as the Pintrest resources:
Big Book of Science by Dinah Zike
Classical Conversations Foundations Curriculum Guide 3rd edition by Leigh Bortins
Usborne Science Encyclopedia
Usborne Encyclopedia of the Natural World
Ball Blue Book: Guide to Canning and Preserving
The African- American Atlas
Science Smart
National Geographic World Atlas
Newsweek Historical Atlas Vol. 1 and 2
Janice VanCleave's Geometry for Every Kid
Janice VanCleave's Magnets
Janice VanCleave's Physics for Every Kid
Janice VanCleave's Electricity
Flying Bird Origami by Yoshihide Momotani
A Kid's Guide to African American History by Nancy I. Sanders
African American History: A Journey of Liberation by Molefi Kete Asante
Fall Session Units:
Olmecs
Geometry
Energy and Heat
Canning and Food Preservation
Hunting and Fishing
Magnets
Mayans
Camping
Incas
Electricity
Winter Session Units:
Aztecs
Forces, Friction, and Motion
Weapons and Fire Safety
Central America
Gravity
Sewing
South America
Pressure
Floating and Sinking
Caribbean Islands
Spring Session Unit:
Tracking and Hiking
Liquid Density
Livestock Care
Area
Light and Sound
Herbs and Wild Edibles
Levers and Pulleys
Primitive Skills
Velocity and Acceleration
Water Power
Language Arts
2yr Old son- He will be using activities once again from our Pintrest boards Montessori Inspired and Preschool Kinder Activities. His main goals and objectives are to cover the pre- reading skills of: letter recognition, letter sounds, upper and lowercase recognition, turn books right side up, identify parts of a book(pictures, words, pages, etc...), matching, sorting, and sequencing. He also have the goals and objectives to cover pre- writing skills of: trace lines with fingers(straight, curved, zig zag), trace lines with crayon/ pencil(straight, curved, zig zag), cutting, folding, sifting and pouring, play dough play, and transferring objects. So the activities we select will focus on meeting these goals.
4yr Old daughter- Her language arts focus will be phonics and handwriting. For phonics we are using our set of Hooked On Phonics that I have already gone through twice before with the two older kids. She started level 1 or the k level some last year but we are still working through. So that is where we are starting out. Its an older edition cause it was gifted to me from my mom from when my younger sister used it back when she was in 2nd grade. lol! We have never used the audio or CD Roms. We prefer to go through it together.I have a 2part video series on teaching phonics if you are interested. Its Phonics 101 pt. 1 and Phonics 101 pt. 2. With the information in these videos I demonstrate how to teach phonetic reading regardless if you purchase a curriculum or not. Although its a complete program and doesn't require it we use supplements like Starfall or the activities I went over in this video I did on Phonics Activities.
For handwriting we are going to finish up or Kumon Workbooks on Upper Case letters and Numbers. After that we will use copywork from children's poems, quotes by famous African Americans from this site here, and passages from our African- American Read Aloud Stories book.
6yr Old son- My sons main focus for language arts this year will be handwriting, writing composition, grammar, spelling, and Latin vocabulary. I did not include reading comprehension cause that will be covered through the unit studies with all the read aloud and research books.
Handwriting we will use copywork from the same resources as my 4yr old. He also has half of his Handwriting Without Tears 3rd grade Cursive book to finish up from over the summer.
For writing composition our focus will be on: books reports fiction and nonfiction, formal and informal letter writing(he has a penpal), thank you notes, and developing a strong paragraph. I will be using a spiral notebook to keep the writings. I will have to come back another time to explain how I go about teaching writing cause I use my own methods. I am not drawn to any particular writing curriculum and I am not found of writing prompts either. But that is just my style. For grammar we will focus on: eight parts of speech, synonyms and antonyms, homophones, homonyms, and homographs, dictionary skills, and proof reading. We will be notebooking our grammar lessons in a spiral notebook. I will uses various resources to help teach the concepts. Here are those resources:
Rod and Staff English Grade 2
First Language Lessons level 1& 2
Our Mother Tongue by Nancy Wilson
Pintrest board Homeschooling Language Arts
Pintrest board Notebooking Language Arts
For spelling we will use techniques and list found in: Uncovering The Logic of English Language by Denise Eide and Spellbound Phonic Reading and Spelling by Elise T. Rak.
We are still working our way through Prima Latina for Latin vocabulary so we will continue on with that. They love doing the Latin too.
9yr Old daughter- Our language arts focus for this year will be writing composition, grammar, spelling, and latin vocabulary. Just like with my 6yr old the reading comprehension will be covered in the unit studies. She does like to use the Pathway Readers and workbooks as well for fun. I don't require it though. So that is some extra reading comprehension as well. We completed Handwriting Without Tears 4th grade Cursive Success at the beginning of last year so we have transitioned from handwriting and copywork to complete focus on writing composition. So for writing composition our goals and objectives are: book reports nonfiction and fiction, formal and informal letter writing, thank you notes, using an outline, developing strong paragraphs, story writing, types of poetry. For grammar our goals and objectives are: eight parts of speech, sentence diagramming subjects and predicates, sentence diagramming compound subjects and predicates, synonyms and antonyms, homophones, homographs, homonyms, dictionary skills, types of sentences, proof reading skills, types of literature, literary terms, using a thesaurus, and utilizing part of a newspaper. Here are the resources we will use to meet these objectives:
Rod and Staff English Grade 3
First Language Lessons level 3 workbook
Grammar and Diagramming Sentences by garlic press
Our Mother Tongue by Nancy Wilson
For Spelling and Latin Vocabulary we are using eh same resources as my 6yr old. They do those lessons together.
Spanish
Mango Languages(Using Free version through our Public Library)
* We will use multiple free resources which I have been compiling our Spanish Homeschooling Pintrest Board. I have chosen to set up the extension activities in a Montessori classroom format on a shelf in our homeschool room.
Extracurricular
* This year I decided to schedule 30mins out of our homeschool day to dedicate to all the things we never seem to get around to otherwise. These are not formal subjects but just all the extras that make homeschooling fun. These are the more child lead activities and not anything required. But I like to give some preselected or suggested choices cause not all children are good with coming up with ideas on their own. So they can select for any of these areas for the extracurricular timeframe.
Art- Pintrest Homeschooling Art Board
Music- My oldest daughter was gifted a keyboard from granddad for last years birthday and has yet to learn to use it. Thanks to one of the ladies on the Vlog Hop I found out about the free resource for teaching kids piano called FreePianoLessons4Kids.
Typing- We use Dance Mat Typing
Handicrafts- Pintrest Kids Crafts Board
Computer Games- Here are some of the kids favorite sites to visit:
SoftSchools
The Little Animal Activity Center
Grammar Blast
IXL
Number Bond Machine
Arcademic Skill Builders
MathORama
Okay now that I have layed all this out on the table its time for a little DISCLAIMER!!!!
- I do not expect to get all of these unit studies done in a typical 180 day homeschool year. We school year round and there is a fair amount of units listed to keep us busy for months.
- I did not purchase all of my core books and spine books brand new or all this school year. I have had some of these items sitting in a box or on my shelf of years and have just decided to incorporate them into this years lessons. I also shop very frugal for the items I have purchased this year using penny items on Amazon, used book sales and curriculum sales, thrift stores, library sales, etc... I am making the rest of my resources for free or cheap using idea on Pintrest. So need to go into a panic thinking that a in order to successfully homeschool a large brood like mine you have to dish out hundreds of dollars in cash. Just not true.
- You have probably notice I did not refer to my children's grade levels at all in my descriptions and I am using varying levels of materials. Well that is because we dont use grade levels in our homeschool. I don't find them to be necessary. I just go by the children's ability levels rather than focus on an arbitrary grade level approach that is purely based off the child's biological age and says nothing about them as an individual. My thoughts and my way of looking at it. It doesn't have to be yours.
- Please keep in mind that even though I have a lot of things listed for my 2 and 4yr old children that does not mean they are going to be doing a "Formal" homeschool year. I just have things planned for them but I do not have any certain expectations of them completing a certain amount of work before the year is out. I do short lessons that are focused and straight to the point.I just make the learning materials available for them. A lot of times they want to join in for school but sometimes they don't. And that is fine will me also.
- This is just a template or a plan. I have learned over our homeschool years that plans change and flexibility is the key. So I am okay if all of what I wrote here somehow goes a totally different direction. That happens sometimes. But I like have a starting point and some sort of game plan in the beginning. Even if you have to put things to the side for a while you because you have your plan written down you can always go back to it later.
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