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This year will be our fourth year homeschooling. I’m doubling my students and will have kids in fifth, third, first and kindergarten! I am really thankful for our public school experiences, but also excited to see how they grow back at home. This time around, I have much more confidence in my abilities as a teacher. I’ve been chipping away at this all summer, picking up books (I got probably 75% used) and marking up lots of blank calendars! Planning is my jam – now to have the discipline to complete it.
As anyone who has ever even dipped a toe into homeschooling has seen, there are A LOT of amazing choices out there and it’s really tempting to try all.the.things. My personal goal for the school year is to be confident in the curriculum I’ve chosen and not compare/question my decisions when I see the next shiny new thing. That said, I am also allowing myself the option to add a few things as we go: Shakespeare, maybe a foreign language, a few extra-curricular activities (martial arts?), a coding program for M, etc. We don’t have to begin every single thing on Day #1.
Below is the plan for Term One, or the goals of the first twelve weeks of school. We may complete all of it or maybe just some, but it’s helpful for me to see it all laid out in bullet form.
TERM ONE: August 21-November 10
MORNING BASKET
- Aesop’s Fables
- The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter
- Once Upon a Time Saints
- Leading the Little Ones to Mary
- Poems to Memorize (I’m hoping to win them over with a few funny ones first!):
- “About the Teeth of Sharks” by John Ciardi
- “The Goops” by Gelett Burgess
- “Spaghetti, Spaghetti” by Shel Silverstein
- Read Alouds
FIFTH GRADE HISTORY
Spine: Beautiful Feet’s Modern and US History program
I’m stretching this guide out a bit and estimating that it will last us over a year, maybe two. We’re spending our first term entirely on the Civil War!
Books, Field Trips and Projects:
- Across Five Aprils
- The Perilous Road
- Iron Thunder
- Arms and Equipment of the Civil War
- Mr. Lincoln’s High-Tech War
- The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Carver: A Life in Poems
- Dear Austin: Letters from the Underground Railroad
- Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt
- Barefoot: Escape on the Underground Railroad
- watch Follow the Drinking Gourd (told by Morgan Freeman) on Amazon Prime
- learn (memorize?) the Gettysburg Address
- Lincoln’s Last Days: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever
- Chasing Lincoln’s Killer
- watch The Ultimate Civil War Series on Amazon Prime
- field trip to one of the local battlefields
- attend a living history reenactment
- Project Week/”Exams”
K-THIRD GRADE HISTORY
Spine: Beautiful Feet’s Early American History program
I’m stretching this guide out too and hoping to complete in two years. Term one will focus on early explorers and Columbus.
Books and Projects:
- St. Brendan and the Voyage Before Columbus
- Leif the Lucky
- d’Aulaire’s Book of Norwegian Folktales
- Into the Unknown: How Great Explorers Found Their Way by Land, Sea, and Air
- watch The Secret of Kells
- watch How to Train Your Dragon
- Columbus
- Christopher Columbus and the Age of Exploration for Kids: With 21 Activities
MATH
- 5th grade: Teaching Textbooks 5 (maybe too easy? we’ll see as we go)
- 3rd grade: Teaching Textbooks 3
- 1st grade: Abeka 1 workbook for now (still determining whether he prefers workbooks or more hands on manipulatives)
- Kindergarten: Abeka K5 workbook for now
- Manipulatives and games for the little two
BIG KIDS LANGUAGE ARTS & WRITING
- Brave Writer Arrow Guides
- Brave Writer Partnership Writing Projects
- Project One: Secret Codes
- Project Two: Personal Timeline
- Project Three: Homonym Minibook
LITTLE KIDS READING & PHONICS
- J: All About Reading Level 1 (probably too easy, but will help with confidence and he’ll move through it quickly)
- S: All About Reading Pre-Reading
- tons and tons of picture books from home and the library
FIFTH GRADE SCIENCE
Spine: Beautiful Feet’s History of Science program
Books:
- The Picture History of Great Inventors
- The Way Science Works
- Archimedes and the Door of Science
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Along Came Galileo
K-THIRD GRADE SCIENCE
RELIGION
The three big boys will also be attending religious education at our parish.
- M: 57 Stories of Saints
- M: Fulton Sheen notebooking curriculum
- My personal reading: Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen
- D: A Catholic Child’s Illustrated Lives of the Saints
- J&S: New Catholic Picture Bible, Picture Book of Saints and Once Upon a Time Saints
GEOGRAPHY
We are focusing on the continent of Africa this year, learning about one country a week. As a family, we will be completing a notebook of all we discover.
Spine: The Africa Book and the Discover Africa Notebooking Packet
Term One Countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Senegal, Mali, the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopia
Books and Projects:
- Africa is Not a Country
- Master Man: A Tall Tale of Nigeria
- Pretty Salma: A Little Red Riding Hood Story from Africa
- Head, Body, Legs: A Story from Liberia
- Kofi and his Magic
- The Hatseller and the Monkeys
- Counting Chickens
- My Father’s Shop
- We’re Sailing Down the Nile
- cooking African cuisine with recipes from Global Table Adventure
ART APPRECIATION
- Simply Charlotte Mason’s Winslow Homer portfolio
- Winslow Homer (Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists)
- Free Art for the big kids with How to Draw Cool Stuff: A Drawing Guide for Teachers and Students
POETRY TEATIME
The plan is to bake something delicious on Wednesdays and have special tea (or hot cocoa!) time in the afternoon. For term one, we’re going to learn about different poem types, enjoy them aloud and maybe even create a few ourselves. Very low-key and (hopefully!) fun.
Spine: Child’s Introduction to Poetry: Listen While You Learn About the Magic Words That Have Moved Mountains, Won Battles, and Made Us Laugh and Cry
YEAR OF PLAYING SKILLFULLY
This preschool-ish (it’s for ages 3-7) curriculum is primarily for S and TJ, but I think J will be interested in some of the activities too. I’m having my big boys help with the games. I’m really hoping this will be the catalyst to making many memories as a family.
A quick note: Just because we have chosen to homeschool our children does not mean that I am anti-other forms of education. Not at all! We were very blessed to have wonderful teachers in public school last year and I’m so grateful for the time, effort (and money!) that they invested in my kids. Having been on both sides of the schooling coin now, if you are sending your kids out into the world this fall, can I offer one little piece of wisdom? Don’t let the school have all the fun. If your son comes home exploding with excitement over learning about the Civil War, head to the library to check out tons of books on the subject. Offer to take him to a live reenactment that weekend. Maybe your daughter thinks science experiments are really cool and complains in passing that they don’t do enough in the classroom. Do a quick Pinterest search and grab the ingredients for your kitchen scientist. Buy a book on Amazon and leave it on her bed to discover. In this way, regardless of where our children spend the majority of their day, we as parents still get to give our children the gift of curiosity and wonder. And time. In our busy busy culture, I think that’s so important too.
Since this is a blog about my life and my family, I’m sure I’ll have many posts about what we’re learning and reading. My hope is that it may also help mothers, homeschooling or not, with ideas for their families too. Instead of writing it off as “Snooze! Another homeschool post. Doesn’t apply to me!”, I hope you’ll instead maybe use it as inspiration or bookmark a few things you know your kids will enjoy. I’ll do some of the legwork – you enjoy the memory-making!