Oh my goodness, I can’t believe another year has gone by, and it’s time to start planning for the 2015-16 school year! I’ve had so many requests for our curriculum choices, so I thought I better put up a post with our choices for next year.
Group and Independent work
I’m listing the full curriculum per grade level below, and anything you see in orange is a group activity. This means that we do it together with all of kiddos combined. I like to choose a variety of both teacher led, independent, and group curriculum so that I’m not too overwhelmed with teaching 4 students at different levels all at the same time. Group activities are done together, and I just expect a little different level of work out of my children depending on their grade and skill level.
Announcing…
But first I’d like to announce the Teeny Tot’s new blog name! Since I’ve started blogging back in 2008, you’ll see that the teeny tot has gotten just a wee big bigger. And since she really isn’t a teeny tot anymore, I’d like to present to you her new and much more grown up alias…presenting Miss Lady Bug!
And yes, I just cried a little.
It was fun finding photos of her for this post. I don’t know if you can tell, but in the photo on the left she’s sitting in one of our workboxes. Her favorite activity used to be dumping out the contents of the boxes and sitting in them. That and climbing up them. Our workboxes took quite a beating that year. Ahh…those were the days!
But she’s all big and independent now. Doesn’t need me as much, and can do just about everything on her own. But she still has the same great smile, and loves hugs and kisses. So I guess I’ll have to be okay with my baby growing up! If you’d like to take a trip down memory lane you can grab a box of tissues and browse through my Teeny Tot School Posts.
But moving on…here is her curriculum for the year. She’s in first grade this year, and wow. For some reason prek-kindergarten always seems like they’re still babies. But first grade. Man. Big kid in the house!
Miss Lady Bug: 1st Grade
- Daily Learning Notebook She’ll be using the Elementary level manuscript version.
- Art: Combo of World’s Greatest Artists 2 , Home Art Studio, and See the Light Art DVDs
- Bible: Grapevine Traceable Units & Word of Life Challenger Quiet Time devotion
- Handwriting: BJU Handwriting 1 Worktext
- Literature: Classical Literature Units (We’ll do read alouds using books from my Vol. 1 list)
- Math: Math U See Alpha, Kumon Dollars & Cents, Kumon Telling Time
- History: The Renaissance & Reformation (We do this as a group)
- Music: World’s Greatest Composers Vol 1 (Continued from last year)
- Language/Phonics: Abeka Letters & Sounds 1, Language 1, & Phonics Road Level 1 (A new product we’re reviewing!)
- Reading: Abeka 1 readers
- Spelling: Spelling You See B & All About Spelling Level 1 (for phonics rules memorization)
- Science: Expedition Earth Geography/Science Curriculum
- Piano: Teach Yourself Piano
- P.E. : Swim Team & Co-op
- Vocabulary: Vocabulary Workshop Grade 1 Level Red (This is a test I’ve never done vocab in grade 1 before, so it might be a bust. TBD)
Tinkerbell: 4th Grade
- Daily Learning Notebook: She’ll be doing the Cursive Notebook this year.
- Art: Combo of: World’s Greatest Artists 2 , Home Art Studio, and See the Light Art DVDs
- Bible: Grapevine Bible Study & Word of Life Challenger Quiet Time devotion
- Spelling: All About Spelling & Spelling You See Level C
- English/Grammar: BJU English 4
- Reading: Abeka Read & Comprehend Skill Sheets Level 4 (I use these to test comprehension and speed.)
- Math: Math U See Delta
- History: The Renaissance & Reformation
- Literature: Classical Literature Units
- Music: World’s Greatest Composers Vol 1 (Continued from last year)
- Science: Expedition Earth Geography/Science Curriculum & maybe a scientist unit if we can fit it in!
- P.E.: Swim Team, Hockey, & Co-op
- Handwriting: Spelling You See (Since it is mostly copy work, I think it works well for handwriting practice too.)
- Typing: Typing Web (This is a free online program and works well!)
- Piano: Teach Yourself Piano
- Vocabulary: Vocabulary Workshop (Orange Grade 4)
- Writing: Institute for Excellence in Writing (We do this as a group and will be using IEW Group A Continuation next year).
Turbo: 6th Grade
- Art: Combo of: World’s Greatest Artists 2 , Home Art Studio, and See the Light Art DVDs
- Bible: Grapevine Bible Study & Word of Life Challenger Quiet Time devotion
- English/Grammar: BJU English 5
- History: The Renaissance & Reformation
- Literature: Classical Literature Units & Book Shark (I will be specifically selecting a list of appropriate books for my kids from this resource since it was free through our options program!)
- Math: Math U See Zeta
- Music: World’s Greatest Composers Vol 1 (Continued from last year)
- P.E.: Swim Team & Hockey
- Photography: The Foto Finch Elementary Curriculum (Review coming soon!)
- Reading: Read & Comprehend Skill Sheets 6
- Science: Expedition Earth Geography/Science Curriculum & maybe a scientist unit if we can fit it in!
- Spelling: BJU Spelling 6 (mainly for list practice), & Spelling You See D (which also doubles as handwriting)
- Typing: Typing Web
- Vocabulary: Vocabulary Workshop (Level A, Grade 6)
- Writing: Institute for Excellence in Writing Group A Continuation
Strawberry Shortcake: 7th grade
- Art: Combo of: World’s Greatest Artists 2 , Home Art Studio, and See the Light Art DVDs
- Bible: Grapevine Bible Study & Word of Life Challenger Quiet Time devotion
- English/Grammar: BJU English 7
- History: The Renaissance & Reformation
- Literature: Classical Literature Units & Book Shark (From our options program)
- Math: Math U See Pre-Algebra (yikes!)
- Music: World’s Greatest Composers Vol 1 (Continued from last year)
- P.E.: Swim Team
- Photography: The Foto Finch Composition
- Science: Expedition Earth Geography/Science Curriculum & maybe a scientist unit if we can fit it in!
- Spelling: Spelling You See E
- Typing: Typing Web
- Vocabulary: Vocabulary Workshop (Level B, Grade 7)
- Writing: Institute for Excellence in Writing Group A Continuation
Extra-Curricular & Group Activities:
We do writing as a group with my 4th, 6th, and 7th graders together. We’ll be continuing on with Institute for Excellence in Writing Group A Continuation program for next year.
We’ll also be using the The Renaissance & Reformation time traveler unit, after we finish up with our Middle Ages one from last year.
And everyone is super excited to be going through my Expedition Earth Geography/Science Curriculum as well this year!
Here are a few other things we do on the side, and I’ll post our schedules by grade as well soon!
- Options: This is a once a week co-op that we go to through our school district. Classes for my younger kiddos are mostly elective types like Spanish, science, art, music, & PE. Strawberry Shortcake has cool things like speech & debate, drama, computers, yearbook, literacy in film, home economics, and game theory.
- Keepers of the Faith
- Contenders of the Faith
- Co-Op: DI Instant Challenges This is a once a month group of friends who get together, previously our LEGO group. We’re going to try making our own set of instant challenges for our co-op this year using the DI list as a guide.
- Hockey & Swimming year round
Whew! Summer is blazing by, so I should probably go get some of this stuff planned eh?
Need HELP GETTING STARTED????? Get your copy of Homeschooling 101: A guide to getting started!
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Need MORE IDEAS? Check out the awesome curriculum available on my website! Aside from the preschool and kindergarten curriculum, all of my units are geared towards elementary aged students from about kinder-6th grade.
Thank you so much for sharing! I have five kids, one with special needs, that I am “trying” and hopefully succeeding in homeschooling and we are using Math U See. I’m concerned about the lack of independent work and them really learning as they get older with me needing to be there and instruct them, which isn’t one of my strong suits. (Math ) I see that you have older kids in the Math U See can you give me any positive/negative any sort of how you use it and if you feel it’s working or how much one on one you have to do with their math. I was considering using a different program that isn’t just worksheets or with instruction that doesn’t require me “teaching” so much. Thx in advance! God Bless.
Hi Rachael,
Typically I have to help them out on the first day just because they’re learning a new concept. But after that it’s fairly independent the rest of the week with questions from there here and there. I don’t really “teach” them for math, they watch the DVD video on Monday, then do worksheet A. Then on Tuesday they do worksheet B, and so on. I am mainly there to help if they have questions, but don’t formally teach it myself. Which is a huge time saver for me!
I’m considering homeschooling our 2 girls. I have been researching homeschooling and it just seems so overwhelming to me. There are so many different curriculums to use. How did you get started and were you just as overwhelmed as i feel? How did you pick the curriculums you use now? Thank you!
Hi Erica!
Thanks for always being a wealth of great information. You’ve helped me along in many seasons of homeschooling my then 3 now almost 6 kiddos. I’m curious, do you order the teacher guides for BJU or just the Student Worktext? I’m considering BJU for my 2nd & 4th graders. Thanks for your help!
Hi Erica
I noticed in your Creation timeline download that it goes with Mystery of History Vol 1? How did you find that curriculum compared to Renaissance and Reformation? I am also wondering how you found the Picture Smart Bible that you tried and All About Reading.? Did you stop them as they werent working or did you finish them?
Also do you spend much time out of the house doing extra hschool classes etc. I find it hard to find the balance in the day of book work, shopping and classes?
I think Lady Bug is a great name for Teeny Tot too. I really appreictae this site and the advice you give and the opportunity to look at you curriculums. I recommend your site to everyone it has been instrumental in my sanity and so encouraging.
Blessings
I’m really liking the Renaissance and Reformation history, it’s really hands on and has a lot of fun projects 🙂 I tried MOH and had a hard time planning everything out, but I’ve also had friends who used it and loved it! So I think it just depends on what you’re looking for.
The Picture Smart Bible is okay, but I felt like it was an overview of the books of the Bible, and assumed that you already read them all before starting. I thought there would be reading assignments, then coloring to go with it. But it was more like a “here’s what happened” now color this type thing. So I think it would be great if you read the whole book first, then did the coloring pages.
We aren’t using the AAR program this year, but I do like it. They just sent me AAR 4 to review, and my 4th grader thinks it’s fun, so she might start doing readers now, we’ll see.
We do extra chores either in the afternoons, or mostly on weekends since sports are starting now and we don’t have much time during the week for much else! We do laundry daily, and dishwasher unloading as needed during the week. But cleaning is mostly on weekends.
Thanks for suggesting homeschoolinginthewoods we have just started their Knights lap book as an intro prior to doing their Middle Ages unit. Do you think we would need to do Ancient Egypt first? We are also starting your artists and scientists curriculum so set for an exciting time. We have also discovered art ventures.com.au -a really fun drawing/painting lessons. Worth looking into as they have samples to do.
Also don’t forget to change Teeny tots name in the header. Blessings
Hi, we are new to homeschooling. It has been a challenge trying to figure whats best for our family. After looking through your blog and many other sites, we got inspired by your way of homeschooling and will be incorporating many of the same choices you have made. SO thank you so much for being such a great help!!!! I asked you about buying the teachers manuel for spelling u see on instagram and you recommended that I buy it for Level B. Thank you for that. we will be starting our Expedition earth Next week, yay, we are excited. My question now is about English. I see that you are using BJU, which I researched and think it would be a great start for my 2nd and 5th grader. Do you buy the entire kit? Is it better to buy the teachers manuel? What do you recommend since you have been using this curriculum for some time now. Thank you in advance and hope to hear from you soon.
Damiana
Please do 1st grade printables! Im begging! lol or maybe you could suggest something you already have to use at a 1st grade level. the reading unit studies seem a little advanced?
Hello, I have a question about the Home Art Studio curriculum you use. Do you use the same grade level for all your kids? I have a first grader, do you recommend starting with the first grade set, or bump up to 2nd grade? Thank you!
Are you doing anything concerning the presidential election?
Do you find you need the TM for BJU’s spelling?
Hi Noel,
No, I don’t use the TM for BJU Spelling. Every now and then there’s something that I’d like to be able to check, but they’re really not necessary in my opinion.