Hi everyone, it’s that time of year again! And I’ve been getting tons of emails asking what we’ll be using for our 2014-2015 school year!
So without further ado, here are our curriculum choices for the 2014-2015 school year.
Teeny Tot: Kindergarten
- Daily Learning Notebook: I’m mixing pages from my elementary and preschool notebook this year so she can write her own calendar numbers.
- Art: World’s Greatest Artists 2 and See the Light Art DVDs
- Phonics/Reading: K4 Curriculum, Abeka K5 Letters & Sounds, Phonics Road Level 1 (A new product we’re reviewing!)
- Logical Thinking: Abeka K5 Think and Learn
- Math: Math U See Primer & Spielgaben
- Bible: Picture Smart Bible (Trying new this year), Grapevine Traceable Units
- P.E.: Family Time Fitness
- Other: We will be doing The Middle Ages by Homeschool in the Woods this year, and the Teeny Tot will be participating in the fun crafts and activities that go along with that, though she won’t be expected to do any of the other work.
Tinkerbell: 3rd Grade
- Daily Learning Notebook: She’ll be doing the Cursive Notebook this year.
- Art: World’s Greatest Artists 2 and See the Light Art DVDs
- Bible: Picture Smart Bible & Grapevine Studies
- Spelling: All About Spelling Levels 2 & 3
- Phonics: Abeka Language 3
- Reading: Abeka Reading 3 & Read & Think Skill Sheets 3
- Math: Math U See Gamma
- Handwriting: BJU Handwriting 3
- History: The Middle Ages – Time Traveler Unit & my Colorado State Study
- Literature: Classical Literature Units
- Science: Abeka Science 5 (We do this as a group) & one of my scientist units if we can fit it in!
- P.E.: Family Time Fitness
- Typing: Typing Instructor Platinum (CD Version)
- Vocabulary: Vocabulary Workshop (This is our first year trying this so our thoughts on it are TBD.)
- Robotics: LEGO Education We’re continuing with our co-op group and the Simple Mechanisms set this year.
Turbo: 5th Grade
- Daily Learning Notebook: He’ll be doing the Cursive Notebook this year.
- Art: World’s Greatest Artists 2 and See the Light Art DVDs
- Bible: Picture Smart Bible & Grapevine Studies
- English/Grammar: BJU English 5
- Handwriting: BJU Handwriting 5
- History: The Middle Ages – Time Traveler Unit & my Colorado State Study
- Literature: Classical Literature Units
- Math: Math U See Epsilon
- P.E.: Family Time Fitness
- Photography: The Foto Finch Composition & Photojournalism (Review coming soon!)
- Reading: Abeka Reading 5 & Read & Comprehend Skill Sheets 5
- Robotics: LEGO Education We’re continuing with our co-op group and the Simple Mechanisms set this year.
- Science: Abeka Science 5 & one of my scientist units if we can fit it in!
- Spelling: All About Spelling Level 4 & 5, & Spelling You See C
- Typing: Typing Instructor Platinum (CD Version)
- Vocabulary: Vocabulary Workshop (This is our first year trying this per a friend’s suggestion.)
- Writing: Institute for Excellence in Writing
Strawberry Shortcake: 6th grade
- Art: World’s Greatest Artists 2 and See the Light Art DVDs
- Bible: Picture Smart Bible & Grapevine Studies
- English/Grammar: BJU English 6
- History: The Middle Ages – Time Traveler Unit & my Colorado State Study
- Literature: Classical Literature Units
- Math: Math U See Zeta
- P.E.: Family Time Fitness
- Photography: The Foto Finch Composition & Photojournalism (Review coming soon!)
- Reading: Abeka Reading 6 & Read & Comprehend Skill Sheets 5
- Robotics: LEGO Education We’re continuing with our co-op group and the Simple Mechanisms set this year.
- Science: Abeka Science 5 & one of my scientist units if we can fit it in!
- Spelling: All About Spelling Level 7 & Spelling You See D
- Typing: Typing Instructor Platinum (CD Version)
- Vocabulary: Vocabulary Workshop (This is our first year trying this per a friend’s suggestion.)
- Writing: Institute for Excellence in Writing
Extra-Curricular Activities:
- Keepers of the Faith
- Contenders of the Faith
- LEGO Education We’re continuing with our co-op group and the Simple Mechanisms set this year.
NEW!!!
We are trying out a new history program this year, the Homeschooling in the Woods Time Traveler’s units. They look like a lot of fun, and we’re excited to give them a whirl! Right off the bat I will say that they’re kind of labor intensive to prepare. It took me a solid FULL day to print everything, organize it all, then another day to add it to my lesson plans for the year. But it’s more hands on and exciting than Abeka and we’re just ready for a change. Honestly Abeka is fine and we’ll probably go back to it at some point, but I wanted to do some more fun things while my kids are still young and we’re not worried about high school credits…which is just around the corner for us…ugh!
We’re also trying a new Bible program The Picture Smart Bible. My kids have loved Grapevine, but we’ve done almost all of their units, and the Picture Smart Bible looks like it’s an excellent choice for a little older kiddos as well. So we’re really excited to try something new.
Strawberry Shortcake chose photography for her extra elective this year. My friend Ernie at Foto Finch has developed a photography curriculum for Jr. High to High School students, but I took a look at the lessons and think that she’ll do fine with the Composition & Photojournalism one. I’ll have a review coming up soon once we get more into the program. But I can tell you she’s excited to get to start photography. Maybe she can take over my blog someday ;o)
The last new to us curriculum we’re trying out is the Vocabulary Workshop. I wasn’t thrilled with Wordlywise, and so I moved to Evan-Moor Vocabulary Fundamentals which were fine for last year. But I had a friend who teaches English that suggested Vocabulary Workshop so we’re going to try it out for a year. Just a note…it is a secular curriculum.
And there’s our 2014-2015 curriculum choices!
Need HELP GETTING STARTED????? Get your copy of Homeschooling 101: A guide to getting started!
Need PLANNERS? Check out my fun homeschool lesson planners!
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.
Road Trip USA & Road Trip USA Animals!
Expedition Earth World Geography & Animals of the World:
World’s Greatest Artists Vol. 1 & Vol. 2
World’s Greatest Composers Vol 1 (Vol. 2 NOW AVAIL!)
Classic Literature Unit Studies (Vol. 2 & 3 NOW AVAIL!)
Scientists & Inventors Unit Studies:
Have you planned out your whole,year already? Meaning, a daily schedule for all 180 individual days?
Hi Shari,
Yes, I always plan my whole year. I know some people don’t like to do that in case of changes. But I always find that our year gets crazy and I do not have time to plan during school so I just do it all before we start. If something changes it’s easy to go in and update my lesson plan.
Hi Erica,
What type of program/software do you use to lay out your lesson plans?
I’m currently using http://www.homeschooltracker.com to keep our records and lesson plans.
Yes, I was wondering too, if you would share your lesson plans… I have a home business and it keeps me so busy, that I am worried about getting myself organized ahead of time. Suggestions on daily lessons would be so helpful.
thank you!
Love your site and it has helped me immensely!
Hi Shannon,
Our lesson plans are different for every year and every student. And I did do some posts on our schedules by grade level just to help give you an overview if that helps any. Here’s a link to those:
http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/category/daily-schedule
Are you still doing Keepers? I am surprised that is not listed on your curriculum. It’s such and important part of the girls lives. Thanks for all the great ideas and posts. We have been doing Homeschool in the Woods for years and love it!
Hi Suzanne,
YES! We are still doing Keepers, Contenders, and LEGO, I guess I should’ve listed our extra curricular activities too, but didn’t think to do it!
What a great year you have planned. I look forward to following along.
Blessings, Dawn
I love how their books match their “colours”! How did you swing that?!?!
How many literature units do you schedule? IE how long do you take to go through each one? And can you share your daily schedule or link to it? Thanks!
I know, how cool huh! It was just a coincidence!
For the lit units, I usually have them read 4 days per week, we do co-op on Fridays. So it really depends on how often you assign them to do a lesson. I would say my kids went through about 5-6 books each last year.
I noticed you switched from Rod and Staff? What are your thoughts on it?
See my response in Meghan’s comment below…
Looks like a wonderful year. I have an older version of Typing Instructor for kids, the newer version looks better I’m going to check it out.
Sorry it’s a completely different program called jump in. I don’t like it though.
Are Grammar program are you using for third grade?
Oh I see you are using ABeka. Why the switch from Rod and Staff?
Hi Meghan,
I didn’t mind Rod and Staff, but my kids hated it so we’re just going back to BJU Press. My kids didn’t like Rod and Staff because they had to hand write out all of their lessons and after a whole year of tears from Turbo regarding English I decided it wasn’t worth it to continue. He doesn’t love English anyway, but at least with BJU he didn’t hate it. Otherwise, I do not have any bad reviews for Rod and Staff, it seems like a great curriculum, just not great for my son.
My daughter did not do well with it either. The diagramming was too intense. She uses Analytical Grammar now and LOVES it.
Thanks for the reply Erica. I am trying to decide between Rod and Staff and Sadlier’s Grammar Workshop. They appear to be very similar in scope and sequence. Sadlier’s looks like its more fun and colorful. The only difference I see is Rod and Staff begins in 2nd but Sadlier begins in 3rd.
For the see the light art DVDs, how do you schedule those? They run about $100 for the entire set but each DVD only have 4 art classes. Did you purchase the whole set at once? Or one DVD per year?
I received a couple DVD’s to review, and we only do 1 art lesson per week, so I alternate them in with my artist lessons just for a little diversity.
How do you personally adapt your Classical Literature studies for older kids? I’ve used several of your other items before, and was thinking about adding these this year for my 3rd and 6th graders, but not sure how to adapt them for the older one.
Hi Amber,
I would have them read the original book instead of classic starts. The questions should correlate okay since it’s mostly subject matter type questions and the classic starts are just watered down to make them a little easier for younger readers.
Couple questions:
1. Can you tell me what you did with the Abeka Phonic Flashcards in that binder?
2. Why did you switch to BJU English with your older students and what grade did you make the switch?
Thanks!!
Hi Emily,
The Abeka reading lessons refer to the phonics flashcards all the time from grades 1 and up, so I just keep them in that binder. They have special sounds like “ck”, “st”, “ph”, etc. on them so they review the phonics cards during their lesson before reading.
I switch to BJU at grade 3 usually. However this year Tinker Bell is using Abeka for 3rd grade simply because I’ve had it and didn’t want to waste it. But normally I switch to BJU because Abeka language starts getting really repetitive from 3rd on up, however I like how they teach phonics for the younger levels. I will say BJU is more academically aggressive, so it while Strawberry Shortcake handled the switch from Abeka to BJU well, it was definitely harder for Turbo. I don’t use BJU for the early grades because I really do not like how they teach phonics, but once you hit 3rd grade they don’t do phonics anymore, just English/grammar.
Did you laminate the flashcards before hole punching them? I have the same set and had never thought about adding them to a binder. Great idea!
Thanks for your response =)
Hi Emily,
No I didn’t laminate them, just hole punched and put them in the binder. You might consider it if using for multiple years, but so far ours are holding up just fine ;o)