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Saturday, July 19, 2014

Our Picks for 2014-2015 (3rd Grade, Kinder and Preschool) with Link Up to Share your Picks!

You may find that a lot of what we are using this coming year is what was listed for last year….we ended up doing a lot of our own stuff to be on an even more flexible schedule due to pregnancy sickness, pregnancy loss, pregnancy sickness AGAIN, new baby, and moving 6,000 miles away!  The benefit of homeschooling.  So we dove into our actual curriculum plans REALLY late in the game, and we have added a few new things to the mix too.

We are VERY ECCLECTIC homeschoolers.  You can read more about our homeschooling styles and why I supplement curriculums by reading my guest post over at Tolivers to Texas Blog.

Third Grade

US HistoryVeritas Press – Self Paced History – Explorers to 1815, with suggested literature, (This was a recently reviewed product that we absolutely loved and will be continuing), as well as literature from Beautiful Feet Books and some Golden Prairie Press.  Follow my History posts to see what we do with each subject (books read, movies watched, field trips, as well as activities done). 

us history series

Language Arts/Writing - Essentials of Writing – Level 2 (We will be finishing up Level 1 very shortly) and Grammaropolis

Math - Math U See – We are finishing up Gamma and starting Delta.  We will supplement some with some computer games – right now we are using (and liking)  UbberSmart Math and Mathletics (stay tuned for reviews on both!)

ScienceElemental Science – Earth Science/Astronomy – I’ll be supplementing some on this program too, so stay tuned for posts about it.  I have also designed the Preschool/Kindergarten weekly workbox curriculum around this topic.  We have been in and out of this curriculum for awhile with reviews and stuff going on in between.  We started out with Astronomy, and then moved to Earth Science and will revisit Astronomy at the end. 

Spelling - All About Spelling – We are finishing up level 1 and moving onto level 2

Reading – wide variety of literature based on topics of history and science, we will be starting Essential Skills Advantage for a review (stay tuned!)

ChineseRosetta Stone

Handwriting – I opted not to have an official handwriting curriculum this year, we may finish off the 2nd grade Handwriting without Tears book…but, I don’t think he is ready for cursive yet (may try that in 4th), and with the increase in writing he is doing we will just focus on handwriting on those assignments (especially spelling) instead of adding another thing to the list.

Skrafty Minecraft Homeschool Classes– Right now he is doing Astronomy, we are looking at Geology and Mine Through Time US History for the fall.

*Programs used for supplementing Science and History – Streaming TV (Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime), Brain Pop and Brain Pop Jr, Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett, In the Hands of a Child Lapbooks, Moving Beyond the Page Units, EnchantedLearning.com and more.

Kindergarten

Math Seeds & Reading Eggs

Handwriting without Tears – Kindergarten

Touch Math K

I plan to incorporate All About Reading Level 1 at some point during the year, based on his readiness.  We tried it already and decided it wasn’t the right time yet.

Weekly Workboxes

space3

Preschool

All About Reading Prelevel

Touch Math PreK

Handwriting without Tears – Preschool

Weekly Workboxes

Extra Curricular

I’ll admit these are the FIRST things to get left off when we run behind or are burned out or otherwise tired.  I’m trying really hard to work them in this year,they are actually requirements this year since we moved to MD…so my goal is PE/Health (formal lesson) 1-2 times a week, Music and Art 2-4 times a month (so either once a week or once every other week rotating, though if we do a piano program I would like them to practice several times a week).

Health/PEFitness for Families, Homeschool Swimming, Soccer, Trampoline, Gracie Bully Proof (my husband does this with them 1-2 times a week), Variety of books and videos. 

Music – I’m torn and still trying to decide between KinderBach and Adventus – both programs we loved and didn’t get to take full advantage of after the reviews due to the reasons mentioned in the opening paragraph.  I think Kinderbach is a bit young for my oldest, but the younger two like it.  My 5yo falls in line with either program age wise, but it’s pricey to do both.  Decisions, Decisions!! We will also use Maestros Classics and Beethoven's Wig for composer studies.

ArtHome Art Studio as well as artist studies.

Nature Study/Journal – Magic Tree House Journal

News-O-Matic

Co-op – Every other Thursday

Wide variety of apps for Kindle and iPad as well!  We follow Smartappsforkids and SmartappsforAndroid and load up on the free ones! 

*Plus whatever review products come our way – some we keep, some we don’t, some we save for next year!   We constantly change things around based on what is working or not working.  I wish we could do EVERYTHING!  There are so many great choices and we review so many great products, but we only have so much time to do ‘school’ a day. 

Circle Time

Circle Time will consist of Prayer, Scriptures, Spiritual/Inspirational song, Calendar, Pledge of Allegiance (on Monday) and I would like to incorporate a daily journal page for my oldest – but we may hold off on that for a bit.

We have gotten out of habit with Circle Time with all the changes; I want to get back into it, but shorten it up a bit. 

{Some links are affiliate links}

Link up your curriculum choices here, please indicate which grades!

1 comment:

  1. I like your plans! Sometimes the best years are ones when we are the most eclectic. The Minecraft classes look fun, several of my children would enjoy those.
    I have a curriculum link up post over on my blog too if you want to link up: http://ourbusyhomeschool.com/lets-share-our-2014-2015-curriculum-choices-link-up/

    ReplyDelete

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