Wednesday

Our Homeschool Curriculum, Plans, and Schedules for 2015

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We “officially” start a new school year in January since we school by the calendar year, but with everyone sharing what they are using for the upcoming school year, I wanted to unveil my plans for, hopefully, what will be a year of restful teaching and leisurely learning.

Our Homeschool Curriculum 2015

I am organizing our school time into four blocks this year, Morning Meeting, The 4 R’s, Lit for Lunch, and Table Time. {Why, yes, I do like alliteration. Why do you ask?}

MORNING MEETING (90 minutes)

I recently wrote two posts about our Morning Meeting time of the day. In the first one I explained what it is and why I do it with my kids. In the second one, I shared the resources I’m using for Morning Meeting this year. I won’t go into any more detail in this post, but be sure to check out the other posts to read about this revolutionary time of day for our family.

THE FOUR R’S (2 hours)

The Four R’s for our family are religion, reading, writing, and arithmetic. Since my youngest is now four years old, he doesn’t need a constant baby sitter anymore which is how I had previously scheduled our school day. I’ve got things planned where I am working with both the girls at the same time and rotating between them. I tried to have the schedule set up so that the more one-on-one instruction with one girl is happening while the other one is doing something independent. We’ve followed this schedule a few times already this summer and it’s worked pretty well so far. I’m really looking forward to being able to teach this way since it will make this time much more efficient.

The main inspiration for this schedule was my desire for restful teaching that I’ve been blogging so much about. The time amounts next to each subject will be enforced. I set the timer, we work on that subject until the timer goes off, and move on to the next subject even if you didn’t “finish” the lesson. The results so far have been more teaching from rest for me and better learning for the kids. I would rather have intense, focused attention on math for 30 minutes, then trying to finish the lesson, but it takes an hour because their brain checked out 20 minutes before. Remember: this is a journey not a sprint! I would rather my children really learn well than rush them through to reach the end that the book said we should.

Monday

Monday Schedule

Tuesday and Thursday

Tuesday-Thursday Schedule

Wednesday and Friday

Wednesday-Friday Schedule

Update: I totally scrapped everything that is marked out. New and updated plans are here. That’s what I get for trying to plan our new school year 6 months early!

Curriculum Choices for The Four R’s:

Grace (5th Grade)

Bible: Bible Study Guide for All Ages ~ Advanced (Read my review of this awesome Bible program here.)

Math: Math in Focus (3B and 4A) or Christian Light Education Math (parts of Grade 4 and Grade 5). We hit a snag with Math in Focus this year. I still adore Math in Focus, but it’s becoming a poor fit for Grace. It seems that since we have reached upper elementary math, she is having more difficulty with the mastery aspect of Math in Focus so I’m toying with using something more spiral. I have the first Light Unit of CLE math and the teacher’s guide in hand. Quite a bit of the grade 4 material would be review for her so I’m pretty sure we could accelerate quite quickly through it. I still haven’t decided what to do, but when we finish Math in Focus 3B, we’ll try out CLE, and I’ll let Grace make the decision. We also use Life of Fred on Monday for fun. (Read my review of Math in Focus here.)

Math Fact Practice: Reflex Math!!! It is still working great. (Read my review of Reflex Math here.)

Literature: K12 5th Grade Literature and a Narnia book club that I’m leading for homeschool kids in our area. I’m super excited about the Narnia Book Club! We’ll be reading and discussing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia , and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader this year. If everyone likes it, then next year we will do The Magician's Nephew , The Silver Chair , and The Last Battle . On weeks we do the book club, she will not do K12 Literature that day.

Grammar: Grammar Town, Paragraph Town, and Practice Town by Michael Clay Thompson Language Arts. This grammar program totally resonates with my creative, artsy girl! Plus the grammar is rock solid.

Writing: You all know of my love for Classical Academic Press’ Writing and Rhetoric series, but some of the folks who are farther ahead in the series have said that the outlining and paragraph construction parts of the program are weak, so for next year we are using a new writing program written by a homeschool mom whose writing posts on The Well-Trained Mind forums have been an inspiration for many. It’s called Treasured Conversations and looks to be the perfect program for teaching outlining and paragraph writing. It should fill the gap nicely before we move on to Narrative II and Chreia and Proverb of Writing and Rhetoric. (Read my review of Writing and Rhetoric here.)

Spelling: Apples and Pears Spelling Book C. This program is perfect for Grace. Her spelling is improving every day and transfers nicely into her writing. (Read my review of Apples and Pears here.)

Spanish: Getting Started with Spanish and Practice Makes Perfect Basic Spanish . We haven't been as dedicated to learning a foreign language as I would have liked, but I am determined this year to at least achieve a basic conversational level with Grace.

Sophia (2nd Grade)

Bible: Bible Study Guide for All Ages ~ Intermediate

Math: Math in Focus 2A and 2B, MEP Year 2, Miquon, and Life of Fred. Sophia LOVES math and it comes very naturally to her. Although it looks like we use a TON of programs, we only do Miquon and Life of Fred on Monday and have no problem fitting in one Math in Focus lesson and one MEP lesson into her math time Tuesday-Friday.

Math Fact Practice: Reflex Math. She’s been begging me forever to get her a subscription too!

Phonics: Logic of English Foundations C and Explode the Code. This combination has been wonderful for Sophia! She is a great reader and will finish up phonics this year!We’ll begin spelling with Apples and Pears when she finishes Logic of English this year.

Handwriting: New American Cursive 1 from Memoria Press and Draw Write Now Books 1-8. We’ll be rotating these out during the week doing cursive twice a week and Draw Write Now copywork and drawing twice a week.

Grammar: English Lessons Through Literature Level 2. I love this gentle grammar introduction for the younger grades. It’s Charlotte Mason at its best!

Spanish: Salsa Spanish with free lesson plans (go to the bottom of the webpage and click on the + sign underneath Salsa Materials) and homemade worksheets. Repeat to myself, “I will be better about foreign language this year. I will be better about foreign language this year.”

LIT FOR LUNCH (30 minutes)

This is one of our favorite times of the day. While the kids are eating I read books from my read aloud lists that I compiled from The Read-Aloud Handbook {a MUST read for all parents!}. I choose a picture book and once chapter of a chapter book from Sophia’s list to read and one chapter from a chapter book on Grace’s list. These books aren’t tied to history or anything we are studying. They are just great books that we enjoy reading together! My 2nd Grade Read Aloud List and my 4th Grade Read Aloud List (finishing this one this year) to be read during Lit for Lunch.

TABLE TIME (2 hours)

This block in our day was born out of my desire to make the content subjects less stressful for me to teach. It provided a way for me to not stress about covering history, science, and geography, while letting my kids really LEARN about a subject. {You can read more about this idea here.} Not only have I changed my approach to scheduling these subjects, but I’m going to experiment this year and change the entire way that I teach these subjects. I also fully reserve the right to decide at any point that this idea is crazy and go back to the normal way of doing things!

During the course of our school year I am planning on focusing on history for three weeks at a time, science for three weeks, geography for three weeks, and then doing interest led learning for two weeks at a time. The rotation for the year would look like this: geography, science, history, interest led, history. I would repeat this sequence three times over the course of the school year, which gives me a grand total of 6 units of history, 3 units of geography, 3 of science, and 3 interest led. Here is what I’m planning doing for each of the units (and where things become experimental, at least in the history area). I’ll be expounding on exactly what we are using for each unit as we get to it over the coming year. I have a tentative plan, but I’m not definite.

History:

Instead of progressing chronologically through history I decided to divide history into 5 time periods and one miscellaneous category. During the year we will study one topic out of each time period for a grand total of 6 units of history. I decided to do history this way for two reasons: 1) We read a history overview book and memorize a history timeline every year so my kids have a pretty good grasp of the flow of history and 2) I wanted to study American history and current events before a couple of years had passed. My hesitation to doing this {and why I might scrap this idea a few units in and go back to chronological history} is that history builds on itself. Events in the past effect decisions and events in the future. Anyway, I’m giving it a go the way I have it planned.

Unit 1 (Ancient World): Ancient People of Mesopotamia ~ Hebrews, Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians. I’m planning to build my study around the Hebrew people and their interaction with the people of Mesopotamia.

Unit 2 (Overlooked History): Ancient China ~ Study Chinese history up to Genghis Khan. I wanted to include this category because my knowledge {and I believe most Americans knowledge} of the Eastern Hemisphere is weak.

Unit 3 (Middle Ages-Age of Exploration): Middle Ages Part 1 ~ Culture and Society of the Middle Ages. I’m planning to use lots of great literature during this study and explore how people lived.

Unit 4 (Colonial Times in the United States-1850’s): Colonial Times (1607-1733) ~ Study of the colonization of North America, specifically the 13 Colonies of the United States. Also bring in world events that happened during this time period as well.

Unit 5 (Civil War in the United States-End of 19th Century): Civil War ~ Prelude, slavery, major battles, and events of the Civil War.

Unit 6 (1900-Today): Pre-World War I ~ Study events around the world during the last decade of the 1800’s and first decade of the 1900’s. I’m still trying to figure out how to work Downton Abbey into this era!

Science:

I am also choosing a science from each of the three branches of science to study over our three science units for the year.

Unit 1(Physical Science): Chemistry ~ Matter, Atoms, and Elements

Unit 2 (Earth Science): Oceanography ~ Areas of the ocean, currents, the ocean floor, and tide pools.

Unit 3 (Life Science): Human Anatomy ~ Basic systems of the human body and what they do.

Geography:

I had to do a little research about the subtopics in this subject. I decided to touch on all three of the aspects of geography in each unit.

Unit 1 (Cultural, Physical, and Spatial): Cultural study of Turkey, Israel, and Jordan, physical geography of Middle East/Asia, and map workbook for spatial skills.

Unit 2 (Cultural, Physical, and Spatial): Cultural study of Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, physical geography of Middle East/Asia, and map workbook for spatial skills.

Unit 3 (Cultural, Physical, and Spatial): Cultural study of Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, physical geography of Middle East/Asia, and map workbook for spatial skills.

And that’s our plans for the upcoming year (2015)!!!!

So stay tuned for resources I’ll be using for each of the above units and how things are progressing with my crazy history idea!

Update: I totally scrapped everything that is marked out. New and updated plans are here. That’s what I get for trying to plan our new school year 6 months early!

nbts-blog-hop-2014

Wishing my fellow educators, from all types of schooling, a wonderful school year from the tree house,

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8 comments:

  1. Looks like a great year! The Narnia study sounds fantastic. Thanks!

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    1. I can't even express how I excited I am about Narnia!!! Thanks for stopping by!

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  2. Just read this and plan to re-read. I am quite tempted to copy what you are doing; lock, stock and barrel. It looks amazing, Chel, as usual!

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    1. You are too kind! And you know that you get insider information on what I'm using anytime you want!

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  3. It looks like a great year. We spent some time studying China the other year and my kids loved it. We did a number of hands on projects.

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  4. Great article!

    One on one learning and customizing to fit for your child's learning. I am one with you in promoting homeschooling.

    Anne
    http://HomeschoolingOption.com/

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  5. When you are doing your studies for Geography it may be a good idea to cover the religions of those areas too. I know your children are younger than mine (16, 12, 9 and 6) but I don't want my children to be getting the major religions mixed up. It can create so many misunderstandings. As we study each area for geography this year I will be including a quick look at the major religions of those areas. Anyway as I said some of my children are older so it may not suit your family.

    Best wishes
    Jen in Oz
    (visiting to read about your Morning Meetings)

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    1. I'm definitely including a world religion study! I taught a comparative religions class when I was student teaching and it was a lot of fun. Thanks for stopping by!

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