Category Archives: Curriculum

Summer/Fall 2011

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This fall I’ll be doing lessons with FOUR kids. EEKS! I’m trying to wrap my brain around that, and I’ve been admittedly distracted by my own doula programs & lessons. Now that I’ve only got a couple classes left to attend (CPR, breastfeeding, childbirth prep) I’m back to remembering that I’m a homeschooler! I’ve got kids to inspire and nudge towards academic enthusiasm!

SO, rough ideas in the works:

Math:
C – Saxon 65
M- Saxon 3
B – Saxon 1
E – start Saxon 1 in the fall

(I have to remind myself that B & E are only a year apart in school so there will be overlap. They were 15 months apart developmentally when she arrived so they’re like my twins in many ways.)

Language:
Everyone is using some of Teaching the Classics and IEW’s Structure & Style for literature and writing. Everyone gets a Cursive First review when warranted. We’re also using Spell to Write & Read for spelling, though I’m waiting on E to start that until January.

C – weekly: chapter/book report (on history, bio, science, art, music, or literature – his choice), write out scripture he’s memorizing; monthly – one page research paper on topic of his choice.
M – First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind, she’s finishing up Grade 2 and then we’ll move onto Grade 3. She’ll also write out her scripture she’s memorizing and write out a chapter/book report with assistance.
B – start FLL in the fall, focus on cursive. Memorizing (but doesn’t have to write out) scripture. Doing oral outline of keywords when we do readings.
E – start FLL next summer, start cursive in fall. Oral narration.

Language Program Links & Schedule

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I’m linking to Amazon, they’ve generally had the lowest price, best return policy, and often free shipping but do your homework/shop around:

Spell to Write & Read, which is an entire kit and Amazon has the best price I’m seeing for that.

It’s two books, flashcards, audio CD, etc, etc. It’s a lot, fantastic program, runs K through high school/SAT word level, and I love it. But it’s intensive, and I attended a seminar to learn how to teach it. More on that later, or email me.

Along with that we use Cursive First, link to come.

For writing (creative, research paper, essay) we use the Institute for Excellence in Writing program, which has a teacher DVD set called Teaching Structure & Style. It’s a 10 DVD video seminar and you can borrow the set (which I did) but you’ll need your own seminar syllabus/notebook, which you can get on Amazon. The book itself is good but the seminar really helped it all click for me.

That’s a teacher’s guide, once you study the seminar/book you can teach this program to kids of any level, K through high school. It’s again, wonderful.

So both of those you use with all of your kids from kindergarden through high school. There’s no student workbook, no extra costs (though the spelling one you’ll need composition books) so it’s been a great deal I think. The spelling program obviously is an investment but once you break it down by year for multiple kids it’s a great deal.

For grammar (parts of speech, a bit of writing, memorization, narration, dictation) we like First Language Lesson for the Well Trained Mind. The blue book is for first and second grade combined and there’s no student workbook.

For third grade there’s a teacher’s guide and student workbook but we didn’t need the student book at all. Teacher book has the explanations and you can use regular notebooks for the student work.

There’s a fourth grade book but honestly we decided it wasn’t worth it. It was a review of everything in the prior books but it also got much, much more intensive as far as diagramming sentences which I honestly don’t think is necessary. Once a child knows the parts of speech and can diagram a sentence then great, but book four was coming up with stuff that Kit and I had never done and don’t anticipate we’ll ever need to do. I think stopping after book 3 is fine (for our family at least!) It may be worth pulling out every year or two to review some of the things, like the prepositions and parts of speech. And again those are books you can use over and over with your kids, they aren’t consumables.

For literature we use Teaching the Classics. Again, it’s a teacher guide/syllabus and a DVD. You can borrow the DVD so long as you purchase your own copy of the teacher’s guide. Here’s just the guide (which honestly would be wonderful even if you DON’T see the DVD):

And here’s the combo DVD & teacher guide set:

And from Amazon the price is now cheaper than when I bought it from the publisher directly. That’s a program to teach children about literature but you can start it literally with little kids storybooks like fairytales. We’ve done it with three year olds! But it’s a concept that works all the way up through high school and beyond. It explains storylines, character, plot, theme, etc.

I was able to borrow the DVDs for the writing (IEW Structure & Style) and for the literature (Teaching the Classics) from a local mom and buy the teacher guides to take notes as I listened. For the spelling program (SWR) I attended a seminar to learn more about implementing it. They can each be as simple and basic or as complex as you want to make them, we’re sticking to simple for now and adding more details as we can manage with kids and life and schedules. I love that once you get them that’s all you need for all of your kids from kindergarden through high school. I think it will provide them a wonderful foundation to be comfortable with reading & analyzing works of literature, writing creatively and for research papers or presentations, give them a good core of grammar, ensure they are comfortable with those crazy SAT words and have good spelling, and overall help them become better communicators!

If that didn’t make sense email me and I can call and try to better explain! You’re also welcome to come over and go through any of them to see what you think before you spend your money. 🙂

To give you a concept of cost –
spelling (SWR) was about $95
Cursive First was $15
writing (IEW Structure & Style) was about $15 (I got used copy)
grammar (First Language Lessons) was $10 for 1st/2nd grade
3rd grade was $20
literature (Teaching the Classics) was $30

And those prices linked to above (click on the images) are all less than what I paid (except when I got used copies.) And they are all things you can use over and over with different children and all (except grammar) are used for all grade levels.

If that wasn’t brain overload enough, here’s the layout of how we put all of that into action. At least in theory… 🙂

Mon: review spelling phonogram cards; grammar lesson; pick memorization work
Tue: new spelling words (10 per week, 20 for C); read story or biography & do writing lesson (they narrate & do notes for reading)
Wed: spelling enrichment; grammar lesson; review memorization
Thur: spelling enrichment if not done; read classic (doing Shakespeare) and kids narrate/outline/do storychart
Fri: spelling test; read history & kids narrate; C does book/story report

Cursive is something we spend a couple weeks focusing on with each new kid and then review as needed. You can see how it all ties together, the cursive is practiced with spelling and note taking, the spelling is practiced with their writing, the writing & literature are tied when they do note summaries/outlines for what we read. And whatever you read (like history or science) can be the material you use to practice summarizing, note taking, doing reports, etc. After learning the concepts from the teacher’s guide you really choose when and how you want to implement those in practice throughout the rest of your curriculum. The spelling and grammar lessons are more formally laid out but the literature and writing are very flexible.

Paperback Swap Text

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I just received a credit and went to see if there was anything on my Reminder List I wanted to get. It occurred to me that I bet there are some school books they may have and I was curious about some college levels texts for me so I could do some review before going in more depth with the kids. I went to the BYU Independent Study website and clicked on a few classes and pulled up the ISBN for their required texts. Paperback Swap had a lot of them! Recent editions, hardback versions, even the DVD sets to go with some. I’m so excited! I ordered two (I always leave myself one credit in case a wish list book shows up) and now I have so many more on my reminder list for when I get more credits. I’m excited, to be able to use these for the kids later on and for me to read up on and refresh/learn more about some of the topics. And they were all from Paperback Swap, woo-hoo!

Writing Program Decision

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I wrote about Writing with Ease and now that I have the Institute for Excellence in Writing DVDs on loan (and got the syllabus used but in great condition for $14 vs. the $33 new) I prefer it – I’m returning Writing with Ease. If you do First Language Lessons for grammar then you’ve already learned about copywork, dictation, and narration exercises. WWE is the same thing but with an outline of how often to do it and what length you should expect for kids between 1st and 4th grade. It only has a couple samples for each year and the rest is just weekly reminders. I’m glad I only paid $17 for it (vs. the $30 list price!!) but I don’t think it’s worth keeping. It had a couple good points – have kids practice a bit every day to help them get use to write and exercising those muscles. But the Institute for Excellence in Writing has the “Excellence in Writing: Structure & Style” DVD and syllabus and it covers 1st grade through high school in far, far more detail and with better exercises, I think. (I wish the names were not so similar, I find it confusing.)

Anyhoo, we’re going with the DVD/syllabus program that teaches the adult how to teach writing instead of the one teacher’s book that just says, “Have your kids do copywork & narration every day for 1st & 2nd grade, add dictation for 3rd and 4th grade.” I didn’t think that was worth $17. 🙂

However, I am loving the IEW DVD program a lot, many notes to come.

Curriculum 2011

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Links later, nursing now, these are our core books but we supplement a lot with library stuff, our own books & C’s Cub Scout manuals for activities. Carrie, if you have questions about particulars let me know and I’ll email or post more info. I realized that we use these and like them but there are aspects of each that I do NOT like so I don’t mean this to sound like an unconditional endorsement. But if you’re interested in anything specifically I can tell you my pros/cons per text:

Language (grammar, spelling, handwriting, literature, reading):
First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind (Mo in 2nd, C in 4th)
Spell to Write & Read (B, M & C)
Cursive First (B, review for M & C)
Teaching the Classics combined w/reading list
Lambs’ Shakespeare for kids
scripture mastery cards & primary songs for memorization work
Institute for Excellence in Writing program

Mathematics:
Saxon (B-1, M-2, C-65)

Art:
Discovering Great Artists
Great Artists Explored
Complete Book of Arts & Crafts

Music:
Dallas Symphony Orchestra site
Alfred Basic’s Piano library for lessons (M & C)
Great Musicians (library book, will get for our own collection)
Pandora Radio

Social Studies:
Story of the World w/activity guide (including maps)
various children’s atlases
library books for social studies/holidays/major historical figures

Science:
some old textbook I found combined with various materials to make
this curriculum

PE:
adaptive PE
swimming
soccer
Kid Power

Socialization (HAHA!):
Tuesday/Thursday speech group for B
Tuesday/Thursday PE class for all
Wednesday scouts & activity days (C & M)
Wednesday/Friday soccer (B, M & C)
Thursday co-op for all
Friday swimming and Roots & Shoots (service group) for all

Sometimes we can squeeze in storytime at the library on Tuesday or Saturday afternoons and playdates on various mornings.

First Language Lessons Level 4 Lesson Schedule

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C’s officially starting 4th grade! Well, as official as we get. He’s finished his 3rd grade grammar and that was his lingering non-4th grade level work.

I decided instead of saving the “bonus” lessons for the end of the book like we did this time we’ll intersperse them with the rest of the book. Their lesson schedule has 3 lessons per week for 36 weeks (a standard school year) but since we go year round I’m changing the format to do grammar lessons 2x a week.

Will we actually follow this? Unlikely, but it lets me see where to add in the bonus lessons and if we take off a week here or there I like having a reference point to go back to and pick up again. Plus since we’re starting next week, even with several weeks off over the course of the year we should be able to finish up this grammar book by Sep. 2011 and C can start 5th grade then. (Note to self, find grammar/writing program for 5th grade!)

1. 1, 2
2. 3, 4
3. 5, 6
4. 7, 8
5. 9, 10
6. 11, 12
7. DS 1, 2
8. 13, 14
9. 15, 16
10. 17, 18
11. 19, 20
12. 21, 22
13. 23, 24
14. 25, 26
15. 27, 28
16. 29, 30
17. WL 1, WL 2
18. WL 3, 31
19. 32, 33
20. 34, 35
21. 36, 37
22. 38, 39
23. 40, 41
24. 42, 43
25. 44, 45
26. 46, 47
27. 48, 49
28. 50, 51
29. 52, 53
30. 54, 55
31. DS 3, DS 4
32. 56, 57
33. 58, 59
34. DS 5, 60
35. 61, 62
36. 63, 64
37. 65, 66
38. 67, 68
39. 69, 70
40. 71, WL 4
41. WL 5, WL 6
42. 72, 73
43. 74, 75
44. 76, 77
48. 78, Contractions
49. 79, 80, 81 (Reviews)
50. WL 7, WL 8
51. WL 9, WL 10
52. 82, 83, 84, 85 (Reviews)

Note: we just started our first lesson and it was very much a review of concept he’s learned in the prior 3 years. The entire book appears to be a repeat of prior concepts in more depth, which is great! Things he still needs help with are reiterated and those things he’s already mastered we can just move quickly through. This does involve more writing & dictation, both areas we need to focus on since he’s developed the fine motor skills for lengthier writing assignments. Before now we’ve let him narrate instead of writing everything but he’s 8 and I think he’s ready for some more practice in that area. We still keep it brief because before 10 years of age I question how much they have the fine motor skills/patience to do lengthy compositions but we’re working that direction. (And that will depend on each child and how much I see them struggle or get worn out by the handwriting.)

SWR Syllabus w/out Cursive First

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If you’re NOT using cursive first then my SWR lesson plan doesn’t help because that threw things off. This is the layout of steps combing the two books, the teacher’s guide (SWR) and the spelling list (WISE Guide) presuming your child already is printing well. Any lesson that is for the teacher to do on their own (prep stuff) I specified as TEACHER PREP – those do NOT involve the kids. It’s reading & explanation for you to prepare for further lessons.

Each numbered step is NOT a single lesson – it may take awhile or it may be something you can do on the same day as other lessons. For example, #9 says WISE A (first spelling list.) That would be the step you work on for the entire week as you review phonogram cards (M) then introduce the spelling words (T) and review them (W) then play a game to enforce them (Th) and do the test (F.)

WISE lists A through G are single lists of spelling words, 20 each. After that the lettered sections change and are H1, H2, etc. Each of those is listed as a different step and each WISE section has 20 words so you can assign 5, 10, 20, 40 words per week – whatever works for your child, but I wrote this up assuming you do 20 words (one complete list) per week.

I wrote this up to give myself the week by week outline but obviously that’s totally flexible and this gives you the order of the lesson but they can easily be smooshed together/spread out as you need.

Week One
1. TEACHER PREP: SWR lessons 1 to 4 (have kids entertain themselves! This is going to take some time to read through, prep your flashcards, and learn the program.)
– Plan Before Teaching (explains program)
– Prepare Preschoolers (but really all ages)
– Read Aloud (hooray, an easy lesson!)
– Evaluate Achievement Level (for each student starting)

Week Two
2. SWR 5: introduce student to phonogram sounds/cards (make it fun – games, phonogram bingo, treasure hunt for sound cards, etc)
3. SWR 6 & 7: writing alphabet & numbers neatly (make sure their print is legible)

Week Three
4. SWR 8: intro to learning log for student
5. SWR 9: vowel & consonant page in LL (learning log)
6. SWR 10: multi letter phonogram page in LL
7. SWR 11: placement test for WISE

Week Four
8. SWR 12: prep to start WISE (TEACHER PREP)
– phonogram and handwriting review for kids

Week Five
9. WISE A (first spelling list for students this week)
10. SWR 13: Reinforce spelling (TEACHER PREP)
11. SWR 14: Classic literature (TEACHER PREP)

Week Six
12. SWR 15: number page in LL (Mon.)
13. WISE B

Week Seven
14: WISE C
15. SWR 16: grammar (TEACHER PREP)

Week Eight
16. SWR 17: final E (Mon.)
17. WISE D

Week Nine
18. WISE E
19. SWR 18: start sh and ti

Week Ten
20. SWR 19: AEIOU page in LL (Mon)
21. WISE F

Week Eleven
22. SWR 20: drill rules cards on Mondays w/phonogram cards (TEACHER PREP)
23. WISE G
24. SWR 21: start composing own sentences (TEACHER PREP)

Week Twelve
25. WISE H1

Week Thirteen
26. WISE H2
27. SWR 22: explain ed

Week Fourteen
28. WISE I1
29. SWR 23: reading in books assigned (TEACHER PREP)

Week Fifteen
30. WISE I2
31. SWR 24: vocabulary
32. SWR 25: abbreviations

Week Sixteen
33. WISE I3

Week Seventeen
34. WISE I4

Week Eighteen
35. WISE J1
36. SWR 26: er page

Week Nineteen
37. WISE J2

Week Twenty
38. WISE J3
39. SWR 27: plurals

Week Twenty-One
40: WISE J4

Week Twenty-Two
41. WISE J5
42. SWR 28: contractions

Week Twenty-Three
43. WISE J6

Weeks Forward:
WISE Sections K through Z and they alternate with further lessons in the SWR guide. Each section lists the preliminary work that needs to be done on Monday and will include any SWR lessons that need to be done before the students start the spelling words on Tuesday.

For the record, I do NOT follow all the steps. I skip some preliminaries, I don’t always have the kids write the stuff in their reference section in back. I don’t always make them mark their words with the red pencil – it depends on how they are doing with the spelling words and how lazy I am. Since my kids are still young and this program has you review past words I figure we can go more in depth each time we review.

Also in the back of the SWR book there are suggested lesson plans and a ton of resources. It’s a lot to take in, give yourself at least a week of preparation & learning time!

Summer-Fall 2010 Schedule & Goals

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Monday: art, motor lab/outside time, preliminary SWR, First Language Lessons, math

Tuesday: Mo & Ben speech, PE, new spelling words, math

Wednesday: music, Cub Scouts (off for summer), spelling words review, First Language Lessons, math

Thursday: Mo & Ben speech, history, PE, spelling enrichment, math

Friday: catch up/field trips/day off, teaching the classics, swimming (off for summer)

Saturday: science

Sunday: journal

daily – SWR (spelling) reading aloud, outside time
4x week – motor lab/PE, math
2x week – grammar lessons (MW), speech (TTH)
1x week – music, art, history, science, out of sync activity, journal writing
2x month – science experiments, field trip

Add in: shakespeare (Lamb for kids) (F), blackline maps (Th)

Christopher
math – Saxon 5/4
language – First Language Lessons 3 & 4, SWR for spelling, reading aloud to us , journal, and read with family (novels, poetry, parables, etc)
history – Story of the World I, 2x month special projects
science – read for fun, experiments 2x a month (creation)
music – piano volume 2; basic music theory intro, orchestras, composer study
art – weekly art/craft project, artist study
PE – 4x week (exercises & motor lab, games, PE in fall

Moira
math – Saxon 2
language – First Language Lessons 1 – 2, SWR for spelling, reading aloud to us, journal, read with family (novels, poetry, parables, etc)
history – SOTW 1, 2x month special projects
science – experiments 2x month, creation unit
therapy – 2x week motor lab, 1x week swim lessons (fall), 2x week movement for special populations, 2x week speech (summer/home in fall), 1x week horseback riding (fall), sensory activity?,
music – piano volume 1, basic music theory, orchestra, composer study
art – weekly art/craft project, artist study
PE – 4x week (horses (fall), swim (fall), movement class

Bennett:
math – Saxon 1
language – SWR for spelling, reading aloud to us, read with family (novels, poetry, parables, etc), enunciation, handwriting Start First Languages Lessons January 2011
history – SOTW 1, 2x month special projects
science – experiments 2x month, creation unit
therapy – 2x week motor lab, 1x week swim lessons (fall), 2x week movement for special populations, 2x week speech (fall), 1x week horseback riding (fall), sensory activity?,
music – basic music theory, orchestra, composer study, start piano 1 when feel ready (fall or winter?)
art – weekly art/craft project, artist study
PE – 4x week (horses (fall), swim (fall), movement class

Curriculum 2010

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I know, they are sideways, I took them with the iPhone and they are not cooperating with me. 🙁

Christopher: First Language Lessons 3 (grammar, narration, dictation, memorizing scripture mastery instead of the poems in the book.) Piano book 2, composition book for Spell to Write & Read lists, binder with spelling tests, grammar writing, science notes, etc. Missing – timeline/century binder for history.

Moira: Saxon 2 & workbook pages in binder, piano book one, First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind level 1, composition book for Spell to Write & Read spelling lists, Ready Bodies Learning Mind activity guide for OT work. Missing century binder & binder with spelling test, science notes, etc. And Out of Sync Child has Fun.

Combined work: Spell to Write & Read with Wise Guide (teacher’s manual), Teaching the Classics, Cursive First, flashcards for phonograms and spelling rules, etc.

Bennett: Saxon 1 with workbook pages, speech therapy workbook pages in binder, phonics binder with spelling test.

Science: Just a ton of books for reading and science experiments on “creation” to cover solar system, animals, rocks, etc.

Social Studies: Right now it’s Texas/local history and geography but in fall we’ll start Story of the World again. Lots of geography books and social studies stuff the kids enjoy plus My First Book of Biographies.

Art: Annotated Mona Lisa, American artists book (with huge posters to accompany it), Ed Emberly, lots of sketchpads, Discovering Great Artists, Science Arts.