Category Archives: Homeschooling

God’s Design Plants

We have been doing God’s Design Plants for Beginners for a couple months now and I have to say it is a near perfect fit for my three youngest.

They are in 3rd(twins) and Kindergarten, the curriculum says it is for K-2nd.

 

My girls love the fact they get a brand new workbook every 5 lessons.

To them new is always better and whatever is newest is their favorite so the fact they feel like they get a new book constantly keeps them excited.

The lessons are short and to the point which really helps with limited attention spans.

They always have an easy activity that goes with the lesson and it is easy to make it more hands on since it takes so little time.

 

On this day we were learning about stems and what grows from them.

I added on to the lesson by going outside and having them find stems and point out the things growing from them.

We have also gone out to find the different types of trees the lesson talked about.

We found these berries and I had them split them open to see what was inside.

They were pretty excited to find seeds!

The only downside to this curriculum for us is that I have not figured out how to tie it together with out history study yet.

I like studying history by timeline and we are not in a time period that makes plants an obvious choice.

I would like for the boys and girls to be studying the same thing so we can actually do more together as well but the boys curriculum has them doing weather right now and the beginners series does not have weather.

But other than that this has been perfect to grab and go.

What do you use for science?

Curriculum 2019-2020

Here is what we are using for Kindergarten, 3rd, and 8th grade this year!
For Kindergarten this year I am trying out Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

I have never used it before but I knew with my fifth child I needed a plan to teach reading.

She has known all of her letter sounds for a while now but that is as far as we have gotten.

Hopefully this book will help make it easier for both of us.

I am still using Handwriting Without Tears for now but might start using something else.

The program did not work well for my twins because they needed that structure the third line adds and they struggle with making their letters the right size now.

We are also not all that happy with their cursive program and are leaning towards a more traditional style for that.

I went back and forth between RightStart and McRuffy Color Math for her math but in the end RightStart won.

McRuffy is a lot easier for me to teach but RightStart just teaches number sense so well!

So she is doing RightStart Level A this year and it will be my third time teaching it!

I got God’s Design for Science Plants for Beginners for both my Kindergartener and my 3rd grade twins this year.

I am finding my old way of making it up as I go is just too difficult while keeping up with 5 so I am buying more curriculum this year than normal.

They can’t usually all be in the same space to learn though so I might have just set myself up to teach this three times a day…

3rd Grade

I am going to continue using The Good and the Beautiful Level One for reading for the twins.

We don’t do some of the grammar in it as well if I feel it is helpful but none of the spelling.

I printed out my own practice pages for writing and might be using PreScripts Cursive Letters and Coloring World History if I decide to teach them cursive this year.

They are also doing All About Spelling Level 2 this year.

I love how All About Spelling teaches spelling.
We switched from RightStart to McRuffy Color Math halfway through the year last year so we still need to finish up the Second Grade book this fall.

I think RightStart does some stuff better but McRuffy is a lot easier for me to teach and the girls have been doing better with it so we will stick with this for now.

I have not been real happy with 1st Language Lessons for a while and have been keeping an eye out for an alternative.

The Winston Grammar Program is supposed to be hands on and less teacher intensive.

I also got a hands on grammar book that I might take from during the year.

I will be getting library books for history and geography as needed.

8th Grade

The boys are doing Masterbooks General Science 1 this year!

It started with them not knowing much about how tornadoes are formed and my oldests love of minerals.

We are pretty excited about this curriculum.

We started Masterbooks Biblical Archaeology later in the year last year so they still have a ways to go on that.

That will put us at the time of Jesus and I am still deciding what we will use next.

I have enjoyed Masterbooks though.

So far Biblical Archaeology has had a lot of geography included also.

We are using these Spencerian Penmanship books for the boys handwriting to try to improve their cursive.

The rest of their curriculum is online.

Grammar is Brave Writer

Math is VideoText although I am really looking forward to moving on. We are going to try Teaching Textbooks Geometry next I think.

I need something with more help for them and less checking work for me.

They will be continuing Duolingo for spanish and Khan Academy for programming.

I am trying to keep it simple this year but might add more as the year goes on!

Easy does it.

My whole plan for the 2019-2020 homeschool year?

Keep it easy!

Not easy like Sunday Morning, Sunday morning is a circus and in no way easy…

But I am turning to curriculum and saying good enough is good enough.

I love making up my own science and history but am taking a break. My oldests are already asking for more books because they are used to me getting 50 books from the library for every subject.

I am going to have two 8th graders, two 3rd graders, and one in Kindergarten.

If I don’t make it as easy as I can, I will drown.

So here is to a year using as much curriculum as I can.

Is your homeschool looking different this year or are you sticking with what has worked in the past?