Our Curriculum for 2008-2009

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January 25, 2015 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

Living in Hawaii was like a dream, but we had to still live in reality. I had to cook, clean, care for the toddlers, and find exciting ways to homeschool my daughter.

Our Curriculum for 2008-2009

Story of the World Book 3
Singapore Math
Apologia Science – Botany

She attended the base school for one month – October/November. She quit before Thanksgiving.

Her teacher yelled and criticized and left her alone during recess in the trailer as punishment. She developed anxiety and stomach pains. She was threatened by another student during a field trip. They did no science, history, or language that month. It was just random worksheet packets.

We met a Tuskegee Airman.

We visited Pearl Harbor memorials.

There were homeschool opera field trips, dress rehearsals that were free for students.

Liz played soccer, tried tennis lessons, and took piano lessons. We went whale watching. We explored the islands. She won Jump Rope for Heart. She won an art contest and writing contest! She began track.

There were times when Liz had to attend events alone or with her dad. I had to stay home with the two toddlers.

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Our Curriculum for 2007-2008

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January 25, 2015 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

We moved to Hawaii after homeschooling for two years in San Antonio, Texas. We continued to homeschool while we lived on Hickam AFB.

It was our third year homeschooling.

We joined a history co-op.

We played in the ocean and explored the islands.

Our Curriculum for 2007-2008

Story of the World Book 2
Singapore Math
Apologia Science – Astronomy

We did a time lapse tide demonstration to show the high and low.

We met the artist Wyland and got an autographed print.

Liz learned to ride her bike.

Liz learned hula, performed in theater, and went to soccer camp.

I tried to provide Liz with lots of variety. Her sisters were babies and came with us almost everywhere. It was an eventful year!

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Our Curriculum for 2014-2015

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August 4, 2014 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

It’s that time again. Back to school. And since we pretty much “do school” year-round, it’s rather anticlimactic around here.

We’re still finishing up some history and math before we’re able to move on to a new year’s curriculum. Liz has quite a lot of catching up to do with history, science, and Latin before moving on.

But when we complete “last year’s” work, here’s what we’re beginning!

Tapestry of Grace Year 4 is our core curriculum. Year 4 is contemporary history…and we’ve never really done this year in the history cycle since I couldn’t bring myself to teach WWII when my eldest was little. Since we live in Germany, I can’t pass up this chance to really teach it like few children chance to learn.

Tapestry of Grace encompasses history, geography, arts and crafts, and literature. There are writing assignments and lots of notebooking. It’s a great Charlotte Mason/classical curriculum and we all love the reading lists of living books – most of which I’ve never heard of before on the lower three levels. There are four learning levels – lower grammar, upper grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. Tori and Kate are doing some of both grammar levels and Liz is solid dialectic, but she’s beginning to read some of the rhetoric literature.

Tori and Kate are doing Singapore math 3. Liz is still doing Videotext Algebra. We all love Life of Fred math as read alouds.

Alex just completed All About Reading Level 1 and is beginning Level 2. He is doing some living math and random workbooks.

Tori and Kate are still working through Logic of English. We all love it! It’s slow going – often, 1 lesson takes 2 weeks – but they’re really learning all the nuances of English, spelling, reading, grammar, and writing.

Tori and Kate are going to start work in Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology – and Alex will listen and observe – and participate when he likes. Liz is moving into Exploring Creation with Biology!

The girls are all learning German, French, and Latin. Alex picks up some and loves language!

For Bible, we are continuing with the Apologia What We Believe series and other random readings I come across that I like. We’re also working on thankful journals.

This mama needs to prioritize and pick back up that prayer journal and get up earlier to do Bible study and devotional to prepare for the day. I need an empty lap and empty hands to nurture little hearts.

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Our Curriculum for 2013-2014

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July 2, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert 3 Comments

Our Curriculum Choices for 2013-2014…

Elizabeth – 12.5, in 8th-ish grade

Bible – Apologia Who is My Neighbor and Why Does He Need Me? and notebooking journal…working our way through this series. She loves it! {Also reviewing Beauty in the Heart. Wonderful!}
ELA – IEW Student Writing Intensive B and Tapestry of Grace lit and writing…her writing has improved greatly lately!
Math – Life of Fred Pre-Algebra 1 with Biology. Finally. And VideoText Algebra – yay!
Science – Apologia Exploring Creation with Physical Science and notebooking journal. We love Apologia science!
History/Geography – Tapestry of Grace Year 3. Liz and I both love this comprehensive classical curriculum that covers all social studies, literature, writing, and worldview.
Electives – Second Form Latin, Homeschool Programming, piano lessons with our neighbor, Harmony Fine Arts w/ ARTistic Pursuits. We do these once a week or so.

She’s earning high school credits already. wow.

Victoria and Katherine – 7 and 6, respectively, in 2nd-ish grade

Bible – The Dig Volume 2, Studying God’s Word B, and Bible Study Guide. The girls love to do all these every day! I try to mix it up a little.
ELA – First Language Lessons (1-2), Spelling Workout B, IEW, Logic of English. We don’t do all of this every day.
Math – Life of Fred Butterflies and Singapore Math 2. We alternate days with these. Tori prefers LOF and Kate prefers Singapore. Compromise!
Science – Apologia Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and notebooking journals. Kate especially loves experiments.
History/Geography – Tapestry of Grace Year 3 with Story of the World, years 3&4. The girls are finally enjoying history and the read alouds, notebooking, maps, narration, projects. yay
Electives – Prima Latina, Song School Spanish, Children’s Music Journey 2 online piano, Harmony Fine Arts w/ ARTistic Pursuits. We do these once a week.

Alexander – 3, in preschool

Alex knows all his letters, their sounds, and he’s starting to put them together to make CVC words! He knows his colors and numbers past 100. I’m taking it slow with him because I can. He is loving his “school work” and it’s great review fun. But I can tell he’s getting a little bored.

Letter of the Week
Raising Rock Stars Preschool
All About Reading pre-level
Logic of English Foundation A
Poppins Book Nook monthly theme units
Children’s Music Journey 1 online piano
art along with sisters. He will not be left out!
Montessori works in his workboxes

Looking at it all laid out, it looks like so much!

When I went through all of Liz’s papers to organize, I realized how much we did last year. But they get bored if they’re not challenged. And they like to do schoolish activities 7 days a week! It’s exhausting for me and sometimes I have to tell them to just go play or color. Tori will do Kumon math workbooks for fun and Kate reads voraciously!

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Curriculum Planning with Multiple Kids

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June 13, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert 11 Comments

Welcome back to the How to Begin Homeschooling series!

Did you miss anything?

See Part 1: Getting started with homeschool or

Part 2: Determine your teaching method and your kids’ learning styles!

Here’s Part 3: Curriculum planning with multiple kids

Coming up! Part 4: Homeschooling as a lifestyle

My kids are 12, 7, 6, and 3.

When it was just Elizabeth for our first and second years of homeschooling, it was fun and new and we could do anything we wanted! I was pregnant with Victoria and then she was a great easy baby so we could take her anywhere anytime.

Having one or two kids is a piece of cake. After three or more kids, then they outnumber you and can plan an ambush. Therefore, you must be proactive and plan your attack or you will lose.

After having Kate, it all fell apart. I couldn’t keep the house spotless anymore {I’ll have to tell you about that phase!}. I struggled with schedules and I was late to everything.

Later, Alex came along, but by then, I had come to terms with our life.

We follow a classical school method.

It keeps me sane. We veered off a bit the last couple years, but we’re back to classical and it feels good.

So, where to begin with so many curriculum and scheduling options?

When Elizabeth was 4-going-on-15, I discovered The Well-Trained Mind. I read that book cover to cover and adored it. I thank God I found something so comprehensive right away and could latch onto that and run with it.

I realize it might not work for everyone, but it’s a great launch point. It has recommended schedules so you can judge if you’re doing too much or too little for each age.

Obviously, after you’ve determined your favorite teaching methods and your children’s learning styles, you can search for resources that fit those.

I love reading lists. Since our homeschool is based on history and literature, I acquire lots and lots of books and request a gazillion at a time from our library.

And there will be loss and prayer and tears and searching until you find what exactly works for everyone. Just pray it through. It’s a journey. It’ll be ok.

My husband worried about all the tries and fails of our curriculum over the years. But if it doesn’t work, I won’t force the issue. Why should I when there are so many wonderful options out there? We’re at a time in such freedom of homeschooling and the wonders of technology that we literally have the world at our fingertips and we can and should utilize everything we can to educate our children to the best of our ability.

We’ve finally gotten to a point of comfort and confidence in our homeschool. I pray that you do too! {I fear Alex may throw a monkey wrench in the whole mess! His personality is very different from the girls’.}

How do we function with multiple age children?

Do you ever wonder about the little red school house idea? Remember the school in Little House on the Prairie? How did they do it?

Do school together as much as possible!

Bible, art, history, and science work well for this. And schedule, schedule, plan, and schedule! {But be flexible!}

What about subjects that aren’t so easy to do as a family? Schedule those in so you can work with a child while others are doing assignments on their own.

Here are some of our fails and successes. Of course, what doesn’t work for our family may be perfect for yours!

Bible

We really enjoy Studying God’s Word during her grammar years. They offer workbooks from pre-school to high school.

We loved Grapevine Studies and We Choose Virtues when the kids were young.

The girls liked the comic-book style activity pages in Bible Study Guide.

We’ve read through Hero Tales and The Dig for Kids. Copywork is great for these!
What is your favorite Bible study for your family or homeschool?>

History

See our detailed post about our history studies.

We love Story of the World for elementary ages. We’re now using Tapestry of Grace since we complete so much of the whole cycle the first time ’round.

I love the chronological study of history that our social studies and language arts centers around. It’s great. It takes lots of pressure off and the read alouds are perfect for the whole family. Even my husband loves it after dinner.

We’re flexible and don’t always keep to the weekly schedule {gasp!} Sometimes, we’ll take more or less time depending on interest. Especially since we cycle through several times, so it’s easy to move on if we’re not completely finished with the unit.

Liz really can’t stand to do the projects and the girls love those. They’re finally getting old enough that I can just advise and monitor and they can complete them on their own.

We use notebooking from Notebooking Pages or we make our own with Notebooking Publisher. Sometimes, I use the pages Tapestry of Grace provides.

Science

We especially love Apologia Science – and have never really used anything else since it suits all our needs perfectly. The elementary series is great for the whole family – and the junior high and high school books are comprehensive and fun too!

Math

See our detailed post about how we study math.

We do utilize math journals and notebooking. We focus on a math concept together periodically. We love Life of Fred and the whole family loves the stories. It’s sneaky math. Khan Academy is a good supplement. We’ve used and loved Singapore Math for elementary, but are currently facing a dilemma for upper level math.

Language Arts

See how I don’t teach English.

Following a classical method for English language study begins with First Language Lessons. There are multiple volumes that include all language arts you need!

All About Learning has great reading and spelling programs.

Logic of English is a great comprehensive ELA program. We reviewed IEW. I’m not a huge fan of workbooks, but there are some options that kids just love.

There are many great notebooking tools for grammar and writing. We just read LOTS and narrate it – orally, artistically, or in writing. Older kids reading to the younger ones cheers my heart.

Foreign Language

We focus on Latin ‘round here.

We also have ASL, Spanish, French, and German each week. The kids love it! It’s fun to learn language together. I am amazed by how they soak it up like sponges.

All Those Extras

How in the world do we fit in the extra things?

Music, art, nature study, exercise…

Liz took formal piano lessons from a wonderful teacher who lives down the street. Tori takes guitar and Katie takes piano. I’m sure Alex will eventually take some music lessons.

We love love love ARTistic Pursuits ! We love composer and artist studies and try to do something weekly. And we currently use art and music units from Harmony Fine Arts.

We are very interested in this new music appreciation study: SQUILT.

As for nature study, we love Handbook of Nature Study. The End.

My kids love living books for nature and animals and biographies about musicians and artists.

Exercise or PE? Tori, Kate, and Alex take gymnastics classes each week. Tori is quite the little track star, running 2 5K’s with Dad this spring. Kate loves soccer in the fall. Liz is in Civil Air Patrol and must keep up with PT scores each month.

And get ’em outside to play! Schedule this into your day. Sunshine and fresh air are important! Go to parks. Go on hikes. Go to pools. Play ball. Organize a weekly homeschool play group with some of your friends. Our kids also join Dad in the gardening and yard work. It counts!

What About the Littles?

Babies are easy and older children are often very forgiving. But when they become toddlers and preschoolers, you have to get proactive and occupy those little monsters. And keep the older sibs’ history projects and science experiments well out of reach. {Who knew they could reach that far?!}

Check out my beginning homeschool post!

I’ve known families with littles who didn’t schedule or plan and just allowed for free play until school age, and that may work for you, but I think everyone misses out on so much in that environment. My kids are often bored or destructive if they don’t have some direction. Weekends are crazy for that very reason.

With so many wonderful Montessori and Tot School resources floating around on blogs and websites, you’re doing a disservice to your family if you leave that baby or toddler to him or herself. And you’ll have so many more messes to clean up. Also, schedule for older siblings to spend “baby time” as part of school time. Train your older children to be a “mama’s helper” and this will benefit all.

Organizing

Circle Time

We do “circle time” together most mornings. All of us together…we do our Bible lesson and read alouds, focusing on memorization, recitation, narration. The littles learn so much during this time. We also work on calendar notebooks, sing our morning songs, and love on each other. Sometimes we do yoga together. We learn facts together with occasional calendar themes. We discuss science, literature, and history we’re studying. This often just transitions into regular assigned work so smoothly. Liz has gotten to where she doesn’t participate as much with circle time. After Bible, she uses the time to get ’er done since they’re all occupied.

Workboxes

We have used several different workbox systems over the years. It’s great for planning, visualizing what needs to be accomplished, and what has been completed.

Sue set up the workboxes for her autistic son to visualize his work. Her system calls for 12 plastic shoeboxes on a wire rack, but why not beautify it? No space? I’ve seen work folders that follow the same concept. I’ve seen some gorgeous examples of shelving and bins that could work with any budget. Google “workboxes” because I can’t list them all here. Also, you can find great free cards for labeling if you so choose. We don’t really label anymore.

Right now, we have 9-cube units from Target that work as our “boxes.” I put baskets, trays, activities, or books into the cubes and that’s what the kids work on for each week. They choose the order they do their assignments. I monitor to make sure they do what they need to do. Otherwise, Kate would do all the science and Latin and Tori would do all that math and they wouldn’t ever get to history or writing.

This is what Tori’s and Kate’s cubes look like this week. They do the same work, so I just double up in the cubes. They’re the perfect size.

Top row: We have fractions. Then Spanish and Latin.

Middle row: I have some money cards and money math pages. Then I have a Montessori letter tray and activities. We’re finishing up Land Animals science.

Bottom row: Then our Harmony Fine Arts notebooks and art journals. We have Draw Write Now. Last, we have life cycles and Charlotte’s Web unit (review soon!).

The girls place any completed pages in the trays on top. The frames on the wall are to keep me on track with weekly themes. Their notebooks are propped on the floor beside the unit. We got through and place their pages in the notebooks when the trays are full.

Alex has a unit too with preschool activities. Toys are in the plastic bins and he lays out his Montessori rugs for his activities to stay contained.

I have a bigger red pocket chart now that we put up all our week’s work.

Liz has a 6-cube unit laid horizontally so she has a big shelf on top for her desk supplies. She has one cubby for every subject (science, math, history, language arts, Bible, Latin) and a big lovely thrifted basket beside it for art. Her notebooks are propped up beside her unit and she organizes her own now when her tray gets full. I give her a printable checklist each week.

See how we homeschool high school?

The girls have homeschool planners to learn time managment.

See how I plan a homeschool year.

How do you stay organized or schedule many children?

Stay tuned for part 4.

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2nd Grade Curriculum

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May 29, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

I’m revisiting what worked for Big Sister our second year and changing up some things I’ve found since for 2nd grade curricula with the girls and my son.

Second grade is such an exciting time.

Reading, writing, exploring. Kids are so curious and excited.

I don’t want to ever kill that love for learning.

I highly recommend the books by Louise Bates Ames. A good guide to follow is What Your Second Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good Second-Grade Education by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.

My girls were 7 and 6, respectively, in 2nd grade:

Bible – The Dig Volume 2, Studying God’s Word B, and Grapevine Bible Studies. The girls love to do all these every day! I try to mix it up a little.
ELA – First Language Lessons (1-2), Spelling Workout B, Logic of English. We don’t do all of this every day.
Math – Life of Fred Butterflies and Singapore Math 2. We alternate days with these. Tori prefers LOF and Kate prefers Singapore. Compromise!
Science – Apologia Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and notebooking journals. Katie especially loves experiments.
History/Geography – Tapestry of Grace Year 3 with Story of the World, years 3&4. The girls are finally enjoying history and the read alouds, notebooking, maps, narration, projects.
Electives – Prima Latina, Song School Spanish, Children’s Music Journey 2 online piano, Harmony Fine Arts w/ ARTistic Pursuits. We do these once a week.

My son for second grade:

Journey Through the Bible New Testament
All About Reading
Life of Fred and Singapore Math 2
Apologia Science – animals and plants
Tapestry of Grace for humanities

While I have my little checklist of facts and concepts I want my kids to know, I don’t drill or make it boring. It’s about exposure at this point, so when we cycle back through, they will recognize and add to their knowledge base.

I don’t focus on a lot of writing yet.

They have lots of free time to play indoors and outside. We go on nature hikes and explore our backyard.

We cook together and do chores together. I naturally include them so they learn. They beg to help!

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Annual Review 2013

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May 21, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

While we’re not completely finished with our school “year” and our schooling runs through the summer…here I evaluate what worked and what didn’t.

We typically finish up a majority of curricula in springtime, like science, math, history, and many extras. We spend spring and summer doing “light schooling” – we finish reading and complete history projects. We do lots of art and nature study and spend our mornings watching hummingbirds and playing outside in the sun. We spend the too-hot afternoons watching educational DVDs and shows on Netflix or playing educational apps and computer games. Evenings, we’re back outside to work in the garden, enjoy the cooler air, and watch hummingbirds and bats.

So here’s my evaluation of what worked for us and what needs tweaking this past “year.” I think I’ve finally hit my stride and we were pretty successful. My husband is quite pleased that we’re settling down and are more comfortable with our curriculum choices and not wasting time and money on products that don’t fit.

History

We love Tapestry of Grace (ToG). I use this primarily with Elizabeth, who loves history and outgrew Story of the World after one cycle through their 4 books in 4 years. We did Ambleside Online that 5th year since it was a survival year for us. I had Alex and we PCS’ed from Hawaii to Utah. We needed simple and free. I had coveted Tapestry of Grace since we began homeschooling and I knew it was time to take the plunge. Liz needed something with more structure than AO and this keeps us well accountable. We love all the choices and some weeks we do too much and other weeks too little, but it will balance out in the end. We are just finishing up Year 2 with TOG.

Tori and Kate are still really young. They would be just beginning the 1st cycle of history, but to keep my sanity, we’ve tagged along with Liz’s schedule. I have to read everything aloud – it’s time-consuming. Some weeks are more interesting than others for them. I plan to do better next year with maintaining their schedule and helping them to keep their notebooks organized. They began really loving the mapwork just about a month ago. Next fall, I plan to really do a full schedule with them for Year 3.

Language Arts

I won a copy of All About Reading Level 2 and Tori and Kate just loved it. We’re almost finished with the lessons and I read that Level 3 doesn’t come out for a few more months. We may wait and just focus on other things until then. We have journals and plenty of literacy games.

I bought AAR pre-level for Alex and he loves it. Ziggy is his bud!

TOG also has a LA component Writing Aids and we incorporate that into our notebooking work. I am excited to review IEW for Liz next month, who needs a structured writing program. We get lots of grammar practice from our Latin studies.

Math

The girls adore Life of Fred and Singapore and we had wild success with both. Liz finished up the Singapore 6B and focused only on Life of Fred. She also enjoys Kahn Academy and I think they’re filling in a lot of gaps for her. We did lots of games and math journaling.

Science

Apologia is perfect for our family. The girls are completing Land Animals and Liz finished up with General. They love the notebooking journals! We did appropriate nature studies, but had a really hard winter and didn’t get outside as much as I would’ve liked.

Music

The girls still love the Musiq Homeschool lessons. Liz plays around with it, but takes formal lessons from a neighbor. She just had her recital last month and it was flawless. We do composer studies as a family with TOG. I hope to start back up with guitar from Schoolhouse Teachers.

Art

We did artist studies along with TOG. We occasionally did extra unit studies if we had time to fit it in or it had extra cross-curricular significance.

Latin

We love Memoria Press Latin. Liz is finishing up Second Form and the girls are beginning with Prima Latina. They love it so much. I love listening to them learning derivatives and grammar. A review is coming up soon!

Practical

Liz is the cupcake queen. She enjoys baking and I hope to encourage her more, but we don’t need all the sweets in our diet. I hope to find an outlet for her creations. Any takers?

Liz has quite a successful babysitting service to our pastor’s preschool-aged grandchildren. Having such a flexible schedule has allowed her to attend them whenever needed. The boy is deaf and autistic and the girl has ADHD from FAS. I am sure this experience will be invaluable in the future. They love her and Liz adores them and works very well with them.

The kids are learning to use essential oils along with me. They are fascinated by how quickly effective they can be to change our feelings or owies.

All the children are learning how to be servant leaders. We’ve been focusing on relationships.

Bible

All the kids and I love The Dig for Kids. Alex is working on Raising Rock Starts Preschool. Tori and Kate read and did great copywork with Hero Tales. Liz completed Who Is God? and Who Am I? from Apologia.

We <3 We Choose Virtues!

I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve grown with God this past year. I am so different than I was even a few months ago. He has changed my heart and our family is so much more successful for the Kingdom and on the righter path.

Other

Tori ran two 5K’s with her Dad. For this last one, she got 3rd place for her age group, after two 10 year olds! She was the youngest female in the race at age 7.

Liz is working towards promotion in Civil Air Patrol. She flew a plane from Provo to Salt Lake City a few weeks ago. She loved it.

Conclusion

When I look back at all we’ve accomplished, I feel good. I see how much progress we’ve made! The bad days {read: weeks, months} seem far away and the overall picture is success. I look forward to some downtime and planning for next year. We’re not changing much. Things are too good right now.

Click to see what others have to say:

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Our Curriculum for 2012-2013

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August 3, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 6 Comments

Our goals for this homeschool year:

Alex: Tot School

Alex has shown much more interest in doing school lately!

I plan to continue the following:

Tot School ABC printables
Animal BC printables
monthly theme Tot Packs and others from here
more Bible time with songs, more arts and crafts
Montessori printables and materials

Tori and Katie: 1st grade

I’m following the ideas in The Well-Trained Mind and Ambleside Online: First Language Lessons, Winnie the Pooh, Christian Liberty Nature Reader, monthly theme printables – if I can more advanced ones to match Alex’s themes. Quarterly, we study an artist, composer, hymns, poet. I post them on our calendar board.

Here’s their 1st grade curriculum:

Apologia Land Animals
Singapore Math 1B
Tapestry of Grace Year 2 with Story of the World as a spine
First Start French (Liz will help teach this!)
Artistic Pursuits
Grapevine Studies for Bible

Liz: 7th grade

We still like reading lists and other things from Ambleside Online. We love the quarterly artist, composer, hymns, poet.

Here’s her 7th grade curriculum:

Apologia General Science. We’re following the ideas mentioned in this blog post.
Life of Fred Fractions with mathbooking
Elementary Greek
Second Form Latin
First Start French (Liz will teach Tori and Katie: it’s pretty basic stuff) We have Mango Language free from our library and they give us access from home and on our devices. Sweet!
Reader Notebook
Tapestry of Grace Year 2
Artistic Pursuits
Grapevine Studies for Bible

Schedule:

Every Day: math, reading, foreign language
Mondays: Intro to TOG unit, art lesson, science lesson intro
Liz watches Latin DVD lesson, reads Greek and French lessons (much shorter than Latin lessons)
Tuesday: history reading (TOG), science reading
Wednesdays: map work and geography (TOG), science reading and notebooking
Thursdays: Lit reading (TOG), LA notebooking, science reading and notebooking
Fridays: finish reading with TOG and science and notebooking, Liz has a science test biweekly
Saturdays: finish up any notebooking, work with Dad on science experiments, history projects, nature study

Themes:

Because I get bogged down in stuff and often don’t remember important events until after the fact, here is my reminder of appropriate themes for certain months. Some themes don’t matter when you do them, but I put them where I needed filling. I must remember to gather materials beforehand. ha!

August: summer themes (BBQ), nursery rhymes, dinosaurs
September: apples and leaves, autumn, community helpers
October: pumpkins, Halloween, space, transportation
November: harvest and Thanksgiving, farms
December: Hanukkah, Christmas, family
January: New Year, snow and winter, MLK Jr. Day, bears
February: Groundhog Day, Chinese New Year, Valentines, President’s Day, health
March: St. Patrick’s, animals
April: spring and Easter, weather
May: Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day and flowers, bugs
June: Father’s Day, gardening, frogs, beach
July: Fourth of July, camping

Our Curriculum for 2012-2013

Elizabeth is 11 and in 7th grade.

Victoria is 6 and Katherine is 5 and they’re in 1st grade (funny how they have different abilities! Tori loves math and science and Katie can narrate very well and can read much more fluently than Tori).

Alexander is 2 and does Tot School (when his mood is right).

History:

I love it when all the kids learn together. I love Tapestry of Grace for this. Here are the children coloring Rose Windows from cathedrals and Elizabeth is researching them on the iPad. She read the article to her siblings.

We are studying Medieval Times this year. We can’t wait to dress up Alex as a knight or something. I wish we lived close to a Medieval Times restaurant. I found the coolest medieval cookbook at the library. We shall have us a medieval feast as our unit celebration!

I supplement the girls with Story of the World. It is actually listed in TOG as a core history book for upper level grammar. I used SOTW with Liz for her first 4 years and then we did Ambleside Online for a year or two while I wondered what to do and now we’re hardcore TOG users. I can’t rave about it enough. We really do read almost everything on the list for Lower Grammar and Dialectic. We don’t always finish each week in only one week though. We sometimes take two weeks before moving on, or we combine weeks if it works better that way.

Bible:

The kids often have a hard time comprehending when I just read from the Bible. We often read from our Bible story book for TOG history. We needed something more though. We’ve been loving Grapevine Bible Studies. I contacted Dianna a couple months ago and asked if I could do reviews for her and she happily obliged. I really thought the idea was silly at first, but the kids love it. They really get it. I need something the kids can all do together and this fits well.

We reviewed the Esther study. We are currently reviewing Ruth and the Catechism.

Liz then has her Worldview reading from TOG. Right now, she is reading The Church in History

Math:

I really dislike math. We’ve used Singapore Math from 1st through last year (Liz’s 6th grade year).It pains me to say that I needed a teacher manual when Liz got Math 5. It doesn’t help that my husband is a whiz at math. His spiritual gift is not teaching though. I just started Tori and Katie on Singapore 1B and they love it. I feel I can teach them at this level ok. We’re at a loss as to what to use for middle and high school. I ordered Liz the Life of Fred Fractions in the interim and she loves it. But I feel she needs more than that. She needs to start algebra next year. Curious about Teaching Textbooks or VideoText. Pros/cons?

Science:

We’ve used Apologia science Exploring Creation elementary series from day 1. Tori and Katie did Swimming Creatures last year. This year we are learning about Land Animals. Elizabeth is beginning General Science this year.

We also do nature notebooking each month. I read a Christian Liberty nature reader to Tori and Katie almost every day.

Language Arts:

Um. I was an English teacher in my past life. I don’t have a curriculum for this. I know there are some great ones out there. I’ve looked at them and I just can’t bring myself to spend money on them.
I use the TOG writing ideas each week, mostly for Elizabeth. Elizabeth learns her grammar from her Latin program. She started with Prima Latina in 3rd grade. IF I feel she needs a refresher, I teach it to her. That’s what I did. I don’t need a curriculum to teach grammar or writing or reading. I think I am blessed with these talents. I love literature and writing and all that grammar stuff. Liz love to read. She carries her Kindle with her everywhere. I loaded some free classics as well as some TOG and Ambleside Online reading books on there and she loves it.

I use online printables for Tori and Katie. The girls really love her word families. We read A LOT. We do copywork. We get lots of books from the library for history, science, and literature. We’re also working our way through First Language Lessons. I don’t make them do every lesson. Tori asked me last month: “Mom, when are going to move on from nouns? I get it.” So we move on!

Living books for history and reading:

Saint Francis of Assisi by Joyce Denham
Johann Gutenberg and the Printing Press by Kay Melchisedech Olson
Caedmon’s Song by Ruth Ashby
The Kitchen Knight: A Tale of King Arthur by Margaret Hodges
The Squire and the Scroll by Jennie Bishop
Joan of Arc: Heroine of France by Ann Tompert
Exploring Ancient Civilizations: Medieval Times by Robynne Eagan
Morning Star of the Reformation by Andy Thomson
Men of Iron by Howard Pyle
The Minstrel in the Tower by Gloria Skurzynski
Marguerite Makes a Book by Bruce Robertson
The Making of a Knight by Patrick O’Brien
Marco Polo
Medieval Myths, Legends, And Songs by Donna Trembinski
The Fall of Constantinople by Ruth Tenzer Feldman
Aladdin and Other Tales from the Arabian Nights
Celtic World by Fiona Macdonald
You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Crusader!: A War You’d Rather Not Fight by Fiona MacDonald
The Renaissance by Jane Shuter

Foreign Language:

I teach them all a word each week or so in German, French, and Spanish. This week is the word “sun.” Die Sonne, le soleil, el sol. They love it. Katie is begging to learn Spanish. I guess I can try to fit it in. Our library has a Mango languages app.

Liz is currently going through Elementary Greek. It’s just ok. She will begin Second Form Latin when she completes the Greek study. Any recommendations out there for a good Greek program? Liz really loves it but I am less than thrilled with this text.

Art:

We love Artistic Pursuits! All the girls enjoy these lessons. We also study the artists on Ambleside Online. I really need to incorporate more arts and crafts. TOG has some great ideas, and I am just lazy.

Other:

We have lots of computer games and iPad apps. Technology, check.

I think Tori and Katie need to start up Funnix again, taking turns. It would give me time to work with Alex one on one. I need to set a schedule up a couple times each week.

Tori, Katie, and Alex are taking gymnastics this year. They just started and they love it! We took a couple years off and Tori and Katie are just picking up where they left off. Katie is playing soccer these next couple months. Liz and Tori will probably run track again in the spring. Not sure what to do for Liz during the fall and winter. She wants to start Taekwondo, but it’s just not affordable or convenient. They recently pooled their allowances and bought a couple Just Dance Wii games. They make you sweat!

I also plan to begin a homemaker’s journal with Elizabeth. I have plans to get a lovely scrapbook and pretty tab dividers and let her help me plan it. My mom just gave me a subscription to Better Homes&Gardens and I think Liz could use that as a jumping off point to begin her home idea scrapbook. She can start collecting decorating ideas, recipes to try, cleaning and organization tips, beauty and hygiene tips, hospitality and event planning/holiday ideas.

Basically, it will be a real life Pinterest since I will not let her have her own account yet. (I’m a mean mom!) I hope it helps her get more adept at running a household and doing her chores. If she gets to make some decisions, then maybe that will generate interest? I was doing so much more at her age and she doesn’t even want to learn. sigh

This is an exciting year!

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Our Curriculum for 2010-2011

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May 5, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

We moved to Utah after living in Hawaii for three years.

It was a difficult transition.

We’ve recently saw doctors for pain in Elizabeth’s legs.

The pediatrician referred us to an orthopedist. That doctor said she needed surgery on her ankles and wanted us to buy some $300 custom-made braces in the meantime. wow

I asked for a second opinion. This doctor referred Elizabeth for ASTYM therapy and recommended rigid running shoes with a UCBL orthotic insert. That will probably work since she has already improved with the stretching and yoga I’ve been encouraging her to do. If these treatments fail, then she needs surgery on her ankles and legs. He said the ankle surgery would be worthless without the other one. So glad I got this second opinion!

I’m pleased that Elizabeth is finishing up First Form Latin. I have Second Form on the shelf, ready to go. She also wants to learn Greek and French! I have those, but I think it’s too much right now. She has such a talent for language.

She loves to read and we really enjoy the selections from Tapestry of Grace.

She struggles with math, but Singapore math has been a pretty good fit. It moves quickly and she sure doesn’t get bored. She hated the 6-month stint when we tried Saxon a couple years ago. We’ll begin Singapore Developmental Math this fall.

We’ll also begin Apologia General Science in the fall. I can hardly wait! The seventh grade workload is going to be much more than we’re used to – I hope we can manage!

She is a delight and quite precocious for her age.

Still plugging along with Apologia Swimming Creatures. We had to slow way down to stretch 13 lessons into 20 co-op experiment classes to make it worthwhile.

I downloaded Writeshop’s Christmas cards last month and those were a hit, so we’re going to use World of People and World of Animals for weekly writing, in addition to what TOG assignments.

Elizabeth loves the Calendar Connections cards and helps with our morning time: calendar, Bible, and prayer. She’s awesome to help with read-alouds too!

It’s getting hard to keep Elizabeth in books!

Right now, we’re working through Newbery Award Winners. She’s also reading biographies about missionaries.

We’ve been reading about the Tower of Babel and Gilgamesh and ancient Sumeria in Tapestry of Grace.

We’re doing lessons on BLOOD in Apologia anatomy. Lab officer Daddy would be so proud! She began prewriting on an essay about blood and its functions and I am impressed. I can’t wait to see the final product. I have seen such improvement lately!

She has all but finished Singapore Math 5B. I will give her a little break before beginning 6A. We have some review of fractions to get through. She doesn’t like review…or quizzes…or tests…;)

Elizabeth has decided she is now BETH and no longer LIZZIE. I can’t keep it straight!

Here is Beth getting all purty for the Mothers’ Day church tea…our theme table is Victorian. more photos to come later…

Playing with Legos…

She’s a great big sister.

Elizabeth is being mentored by two older ladies at our church. It has been wonderful for all involved. Mrs. Carol is teaching Elizabeth to sew with a sewing machine. They even plan to make a quilt this summer! Mrs. Ginger is into cake decorating and art. She even used to own an art gallery! Mrs. Ginger plays piano for our church and she plans to work with Elizabeth in her music studies. I love seeing Elizabeth have these relationships. I’m almost jealous that I can’t get in on the fun.

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1st Grade Curriculum

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March 31, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

I’m revisiting what worked for Big Sister our first year and changing up some things I’ve found since for 1st grade with the girls.

I follow their lead, what they’re interested in, and allow for lots of breaks, outside time, play time, exploring, field trips.

My youngest child went along with his sisters from birth, so he did things whenever he felt ready.

Tot school, preschool, and Kindergarten were just natural progressions as they wanted to know more, learn more, do more.

I don’t want to rush academics. I don’t want everything to be so educational.

I feel almost sad this last time I am teaching 1st grade.

I highly recommend the books by Louise Bates Ames. A good guide to follow is What Your First Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good First-Grade Education by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.

We focus on reading and writing.

We ease into science and math and all the humanities with Tapestry of Grace.

We make sure there is plenty of free time for play and helping with daily chores.

First Grade Curriculum

Journey Through the Bible and/or Studying God’s Word books A/B
All About Reading
Literature read alouds
Year One in our history cycle – Ancient Times.
Singapore Math 1 and Life of Fred
Christian Liberty Nature Readers
Apologia Science – Astronomy and/or Human Anatomy and/or Land Animals

Math

Starting to do some more formal math with the girls…Today, we started the textbook Singapore Math 1B (This is leftover from Big Sister and I haven’t gotten around to even buying workbooks yet.)…

We worked through almost half the book and got into place value. I brought out the cute little pipe cleaner bead strands I made a while back (they were totally unimpressed then!). I used shiny silver pipe cleaners and 10 blue plastic beads for each strand. I scrunched the ends of the pipe cleaners to hold the strands together.

I stopped at page 33. I got tired. My throat was sore!

So, here’s the funny story. The equation was 15-3=? and I laid out 1 tens bead strand and 5 ones beads. I grabbed three beads and asked them what was left. Katie hollered out, “12!” I thought that was pretty amazing that they really were getting this. I asked her how she knew that, expecting her to explain how she got the answer using the beads or something…

With her head cocked to the side, she replied, condescendingly, “Mom, I just thinked it.”

Of course you did, Honey. How silly of Mama to underestimate you. Obviously, we need to move on to grammar and subject-verb agreement now.

Science

We’re beginning Apologia Zoology 3: Land Animals of the Sixth Day. We also are reading Christian Liberty Nature Reader 1. We read Green Thumbs and we’re ready to start a garden!

We studied the phases of the moon this week for astronomy. They had charts and matching pages.

Check out my astronomy Pinterest board for fun learning ideas.

Tori working on her space workbook.

Fun

Eating purple grits! that Big Sister made one morning.

She’s been playing with food coloring lately. We have a different color of lemonade every day too.

Writing

Penmanship, calendars, word families…

I found some fun free pages and I plan to incorporate that idea into our morning work now since the girls loved it so much. The calendar notebooks weren’t working out so well. I’ve since updated our calendar yet again and done away with the notebooks altogether.

We’re now working through our word families. We’ve done –an, –and, and –ad so far.

Our calendar board is two sided. I use the Calendar Connections for our monthly themes.

On the other side, I just re-created all the focus points. I have our quarterly poet, composer, and artist at the top. I have our Bible verse and character trait and pledges and the Lord’s Prayer.

I have a poem, song, and hymn on the bottom. The blue background has our word family, a French word, and a German word.

I haven’t quite worked out what to put in that fourth quadrant yet. The blank space on the bottom will probably have our animal of the week to go with science. Always a work in progress!

We do Bible and calendar time during or right after breakfast in the little living room right by the kitchen and dining area. Then, the girls and I do other school activities in the basement.

Here are the girls’ shelves with Montessori works and the word wall above. In the shelves, I have a moveable alphabet with Lauri letters and silent E worksheets, a red basket full of Unifix cubes that they love to do patterns, some paper weaving seahorses, flower arranging, hot dots short and long vowels, some file folder games, a sentence dice activity, and an animal book with an animal fact learning wheel.

Word families are in the blue pocket chart. The red chart holds Easter words and will have a theme each week or month or whenever we change.

Katie’s green box holds her notebooks and personal school items. Tori has a blue box in the picture above, under the easel and beside her table. This has worked well for us the past few weeks. We used to use workboxes, but now we have evolved into work folders, kept in the colored boxes.

Our read alouds:

We’re finishing Tapestry of Grace Year 1 Unit 4.

We’re reading through Beatrix Potter and loving it. Dad even hopes he’s around for those readings – he’s a Peter Rabbit fan!

We focus on classics and fairy tales.

History is fun and simple and they love a coloring book with it!

We worked through First Language Lessons 1 for grammar and writing with the girls.

We’ll take off a couple weeks in July when we have friends and family visit.

Do you school year round or take a big summer break?

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