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Do you enjoy planning for a new school year?
I must say, it has been one of my favorite things about homeschooling. I thoroughly enjoy researching new curriculum and resources!
Since we are due to have a baby the beginning of July, my planning began super early this year - not that I minded. :) I wanted to be sure to have my research, planning, and purchasing finished by March so I can get ready for baby.
Also, my goal for this year is to keep our curriculum plans simple and attainable. I am so excited about what we will be doing!
Our First Grade Picks
Morning Time & Bible
We will be using the Morning Time Guide Volume 2 from Brighter Day Press.
I wanted a simple guide with a gentle schedule that would be easy for us to follow. We have used a few of Whitney's other guides and have always enjoyed them.
Through the use of the guide, we will have a daily Bible reading, learn nine hymns, memorize Bible passages, and read aloud 9 chapter books (Charlotte's Web, George Mueller, A Bear Called Paddington, All-of-a-Kind Family, A Question of Yams, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Heidi, Gladys Alward, A Mouse Called Wolf.)
The guide also provides artist and composer studies, which I am not planning on diving into (at least for the beginning of our year).
Exercise and Rhythms
Something we began in kindergarten, and a goal I have for this year, is to continue creating daily rhythms, which includes things like making beds, brushing teeth, doing chores, and exercising.
For our exercise, we enjoy using videos from The Good and the Beautiful. On their free app, they provide many wonderful 15 minute exercise videos that are very fun for kids (and moms too). While the exercises aren't hard, it helps to get their bodies moving so they are able to settle in for their lessons.
Language Arts
We will be using The Good and the Beautiful for our language arts this year. This curriculum has worked very well for us through preschool and kindergarten. For those who are curious - Due to the fact that the curriculum is owned and written by a Mormon, I know there is a lot of concern about this curriculum in Christian circles. As my husband and I prayed about what was best for our family, we felt peace to proceed with this for the time being. I have tried several other language arts programs for my oldest and each one has caused a lot of frustration for him. So we feel that for now it is better to continue using the program that helps him thrive.
Next year I would love to try Learning Language Arts Through Literature to see if that could be a fit for us.
Phonics
We enjoy using Explode the Code for extra language and phonics practice. My son enjoys working on this on his own and this helps build his confidence.
Handwriting
While I feel like our language arts curriculum provides plenty of opportunities to practice handwriting, we have enjoyed Handwriting Without Tears for a little extra prompting.
Math
We will also be using the Math program from The Good and the Beautiful for this year. I have yet to know if this will be a long-term fit for us, but we are going to give it a try. Last year, for kindergarten, we used Masterbooks Level K and while neither my son or I really enjoyed the program, it was fun to try something new.
History, Geography, and Nature Study
History is my favorite subject and my favorite thing to plan!
I wanted something that would be flexible and would also allow me to combine as many subjects as possible! We will be using the Around the World Part 1 study from Beautiful Feet Books.
Beautiful Feet Books is a family-owned literature based company that provides so many gorgeous history studies complete with teacher guides, book packs, and free printables for notebooking.
We will be visiting ten countries throughout the school year! The study is set up to be super flexible - you can go as fast or slow as you would like to. My goal for the first few months is to study one country a month, with the goal of accomplishing two a month later on in the year.
Using a few different resources, including the teacher guide for the Around the World study, Give Your Child the World, and Little School of Smiths blog posts, I have already planned out our country studies by creating a mini unit study for each one. At some point, I will show a glimpse of this process in my Instagram stories.
Our country studies will include:
- Literature: picture books and read alouds for each country
- Map Work/Geography
- Historical events, places, and people (including missionaries). To assist our missionary studies, we will be using OnMission Magazine from Gentle & Classical Press.
- Nature study - we will be studying specific plants and animals native to the country
- Recipes/Cuisine
Art and Notebooking
I will also be combining these two electives with our Around the World studies. I have specific art projects planned for each country and as we study people, places, or nature, we will be documenting our finds in our notebooks. I am planning on using Jodi Mockabee's watercolor method of notebooking, however, if it becomes overwhelming in this season, we will use the printables from Beautiful Feet to keep things simple. Either way, my hope is that we will have a beautiful keepsake at the end of our year.
Early this year I took advantage of a 50% off sale for Lily & Thistle's Watercolor School! With my purchase we gained a lifetime access to their online watercolor course that gives you step-by-step guidance and includes over 150 projects. They also provide valuable information on the best supplies to use for watercolor art. I am so excited to use this for all of us (me included)!
And that about wraps things up! Like I mentioned, it's all pretty simple, but I am so excited about the beauty we will be learning. I am hoping to document our Around the World studies by creating a blog post for each country so I can remember what we learned and the resources we used. Stay tuned, if you would like to follow along!
- Sonya
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