Category: Curriculum

Homeschool Curriculum Picks 2019-2020

As I stated last year when I did my curriculum post for 2018-2019, this is our plan FOR NOW.

It is not set in stone.

We are not bound to it, and things could change.  As Sarah Mackenzie so wisely states in her book, Teaching From Rest,

“…published resources are to be wielded by you, not to rule over you.”

WISE WORDS.

One big change for us this year is we will be participating in a co-op again.  Yay!  As some of you know, we did not do a co-op last year for various reasons.  But we are excited to be part of a co-op again, and some of our curriculum choices are things we will be doing with that group.

This blog post contains affiliate links and any purchases made through such links will result in a small commission for me (at no extra cost to you).

Also, I plan on giving my kiddos plenty of time to explore their current interests and any new interests that come up.

Here we go!

Curriculum Picks for 2019-2020

Curriculum Picks for 6th Grade:

Handwriting:

Getty Dubay Handwriting

Writing/Language Arts:

Bravewriter Writing Projects

Big life journal

Journal Prompts using other sources

Math:

Life of Fred – Working through Decimals and Percents, and beyond

Math-It – Math facts practice

Other:

Coding using Bitbox

Coding incorporating Minecraft

Lots cooking, baking and dessert making (pretty much her favorite activities!)

Piano practice and lessons

Curriculum Picks for 4th Grade:

Handwriting:

Getty Dubay Handwriting

Writing/Language Arts:

Explode the Code

Bravewriter

Journal Prompts using various sources

Math:

Teaching Textbooks: Online program

Math-It – Math facts practice

Life of Fred – As he is interested.

Curriculum Picks for Kindergarten:

Pre Math-It

Pre-handwriting activities

Getty Dubay Book A – when he’s ready

My Father’s World book and activity list for Kindergarten (Leaving out phonics and math)

For Everyone:

Bible:

A Child’s Story Bible by Catherine Vos –  Focusing on the New Testament this year.

Picture-Smart Bible – Starting in the Old Testament. (I’m especially excited for my daughter to use this, as she is extremely picture-smart!)  

Reading:

Lots of reading aloud!

Poetry Teatime

Independent Reading

History:

Living Books exploring Rome to the Early Renaissance. We will be plotting the major events on our timeline as we go.  

A Child’s History of the World by Virgil M. Hillyer – Our history spine to read alongside the Living Books.

The Story of the World (audiobook)

Claritas Publishing Cycle 2 – We will be doing this along with our co-op

Chalk Pastel classes that go along with our history cycle

**For a more comprehensive post on homeschooling history check out this post: Homeschooling History Without a Text Book!

Geography:

We will be doing geography with our co-op.

Chalk Pastel – I’m excited to have the kids do Nana’s “maps” lessons!

Science

Nature Study using the book: The Nature Connection: An Outdoor Workbook for Kids, Families, and Classrooms

Lessons and experiments from Science in the Ancient World – Another book we will be doing along with our co-op that will coincide with our history cycle.

Logic (for the older two):

Fallacy Detective – My husband will be working through this with the older two.

Music and Art:

We will be studying music and art in our co-op too.

Chalk Pastel classes with Nana

Other activities:

Gym and Swim at the YMCA

Ice-Skating at the local ice arena

Field trips

Lots of games played together at home!


 

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Books to help you explore Ancient Egypt

I recently wrote a post about hands-on activities to help you explore Ancient Egypt. THIS post is a complementary post to that one, on books you can use to study Ancient Egypt.

Included in this list are the books that we found the most interesting and ones that sparked great conversation.  As I’ve shared in other posts, we like to use mostly living books for studying history. We used them as read-alouds.

There are so many books about Ancient Egypt to pick from!  This is just a fraction (but a GOOD fraction) of them!

This blog post contains affiliate links and any purchases made through these links will result in a small commission for me (at no cost to you!).

Usborne Books

Oh, how we love our Usborne books!  The two Usborne books that we used the most as we studied Ancient Egypt were Time Traveler and Pharaoh’s & Pyramids

Time Traveler is a great one that covers many different age periods and the Ancient Egypt portion is just one part of the book.  My daughter actually reads this one a lot but more for the section on the Middle Ages.

Pharaoh’s & Pyramids is out of print, but you can probably get it from your library or eBay.  The pictures are just so detailed and even humorous at times.  We had a great time looking at this one together.  This one is not available on Amazon but you can probably find it at your local library or eBay.

What I love about Usborne non-fiction, is the way they just take small parts of text and include it amidst great illustrations.  They can be used by all different ages of kids.

Historical Fiction Novels

A Cry From Egypt by Hope Auer

A Cry From Egypt was not on my original book list for the year, but a friend of mine who is doing Cycle 1 with CC, posted that her family had enjoyed this book.  I was not able to get it at the library so I purchased this one on Amazon.

My kids REALLY liked this one.  With lots of cliffhangers and tons of heart, this book was a favorite.  It’s the story of a 12 year old Jewish girl living during the time of the 10 plagues.   The kids begged me every day to read more.  There is a sequel, A Stand at Sinai, that my daughter begged me to buy.  She read it on her own and loved it as well.

The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

Also set in Ancient Egypt, The Golden Goblet is the story of Ranofer, an Egyptian boy who lives under the oppression and abuse of his evil half-brother, Gebu.  Ranofer’s main desire is to be a master goldsmith, but he has to figure out a way to escape Gebu.

This novel was not as much of a crowd pleaser as A Cry from Egypt, and my son liked it much more than my daughter.  It was slower to start but still very interesting and shed light on what life was like for common people in Ancient Egypt.

Picture books (not just for younger kids!)

The 5,000-Year-Old Puzzle: Solving a Mystery of Ancient Egypt by Claudia Logan

The reader can participate in what an actual archaeological dig would have been like.  This book uses actual historical information from Dr. George Reisner’s archaeological dig of 1924.  It puts it together in a way that really engages the reader.  Lots of great pictures combined with information in a very pleasing format.

Ancient Egypt by Daniel Cohen

What makes this book stand out is the exceptional and large illustrations.  The illustrations are accompanied by text on each page and you will know a ton more about Ancient Egypt after reading this informative book!  Unfortunately, this is another one that is hard to find.  I was able to get it at our local library.

 

If you’re looking for a movie, then there, of course, is the beloved Prince of Egypt, always a favorite!

Check out my other history book lists!

Ancient Greece

Ancient Rome

Middle Ages

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Weekly Wrap-Up: November 12-16

The highlights…

Family Drawing Workshop

Through our Read Aloud Revival Membership we get access to a few already recorded workshops.  So on Monday morning, I thought it would be fun to do a Christmas Drawing Workshop.  The instructor was Ralph Masiello, creator of various drawing books such as “Ocean Drawing Book” and “Bug Drawing Book”, that you can find here.  The Kids spent over an hour drawing various Christmas-y type things.  I must say it was a great way to start the week!  And even though my oldest is a natural born artist, she learned some new techniques that she was excited to implement!

Homeschool Online Drawing Class

Farmer Boy

We’ve been listening to Farmer Boy on Audiobook.  This week we heard about how Almanzo and his siblings made candy/taffy from molasses, sugar, and water.  My kids desperately wanted to try this.  So we found a recipe here and attempted to make our own taffy.  It did not turn out so well, and we eventually gave up and formed little candy balls instead.  My daughter nicknamed them “Lassies”.  They taste better than they look!

Farmer Boy Molasses Candy
Mixing the Molasses and Brown Sugar
Bringing it to a boil
Farmer Boy Molasses Candy
Stretching and forming the candy
Field Trip: Musical Zoo

On Tuesday we went with some of our old co-op friends to attend the symphony.  It was only a 45-minute performance (perfect for a 4-year-old!).   It was a very engaging performance that began with a narrator reading a few Aesop’s fables while the orchestra “accompanied”. Then the orchestra played Carnival of the Animals, a 14 movement suite, written by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns in 1886. It was a very entertaining performance.

‘Life of Fred’ Marathon

Every few weeks my kids get the itch to complete a giant amount of their Life of Fred books.  This week was such a week.  Joe completed about 15 chapters which was almost a whole book!  I love Life of Fred for so many reasons, one being how it is quirky and fun.  Many times I have found Life of Fred books laying in Lydia’s bed.  They are a great choice for outside the box learners!  To learn more about Life of Fred, go here.

 

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