2017-2018 Kindergarten Curriculum Choices

Last year, my son came home from preschool at the age of 4 begging me to teach him to read. He's always been a smart kid and has always LOVED books but something had flipped in him and he was ready....I was not. I wasn't prepared for him to be ready, we were getting ready to have baby #3 and I wasn't in the mindset, however he was eager, so I began my search for the best place to start.  During this search, I came across numerous homeschoolers and homeschool curriculum and at the same time, God started showing my husband and I that Homeschooling was going to be the best option for us.  Fast forward to the summer and we had tried a reading program but it wasn't clicking in his young brain. When I look back at it now, he just wasn't quiet ready for the program I selected but it gave us a good start. We slowly worked our way through All About Reading and started Horizons Math. He looked forward to doing school but I was preoccupied with a newborn and had postpartum depression so my focus just wasn't there. We had decided at the end of the school year that it was best to send our Hippo to his preschool for one more year, and while looking back I'm not sure I would make that decision again, it was what we needed to do in our season. During that time, we continued our reading practice with him, dropped the All About Reading program for the most part and switched to Bob Books and the All About Reading 1 Readers as our source of reading practice. We continued with Horizons Math K here and there and by the end of his Junior Kindergarten year, we are at about a half-way through Kindergarten level. He has most of the kinder skills but needs some work on a few things. Our goal for this year, is to go back and make sure that concepts are solidly there before we jump ahead to 1st grade material. There are the programs we are using to do just that.

Language Arts:
We have decided to go with IEW PAL: Primary Arts of Language for our Kindergarten Language Arts program. It is an all encompassing program that works on the 4 areas of LA: Reading, Writing (and Penmanship), Spelling and Speaking/memory. The program is a K-2 program and can be used with kids in all areas of this age level. The beginning stages of the program will be easy and will be review for the Hippo, however, we want to make sure concepts are solidly in place before we move ahead. We also, want to start from the beginning with this so he learns the concepts in the order they do it. You can watch my Unboxing here:

Math: For Math this year, we have decided to go with RightStart Math Level A. This program teaches Math in a different method and is a manipulative and game based program. It is teacher intensive but we are really looking forward to it.  We have also decided to use Math Lessons for a Living Education 1 as a supplemental application based program. This isn't something we will spend lots of time on but something that is just a little different or to use during our breaks.

Additional Stuff:

For some independent work time, we have picked up a variety of things for him to do. For Critical Thinking Skills we are using Can You Find Me? For Drawing we are using My First I Can Draw
If you'd like to see what we are doing as a whole group, you can watch this video below or check out this blog post here.

2017-2018 Pre-K Curriculum

Over the past year and a half, I have done a TON of research...maybe too much research 😜. Anyways, one thing I continued to return to was My Father's World Curriculum. They aren't a huge, in your face kind of company however they have been around for a while and have been used by a lot of families. The reason I keep going back to them is that their "Core" is heavily focus on Bible and History and how the two interact. Not being raised in the church and going to public school until college made large gaps in the connections in my mind of between Biblical History and the History taught without those aspects. I also really like that MFW is a mix of Classical and Charlotte Mason approaches because those are the two my husband and I relate to the most.
Do to a variety of reason, we decided to not use their Kinder or 1st grade curriculum for The Hippo Boy but will likely use them for our Mountain Lion. To begin this, we decided we'd try them out with their Pre-K curriculum. It is a full Pre-K curriculum that has a large enfaces on Bible story's, learning the Alphabet and Numbers 1-10 as well as a lot of play! You can watch my unboxing video here:

Now along with this Pre-K Curriculum, we are adding some things she will do along side the Hippo if she wants to. You can see our whole group curriculum here. We also picked up a few other items as well so that she had her own workbooks to do while the Hippo did his. You can see the video here:

Here is the list and links for what we will be using: -Usborne's Illustrated Alphabet -Get Ready for the Code A and B -Handwriting without Tears: First School Book -Bob Books Alphabet and Pre-Reading -Christian Liberty Nature Reader Book K -Get Ready for School Alphabet Sticker Book -Get Ready for School Number Sticker Books -Preschool Scissor Skills -Developing the Early Learner Books 1-4
Thank you for stopping by to check out what we are going to be using! I hope these ideas are helpful if you are looking for options. I'm planning to review all these things and will be sure to let you know how it all goes :)

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2017-2018 Homeschool Curriculum

Within the last year and a half, my husband and I have felt called to homeschool our children. We have a variety of reasons that brought this on but we are SO EXCITED about this new adventure God has us on and we can't wait to get started.
Over the next month, I hope to get our plans on here for anyone who is interested. I'm one of those crazy people who research a TON and have looked at so much so I thought I'd share what we are going to be using and how we are organizing. Also, I have started a YouTube channel where I've been kind of blogging lately so if you want to see more, check it out!
Alright onto the reason we are here:

2017-2018 Homeschool Curriculum

Morning Time-everyday

We will be doing a morning time routine where we will begin our day together doing our Bible Time,  Character studies and calendar time. Ideally, we will begin this prior to Tiger Boy's nap so he can be apart of it.
To tell the kids it's time, we will be using The Unlikely Homeschoolers idea or a "call to worship." This is a song that will be played each morning to tell the kids it's time to begin and they will have the entirety of the song to get to our location with an attitude of worship.

• Call to worship: 
• MFW Bible: Using the Preschoolers Bible
• Memory verses from the MFW Pre-K Curriculum and AWANA verses.
• Hymn: we will be learning a new hymn each month that we will also be learning the story of using the book "Then Sing's My Soul."
• Sing fun kid's Bible songs and preschool songs to go with the season
• Calendar Time will be us going over what the day is, weather, temperature, etc.
• This may also be a time where we read a picture book.

Science-everyday

Science is the Hippo Boy's favorite subject so we will be doing this every day. We have chosen to use Sonlight Science A. It is an everyday program that uses lots of Usborne books that we own so it was a good choice for us. I'm hopeful this will be a good program.

History/Geography

We will be alternating History(Social Studies) and Geography every other day. 

• Geography: Evan Moor Beginning Geography
• Social Studies/History will be a variety of topics and unit studies we pull together. We will discuss Community Helpers, Native American's, National Holidays, US Presidents, and anything else we feel we'd like to use. If I have time, I'll post resources I use for these units.

Art- 1x a week

We have decided to go with HomeArt Studio for our curriculum. It's a video based program and I'm really looking forward to the kids learning art in this way. We will be using the Kindergarten, 1st Grade and Holiday Art's and Crafts DVD's which we purchased from Homeschool Buyers Co-op. We will also be using the Usborne Big Book of Colors and the Usborne Art Treasury. Both books are great and I explain how we will be using them in my video below.

Health and Wellness

In California, it is recommended that you teach health in some capacity. The topic is covered some in the My Father's World Pre-K Curriculum we are using for Leia and partially for Aston as whole group content however we are adding these two books to the mix throughout the year as it fits: Why do People Eat? and What Makes Us Ill? We will also talk about safety as well.

I created a video with all the details below! 

Please let me know if you have any questions and I will be sure to review how the year went as things go. 

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