Our Curriculum Choices 2014-2015

Guess what time it is? SCHOOL TIME! I can't believe the summer is almost over. The above picture is from Box Day. It's always so exciting getting the new curriculum in the mail. Today's blog post is all about our curriculum for the 2014-2015 school year. Caleb will be in 3rd grade and will be using My Father's World Exploring Countries & Cultures. Rebekah will be doing all the geography, science, bible, art and music with him as well (with a few adjustments for her age). I am so excited to be doing this year of world geography with an emphasis on missions!

I want to try recipes from each country we'll be traveling too, so I bought this book:

Caleb will be using Singapore for math.  Last year he finished half of 2A, so he'll be finishing 2A and then I purchased 2B and 3A.  (I don't expect him to finish 3A this year.)

For Language Arts, I decided to go with a new curriculum that My Father's World created, Language Lessons for Today, 3rd Grade.  It is very similar to Primary Language Lessons, which we used last year, but it is more modern and, I hope, easier to teach.  If Caleb was my only child, I would have just stuck with PLL, but I know I'll use this updated version at least 4 times!  I also bought a Kid's Dictionary.

 

Did you notice that we are using all of My Father's World's suggestions? I believe that they have spent much more time and money researching curriculum than I ever could. I trust their opinion and have decided to use their recommendations until they no longer work. So far, I have been pleased with everything. So, for spelling, we're switching to Spelling Power. I'm a bit apprehensive about this switch (from Rod & Staff), but I'm going to give it a shot. I love that I can use it until high school!  I also bought the Activity Task Cards to make it more fun.

I also decided to have them start learning how to type. They both will be using this game. We've already tried it and like it a lot. Caleb does very well with it. Rebekah has great accuracy, but goes too slow, so the game doesn't advance her to the next level, which upsets her. I think I will have Caleb do it at least once a week when I need to work with Rebekah. Rebekah can play as she wants to.

Speaking of Rebekah, she'll be using My Father's World First Grade! Because she'll be following along with Caleb in Exploring Countries & Cultures, we'll be skipping the science and art from 1st grade. I did buy the art cards though to do all together during snack time.

We've also found a few fun things at the Dollar Tree and our favorite thrift store as extras. At Dollar Tree, I found word search books with phonics. On the "long e" page, there are words that use the long e sound in the word search. I plan on having Rebekah do these while she's waiting for me to finish with her brother.  I also bought a regular word search book for Caleb, and a coloring book for Joshua. The Shuffle stories cards were a fun find! There are three different colored cards. They can pick one from each color and put them together to start a story. I'm hoping these help with creative writing.

Here is a big workbook for 1st grade that Kevin found for Rebekah. This is purely for fun for her. I will not assign pages from this book, but she'll be free to do it while I work with Caleb.

I found this drawing book at the thrift store for 50 cents! It will just be extra fun for us. Maybe I will use it to help Caleb start a story.

My mom gave the kids a subscription to National Geographic Kids (Thanks mom!). This will fit in perfectly with our study of animals in science. I plan on including this magazine in our book basket every week.

Now for Joshua. He'll be using the toys from My Father's World's Toddler Package (I also have a few of the Preschool toys). I won't be doing anything formal with him this year, but he has several plastic boxes with these toys (and others) that he can pick from during school time. I also have a pencil box ready for him with crayons, colored pencils, glue, scissors, and regular pencils. My goal is to just keep him busy and feeling like he's part of school. (And hopefully out of trouble!)

Well, that is all our curriculum for this year. Next, I'll post pictures of how our space looks this year and how I've organized everything. Thanks for stopping by. Happy Homeschooling!

Linking with: A Mama's Story