2015 Homeschool Curriculum

It's curriculum sharing time again! We follow the calendar year rather than the public school year simply because it's easier for me to manage our portfolio in a single year rather than trying to split it across two half years. But...this is the time of year when the curriculum discussion is being held on blogs and facebook pages around the world, and it gives me the opporutnity to prepare well in advance for the upcoming year.

In 2015 we will be following the Ambleside Online curriculum and *attempting* to follow their suggested schedules as well. Thus far we have simply used their curriculum as a guideline and have pieced together other things, but I think I've finally learned that it doesn't really matter what "curriculum" you use, the key is picking something and sticking with it. For us, Ambleside seems to be the right choice.

While I tend to be very eclectic and identify strongly with virtually all the different styles of homeschooling and educational philosophies, the one that most resonates with us is the Charlotte Mason method. Her ideas that small children (especially little boys!) need to be outside most of the day are so true. Children were meant to explore nature, discover how things work on their own and see books as treasures to be discovered. Her ideas that lessons should be short and varied work perfect for little boys and I love using literature as the foundation for a well-rounded education (as people have done since the beginning). Learning spelling and handwriting by copying beautiful poems and passages not only helps my children memorize better, but also eliminates dull lessons and endless worksheets. I am still learning many of the ideas of Charlotte Mason and hope to make my way through her entire series (though probably not all in one year!)

I love the literature selections recommended by Ambleside, they are beautiful classics most of which I was deprived of ever having read before, and am immensely enjoying experiencing them with my children. I love that the selections are not dumbed down in any way and though they were written for children a hundred years ago I think many adults today would struggle with the complexity of the language. Reading this level of literature from the age of six will prepare my children to read the other great works without being intimidated in the least.

Here are what my boys will be studying in 2015 (or as soon as they finish their current reading lists...) With our upcoming move to Virginia we will be making several trips to the Smithsonian museums and are excited to see many of the works of art studied this year which are on display at the National Gallery, we also plan to visit many of the nearby historical sites.

Ethan, Year 3, age 8

• Ambleside Curriculum Year 3 (Bible, History, Biographies, Geography, Natural History, Copywork, Poetry, Literature, Composer and Artist study)
• Math: Math U See Gamma, Singapore Math 2B & 3A, Life of Fred
• English: Rod & Staff Grade 3
• German: Jo-Jo Sprachbuch & Arbeitsheft 3, PetraLingua
• Piano Lessons

Joshua Year 2, age 6 going on 7

• Ambleside Curriculum Year 2 (Bible, History, Biographies, Geography, Natural History, Copywork, Poetry, Literature, Composer and Artist study)
• Math: Math U See Alpha, Singapore Math 1B, Life of Fred
• English: Rod & Staff Grade 2
• German: 1 Schuljahr Übungsheft mit Lösungsheft, PetraLingua
• Piano Lessons

Grant Year 0, age 5

• Ambleside Curriculum Year 0
• Habit Training

I have also updated my Free Homeschool Planner for 2015 and added a few pages specific to organizing the Ambleside Online curriculum.

In case you're wondering why I have so many math books listed up there...here's the skinny on math in this household. My boys loved Math U See at first...but they were very quickly bored to tears. The same thing over and over and over again. I understand that's the idea behind mastery, but we were skipping multiple chapters at a time. It was just too repetitive. We purchased Singapore to try out and my boys instantly loved it. Simple short lessons with a variety of exercises (we don't call them problems in this house). And of course, Life of Fred is just awesome.

Then, I started having them work on Singapore twice a week, Math U See twice a week and LOF once a week. Every time my boys have a MUS day, they say they love it! They just hated the boredom of every. single. day. But I'm a "math needs to be done every single day" kind of girl, so this is what is working for us. I love the combination of visual explanation using pattern blocks with the story exercises and variety of Singapore. And of course, LOF as already established, is awesome. So no more tears!

2014 Free {customizable} homeschool planner

*Updated planner available HERE. 

You may download a free copy from my facebook page, An 
Intentional Life. Simply click on the Free Homeschool Planner tab. If you already "like" An Intentional Life, you will be provided with the download link. If not, just click the "like" button to gain access! Once redirected, simply right click the file and select Download. 

*Note, you can preview the two PDF files, however if you try to preview the Word document, it will give an error message, you'll have to download it to gain access to the editable file.

I have switched to follow the calendar year verses the public school year simply because it is easier for record keeping and organizing the artwork and photos by using a single year rather than half of one year and half of another. But, if you still follow the public school year, no worries!

This new version was created with Microsoft Word and you may now download the original document and modify to suit your personal needs. As always, this is for personal use only, you may not resell or republish this doc.

My favorite feature is a visual daily schedule as well as visual daily schoolwork so my little guys can take responsibility for their stuff. It has worked wonders for us, and I hope it will help you as well!

Organizing a homeschool schedule

Once you know what you want to study and you have a growing number of books filling up your table (or kindle/amazon queue) you have to figure out what to do with them. For me, it's easiest to digest all these books when I break them up by term. I divide the year into seasons then choose which books to study during each season. The fun literature books I usually save for our bedtime and leisure reading. The others I try to rotate once or twice a week. Before I had my fourth child I was pretty good about planning out what we would do each day, now I just keep a box full of the books we use next to me on the couch and I grab whatever I'm feeling in the mood for. I make sure we work from at least three books a day, anything after that is a bonus.

Here is a breakdown of our reading schedule for next year (for details on each book, see our 2013-2014 curriculum)

Our 2013-2014 Homeschool Curriculum and Free Homeschool Planner

*Updated planners are available here!

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Since I am trying to be better at following Charlotte Mason's ideas this year, we are using a lot more living books and very few "curriculum" type books. This may seem like a lot of books and in reality we will read way more books than I've listed here, however these are the primary books we will be using. 

This may seem like a lot, however we will be traveling all over Europe this next year. This fall we have a 3 week trip to Italy and Greece, a trip to the UK next spring and will possibly traveling to Scandinavia in the summer. Our primary focus will be to learn about the history and culture of the places we will be visiting and if we don't finish all our literature we will save them for next year. A few of these I'm going to get audio versions and listen to in the car while we travel. 

Up next, I'll share some ideas on how to choose a literature-based curriculum. I've also updated our Free Homeschool Planner for 2013-2014 to help you organize your ideas for this upcoming school year! I updated last year's version plus added a new design.

      

Free LDS Temple Pictures

If you haven't already seen my other website http://freeldstemplepictures.com, I offer free pictures of all the temples I have the opportunity to photograph.

And if you haven't visited in a while, please do, there have been a lot of additions lately. First, and most prominent, is the beautiful soundtrack provided by the talented songwriter Sara Baril. She is amazing, as are the singers on her upcoming album Thy Healing Hands. 

Some of my temple images will be featured in Sara's upcoming music video for her song "A Place to Heal". She would love to have a variety of temple images from around the world. If you or anyone you know has any professional quality photographs of temples in Canada, Asia or Central and South America, please email me a sample!

Gaining a Charlotte Mason perspective (and free printable quotes!)

I know blog posts are supposed to be short, sweet and to the point, but I have so much to say about two books I just read that I simply can't condense it any further than this. I hope you'll bear with me, and just for doing so I've created a few Charlotte Mason quotes you can print for free!

I’ve been contemplating for a while now the things I’d like to study with my boys this next school year.
This year has gone pretty well considering all the changes we have gone through from moving back to
Kentucky, having daddy come home, moving to Germany, living in a hotel for a month, finally getting a
house and settling in, sending my oldest to German school, etc… However I kept feeling like things were
not running as smoothly as I’d like. It was starting to become more of a chore than a joy and I knew I
needed to make some changes for this next year.

My Gospel Standards & 2013 Mutual Theme free printables

In my "home tour" post, I shared a few images I made in photoshop to hang on my boys' walls. I've sized them to 11x14 and added them to my free temple pictures site under the Fun Stuff link. Feel free to download and print for free!

I also had a request to for the 2013 Mutual Theme on some temple images. I've added these to the SLC Temple link as well as the Fun Stuff link on my free temple pictures website. Enjoy!

FREE Homeschool Daily Planner 2012-2013

*New updated planners available here
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I've added a new Homeschool Daily Planner for 2012 to 2013. You can download it free from my homeschool page.

I view this planner as my child's educational resume. This is where I keep track of everything that he accomplishes during the year. At the end of the year, it will be the first thing I include in his yearly school portfolio outlining the days he attended school, the schedule we kept, the curriculum we studied, books we read and other activities of educational value.

I like to laminate the daily schedules and use a wet/dry erase marker so I can re-use the pages and easily make changes when needed. I also realized that there were many things we did together, like baking bread or making yogurt, planting herbs, traveling, attending a cultural event, etc... that I wasn't documenting as "school". So I've added a page to keep track of those real-life learning experiences as they occur. Hope this is helpful to some of you!

You can download my Free Homeschool Daily Planner for personal use here.

*Artwork created with brushes from www.obsidiandawn.com 

Memorization, scriptures & poetry

We often hear that children's minds are like sponges, however a sponge eventually gets full, a child's brain expands limitlessly to hold all the knowledge it can. I am constantly amazed at how much my children remember. My two year old has learned to count in Korean simply by attending his brothers' Tae Kwon Do classes. My oldest learned all thirteen articles of faith by age 3 and my middle son learned the entire poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost at age 3. Here are the resources I use to help my kids memorize.

Scripture Mastery CD's: There are some great scripture mastery songs you can download for free by The Sons of Ammon. I play them in the car and my boys can sing quite a few of the songs. Ethan can even say Helaman 5:12, quite impressive for a 5 year old, these songs really do work!

Article of Faith CD's: Ethan learned all thirteen articles of faith by age three and all I did was download the articles of faith songs, burn them on a cd and play them each morning during breakfast. You can find them at lds.org under the letter "T". We review them on our way to or from church on Sundays. He actually knows them better than I do. I know all the words to each, but I often get the numbers mixed up and he has to set me straight.

Scripture Memory System: There are other scriptures that I like them to memorize, such as Philipians 4:13 and Joshua 24:15. We try to work on one each month. When they get a bit older we'll use this scripture memory system.

Poetry: I love poetry and want my boys to love it too. Using my iPhone voice recorder I read about 70 poems, particularly ones that would be easy for the boys to memorize, with a few challenges (like The Road Not Taken) and burned them to a cd. We listen to them when we are in the car driving around town and they each have at least 10 poems memorized. One of our favorite poets is Jack Prelutsky. He has some super silly poems for that are perfect for little boys. This is my boys' current favorite, they laugh hysterically each time they hear it.

As Soon as Fred Gets Out of Bed
by Jack Prelutsky

As soon as Fred gets out of bed,
his underwear goes on his head.
His mother laughs, "Don't put it there,
a head's no place for underwear!"
But near his ears, above his brains,
is where Fred's underwear remains.

At night when Fred goes back to bed,
he deftly plucks it off his head.
His mother switches off the light
and softly croons, "Good night! Good night!"
And then, for reasons no one knows,
Fred's underwear goes on his toes.  

A few other favorites are:

Limericks by Edward Lear

The Rhinoceros

How Doth the Little Crocodile

Bed by Day

Wynken Blinken and Nod

I was going to post my audio files online, but since some of the poets are still alive, it might violate some copyright restriction...so if you simply don't have the time to record your own, send me an email and I'll send you my digital files so you can burn your own cd.

Changes...

I have to apologize for all the blog changes lately! I've been trying to figure out the best way to provide access to my temple pictures and subway art. I have FINALLY figured it out! SO...no more changes!

From now on, simply go to my new website at http://cariosbornephotography.zenfolio.com/ to order temple pictures or to download them. If you want to download them, simply choose the image you want and select 'Downloads'. Then click on the 'Download Digital Images' link and when you checkout it will provide you with a link to download the images. Now you can download images and purchase prints on the same site. No more clicking here and there and everywhere to get what you want!

I also want to say a BIG thank you to those who have already purchased prints and made donations- I've almost covered the cost of purchasing this new site!!! I've photographed the Albuquerque, Dallas and Houston temples and hope to have several more before my trip is through! I will update my site with these new temple pictures as soon as I can.

You  may have also noticed a new link for Subway Art. I've got a few new fun images I've created and am putting them on the new site also, so you can purchase them as prints or download .jpg for free. There are still a few older subway art prints hanging out on my old temple artwork page- don't worry, I'll move them to the new site as soon as I get home and have access to my computer. Hope you enjoy the new site and hope it makes it easier to download or purchase prints!

Free pictures of the St. George, Utah Temple

Here are some pictures I took of the Saint George, Utah LDS temple. You may download these and additional images free for personal use by clicking on the Free Artwork link. If you use them in a fun project be sure to post a link in the comments, I love seeing how these images are being used! You may also order discounted prints online or feel free to donate a dollar or two so that I can continue to offer these free! P.S. Don't forget to enter to win Hilary Week's new CD!

A day in the life, Part 4: Organizing it all...

Now for the fun part! How do I organize all this stuff??? The last two years have really been kind of a "trial run" with homeschooling. The thought of being responsible for everything my children learn is very intimidating. So while my children aren't yet old enough for public school I've been homeschooling them to build my confidence up so that when it's really going to count I know I can do it successfully (which has been good since I've changed curriculums half a dozen times!).
And though I don't have to adhere to any state requirements yet...I still like to keep records. It helps me get in the routine so that if/when we live in a state that has strict requirements I will be prepared to meet them and so that I can gague how much we really have learned during the year. Here are a few things that I am currently using to *try* to stay organized:

This free Homeschool Daily Planner helps plan out my day and week as well as organize daily studies. I have laminated the schedule so I can use a dry erase marker and easily make changes.

All our finshed schoolwork and artwork are kept in this accordian file folder with the date stamped on each page (the kids' favorite part).

 

At the end of each school year I use my comb binder to create a book of all the schoolwork we did for that year, organized by subject. I use a photo of the child for the front page and include a sample copy of our schedule, a list of books we read that year (free reading list template), artwork and written work. I also include photos of any field trips we took, along with a summary of the things we learned. This portfolio is a great way to showcase the things they learned that year as well as preserve their artwork in a way that doesn't take a whole lot of space.

  

How do you stay organized?

Did you miss Part 3: Teaching Small Children?

Check out this list of resources for continuing your education.