Hello all you homeschoolers new and not so new. Today I wanted to take a moment to go over the main resources I choose for this year. I love reading posts like this and I hope mine brings some value or inspiration to your planning sessions.
First off let me share the details, the stats if you will. I am homeschooling one child. Miss W as I call her here. Miss W is eight years old. For traditional school purposes she would be in the third grade this year. Now as you know I do not let those labels concern me at all. Luckily I am very comfortable allowing the programs we use to be the most interesting content at this point in her learning or simply the best fit for what we need in the moment. Because of this outlook I have programs in our arsenal that range from k-6 for their recommended ages. Some give a several year age range as suggested age and that is my favorite. It means the company is right in line with my way of thinking. I could go on forever here, so I won’t. Let’s get to it.
Language Arts, this is my personal fav. I divide it in two with one half being grammar and reading skills and the other half being listening to literature read aloud. For the first half, this year, I chose All About Reading. We really needed to back track and do some focused work on Miss W’s reading skills and this program makes it fun while getting the job done. Just a few months into the year and I can already see leaps and bounds in W’s progress. This is a product you can find second hand and even getting your hands on just the readers is worthwhile if your child needs some practice in reading. I also love that this company is based in my home state. Shop local right?! To meet our literature needs I use Blossom and Root. This year I did not print off the student workbook for B&R LA. This is our second year with Blossom and Root and I found the word lists and grammar moved too quickly for us but we loved the stories and activities. Many of the activities are play based and involve acting out what we’ve read in various ways. The curriculum uses a wide variety of styles and types of lit, so I know W is being exposed to books I would not choose on my own if I were to put together our reading list completely on my own. I find it so interesting when she happens to love a title that I found a bit yawnsville or vice versa.
I also bought Once Upon a Pancake on a whim thinking it would be fun to work some creative writing into our year. I kinda thought it would be a hit, wow was I right. I’d planned this to be used during our first block luckily because the second Miss W saw the book she was “yes yes yes lets start this TODAY”. The book is inexpensive on amazon so its easy to do like me and a hmm interesting, toss in cart. The book is soft cover but has nice paper and beautiful illustrations. The idea is that they start the story and give prompts to keep it going while your student fills in the gaps. Some stories give you lots of info to start your creativity flowing some give you just an opening sentence and you fill in the rest. One of the suggestions was to go back and forth with your child and you each add to the story but W squashed that idea wanting it to be all her imaginative creation and I was of course completely down with that idea. Check it out here, this has been a highlight of the first half of our year.
Now I need to talk about Science. This is Miss W’s favorite subject. Her favorite by far. That is no small amount in thanks to Blossom and Root’s fantastic science program. It truly can not be beat. Last year we completed level one which is called Wonders of the Earth and Sky. This year we are working on level two Wonders of the Plant and Fungi kingdom. I would call this program highly flexible and highly engaging. Each week we have book suggestions, video suggestions, and main points on our topic to cover. We also get a variety of suggested activities to actively cement that weekly learning topic. The activity ideas are divided into categories, those for the table lab crowd (usually us,) the outdoor learner, or the arts and crafts family. I love having a variety of choices and that if one idea isn’t a fit for us I have several others to choose from. Most weeks we do at least one of the activities some weeks we do several. I have no doubt we will stick with Blossom and Root long term to guide our learning especially in the area of science study.
Next up lets talk social studies. I wanted to try out Torchlight curriculum for social studies this year. After contacting the creator of Torchlight on what level would be best for our needs, I was guided to choose based on which subject matter was most interesting to Miss W. Big points there. So we are doing level K in which a new county or group of countries is studied each week. This is a big program and I pick and choose which aspects we want to focus on, not trying to do every single suggested activity. Torchlight can be used as a full curriculum but I only wished to utilize the social studies portion so I only printed the parent guide in full. Level K features a year long project creating a travel guide where your child writes about her favorite thing she learned about the area you studied for that week. I love creating this sort of keepsake of our year and hope Miss W will find them special to look back upon as well. I can not say for certain if this is a program I will continue with in upcoming years but we are both really enjoying the cultural and geography learning we’ve experienced with Torchlight so far.
These programs make up the bulk of our sit down learning for this year. We also add in fun extras like art and nature study and music. We do extra read alouds every month, there are just so many good books our there. We also enjoy learning blocks that I create for knitting, seasonal crafts and wellness. This year, our fourth homeschooling, has been the most beautifully full and well rounded we have had. Likely in part due to my unexpected extra planning time I was given this spring when I was unable to work due to covid shutdowns. Its great to see a positive come out of a negative. It is also likely in part to this being our fourth year. If you are new to homeschooling remember it gets easier as you go, you feel more confident in what you are doing as you go. You learn how to guide your child through their learning better and better each year. If you have any questions on any of the programs we are using do not hesitate to drop me a message. I would love to help you choose the best program for you as well.
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