Hello fellow homeschooling mamas!
I will try to keep this post short sweet and to the point. I’ve been researching curriculums since probably February and have finally settled on what our school subjects are going to look like for the upcoming year. At least, I think I have.
This will be our first full year homeschooling from the beginning so I am feeling slightly better prepared than last year. Our oldest daughter is 9 and will be going into the ‘4th’ grade for the 2022-23 school year.
The main subjects we’ll be covering this year are:
- English/Language Arts
- Writing
- Math
- Spelling
Loop 1
- History
- Science
Loop 2 (electives)
- Art
- Typing
- Outside/Gardening
- gaming
Fridays – both subjects
- Health
- Geography
You can find more information on how I scheduled our homeschool this year here.
Since we already touched on the subjects we’ll be covering, here are the links to all of the items we purchased (or plan to) and a few sources I’m still considering.
Nearly all of our core subjects will be covered with The Good and The Beautiful. While our we do have a secular focus in our homeschool, I don’t mind having a tiny bit of religion woven into our day. It can open the door to conversations about how others see the world. If you’d like to take a look at the curriculum for yourself, most of the main subjects are offered completely free on their website. Go take a look!
That said, we used the Math 3 workbooks last year from TGTB and I don’t recall seeing a single religious note in the book. The approach that they take with Math has worked wonderfully for my girl so, why change something that’s working? She liked it last year so we will be continuing with Math 4 this Fall.
I’ve also decided to give the TGTB’s English/Language Arts lessons a try this year. I’m a total sucker for a beautifully designed anything so obviously I was drawn the TGTB. I also love that the lessons are clearly planned and laid out to include reading, writing, and spelling as separate workbooks that go along with the main spine. There’s even art included in some of the lessons which I love! We will not be using the “Personal Reader” suggested in the original curriculum. Instead, Ev will be picking her own books to read from a list I’ve curated, and we will adapt any work to go along with her chosen novels.
For History this year we will be using both The Tuttle Twins American History Books as well as Build Your Library Level 4 as a backbone for our studies. We haven’t used them before but it’s the closest thing I found to what I was looking for in a US history curriculum. We will likely be supplementing with other books/documentaries/and field trips. I’m hoping we like this one but will re-evaluate during our break in September.
I’m still on the hunt for a go to science curriculum. Some that I’ve been considering are science mom on YouTube, Generation Genius, individual unit studies for each of our 6 week “semesters”. I also would like to include experiment boxes like Kiwi Crate or the Magic School Bus Science boxes on Amazon. School starts next week so….hopefully I’ll have something in place soon!
How’s your planning going? Hopefully you’re lightyears ahead of this last minute mama! And if not, don’t worry, you are certainly not alone. Everything will fall into place!
