New Year Curriculum Planning

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It's my FAVORITE time of the "School year"!!!
           July!!! Back to school sales, sooo many markers, pens, and cute colors. All the things to get a school supply addict excited!  For many of us, we are just lucky that whatever we purchase, stays in our home. It doesn't get dumped into a communal bucket, but happily rests in each one of our own children's desk space. 

Well, that's the easy part. Stocking up on paper, pens, and crayons is mindless fun. Scoring deals on cute staplers, tape dispensers, scissors, is even better. But what do you do about the real meat of your homeschool? 

I love to spend hours searching catalogs and websites for educational supplements, fun things that get our kids excited, new reading material, and of course, the core curriculum. In this blog series, I'll be sharing what we have chosen for each grade by subject! When planning for three grade levels, I have to break it down this way so I make sure I don't miss anything!

This is what happened in May... I had to purchase everything before we went on vacation to avoid late shipments. It was fast paced, and kinda scary knowing that I was on a timeline. Part of the rush in ordering was due to our educational funds needing to be spent by a certain time. And then, the UPS guy showed up with everything in one day. 

No joke... all at one time. Ha!

It was like Christmas! Each of the kids had 2 boxes each from BJU Press, and a few things from Amazon, Lego Education, and Back to The Roots.  Now that we are back from vacation and cleaning up our homeschool area, it's going to be fun to separate everything and share how we are using these great materials! Now..on to the first subject! 
Here is our first Core Subject: Language Arts! 

I often refer to this as English, because I'm a child of the 80's and that's how it looked on my report cards..so that's just what I occasionally call it. But Language Arts, or ELA usually encompasses English, Writing, Vocabulary, Spelling, and Reading.

We've decided to continue using BJU Press for our English & Grammar. I really love the style of the books, the ease of the Teacher Guide, and how each grade sort of follows another. For Vocabulary, my middle and high schooler are using BJU Press again, and my 4th grader is using BJU Press for Spelling. Then I added Patriotic Penmanship for the older ones to practice their handwriting, and my 4th grader will be using BJU Press Handwriting again this year (not pictured). 

4th Grade Language Arts 

For 4th Grade, I've got IEW for extra writing, and some other fun supplements listed below! 

• Simply Fun Word Bits (an educational game using letter dice to create words)
• Silly Starters Write Abouts (Great for creating stories)
• Story Cubes (Also great tools for creative story telling and writing)
• Rhyme Out! (A rhyming game)
• Main Idea Flash Cards 
• Not yet ordered- BJU Press Handwriting, Simply Fun Games Gumball Words, and Hot Dots Vocabulary Cards.

                               

8th Grade Language Arts 

For 8th Grade, we are incorporating some important literature such as 'The Diary of Anne Frank' and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'.  Then I've added a few other books and supplements for a broad range of study. 

• Thinking Tree Journals Poetry Collection 
• Teacher Created Resources Any Novel 
• Simply Fun Word Bits
• Writing Starters Write Abouts 
• Story Cubes 
• Bananagrams 

10th Grade Language Arts 

Finally, for 10th Grade, we have Literature from BJU Press! I'm super excited to give that one a try. We will probably read 'The Scarlet Letter' and 'The Great Gatsby as well'. 

• Simply Fun Do You Know Shakespeare? 
• Simply Fun Word Bits
• Story Cubes 
• Bananagrams

Well, that wraps up our Language Arts Curriculum. Please comment if you have questions!  Also stay tuned for our next part in this series, Math... 

Have you seen our New Logbooks??? We created these tools for each child to keep track of their progress! You can get individual designs for your kids 

here--> www.willowandowl.etsy.com 

Wrapping Up Your Homeschool Year

This post includes a few amazon affiliate links. There is very little made from any purchase through that link, but is greatly appreciated! 

It's almost SUMMER!!!

For our family, who didn't start homeschooling until the kids had many public school years in, we love keeping with the summer break tradition...for the most part! We do our best to finish out the curriculum, and get grades logged, papers filed, and cleaning the plate so to speak! This year, our summer break has a vacation in it, so everyone is super motivated to wrap up! 

 But... 


 I'm a planner. I plan ahead. I don't want to wait until the last minute in July to piece together the next year's plans. Are you like this too? Here is my personal list for wrapping up the Homeschool year! 

• Recollect Successes- Think about what worked really well this past year, and try to plan a few things like it the following year. For us, we tried Morning Basket's, Christmas School, Unit Studies, and Nature Journal's. The things they liked most, we will continue to use!
• Order next year's curriculum now! Sales are going on. Convention season is in full swing, which means discount's galore! If you order now, you'll not only be prepared, but you'll have plenty of time to go through the book's, set things up the way you like, plan it out, and be able to purchase all the fun school supplies in July! Scroll down if you want to see our favorite curriculum supplements! 
• Gather summer reading materials and games! It's important to keep those little hands and eyes busy. They will get bored. No matter how many activities you plan, or how much free time they have to play..it never fails. We never stop learning, so have some fun themed books and games on the ready! You'll find my list to the left on the sidebar!
• Grade those papers! This may not be necessary if you have little ones, but mine are older, so it is important for us. I also like to use my middle daughter to help as she is an excellent grader/helper.
• Organize & File Away! As your children complete their workbooks & lessons, you will need to decide what to keep and what to toss. If you move often, it's necessary to keep a portfolio if you don't know where you will move onto next. For some of us, we have to be mindful of our household weight as well..so tossing old workbooks after samples are removed, and selling books that we are finished with or didn't work out, is imperative. 
• Creating Portfolios- I love to use this Mead Organizer with file sections. I label the cover with their name and school year, then put in samples, test grades, report cards, etc. This is just a precaution in case I need to prove their home education. See my previous post on How to Create a Portfolio. 

So those are my main steps for wrapping up the year. Then the fun begins for cleaning and reorganizing book shelves and our learning spaces! But we have all summer for that! Ha! 

Looking ahead, we also created some fun LOGBOOKS for each child to use to help them accomplish their daily tasks! You can use them all year or just for learning purposes! Revisit my Grade Tracking post about how we use our logbooks!

The great thing about our logbooks, is they are downloadable and you can customize them! If you have a binding machine, you can easily print all the pages needed for the year and snap those suckers together! I recommend printing the cover on cardstock and/or laminating it AND adding a stiff back to keep it nice all year long! We recommend the Swingline ProClick Punch & ProClick Coils to add and remove sheets as you go! 

Our Favorite Curriculum Supplements! 

Curriculum Shopping is upon us! We either love it or hate it. No matter what, it need's to be done. For me personally, I love it. I love looking at it, discussing among peers, and always finding a new & fun thing! This year, I found a few new fun things!  

• Grace&Grit- I stumbled upon their booth at the DFW Great Homeschool Convention! It was soo cute and I immediately fell in love with their historical empowering female figure boxes! 
• eat2explore - These great little food kits are perfect additions to your older child's culinary experience! They come with a curriculum guide, with geography, cooking skills, spices, a fun tool, and a country pin to start a collection! 
• Lego Education - Years ago, my son fell in love with robotics at his public school. Today, lego education offers more robotic kits for early ages to high school! Coding and computer jobs are our future, so I never skip out opportunities to teach STEM & Computer Science. This year, we purchased the WeDo 2.0 for my 9 year old! 
• Drew's Art Boxes - We have been using Liza's art boxes all year! She is continuously coming out with new, fun, and unique ways to teach modern techniques. We just purchased her Fluid Art kits and look forward to the next Alcohol Markers & Agamograph kits! 
• Back to the Roots- If you're a nature loving, green thumb, these kits are great! You can find free curriculum online for an Herb kit, Mushroom kit, and Aquaponics Garden! There is even a special discount for educators if you contact the company! 

Do you have a fun supplement you'll be using too?  Please share! 

Comment here, or reach out to me on Instagram @WeWouldRatherBeReading or email me: underthedreamingwillowtree@gmail.com 

Curriculum Planning & Shopping

Curriculum Planning isn't something that just happens at the beginning of the year for every homeschooler. In fact, some of us continuously plan throughout the year, which also leads to shopping throughout the year. Pause right here for a minute..there might be some of you financial whiz kids picking up your jaw right now..I agree it sounds down right naughty doesn't it?!  Let me show you how our family homeschool buying works. 

We Save Tax Return Money. After some big things are paid off, we take a nice little chunk and save it for the homeschool conference in July. This helps us have a game plan going into conference and take advantage of the curriculum sales!! 

We Plan Ahead!  For our high schooler, we try to think ahead and write down elective ideas that he might be interested in. We try to figure out what foreign language he wants to take, which science classes appeal to him, and how far he wants to go in math (as long as we check the state standards' boxes). The electives aren't usually a financial burden, however, he is currently taking an Aviation class- and that took a respectable amount of his funds.  Some of the previously bought curricula can be handed down and used by the other children, or you may need to simply purchase the workbooks that go with the texts. I've also found some curriculum hard to read, understand, or plan with, so those found a new home. If you buy most of the current year's curriculum in July or August, start planning for the spring and following year!! 

Each Child has an Allotment.  This will vary for every household. I won't even share how much we set aside, because I know homeschooling on one income can be a real sacrifice for some families, and truthfully, we could one day be in the same boat.  I do think it is very smart to set aside specific amounts for each child and you can do this by grade. Obviously a High Schooler needs to meet certain graduation criteria, so you have to allow more room for those lab costs and electives, and potentially drivers ed (gasp..that's sneaking up on us as well). A Middle Schooler would need a fair amount also for their own electives and possibly a few labs. Our Elementary schooler uses a laid out curriculum which typically costs about $500 for the year and we leave room for books, music lessons, and dance. 

We shop quarterly. Have you ever realized you forgot to purchase a science book or history guide? With three children in our home (one in elementary, one in middle, and one in high) we get pretty detailed in what purchases we need. Sometimes things slip between the crack and we can forget an important book. I upload all of our book purchases into an online library (Libib) to help keep track! 

Staying Organized is Key. I use curriculum planning sheets, book wish lists, and a binder with dividers to set up each child's shopping plan. It really helps keep me organized. All of our favorite curriculum catalogs stay in a file box too. I am a visual learner, so keeping those handy is better than shopping online. If you're an Amazon addict, organize your wish lists by unit studies or themes! This has helped me tremendously.  You don't have to plan on buying everything from Amazon, but it truly helps with the visual image and price estimate as well. 

I've created a couple planning sheets for you! 

Curriculum Shopping Lists!! 

Book Shopping List with Categories!

To download, simply click on the images! 

I think you'll enjoy these FREE Printable's when planning and shopping for your children!

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Thank you for reading!!