Gigglesandgumballs: Back to school time!!

We start back to school next Monday, August 3rd!! I can not wait! We will be only going part time for a few weeks, because August is still a busy month for us! Since we will be in Co-op in September and a baby in October, I wanted to start earlier rather than later so we have the luxury of taking more time off thoughout the year.

This next year I will be teaching three grade levels, however I will teach mostly the same lesson to all four kids and then their activities vary depending on how old they are. For example when we do Spanish, the boys (preschool and 1st grade) do not do the same extended activity as the girls since they can't read or write yet. Our first grader is at a basic reading/writing level...but foreign languages sends him into a state of confusion!

The girls are at the same level for everything pretty much, so they have the exact same curriculum as each other. I have a lot of local friends who are just starting out with homeschooling, so I want to stress, that just because I am posting what I am doing, does NOT mean that you need to scramble and do the same exact thing. All kids learn at a different pace and all families do different things when it comes to homeschooling! Friends ask all the time what curriculum we use, so this is a little post that I can send them.

All kids:

As mentioned earlier we do Spanish together. I took 5 years in middle/high school...so teaching Spanish isn't as hard for me as it would be for someone who took a different foreign language. We use this book as a guide and then the girls use a free ipad ap called Duolingo for more practice.

We also do Bible together. We used this book from Bob Jones as a guide, but it is just a guide. We used the Bible (obviously) since that is the source of the subject and we will will watch some "What's in the Bible" this year.

For History we are starting something new called the Story of the World. It is Biblically based and I am really excited to start this!

We are also almost done with our Passport studies. We just have South America to cover!

Science--We are going to start studying the Human Body in detail in November, but I do not have all of marbles together to get that started right away.

For the girls we use:

Bob Jones Math grade 5. I try not to buy new books, so I found a deal on these used ones. We used Bob Jones Math last year and liked it. It seems like 5th grade is a big review of last year, but just a little more complex. I plan on having Math an independent study subject and will provide links to Khan Academy to teach them. Obviously I will be here for questions and grading, but we will see how this goes.

They will be using Writer's Express for writing and grammar. A gal had these at my curriculum sale this past Spring so I got a deal on these!

Spelling Power will be something new for us. Katelyn can spell just about anything, Jocelyn isn't the best speller, but can read just about anything. So the girls will probably be at different levels with this new program. I also bought this used!

Cursive- this was put on the back burner last year. Jocelyn can write in cursive, but would prefer not to. Katelyn was introduced last year and wasn't a fan, so we will see where this goes next year.

Easton: (age 6)

He will be learning multiplication this year. I will use jingles from Math-U-See and this book. I have lots of fun Multiplication acitvities up my sleeve.