Our Curricula Overview

If you wish to see it full size, click the picture.

Our mapped out curricula/subjects, some things are to be decided.
The curriculum does not dictate our homeschool, these are the tools we're using to accomplish our goals.
Which means just because we use the curriculum, it doesn't mean we're using it exactly the way the curricula creators intended. For example, we tailor Tapestry of Grace for us. Yes, I'm a tweaker.

About the curricula:

Our K-8 Science, see post here

Horizons Preschool: A complete preschool program that incorporates Bible, Math, Phonics, Handwriting, Social Studies, Science, Language Arts, arts and crafts, music, story times, field trips, and other exciting learning activities.
This complete curriculum contains 180 lessons within two Student Books, two Teacher's Guides, a Sing Along Music CD, and a Resource Packet, which contains basic flashcards and other manipulatives. See my post about Horizons Preschool
We've used this informally since Danny is attending a Montessori preschool.

The Harp and Laurel Wreath by Laura Berquist
Poetry and Dictation for the Classical Curriculum
This book contains poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry Wadsworth, Longfellow, Robert Browning, William Shakespeare, G.K. Chesterton, William Butler Yeats, Robert Frost and many others. The poems are divided by stages, Early Years, Grammar Stage, Logic Stage and Rhetoric Stage. Dictation exercises for Grammar through Rhetoric are included as well as addition memorization selections. In the Rhetoric stage poetry discussion questions are included with each poem (answers provided). This is an amazing resource for K-12 in regards to poetry.

Leading Little Ones to God by Marian Schooland
This classic devotional book covers all the bases for establishing a strong Christian foundation for your young ones. Leading Little Ones to God uses simple, conversational language to discuss such matters as the nature of God, sin, salvation, the Christian life, the church, prayer and the Second Coming. This book contains eighty-six sections, each followed by discussion questions, a suggested reading, a hymn, and a prayer. We read the hymn as a poem but Sonlight aligns Sing the Word- A New Commandment CD, I think reading the hymn is enough.

We will follow this up by using Kenneth Taylor's books: The Right Choices; Big Thoughts for Little People.


Galloping the Globe by Loree' Pettit and Dari Mullins, Geography Matters
Word searches, mazes, maps and more…clues, puzzles, and animals galore! What an enchanting way to learn geography – a unit study/discovery learning resource entitled Galloping The Globe. This geography based curriculum is geared towards the K – 4th grade children. It can be used from 1 – 3 years and covers all 7 continents. Incorporating the student notebook approach, Galloping The Globe integrates 8 categories of learning activities: Basic Geography, People/History, Literature, Science, Activities, Internet Sources, and Bible. See more at Geography Matters.

Themes to Remember by Marjorie Persons
I have already posted about this, please read it here.

Sing, Spell, Read & Write
To come when we have the curriculum, possible 2009-2010 school year.

French Songs & Games
Our favorites are Lingua Fun French, Twin Sisters French, French for Children, Hop, Skip & Learn French, Bonjour Les Amis DVDs, and classic children's games using french words like Memory, Candyland and Chutes and Ladders.

Picture Study
This consists of using various children's art books that have the child look at a painting and either do a find/seek for items within the painting or offers questions that make a child look closer at a piece of work. We also have the game Art Memo (from RainbowResource.com) which is the game Memory but with art.

Fables, Fairy Tales and Folklore
Danny's kindergarten year will be filled with stories and we'll read through a few titles throughout the year and possibly into first grade:

1. The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault
2. Favorite Fairy Tales Told Around the World
3. The Stories of Hans Christian Andersen: A New Translation from the Danish

and other books we have on folklore, American and otherwise.

Dinosaurs
In kindergarten, we'll learn about dinosaurs as Danny's interest takes us. We already have a lot of books, games and activities about dinosaurs that we'll use from a summer study Camille and I did.

Explorer's Bible Study
This is a non-denominational, yet thorough Bible study product, I've written about it here in more detail.

Language Lessons for the Very Young by Sandi Queen
This delightful introduction to the language arts is the answer to what our Charlotte Mason style customers have been asking for! Introduces a student who has mastered the art of learning to read to the skills of picture study, narration, copywork, poetry, grammar, capitalization, punctuation, and more - all with a gentle, twaddle free approach. Full-color fine art throughout makes this consumable book for ages 5-9 a delight for the eyes as well as the ears. A varied approach gives the student something different each day, alleviating the boredom that often comes with those repetitive, dry grammar books you'll find elsewhere. Perfect-bound paperback workbook offers 180 daily lessons - one for each day of the schoolyear. See it at Queen Homeschool Supplies *We are not using this as consumable and I am changing some of the exercises to better suit us. The only reason I'm using this is because it is the only product on the market like this for first grade that I know of that fits what I want for my kids.

more curricula information to come...