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Every year, when spring weather begins to sink in, I find myself researching and diving into curriculum planning for the following school year. It’s the planner and the teacher in me.

I LOVE the research end of things.
I LOVE discovering new companies or new curriculum pieces that will be available the following school year.
And I LOVE creating some aspects of it on my own as well.

Feeling that I’m well prepared for what’s to come towards the end of July and beginning of August, helps to give me that break I so need and look forward to each summer. And this summer will (hopefully) be full of caring for a coop full of hens and a plentiful garden.

For the most part I tend to be a creature of habit. I’ve learned what curriculum works best for each of my kids. I’ve also learned that their needs and interests change from year to year (hey, who am I kidding?! more like day to day). What’s worked for my oldest in the past has not necessarily worked for my younger two children.

With that being said, I’ll be sharing several pieces of our curriculum over the next few weeks. My plan is to share what we used this school year for 1st, 2nd, and 4th grades AND what we plan to use next school year for 2nd, 3rd, and 5th grades.

To kick things off, today I’m going to cover our morning time and “together” subjects so I don’t continuously repeat these on the other curriculum posts. These items are subjects and activities that all of my children participate in together OR while I’m reading aloud each morning.

Morning Time

Devotional: Typically I start the morning with a quick devotional (our favorites are Indescribable: 100 Devotions for Kids about God Science and How Great is Our God, both by Louie Giglio). If anyone knows Mr. Giglio, could you ask him to work on a third kid’s devotional because they truly are just fantastic! We’ve read both twice now.

Gratitude Journal: After our devotional, I add to our gratitude journal. I’ve kept the same simple notebook for nearly three years now, and it’s one of my biggest treasures. We’ll continue to use it for a few more years before I need a new one. I simply ask each child what they are thankful for that day, and tell them what I’m thankful for as well. If anyone is joining us like a grandparent or sometimes my husband, they share what they are thankful for too. I also created this simple printable for gratitude journals if you prefer to print out your own.

Q & A a Day for Kids: A Three Year Journal: I will be honest. I bought this back in 2017 and only attempted to use it with my oldest at the time. It was not a routine part of our day, so it didn’t get used. I found it when we moved this year and began asking each child the daily question. I plan to use it for three years as it’s intended, and there should be plenty of space to do that.

Daily Journal: The kids answer a quick and easy question each day in a composition notebook. We use a fun self-inking date stamp (that reminds me of old-school library visits), and I come up with a new prompt each day. Usually it asks for three of something.

Three favorite board games…
Three favorite things to do on a rainy day…
Three best memories from Christmas…
Three ways to be helpful to your family…

Occasionally in their journals I will just have them copy an inspirational quote from someone we are studying or a book we are reading. That’s always fun to discuss as well and helps with their handwriting practice.

Handwriting: Speaking of handwriting, each child has a handwriting book from either The Good and the Beautiful or Universal Handwriting (I found these on Rainbow Resources). They complete one page a day. My daughter honestly adores her handwriting books and usually does 2-3 pages a day. Needless to say, I have to buy her a few each year.

Basic Math Facts: Each morning my kids complete a page of 100 facts of either addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division problems. I prefer for them to skip around in the book, so they aren’t doing super easy facts each day. These books have helped tremendously with improving their ability to recall math facts faster.

Read Alouds: While the kids are completing their daily journals, handwriting, basic math facts, and any other morning tasks, I begin to read aloud. I usually read some sort of a biography. We love the Who Was? series and also the Heroes of History books. Sometimes I’ll throw in a picture book of some sort. Many times it will relate to our current science or history topic. I also tend to read a fiction book or two as well. Yes, sometimes we read two chapter books at once. I love it because we get so much accomplished. As long as the kids are following along okay, I will always continue to read more than one book at a time. I’ll be sharing all of our read alouds from the 2020-2021 school year in a post at the end of May, so keep an eye out for that!

“Together” Subjects

Science: We usually complete Science in the morning as well. This year we used The Good and the Beautiful Science units including: Mammals, Botany, Marine Biology, and Geology. We also used Real Science Odyssey Chemistry Level 1 which was new to us this year, and a lot of fun! The beauty of this unit approach to science is that I can do as much or as little of it with them as I want. I’m assuming that in a few years we will revisit a lot of these units as older, more mature students. For now I’m happy with the information they’ve retained.

History: This was rough for us this year. We learned history and geography through the biographies we selected and some of the read alouds as well. I’m desperate to find something that is both interesting and accurate. DOES THIS EXIST?! Help a mama out. The Good and the Beautiful is revamping their entire history curriculum and I’m hoping it’s just amazing. I also realize that perhaps it should turn into individual subjects for the kids, but we’ll see what direction we go next school year.

Spanish: We began about halfway through the school year studying simple Spanish together. I found this workbook on Amazon and we just did a few pages together each day. There is a new program coming out in May that I’m dying to try called Homeschool Languages. I’m currently trying the sample lessons out, and so far we LOVE them! They will offer German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian.

I try to have the majority of our school time as together time. Obviously my children are different ages, with different levels of maturity and understanding. By including all of them in the subjects and lessons mentioned above, I’m hoping to develop a lifelong love of learning and adapting.

What subjects do you do together as a family?
Any recommendations for a good History curriculum? I’m all ears!