2020 homeschool picks for our homeschool
Every year I look forward to the process of picking out the perfect curriculum for the coming homeschool year. This year, we finished EARLY, which means we get to start off the year with fresh and exciting new curriculum! I’m always working to improve our homeschool curriculum, atmosphere, and rhythm. I have been homeschooling my daughter since the beginning, and it’s amazing how much our homeschool has evolved. One change I make each year is to replace some of the repetitive work and throw in more fun projects.
Read-alouds
These are the read-alouds that Little Miss picked for the beginning of the year. Of course, there will be many more read-alouds, and I will be posting those later on!
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Reader
This will be our first time reading from the New Friends Pathway reader series. She reads this for 15 minutes to me or daddy, and then reads another 15+ minutes of another book of her choice.
Math
Teaching Textbooks is still my top choice for Little Miss! It’s been a life saver for me since math isn’t something that comes naturally to me. When Little Miss needs a little more practice or is having trouble, she will just ask her dad for help and/or we just have her pop on Khan Academy. I don’t feel that this curriculum needs any other supplements at this time. Thankfully, her dad is very good at math and helps her during his lunch break or after work.
Language Arts
I love the gentle approach that First Language Lessons For The Well Trained Mind offers. This curriculum is only supposed to take 10 to 15 minutes a day. I went with level two because I wanted to make sure she had plenty of review. Since we are ahead of the game and she doesn’t have her testing until summer of 2021, I feel we don’t need to rush. Because the lessons start out so easy, I will be doing two lessons a day with her. We will only be using the grammar, dictation, and oral narration part.
Handwriting/Copy Work
Little Miss is a pretty reluctant writer, which is why I wanted to give Jot it Down a shot! I’ve heard and seen really great reviews on it, and I hope to write my own review after we have used it for a while! I believe the projects with writing will be engaging for her. I will be tweaking it to be a little more challenging on parts.
Instead of using the copy work the First Language Lesson offers, I asked Little Miss what she would like to use. I find it more encouraging and exciting if she has choice in what she can write about. It pleased me to see that she chose her Fairy book, which is full of lovely poetry and beautiful illustrations. Her daily task will be to copy four sentences out of her book in her best handwriting and illustrate the fairy of that week with her best work.
Our Core
This year we’re using A Year of Tales for our core curriculum. I couldn’t wait to dig into this gorgeous curriculum! It offers many different topics, but the ones we are taking from it are:
Art Appreciation
Character Traits
Handcrafts
Geography
Nature Study/Science
Poetry
Recipes and Tea time
Vocabulary and Spelling
I love that the curriculum is literature-based, with gorgeous children books. While we are on A Year of Tales, we will also be doing research about Beatrix Potter.
Recommended supplemental reading for A Year of Tales:
The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter
When we are finished with A Year of Tales, we will start beyond five in a row as our core. We have used FIAR in the past and have loved the rich literature and projects.
Second half of the year
BFIAR covers
History
Geography
Science
Language arts
Vocabulary
Fine arts
Issues with human relationships
Reads for Beyond five in a Row
Extras
Piano My husband and our daughter are learning the piano together through music books and YouTube.
French will be another language she will be doing a couple times a week. We really like the free app Dulingo.
Typing will be another subject we will start back up. We have used Typing.com and have really loved it. We use the free version.
Co-op
American Sign Language, which is the class I am teaching this term. Little Miss already knows quite a bit of ASL, but I am teaching a lot that I haven’t covered with her yet.
Art Class is the other co-op class that she will be taking this term.
Extra subjects are covered once or twice a week; if they don’t get touched on that week, it’s not a big deal. Finally, co-op meets once a week.
That’s it !
We are both so excited for this year! I hope you have found some of this useful and worth checking out.
I’d love to hear what you are using for this year!
littlehouseof4 
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