Our Curriculum

This has been an exciting year so far. Our curriculum revolves around the overall theme of "Adventures in God's Creation". It has been packed with lots of hands-on research, field trips,  crafts, experiments, songs and games. Every day is an exciting new adventure as we explore our Savior and all he has created for and in us!

Check out what we are learning about right now!

Our Adventures Through The Bible have taken us on a chronological study of God's word. We are also working hard to memorize the books of the Bible. As an added hook to keep the kids exited about our studies, we are focusing on each book of the Bible in terms of its Heroes and Villains. This has added a superhero element to Bible centers that they really enjoy.

We are using our NIrV Children's Read With Me Bible. The illustrations are wonderful and keep the kids engaged, and I have found the content to be the most thorough and age appropriate for us.

 We spent our first semester in the book of Genesis. There are so many wonderful stories and heroic characters in Genesis!

Our Genesis Hero and Villian studies included:

1.   GOD: his 7 days of Creation

2.   ADAM & EVE: Made in His Image

3.   The Serpent: The Bible's First Villian

4.   CAIN & ABEL: Heores Make Good Decisions

5.   NOAH: The Faithful Hero

6.   BABEL: Disobeying God

7.   ABRAHAM: The Patient Hero

8.   ABRAHAM & ISAAC: The Obedient Hero

9.   REBEKAH: The Kind Heroine

10. ESAU & JACOB: The Angry Brother

11. JACOB'S DREAM: The Sleeping Hero

12. JACOB GETS MARRIED... TWICE!: No one likes to be tricked.

13. JOSEPH: The Hero with the Beautiful Coat

14. JOSEPH: Can a Servant be a Hero?

15. JOSEPH: The Forgiving Hero

Since Christmas break, we have ventured into our study of Exodus - Duetoronomy and the Hero Moses!

1. PHARAOH: The Villian of Egypt

2. MIRIAM & THE PRINCESS: Sisiter's can be Heroes!

3. MOSES: God takes Care of Us

4: MOSES: The Hero's Really Big Job

5. PHARAOH WONT LISTEN: The First Five Plagues

6: PHARAOH STILL WONT LISTEN: The Last Five Plagues

(continued studies to come...)

Our Adventures Through God's Creations has been both Exciting and Challenging!

Science is the subject of study that the kids look forward to most every day. On the other hand it is probably the subject of study that wears me out the most every day. :)

Our first Unit of Study has been Adventures Through My Body

The kids have LOVED learning about their bodies and we have extended the study a few extra weeks in order to study a few points of interest in further detail. I have also discovered a few teaching aids that have been a huge success! Bill Nye the Science Guy and the Magic School Bus have been lifesavers!

In this Unit, we are discovering:

1.   How Our Bodies Change and Grow

2.   Life Cycles

3.   What's On the Outside: Our Skin

4.   On The Inside: Our Organs

5.   Our Lungs and the Respiratory System

6.   Our Hearts and the Circulatory System

7.   Our Stomach and Intestines and the Digestive Syetem

8.   Nutrition and Energy

9.   Our Kidneys and the Urinary System

10. The Systems Working Together to Keep our Bodies Clean.

11. Our Brain: The Control Center

12. Our Brain: The Five Senses

13. Our Bones and Joints: How We Move

14: Our Muscles: Keeping Strong

In the next few weeks we will be wrapping up this unit and moving on to the much anticipated Solar System Unit, Adventures Through Space!

Our Adventures Through God's World has been a fascinating study for all! I think I have learned more about Geography and different cultures in teaching this study than I ever did when I was in school!

We have used the Confessions of a Homeschooler, ExpeditionEarth curriculum as a guide through this study. (A homeschooling website I very highly recommend to all homeschoolers!)

This Unit has been MUCH slower going than I had planned, but it has been so interesting, I finally gave in and decided to just let it flow. We have taken each continent and have studied each of its major countries and their cultures, religions, histories, climates, and indigenous animals as well as a brief missionary study for each country. As a result, what was originally going to be a one week survey of each country has turned into two - three week studies in each country! But Geography was one of the subjects I struggled the most with when I was in school and I never cared for it, so being able to instill a love and passion for the subject in my kids as well as developing my own passion along the way has been very rewarding! We are about to conclude our study of Asia, our first continent. We have learned all about:

1. China

2. South Korea

3. Japan

4. India

5. Israel

6. Thailand

Soon, we will be moving on to Africa, land of some of the world's deadliest animals! So you can imagine how excited the kids are! :)

During Calendar Time every day, we review:

* Days of the Week

* Months of the Year

* Seasons

* Holidays

* Weather

* and Lunar Cycles

Our Adventures in Reading has been a nice wrap up of our Group Time every day. The kids have enjoyed lounging around, eating their snacks as we read a few literary classics together before splitting up for our Individual Studies. 

We have finally finished The Lion, The Witch and TheWardrobe which was a big hit for the kids, but a bit draining for me. I found that the language was a bit too advanced for them, especially the little ones and I had to paraphrase much of the book as I read it to them. Luckily, I had purchased a "family version" that made the job a little easier. It was a wonderful book with a great theme rich in spiritual parallels that made for wonderful discussions! We ended our time in this, one of my personal favorite books, by having family movie night fully stocked with popcorn, blankets and snuggling! We enjoyed the kids cartoon version (since the teeny munchkins were in attendance). The kids enjoyed it and have since been asking to watch it again (but that could just be for want of more popcorn?) hmmm.

Now we are on to the MUCH anticipated, Treasure Island!

Our Math and Language Arts Units are both Individual Studies Units. When Group Time is finished for the day, the kids have their Workboxes that they are responsible for finishing on their own for the remainder of the day. (A wonderful teaching and organizational tool that, if you have the time to put in on the front end getting it set up, I highly recommend).

Missy is plugging away at learning her Multiplication, Division & Fractions in Math. And the teeny ones are learning the beginnings of Adding and Subtracting along with patterning and categorizing. They are also on the Alphabet Train as they are becoming excited about reading!

This year, we got Missy involved in a Cottage School program for her Language Arts studies. One day a week she goes to an all day Cottage School, which she is enjoying very much, and it gives me a little breather. They are studying Myths and Legends, a pretty cool unit study that has inspired Missy to start writing her own short stories, fully illustrated, of course! 

As our Floating Units, we have Beginning Spanish, Physical Education (which consists mostly of extracurricular sports programs), and Art History, where we are currently learning about Leonardo da Vinci. Each of these units i one day per week.