A Slice of Smith Life: Workbaskets

(Organization) System Saturday- Our 2010-2011 Homeschool Curriculum

I recently posted my Workbaskets + Workboxes = Works for 4 (Children) , where I explained how I was organizing my curriculum for my children.

So what is behind all these white foam board dividers? Here is a list of my 2010-2011 curriculum that I have pieced together (For me, it's always a challenging and overwhelming process each summer to decide which curriculum is best for our family in each subject area, but somehow by the end of the summer the pieces to the puzzle come together in time for a new school year!)

Cupcake #1 (Grade 5)

Handwriting & Daily Oral Language (D.O.L): Seton's Handwriting 5 for Young Catholics & Daily Grams for Grade 5
Math: Saxon 6/5
Spelling: Catholic Heritage Curricula My Catholic Speller, Level E
Reading: Pathway Readers and workbook for Grade 5 (Living Together)
Writing Tales, Level 2
Religion: Faith & Life, "Credo: I Believe" text combined with an online curriculum that goes with the Faith & Life text. The online curriculum is at My Catholic Faith Delivered. I also review The New Saint Joseph Baltimore Catechism, No. 1 with my child.
History (I do this subject with all 3 of my older children together) : Famous Men of Rome from Memoria Press ( I do Ancient Roman History Monday through Wednesday and then US History, States & Capitals Thursdays and Fridays)
Science: Apologia Zoology 2, Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day with Zoology 2 Notebooking Journal (together)
Latin: Latina Christiana, Book 1 (together)
Spanish: I have a friend who comes to my home to teach my children Spanish about every other week
Map Skills: Maps, Charts, and Graphs, Level E (Seton)
Piano: My 3 older children take lessons each week from a friend of mine
Art: weekly homeschool art classes with an art teacher
Physical Education: weekly soccer practice and games with a league

Cupcake #2 (Grade 3)

Handwriting/D.O.L.: Introducing Prints and Handwriting (cursive) Book 1 by Marie Picard and Cursive Writing Skills for Left-Handed Students by Diana Hanbury King/Oral Language for Daily Use by Frank Schaffer Publications, Grade 3
Math: Right Start Mathematics, Level C
Reading: Little Angel Readers, Level D
Shirley English Grammar/Composition, Level 2
Spelling: All About Spelling ( My son loves this spelling program! Since he is still not reading fluently, I thought AAS would be a great program for him since it's very phonics based and hands on as he learns to spell words with magnetic letter tiles vs. just memorizing a weekly list. We are starting on the most basic level, Level 1, which he is breezing through, but I wanted to lay a good foundation with the program before getting into Level 2).
Religion: Faith & Life, "Our Life with Jesus"
History: with siblings
Science: with siblings
Latin: with siblings
Spanish: with siblings
Map Skills: Maps, Charts, and Graphs, Level C (Seton)
Piano: weekly lessons
Art: weekly classes
Physical Education: weekly soccer practice and games in a league

Cupcake #3 (Grade 1)

Handwriting/D.O.L: Catholic Heritage Handwriting Series, Level 1: Moving Onward/Oral Language for Daily Use by Frank Schaffer Publications, Grade1
Reading/Writing/Spelling: Sing, Spell, Read, & Write
Math: worksheets from a Grade 1 Math resource book and Math U See, Alpha level
Religion: Faith & Life. "Our Heavenly Father" with workbook
History: with siblings
Science: with siblings
Latin: with siblings
Spanish: with siblings
Map Skills: Maps, Charts, and Graphs, Level A (Seton)
Piano: weekly lessons
Art: weekly classes
Physical Education: weekly soccer practice and games in a league

Cupcake #4 (almost 3 years old)

Math: counting how many times she makes it to the potty with no accidents (she's doing great potty training which she initiated one day recently by changing from her diaper to panties (she has to keep up with her older siblings, you know)
Social Studies: learning how to be social one on one with a sibling while mom works with her other siblings
History/Science/Latin: learning how to take good naps in the afternoon so Mommy can finish up with school time in these subject areas with her 3 older siblings.
Signing Times: She LOVES these sign language videos and my whole family does too! Post coming soon on how we saw the creator of Signing Times in concert recently! Awesome!
Piano: learning how to have clean hands when approaching piano and to not bang on the keys while her siblings are practicing
Art: draws on everything, including paper :)
Physical Education: she runs away from Mommy and Daddy and into our arms for hugs and kisses

Many of our curriculum books can be found under the links that I have on the left sidebar titled "Homeschool Resources We Use". If you homeschool, what curriculum do you love to use with your children? If you have a post up about your curriculum choices for this 2010-2011 school year, put the link in my comments section. I'm always interested in what works/does not work for others when it comes to curriculum choices!

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(not quite) Wordless Wednesday-Our Homeschool Classroom

I am linking up with Show Me Your Homeschool Classroom blog hop hosted by Mama to 3 Blessings and "Show Off Your Homeschool" Link Up Party hosted by Melissa at The Joys of Home Educating .

We are blessed to have one large room designated for our classroom in our home. This photo is the view from the entrance of our classroom.

In one corner of the room is a closet that I have art supplies/manipulatives/resources stored in and an art area. I won the art table several years ago and we have enjoyed it alot!

Books, books, and more books! One of the many bookshelves in our home.

My two of many "Trash to Treasure" finds. I found the bookshelf that's in the background at a yard sale. I didn't have to think twice about buying it. This is the shelf where books that the children made are stored and our library books are stored here to help us not lose our books that need to be returned so that we don't have to pay library fines again! I got the small, blue and red table from my neighbor many years ago. She was going to throw it away because one of the legs was broken. So we just fixed the leg and painted it and it was good as new!

This is another bookshelf that holds all our religious books/resources. I hope to do a blog post soon on some of the great Catholic resources I use with my children!

Our magnetic dry-erase white board that is new for this year. The kids and I have really enjoyed this. I am able to store my All About Spelling magnetic letter tiles on the board (these are the blue and red tiles on the right side of the board.) Then on the left side I have my kid's lesson plans hanging up with magnets. They refer to these plans to see what is scheduled next for their workbaskets or workboxes. Then they are able to put a check mark in the designated box on their plans when a subject/activity is completed.

Workbaskets for my three older children. The green basket on the far right is where I store all my teacher manuals where I can quickly grab a manual to start a lesson. Last year I wasted lots of time searching for manuals that were thrown into baskets and on my bookshelf!

Workboxes for all my children

Chore chart for classroom chores (more details coming in a future post)

Close-up shot of classroom chore chart (more details coming in a future post)

Daily chore chart set-up just inside the classroom entrance (more details coming in a future post)

4 reasons to be thankful and to motivate me to keep going on this homeschool journey...

This photo was taken on the first day of school this year and they are working on their "Tee-rific t-shirts" for the "Tee-rific Summer" bulletin board.

And no, this is not what my school days look like ALL the time or even half the time. It is an exception in our homeschool day to see everyone on task at the same time doing the same thing for at least 1 minute so that I can take a picture!

Be sure to check out my post from yesterday where I am giving an "UN-birthday" gift to someone by having a hand-made jewelry giveaway and you can read all about it here.