ORGANIZING HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM

Today I want to share how we organize our curriculum for our 1st grader. This year we are doing Abeka and I couldn't be more pleased with it. My son is learning so much! He's becoming and excellent reader and writing with great penmanship. I have found a great way to organize all of his daily work. I had this cart in my closet, not being used and it just happened to work out perfectly. There are just enough drawers for each subject.

 At the top of the cart (on picture below) you can see my teacher manuals. I keep them there for easy access. I also keep my binder on top. As I grade his work, I hole punch each page and then put it in my binder where I also keep other records like field trips, attendance, and so on. The top drawer says Bible, but this is also where I keep my small supplies like dry-erase markers, the hole puncher, stickers, etc.

I have labeled each drawer in the order that we do each subject. This really helps us both know what to do next. The only thing that varies is the seat work drawer. Sometimes he does that out of order because I usually assign that whenever I can go take a shower, so he can be working on his work independently.

I try to make it a point to take about 15 minutes or so each night to prepare for the next day. This means writing things on our dry-erase board, tearing out pages and adding only those pages to his drawers, and gathering together any other objects that are needed. This is a huge help for me when we do school the next day. When preparing for the next day, I go to my front hall closet where I keep a bookshelf. This is where I store all of the books and cards that are not currently in use. I have bags hanging above the shelf. Inside the bags are things that I have already cut out or prepared, but I'm not currently using.

It's messy and has some extra things on it,
but this is our shelf and it works for us!

I hope this has helped you get some ideas to make organizing your homeschool curriculum easier. I think that without this system I would be going crazy every single day, trying to figure out what comes next. I imagine that I would also be misplacing things and I sure don't need to add anymore chaos to our days. If you have organizing tips, please share them in the comments!

Be blessed my friends!

1st Grade Curriculum

We went to a homeschool convention in April where I was able to find my children's curriculum for the upcoming school year. I will share in a later post what I chose for my 9th grader because his curriculum was put together, piece by piece. Each subject is from a different company.  For my 1st grader though, we decided to go with A Beka Book. 

A Beka Book is a Christian based company that seems like it will challenge our son the way we feel he needs to be challenged. They teach cursive handwriting from the beginning and they learn phonics very early on as well. I love that the 1st grade kit has everything we need and then some, like science, health, and history. Here's a list of everything I got in the child's kit:  

*You can click on the numbers to see a picture and better description of each item.*

• 94951 Fun with Pets
• 94986 Tiptoes
• 95001 Stepping Stones
• 95036 Secrets and Surprises
• 95052 Bridge Book
• 95060 Kind and Brave
• 95087 Aesop's Fables
• 95109 Strong and True
• 94943 Primary Bible Reader
• 94927 Handbook for Reading
• 95125 Letters and Sounds 1
• 95141 Letters and Sounds 1 Test Book
• 95184 Language 1
• 95206 Spelling and Poetry 1
• 95230 Writing with Phonics 1 Cursive
• 95249 Cursive Writing Tablet
• 92185 Arithmetic 1
• 92207 Arithmetic 1 Tests and Speed Drills
• 34851 Community Helpers Activity Book
• 95265 Discovering God's World
• 95281 Health, Safety, and Manners 1
• 95311 My America and My World
• 113867 Child Kit ABA DVD Insert Card (FREE)
  

I also ordered the following support materials to help me teach him to the best of my ability:

• 96946 Homeschool Phonics, Reading, and Spelling 1 Curriculum
• 95168 Letters and Sounds 1 Test Key
• 95354 Basic Phonics Charts (8.5 X 11)
• 96962 Homeschool Writing and Seatwork 1 Curriculum
• 92231 Homeschool Arithmetic 1 Curriculum
• 92215 Arithmetic 1 Tests and Speed Drills Key
• 151459 Arithmetic Drill Cards Set A
• 75434 Homeschool Arithmetic 1 Charts and Games (8.5 X 11)

I hope you will follow along on our 1st grade journey. We will start back to school in August.

Be blessed my friends!