Our 2009-2010 Curriculum

Here is our curriculum for this school year. I don't have a huge budget (our money goes towards art materials) so I have found a lot of free curriculum sources on the internet that we will use.

For science, we are using The Lab of Mr. Q Classic Science: Elementary Life Science. The entire year, comprised of 36 weeks of lessons based on themes, is FREE! This includes the student book and teacher's guide! I love this curriculum so much, that I will be buying the next 3 years which are Chemistry, Physical Science, and Earth Science. This curriculum written by a science teacher, teaches kids how to use the scientific method from the beginning, and teaches children how to learn science through the inquiry method. This curriculum really meshes with my beliefs in science education and is exactly how I taught my students when I was in "the classroom." I will be posting our science experiments each week once school starts.
For Nature Study, we are using The Outdoor Hour. I love this curriculum because it uses The Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Comstock and has enough "challenges" to take us through an entire school year. Instead of going through the activities in sequential order, we will do them as the kids stumble upon the plants and animals in our nature journeys. We are doing a year long unit study on our family pond and will be visiting it once a week. We will be blogging about our weekly adventures as well.

For critical thinking, and inventive play, we will be doing Think! challenges. There are enough challenges to take us through 36 weeks. Inventive play is extremly important and you will get to see some of my "scholarly writing" and research (for my Ph.D) about this topic in a couple of months. To get your kids started, go ahead and prepare for next school year by making a junk bucket...fill it with anything you can find. I will blog about ours but some things we have in it now are bottle caps, Pringles cans, toilet paper tubes, fabric, ribbon, string, cones, old socks, buttons, giant tubes, boxes....just whatever!


For Math, we are using the Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching's Mathematics Enhancement Programme. This high-standards curriculum, which is used in Hungary and England, is FREE! We are starting with Year 1. What I love about this program is that the Teacher's Guide is kind of scripted and takes me through how to teach the material to my kids.
I will be blogging about our activities and lessons about this, too. We are also supplementing (for extra practice) with Singapore Math and Living Math (we will be using living "story" books). For Critical Thinking, we are using Critical Thinking Co. products. I also will be doing a review of one of The Critical Thinking Co. products.



For Language and Literacy, both kids will make two hard bound books with I Am An Author: Online Edition. We will also be playing storytelling games from the I Am An Author: Online Edition Teacher's Guide. If you want information on the Teacher's Guide or to inquire about accessing the Publishing Center, send me an email!

We will also use the activities that are FREE at Florida's Center for Reading Research. They have a complete reading curriculum!!!! Thanks, Kelly for the link!

We will also be playing hand made literacy games and the ones from Michigan's Department of Education Family Fundamentals program. All of these are FREE! We will also be using some activities at PBS and Starfall.


For art, we will be using the lessons from the Incredible Art Department. There are enough lessons and activities to take us through the whole school year. We will also be learning various water color techniques.

Little Snail will have her very own Pre-K curriculum. She will be doing Bo's Curriculum from Itty-Bitty Curiculum this year. I am going to be very honest with you. If you want a boxed preschool curriculum, this is the one to get! I was a Georgia Pre-K teacher and this curriculum is exactly everything that I did in my classroom...from the "literature based themes" down to the circle time activities. What's super awesome about this curriculum is that I don't have to plan a single thing! Seriously, I just print out that week's materials, gather what I need and I am done. When I taught Pre-K, I spent between 8-15 hours planning each week and my lesson plans were over 8 pages long. This curriculum takes all of the work out of planning for me! I will be blogging about Little Snail's adventures with the Itty Bitty Bookworm curriculum each week. She is going to have a TON of fun!

I will finalize social studies and other stuff after I attend convention but I wanted to go ahead and share with you about what I have planned so far. I plan to post about all of our activities and learning when school starts August 3rd. You will find weekly science experiments, nature exploration, inventive play activities, literacy games, and art lessons. I will also be throwing in some great product reviews, too. It will definately be a busy year for The Snail's Trail!

I'd love to know what you are doing for next year! If you have already posted about your plans for next year, leave me a link in the comments! I'd love to see what you will be doing.

(I do not get any form of compensation from these companies and this is not an endorsement for these companies.)