Tag: curriculum

Our 2023-2024 Homeschool Curriculum, Schedule Plans, Resource Links, and Daily Routine

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog9 Comments

It’s that time of year again for us… time to get the next school year planned out. We finished up our 2022-2023 school year back in April and I’ve been busy gathering supplies and making schedules as I coordinate with everyone for vacations, holidays, and special trips that we have planned.

Last year was a bit of a whirlwind as everyone got readjusted to life at home. We also had another little one join us mid-year and that made things very interesting and kept me on my toes… he will be with us again this year so we can’t wait to see what the year will hold for everyone.

It is SO TEMPTING to take a few months off to just focus on this house but I know from past experience that this doesn’t go well and that it takes FOREVER to get a couple of the kids back into the school routine. You can read more about last year’s curriculum and routines HERE.

We had switched to Living Education Books from Master Books for our Language Arts and Math and we absolutely loved them but I decided to go back to some of our oldies but goodies books that we already had on hand for this year. We still have the Living Books and I may decide to switch back but I really wanted to try to simplify things just a bit. I also found some great workbooks to go along with these older books so I’m curious to see how they work out. If you want to see how we liked our curriculum from last year then check out this post HERE.

One of the biggest changes will be that little Ma’am will be joining us at the table for some of the lessons that she can participate in… she loves school and we try to include her as much as we can. I also have another post with activities that we use for little miss last year.

I’m also super excited to be using more of a Charlotte Mason-style approach this year. It’ll be interesting to see how everything plays out and how the kids react to this new method of learning. You can look up Simply Charlotte Mason on YouTube for lots of helpful information or check out their site for TONS of FREE resources and helpful tips! I’ve recently some more wonderful FREE resources at DonPotter.net.

Note: I’ve had to recently update this post to include this wonderful FREE site of Charlotte Mason-style curriculum lesson plans for grades K-5… go check it out HERE!

We have a wonderful all-in-one printer that we use to make copies of the work so that we can use/reuse the books/materials multiple times which helps to cut down on the cost of books every year. Our old one lasted for several years so we just bought an updated one to replace it. We also try to stock up on school supplies when they go on sale and/or on school tax holidays to help save money. Check out this post for essential supplies.

Please note that it is not necessary to purchase any of these materials to give your child/children a good education. We happen to have a lot of them on hand already and many of these we have been able to find for FREE or discounted prices online or on our local FB groups. You can also find lots of used books on eBay, thrift books, and Amazon. Your local library often has many books on various subjects that you can use for lessons too!

Continue reading “Our 2023-2024 Homeschool Curriculum, Schedule Plans, Resource Links, and Daily Routine” →

Our 2022-2023 Homeschool Curriculum and Schedule

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

I know most families are just now finishing up their 2021-2022 school year and looking forward to a few months off but we aren’t like most families. We’ve decided to adopt more of a year-round school schedule which allows us more flexibility to take time off whenever we need a break or have something important or unexpected come up… which has happened a lot lately!

We have it planned so that we can take a one-week break every three weeks or so with a two-week break around Christmas and at the end of our school year. We can adjust this as needed, for example, we could complete six weeks of school and take a two-week break if needed. Or we could have two weeks of school with a break and then have four weeks… we have a little bit of flexibility for whatever we need to do without feeling ‘rushed’ to get finished.

We finished our 2021-2022 school year back in March and I was tempted to take a few months off and not start back until August/September but I know from past experiences that this doesn’t go well and that it takes FOREVER to get a couple of the kids back into the school routine. You can read more about last year’s curriculum and routines HERE. Last year was pretty crazy but we adapted and we survived!

Last year I switched to some Living Education Books from Master Books for our Language Arts and Math and we absolutely loved them so we went with them again for this year. We used some materials that we already had on hand and I ordered a few new things to go along with our studies. So far, everything has been working out well and many of the studies have been overlapping/going right along with each other which has been really nice as it helps to reinforce what we are learning and gives a little bit of review as well.

I also have another post with activities that we use for little miss (20 months old right now.)

Continue reading “Our 2022-2023 Homeschool Curriculum and Schedule” →

Remote homeschooling

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog1 Comment

I know that many of you have had to try virtual/remote learning over the past year. Some have liked it and some have not. We were homeschoolers before the pandemic and continue to do so through our latest crisis.

Continue reading “Remote homeschooling” →

Little House On The Prairie Adventure: Week by Week Music, Arts, and Crafts Lessons

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog12 Comments

**This post may contain affiliate links to some of the products and resources that we have used. These are provided at no extra charge to you and help to support our blog and family if a purchase is made through these links. -Thank you!

Here are our Lesson Plans For Music, Arts & Crafts

Please note that YouTube has been removing some content from its site so you may need to search for another video on the topics listed.

These lessons were made to go along with ‘The Little House On The Prairie‘ written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We are planning to go through the whole series and I am keeping track of the different topics we are learning about here on my blog. We hope you enjoy these as much as we have!

On weeks where there are several activities listed just choose a couple that interest you the most to work on.

Tip: If you want to go to a certain week/chapter or subject simply push the ‘ctrl’ and the ‘F’ button down together and a small bar will pop up. Type in the week number or chapter number you want and it will take you to it.

You can check out my Pinterest page Little House on the Prairie Crafts for even more crafts and activities.

Many of the songs come from this book:

Laura Ingalls Wilder Songbook

You can find more Native American crafts and activities HERE, HERE, HERE, and a FREE printable coloring book HERE.

Week 1: Chapters 1, 2 & 3

Crafts:

  1. Try one of these campfire crafts:

2.  Horse Crafts

3. You could start making a Pioneer Life Diorama to depict the book scenes.

Art:**

  1. Draw a picture of Pet and Patty on their lines.
  2. Wagons on a raft coloring page.

Music:

  1. Listen to the sounds of nature on the prairie:

2. Listen to the sounds of nature at night:

Week 2: Chapters 4, 5 & 6

Crafts:**

  1. Try making some origami animals.

Art:

  1. Prairie Dog Coloring Page
  2. How to draw a Prairie Dog
  3. or Free Choice

Music:

Week 3: Chapters 7, 8 & 9

Crafts:

  1. Build a log cabin with Lincoln Logs
  2. Make a Log Cabin Photo Frame p. 36 Pioneer Crafts for Kids
  3. Use My Book of Little House Paper Dolls: The Big Woods Collection to reenact and retell the story to someone.
  4. Make a Flower Mask p. 16 Pioneer Crafts for Kids
  5. Build a Pretzel Log Cabin

Art: 

  1. Color some prairie flowers
  2. Draw a rock fireplace as Laura described it.
  3. Draw a log cabin.

Or you can try to draw a wolf:

Music:

Listen to the natural songs made by wolves:

Week 4: Chapters 10, 11 & 12

Crafts:

1. Snakes

2. Water well

Art: 

  1. Snake coloring page

Music:

Listen to some Native American music:

Week 5: Chapters 13, 14 & 15

Crafts:

  1. 9 NATIVE AMERICAN CRAFTS FOR KIDS
  2. Indian Necklace Craft
  3. Make a Fringed Vest p. 13 Pioneer Crafts for Kids

Art:

  1. Longhorn coloring pages
  2. Cattle drive coloring page
  3. Three Wigwams coloring page

Look at these Native American Bead Projects HERE or below:

Music:

Listen to some of these old cowboy songs:

Week 6: Chapters 16, 17 & 18

Crafts:

  1. Turkey Crafts for Kids – Wonderful Art and Craft Ideas for Fall and Thanksgiving
  2. 15 TERRIFIC TURKEY CRAFTS FOR KIDS
  3. Turkey Leaf Lanterns Mason Jar Thanksgiving Craft

DIY Paper Turkey Headdress Turkey Hat Crafts

Art:

  1. Make a Turkey from things found in nature: Nature Made Wild Turkey
  2. Turkey Coloring Page

Music:

Novum Crafts Feather Headdress

Week 7: Chapters 19, 20 & 21

Crafts:

1. Make musical instruments:

2. Christmas

Art:

  1. Santa Claus coloring page
  2. Christmas coloring page

Music:

Some more Plains Indian Music:

Week 8: Chapters 22, 23 & 24

Crafts:**

  1. Choose a Frog Craft

Smiling Wisdom - Jumping Hop Frog Origami Game - Holiday Favors, Classroom - 50 Colorful Origami Frogs - Children's Paper Game - Holiday Party Activity Ideas for Boys & Girls - Multicolored

Smiling Wisdom – Jumping Hop Frog Origami Game

2. Buffalo Crafts

3. Indian Papoose Craft

Art:

  1. Buffalo coloring pages
  2. Native American Hunter coloring page

Music:

  1. The Gum Tree Canoe p. 117Laura Ingalls Wilder Songbook

Week 9: Chapters 25 & 26

Crafts:**

1. Make a Covered Wagon p. 37 Pioneer Crafts for Kids

2. Indian Headdress

Amscan Thanksgiving Make Your Own Headband

Amscan Thanksgiving Make Your Own Headband

Art:

  1. Choose a previous project that you haven’t done yet.
  2. Indian Headdress Coloring Page
  3. Native American Dancing coloring page
  4. Free Choice

Music:

  • Experiment with making music around the house.

Westco Sounds of Nature Kit Musical Instrument Toy

Week 10: Finishing Up

Crafts:**

Make some crafts for your Indian Party. Check out these ideas HERE on Amazon. You can also check out my Pinterest board HERE.

  1. INDIAN CRAFTS FOR KIDS: Ideas to Make Native American Indians with Easy arts and crafts for children, preschoolers, teens
  2. Make a Spoon Doll p. 14 Pioneer Crafts for Kids
  3. Make a Pioneer Doll p. 32 Pioneer Crafts for Kids
  4. Make a Pioneer Life Diorama p. 51 Pioneer Crafts for Kids

Art:

  1. Choose a previous project that you haven’t done yet.
  2. Free Choice

Music:

**BE SURE TO SAVE A FEW SAMPLES OF YOUR WORK FOR YOUR  PORTFOLIO!  TAKE PICTURES OF BIG PROJECTS!

Kirby’s Kids: Our 2018-2019 Homeschool Curriculum Reveal

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog5 Comments

*This post does contain some affiliate links which help to support our blog and our family.

Ohhhh! I am so excited to be sharing this post with you. The kids are pretty excited about it too! My fingers are going faster than my brain as I am typing and somehow or another they are managing to put into words what I want to say. I did show a sneak peak of some of the items we’ve received in this post here but now I am going to show you everything we have right now.

If you haven’t seen my latest posts about homeschooling check out the links here but if you are only interested in what we have planned for this year, please keep scrolling.

I’ve been talking about how excited I am for our next homeschool year and I just can’t wait to get started. I have actually talked about this curriculum before but its been awhile. My kids are finally at the age that I think this will work out really well for everyone. Continue reading “Kirby’s Kids: Our 2018-2019 Homeschool Curriculum Reveal” →