Tips for building your own curriculum for the year/month...

[naturallyspeaking]

Hi mamas,
I'm looking for some tips from veterans. For those who don't use pre-set/bought curriculums, how did you build your own and decide what to teach for each subject? I have 8 yr old and 4 yr old. 8 yr old DS loves reading, science projects, doesn't like writing, math. 4 yr old DD is very interested in writing, getting to know Alphabet, writing her names everywhere LOL...
I'm pretty relaxed and don't push too much but I still would like some guidelines to follow for myself.
TIA

[craft_media_hero]

I <3 curriculum planning. I am a geek about it, I'll admit it.

An easy way to get a longview is to take a big sheet of paper, fold it in half, then in thirds, so that you have 6 equal squares on each side. Then write each month's name in a square. Then write in yearly events that you want to work with (like summer solstice, or holidays or certain museum exhibitions, etc.), working around seasonal activities and your family's natural rhythm.

Then once you have that as a backbone, structure supplementary stuff around it--for instance, if you know you June is a great time to visit a nearby beach, then you might want to structure science activities around ocean life for that month. Or if you know there will be a great mummy exhibit in a nearby city, then you might want to start digging up Egypt activities for that month.

That's a good way to get started for the year.

I also find that having daily activities they can count on is good--especially for art and out-of-home stuff. So the kids know that Monday is swimming lesson day and Tuesday is artist picture study, Thursday we do our nature walk, and Friday we always paint, etc.

Have fun! I hope this helps get you started on some ideas.

[One_Girl]

I looked at the scope for our local school district to get an idea of where dd should be for her grade level then I went with where she was and used the internet, library, and my her interests to build her up to and beyond that. For reading I just encouraged her to read and we talked about the parts of speech casually. For History, Social Studies, and Science we read books from the library about different parts of those subjects that interested her. In math we explored a lot of things so she had a basic understanding and went quite a grade level ahead with addition and subtraction (because those were her favorites). Math was the only thing I really worried about doing right because it is so important. I used the strands from our district's curricullum website until I found my footing and was able to go on without them. Our spelling was awful until I stumbled across a book that teaching different rules. I started teaching her one or two rules a week and making up words with that rule in them for her to spell every day. It was fun and she really remembered the rules and applied them. I take more of a laid back approach to writing and I just had her write a certain amount each day about a topic of her choice. I was more focused on writing development, but I found that what she was learning in the other subjects really showed through. I really was surprised by how little time it took to do this and by how much my dd learned.

[WestCoastDiva]

Originally Posted by One_Girl

Our spelling was awful until I stumbled across a book that teaching different rules. I started teaching her one or two rules a week and making up words with that rule in them for her to spell every day. It was fun and she really remembered the rules and applied them.

Do you remember what book that was? DD's spelling is atrocious and I want to help her without making her feel badly about it yk?

[AngelBee]

We do mostly our own plans. I even have purchased curriculums just to see how they do it.