Curriculum maps give your pacing for the year ensuring standards mastery. This post walks through curriculum mapping with a video tutorial on using Excel.
This FREE literature-based unit study introduces students to 16 different countries and cultures around the world.
My main goal with my children is to instill a love of the Lord in their hearts and to train them to have GOOD character! There are way too many children nowadays who lack any type of character or morals.
Freedom Homeschooling lists free high-quality homeschool grammar curriculum for all grades. Complete programs, not supplements.
Need free entrepreneurship curriculum, lesson plans, and projects? Here's entrepreneur lesson plans for high school, middle school, and elementary.
Here is the Elementary Art Curriculum Map that all K-4 art teachers in Chelmsford follow. You can click on the picture for an enlarged view National Visual Art Standards BY grade 4 1.1 Use a variety of materials and media, for example, crayons, chalk, paint, clay, various kinds of papers, textiles, and yarns, and understand how to use them to produce different visual effects 1.2 Create artwork in a variety of two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) media, for example: 2D – drawing, painting, collage, printmaking, weaving; 3D – plastic (malleable) materials such as clay and paper, wood, or found objects for assemblage and construction 1.3 Learn and use appropriate vocabulary related to methods, materials, and techniques 1.4 Learn to take care of materials and tools and to use them safely 2.1 For color, explore and experiment with the use of color in dry and wet media Identify primary and secondary colors and gradations of black, white and gray in the environment and artwork Explore how color can convey mood and emotion For example, students mix light and dark values of colors or predict the results of overlapping and blending primary colors. 2.2 For line, explore the use of line in 2D and 3D works Identify a wide variety of types of lines in the environment and in artwork For example, students take a walk around the school and note jagged, straight, curved, thick, and thin lines. 2.3 For texture, explore the use of textures in 2D and 3D works Identify a wide variety of types of textures, for example, smooth, rough, and bumpy, in the environment and in artwork Create representations of textures in drawings, paintings, rubbings, or relief 2.4 For shape and form, explore the use of shapes and forms in 2D and 3D works Identify simple shapes of different sizes, for example, circles, squares, triangles, and forms, for example, spheres, cones, cubes, in the environment and in artwork 2.5 For pattern and symmetry, explore the use of patterns and symmetrical shapes in 2D and 3D works Identify patterns and symmetrical forms and shapes in the environment and artwork. Explain and demonstrate ways in which patterns and symmetrical shapes 3.1 Create 2D and 3D artwork from direct observation For example, students draw a still life of flowers or fruit, action studies of their classmates in sports poses, or sketches of the class pet having a snack or a nap. 3.2 Create 2D and 3D expressive artwork that explores abstraction For example, a student simplifies an image by making decisions about essential colors, lines, or textures. 3.3 Create 2D and 3D artwork from memory or imagination to tell a story or embody an idea or fantasy For example, students draw members of a family from memory; illustrate a character in a folktale or play; build a clay model of an ideal place to play; or make images that convey ideas such as friendship. 4.1 Select a work or works created during the year and discuss them with a parent, classmate, or teacher, explaining how the work was made, and why it was chosen for discussion For example, a first grader chooses a painting and tells how she mixed the colors, and talks about the decisions she made. 4.2 Select works for exhibition and work as a group to create a display 4.3 As a class, develop and use criteria for informal classroom discussions about art 5.1 In the course of making and viewing art, learn ways of discussing it, such as by making a list of all of the images seen in an artwork (visual inventory); and identifying kinds of color, line, texture, shapes, and forms in the work 5.2 Classify artworks into general categories, such as painting, printmaking, collage, sculpture, pottery, textiles, architecture, photography, and film 5.3 Describe similarities and differences in works, and present personal responses to the subject matter, materials, techniques, and use of design elements in artworks 5.4 (Grades 3 and 4) Explain strengths and weaknesses in their own work, and share comments constructively and supportively within the group 6.1 When viewing or listening to examples of visual arts, architecture, music, dance, storytelling, and theatre, ask and answer questions such as, “What is the artist trying to say?” “Who made this, and why?” “How does this work make me feel?” 6.2 Investigate uses and meanings of examples of the arts in children’s daily lives, homes, and communities For example, children learn and teach other children songs in languages other than English; interview parents and community members about dances, songs, images, and stories that are part of their family and cultural heritage. 7.1 Investigate how artists create their work; read about, view films about, or interview artists such as choreographers, dancers, composers, singers, instrumentalists, actors, storytellers, playwrights, illustrators, painters, sculptors, craftspeople, or architects For example, teachers invite an illustrator of children’s books to school to show how she creates her illustrations. 8.1 Identify characteristic features of the performing and visual arts of native populations and immigrant groups to America, such as • styles of North American native cultures of the East Coast, Plains, Southwest, and Northwest; • styles of folk and fine arts of immigrant groups from European, African, Latin American, Asian, and Middle Eastern countries For example, students look at examples of Native American clay containers from the Southwest, and wooden containers from the Northwest and compare the similarities and differences in form and decoration. 8.2 Identify characteristic features of the visual arts of world civilizations such as styles of ancient Egypt and Africa, China, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and the Medieval period in Europe 8.3 Perform or create works inspired by historical or cultural styles 9.1 When using art materials or handling and viewing artifacts or musical instruments, ask and answer questions such as • “What is this made of?” • “How does this instrument produce sound?” • “Would I design this differently?” • “Who first thought of making something like this?” For example, students examine a variety of percussion instruments, experiment with the different sounds they make, and learn about the cultures in which they were made. 10.1 Integrate knowledge of dance, music, theatre, and visual arts and apply the arts to learning other disciplines Examples of this include: • using visual arts skills to illustrate understanding of a story read in English language arts or foreign languages; • memorizing and singing American folk songs to enhance understanding of history and geography; • using short dance sequences to clarify concepts in mathematics.
Enjoy a hands-on curriculum to explore the senses with your homeschool group or co-op and have tons of fun!
This FREE handout is a great activity for warm-ups or even early finishers. This handout was inspired by the book Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg. Here is the BLANK version. This is a good opti…
Typing is an essential skill all kids need. Whether it is taught in school or not anyone will benefit from increasing their typing skills.
Visually Scaffold Your Curriculum With Ease % %
Project-based learning teaches students important 21st-century skills, increases engagement, promotes differentiation and simplifies marking.
Have you ever run into a curriculum that makes all the difference in the world? That's what starting Memoria Press's First Form Latin was like for us.
Use a simple. five-step framework that will yield high results for your ESL students.
(Click on any photo to be taken to the resource) You are going to LOVE this unit. It’s easy to implement, it’s comprehensive, #representation, and your students are going to walk away with a great foundation of important social studies skills. We lay the foundation in literally every other academic area, social studies shouldn’t be […]
Do you use rubrics for self-assessment with your students? I developed this rubric based on others I had seen online. I wanted to get my students thinking more about their artwork and writi…
Is homeschooling free? Yes, it can be! Here's a list of my favorite homeschool curriculum that you can find online for FREE!
Best free typing games online, free online resources, and fun home school learning games to make this important skill fun and improve speed, accuracy, finger placement, and confidence! Kids typing practice and how to use typing lessons for kids, learn to type tests, and keyboarding activity for elementary students for online typing practice tutor, and learn to touch type for basic, beginner, intermediate, and even advanced learners. Fun ideas for free homeschool curriculum, too!
Song Index
October 12, 2013 Fourth and fifth grade students are reviewing "rhythm" (the short and long patterns of the beat) in music class...
Seven essential elements to include in your next PBL to
Science curriculum doesn't have to be expensive. A good portion of what we've used for science over the years has been free resources!
Hello Everyone! I know! It has been a long time since my last post. I have had so much family stuff going on that I have been absolutely c...
Do you have a Minecraft lover at home? It's possible that you can use Minecraft in your homeschool as an educational tool!
Teach financial literacy early with free printable money worksheets for kids. From preschool to middle school, explore fun learning activities
Song Index
Yesterday a co-worker was needing something to do with her 5th graders for Coordinate Graphing so I sent my Groundhog Graphing Unit over to her which she (and her kids) fell in love with! Since I wanted them to also have the ability to have a resource for notes, she worked with them to create ... Read more
Our family's recommended resources for homeschooling second graders. Includes suggested resources for language arts, math, science and social science.
Do you have a newcomer student in your classroom? Here are some strategies for supporting newcomer ELLs in their elementary classroom...
Need to help your students get more hands on practice for their vocabulary words? I've got 5 fun vocabulary games you can use right away!
Song Index
music lessons for home schoolers, music lessons for the young child, peter and the wolf, rhythm, teaching musical form, melody, elementary music
Good, Better, Best A Rhythm and Movement Lesson for Grades 4-6 Download a printable version of Michael Chandler's lesson here. Objectives: Working with beat and divided beat through movement, body percussion, and instruments. Choreographing simple movement to elemental forms. Rhythmic and melodic improvisation and composition with elemental forms. Arranging and orchestrating a performance piece. Materials: Unpitched
Music is organized sound. I like to give students opportunities to organize sound and icons for sounds before we work with organizing notation. One of the ways I do that is to create sound songs. We take a basic grid and brainstorms sounds we can make with our bodies (APPROPRIATE sounds *giggle*) and then draw shapes and simple picture to represent them. We draw them into the grid so that they are organized and then perform them for each other. FUN! Another thing I like to do is work with ready icons for body percussion. I introduce this in Kindergarten, but we review it in 1st and 2nd grades and add a composing element to it. Until recently I used a pretty old set of body percussion clip art to create a slide show. Here's what the new version looks like: I used this with some classes this week and they loved it! We talked about one sound to the beat means a quarter note and one picture in each square. After we add barred eighth notes or two sounds on one beat we'll take some time to compose our own. I'll print out little copies of all the body percussion actions and they will place them on the squares in the grid and perform. When we finish or as we begin to use this activity just to review or as a warm-up I'll add some body percussion worksheets to the end of class or to workstations. I'll be using these: Quick enough to do in the last ten minutes of class or at a workstation, I really like making connections to reading and writing AND music. Check out the Body Percussion set HERE.
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It’s that time again! Time for learning the parts of speech! In Montessori schools, we have a lot of fun with nouns, verbs and adjectives because of something called Symbolic Grammar–a …
