Home Art Instruction with Heron Books

The following post is a collaboration between Heron Books and MommyMaestra. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

On MommyMaestra, we've shared resources for teaching art to preschool and elementary or middle school kids, but we haven't covered curricula for tweens and teens. Which makes this book series from Heron Books a great fit!

Quick Overview

Program: Natasha's Sketchbook Series
Religious Perspective: Secular
Format: Book Series (Self-Paced)
Ages: Recommended for 15 and up (see description below)
Price: $29.95 per book/ $195 per set (or less with 40% discount shown below)

Art Curriculum for Teens

It was a delight to review a book from the Natasha’s Sketchbook series by Natasha Gray.  The book titled, Line, published by Heron Books is the first in a full course devoted to helping the student master, “the essential elements of art: line, shape, value, color, texture & form.”

My teens are creative types who have enjoyed other simple art courses such as Bruce McIntyre’s Drawing Textbook with little supervision from me. And I am happy to say that any busy homeschooling mom like myself, will be pleased that the books from the Natasha’s Sketchbook course are formatted with a simplicity that will make them easy to incorporate into your homeschool but offer a unique approach to artistry worth exploring. After reading through the book myself, I handed it off to my teens and said, “Go for it!”  

Can I get a "Yay!" for independent learning?

Home Art Instruction

Let me start off by applauding whoever decided to make the books in this course spiral-bound.  A million times thank you!  Homeschool mamas know that workbooks and art books have to lay flat to be useful! It is a small detail but my teens and I appreciate the thoughtfulness.  

Secondly, the lessons are E-A-S-Y to follow.  My two teens had no issues following the directions and the examples in the book are helpful.  There is some discussion in the book about art appreciation, with a brief introduction to art, focus on artists Albercht Durer and Vincent van Gogh, and artwork sprinkled throughout.  The information presented is concise and interesting. One book would not be enough for an entire high school credit, but I do think that the entire course of all the books plus the time practicing would be enough for a fine arts credit, in my humble opinion.  

My Teens' Testimonials

But why take my word for it? Here is what my teens have to say…

Son, age 15. 

“First off, I thought it was very informative with instructions on hand movements and gestures. I think this book has improved my drawing and sketching quite a bit.  Even my scribbles look better and not as if a 2-year-old did them.  My favorite exercise from the book is the one-line scribble.” 

Daughter, 13.

“The book was easy and my favorite exercise was drawing the squiggly worms.”

I can attest to this because she has been drawing the “squiggly worms” since then and even showed me how to do them.  LOL!

Bottom line:  It held my teens’ attention and how many programs can say that?  It’s an easy way to add in a little art without more work for mama.  I recommend this series for middle school and up. 

A Discount for MommyMaestra Readers

If YOU'D like to try out this excellent series and order the book Natasha's Sketchbook: Line, use the code MommyMaestra40 for a 40% discount! 

    

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Disclaimer: I received a copy of level one for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own. ~Stacie

Blossom and Root Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum Review

The following review is a guest post by Latina mom, Vanessa Ruiz. All thoughts and opinions are her own.

When you are looking to homeschool your child, you want to make sure that he or she is learning absolutely everything necessary for success. To ensure we cover all the necessities, many of us look to pre-made curricula to avoid the overwhelming task of planning a year of learning. However, choosing the right curriculum is no small feat. Here is a review of the Blossom and Root Kindergarten Curriculum to help you decide if this homeschool curriculum is the best choice for your child.

Note: We used the Blossom and Root Kindergarten Curriculum for the 2020-2021 school year. A huge update was released in the Summer of 2021. Although we did not get to use the updated materials during our school year, I looked over the new materials to give you the most current review possible.

This post contains affiliate links.

The Pros of the Blossom and Root Kindergarten Curriculum

Nature- and Play-Based

Anytime you can do school outdoors, it’s a good day. With Blossom and Root, you are encouraged to go outside as often as you can. The curriculum is based upon the Charlotte Mason principles, which means that time in nature is a huge component of learning.

My son loved doing school at the park or in the woods and I loved the special memories we got to create together. We often spent more time playing than doing the actual school work, and that is exactly how it should be for the early years.

We chose to homeschool because of the COVID-19 pandemic and due to unfortunate previous experiences that had shattered my son’s self-confidence. This curriculum was the perfect springboard to help him re-encounter a love of learning and confidence in himself. We got to be creative, go at our own pace, and explore his interests together.

Secular Curriculum

Although I am a person of faith, I want my child to have a well-rounded education that introduces him to the world, not just one point of view.

Therefore, I love that Blossom and Root is a secular curriculum that doesn’t mention faith but does introduce figures of different faith backgrounds and points of view.

Science

We absolutely loved the way science is presented as an adventure into outer space. The 2021 update even includes a list of recommended texts to help expand the exploration.

This was the one subject matter that my son begged to do each day. We ended up far ahead in science because he just couldn’t wait to go visit his friend Zoola in space. He told everyone he met about his trip and even built a cardboard box space ship big enough for the whole family.

History

I also loved how history was presented in such a child-friendly way. You begin by exploring your child’s own history, their family and community. The year ends with a section to study influential people of your choice. Therefore, you can cater this subject to your family’s own heritage and background.

Well-Rounded

What amazed me about this curriculum is that you could sufficiently explore all the subject matters in a very small amount of time. I remember never having enough time for art or history as a classroom teacher. Yet, in our few hours each day of homeschool, we were able to fit in all the subjects.

I love the artist and musician selections in the updated version. We didn’t love the choices in the first version because they were lacking diversity. However, the updates have done a beautiful job of selecting artists of diverse backgrounds.

Small Time Commitment

This was a catch-22 for us but for most people it is a huge perk. Sometimes we would get through all the material for the day in an hour or less. The curriculum recommends free play after structured school time is done, which sounds wonderful.

Unfortunately, my son didn’t do well with free play at first because he was used to constant structure and always having other kids around. To make matters worse, I was still working from home full time and needed to keep my son busy eight hours a day. So, I quickly learned to have a busy book full of supplemental activities on hand for the days we zoomed through it all.

You Can Mix and Match

As I mentioned before, my son’s previous educational experiences had left him ill-equipped for Kindergarten in many ways. He was not quite at the Kindergarten level in some subject areas and far beyond in others. Luckily, you can choose to purchase additional curriculum pieces by subject. They are sold separately on the website for most grade levels.

I could have purchased both the Early Years Curriculum and Kindergarten bundle to help supplement our Kindergarten curriculum in the areas where he was lacking.

The Optional Book Lists

This first edition had very little literature guidance beyond the language arts section. I love that the update includes optional literature recommendations for each topic. That would have saved me so much planning time!

The Cons of the Blossom and Root Kindergarten Curriculum

Print Your Own Curriculum

I personally didn’t mind this aspect but I have heard others mention that they don’t like having to print the curriculum on their own.

Blossom and Root does recommend a vendor you can use in order to print and bind your curriculum but that is not a purchase option offered directly through the Blossom and Root website.

We just printed it all out on regular paper and put it in three ring binders with divider tabs and it worked out wonderfully. I think I actually prefer that to having several smaller books for each subject.

The Planning Process

For me, the draw of a curriculum is that it is planned out for you. Therefore, I want you to hand me a lesson plan grid with everything I need to do each day so that I can just jump in and get started.


The Blossom and Root Kindergarten Curriculum does provide a chart with everything you will go over during the week within each subject. However, I would have loved all that information together on one page so that I didn’t have to keep flipping back and forth throughout the week, or make my own lesson plan, to stay on track.

There is, however, a master supply list and a master book list so that you can at least get everything you need at once.

Outdated literature (before Summer of 2021)

When we first began using Blossom and Root in the Fall of 2020, the literature used in the language arts section felt sorely outdated. I found myself doing the necessary reading but supplementing with diverse authors and more modern texts.

However, in June of 2021 an updated version was released and it almost made me want to go back and redo Kindergarten. The curriculum now contains a beautifully diverse list of titles from all walks of life.

I chose to still mention this aspect because the creator of Blossom and Root is updating one grade level at a time. Therefore, if you are looking for a grade level other than Kindergarten, you may want to check the expected update timeline before purchasing, or just plan to supplement in order to add more diversity to your literature.

The Nature Study Readings

We loved, loved the projects that took us outside into nature to explore. We both abhorred the readings from The Burgess Animal Book for Children.

The chapters are long and dry and left my active five year old frustrated and tired. We tried splitting them up into a page a day, letting him play or bounce while I read, asking questions as we read and stopping frequently but nothing overcame the boredom.

Eventually, we skipped the readings completely and used supplemental books or videos to learn about the animals or topics in the nature studies.

Keep in mind that there are surely kids out there who love this text and listen with enthusiasm. Mine is just not one of those kids.

Light on the Math

My son loves math and science. Therefore, one math lesson a week embedded into our space exploration was not enough for him. However, looking back onto my own childhood, I personally would have loved having math hidden within an adventure.

They do have a list of recommended math curricula on their FAQ page, I was just hoping the Blossom and Root Kindergarten Curriculum would have everything I needed included.

Doesn’t Always Align With State Standards

If you are homeschooling for a short period of time and want your child to be able to jump into public school without missing a beat, you will want to double check your state’s learning standards to make sure you are covering everything necessary. However, this is true with most curricula, not an issue with Blossom and Root itself.

In my opinion, Blossom and Root is a wonderful, well-rounded curriculum for kids and families who enjoy nature and lots of playtime. It has just enough freedom within the structure to allow you to modify things depending on your child’s needs and explore topics that are important to you.

Books and Toys that Pair Well

Learning Resources Alphabet Acorns

Nature Bound Bug Catcher Vacuum with Light Up Critter Habitat Case

Kenley Counting Ladybugs

The Essential Guide to Forest School and Nature Pedagogy

Life Cycle Figures

Globe 3-D Geography Puzzle

GeoSafari Jr. Talking Kids Microscope

Other Posts That May Interest You

• Niños and Nature: Bilingual Nature Studies
  
  
• Igniting Wonder for World Cultures with Picture Books (Beautiful Feet Books Review)
  
  
• 7 Alphabet Learning Toys
  
  
• New Bilingual Explore with Animals Series for PreK

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Vanessa Ruiz is a mother of two bilingual boys, former Spanish teacher and early childhood educator turned writer. She also runs the website, Families Embracing Diversity, a resource to help families learn to embrace our differences today in order to give our children a better tomorrow.

In her spare time she enjoys reading books on diversity and culture, traveling when possible with her family and friends, and spending time outdoors.

New Dolores Huerta Curriculum

Did you know that April 10th is Dolores Huerta Day? At least, it is observed as a state holiday in California thanks to former governor Jerry Brown who made it official back in 2018.

And this year, Huerta will be celebrating her 90th birthday! And to celebrate both the holiday and the birthday, educators have been working with the Dolores Huerta Foundation to create a brand new curriculum that is available for FREE online!

From what I've seen, there are lessons for grades 1 through 11, plus a lot of additional resources. I'm not sure if there are still more lessons that are going to be published, but so far there is a whole page full of materials available for download.

And you don't even have to live in California to use them!

If you're looking for resources to celebrate the holiday in your classroom, go and take a look.

¡Feliz cumpleaños, Sra. Huerta!

Homeschool Curriculum in Spanish: Nobis Pacem

For years, people have been asking me for a complete homeschool curriculum in Spanish. And the reality has been - and still is - that there just aren't that many available or easily accessible here in the States. But there are a few out there, mainly available from other countries like Mexico.

A few months ago, I was contacted by Nobis Pacem, a homeschool curriculum company out of Monterrey, Mexico, and asked to take a look at their program.

Nobis Pacem is a complete curriculum of 3 years of preschool, 6 years of primary, and 3 years of high school (which is divided school years in Mexico, but can be adapted to each country).

I received a nearly complete 1st grade curriculum - the only thing missing were the history books that are typically included. And I have to say that I was very impressed by the materials.

Nobis Pacem follows the Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling. It was created by British educator, Charlotte Mason, who believed that education is a combination of three areas: Atmosphere, Discipline, and Life. She stated that children should:

• learn from their home environment or surroundings (Atmosphere)
• should be taught good habits of character (Discipline)
• should be taught using living thoughts and ideas (Life)

Charlotte Mason homeschoolers rely on books written by authors who are passionate about the subject, as opposed to dry textbooks. The goal is to inspire and retain, rather than indifferent memorization.

So it will come as no surprise that Nobis Pacem is a COMPREHENSIVE curriculum, which I know many of you are looking for - it's meaty stuff, as you can see from the images. A lot of time and effort has gone into creating this program.

The sample I received covered the following subjects:

• Art
• Music
• Writing, composition, & spelling
• Math
• Science
• Geography
• History

Really, most of the materials are for the parent-teacher, as the level of reading is more advanced than a 1st grader can do on their own unassisted. But again, the Charlotte Mason method expects strong parental involvement. 

The first thing you'll want to dive into is the teacher's guide, which has lots of information to prepare parents on how to use the curriculum. You'll also find extras, such as possible meal plans, school-year calendar, and plenty of forms for helping you organize and record your progress over the year. The calendar includes indicators of Sundays and holidays. And of course, there are the actual lesson plans.

I love the Apreciacion del Arte (Art Appreciation) lessons which include a biography of the artist followed by visual examples of his work. Only three artists are explored in this book, but the biographies are very thorough and each one has 10 examples of their work. In addition, there is a faint black-and-white image of each of the works that you can have your child color in staying as true to the artist's color palette as possible.

And the Compositores y Música Clásica (Composers and Classical Music) lesson book is similar with biographies for each composer. For example, you'll learn that Chopin was a composer of the Romantic Period who enjoyed acting as much as he did composing and playing the piano. He was easily inspired, but would lock himself up in his room for days to perfect his compositions.

Nobis Pacem also includes a CD with music from each of the composers for you to listen to with your kids as you learn about each composer (15 in all).

The history and geography texts are designed for reading aloud to the student. There are a few illustrations scattered about the book, but the emphasis is obvious the storyline itself. The focus for first grade is world history, beginning with the creation of the world (not bible-based) and ending with World War II.

The geography book is a little different from what you might expect. It's not really about mapping, but rather about introducing children to countries around the world. If you are raising a global citizen (and I hope you are!!) then you will love this book and approach to geography. 

Following in the Charlotte Mason method, Escritura, Ortographía, y Composición is a workbook is made up of copywork. Students copy paragraphs and phrases/sentences to learn proper punctuation, grammar, and writing style. Personally, I prefer a good grammar curriculum that explains the various elements, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, as well as interrogative vs. exclamatory sentences.

One cool thing is how the copywork in this workbook is from famous poems - in Castilian Spanish! Actually, it's in OLD Castilian Spanish. So your child will learn madrigals, rhymes, sonnets, and other poetry by renown authors such as Gutierre de Cetina, Lope de Vega, Juan de Arguijo, and others.


Matemática para la familia (Mathematics for the Family) is an activity-based book. Each lesson lists the materials needed, the objective(s), and instructions. The smaller Matemáticas para primaria is a little workbook for your child to complete on their own.

Although they are based in Mexico, they ship worldwide. And they do offer a US accreditation, which is valid in Mexico as well. 

All this said, the curriculum is a bit pricey - but reasonable compared to English curricula of the same caliber. You can find out more information on their website.

So if you have decided to homeschool in Spanish and plan to use the Charlotte Mason method, then this might be the curriculum for you!

ReadyRosie: A New, Bilingual, Online School Readiness Curriculum

I am SO excited today to share with you today a FANTASTIC new resource for English- and Spanish-speaking families with young children. ReadyRosie is a new online school readiness curriculum that shows parents how to work with their children up to 4 years of age to prepare them for Kindergarten and beyond.

Through daily emails, subscribers will discover simple tools to help them use every-day situations to prepare their children for school. The curriculum is EASY. Parents, all you have to do is...

1) Watch a 2-minute (daily) video
2) Perform the activity with your child or class
3) Learn and grow with your child!

The research-based curriculum focuses on the following areas: Problem Solving/Math, Foundations of Literacy in English or Spanish, Essential Life Skills, and Words, Words and More Words (Vocabulary).

This past week, I've had the pleasure of getting a sneak peek of the program, and here's what I think:

First, I love how different people are the focus of each video, making it real and showing how any family can implement the simple activities. I also appreciate the diversity and the inclusion of multicultural families.

Second, ALL of the activity videos so far are available in English AND Spanish. If you are bilingual, you can watch both. I did. And I also think it is a plus to see how different people teach differently.

I appreciate that different settings are used to reflect real-life situations. Activities for home, classroom, in the car, and even the grocery store have been created. Each video focuses on specific terms/vocabulary and highlights them in a little word box for parents. At the end of each video, the new vocabulary for the activity is highlighted in a word bank. And I like how additional tips appear in little bubbles on the video to point out specific techniques and ideas to parents.

Also, each video comes with additional supplemental resources that include an Ask the Expert video, ideas for adjusting the activity for older or younger children, and how to extend the activity (book suggestions, additional activities that teach the same concepts, etc.).

You can watch the introductory video here. (Yes, really! GO WATCH!)

The only drawback right now is that at this time, they are not selling to individual families.  Emily Roden, one of the founders of ReadyRosie, says "Our hope is that districts and non profits, etc. will purchase ReadyRosie subscriptions for their entire community so that it will be FREE for families!"

Personally, I think they would get more subscribers by offering the subscription to individual parents who may not know who to contact in their school district. BUT I also think this is a great way to get a free service to families who are financially strapped and need it most.

If you are interested in gaining access to ReadyRosie, I encourage you to contact them and find out what you can work out.

Con mucho cariño...

Online Spanish Curriculum: Educazion {Curriculum Review}

The following is a curriculum review by MommyMaestra reader and homeschooling mom, Heather Magnuson.

Educazion.net is an online, Christian homeschool based out of Mexico created by Hilda Magaña. The website and courses are in Spanish, based on Mexican education standards. The school offers classes at the preschool (preescolar) through junior high (secundaría) level and is in the process of adding high school (preparatoría). My experience with the school has been the preschool level, and that's what I'll be writing about.

Educazion offers Preschool 1 thru 3, with 3 being the closest equivalent to U.S. Kindergarten. First grade is the next progression beyond Preschool 3. I enrolled my 5 year-old son in Preschool 1 last winter. I decided to start with preschool 1 because my son had very limited exposure to Spanish at that point. I figured we could start at the beginning, work on building vocabulary and basics, and still catch up to First Grade in time. We were able to complete Preschool 1 in 5 months with minimal effort.

Preschool 1 covers shapes, colors, and lenth/weight/size comparisons. Preschool 2 begins introducing letter and number concepts, and Preschool 3 introduces beginning Reading and Math. I decided to skip ahead to Preschool 3 because my son already had a grasp of those concepts and I had been working with him on Spanish vocabulary. We just began Preschool 3, and so far I'm very pleased with the Reading exercises from the workbook. The Math appears to be right in line with American Kindergarten starndards.

How the Program is Set Up

Enrolling your child at Educazion.net is extremely easy. Simply send an email to correo@educazion.net to let them know you are interested in enrollment, the name of your child to be enrolled, and the class in which you would like to enroll your child. They will provide you with payment instructions, and I was able to pay with Paypal. The cost per class is 500 Pesos, which at the time I enrolled ended up being just over $37. Once you make the payment, you will receive an email with enrollement instructions, and you can begin classes immediately.

**If you are planning on enrolling more than 1 child, you will have to use a separate email address for each child. This seems like a bit of a pain if you are enrolling younger children, but helps the school to keep each child's account and records separate.

The Preschool is divided into three parts, a printable workbook, multimedia games and activities, and weekly lessons with a culminating, 13-activity online quiz. The monthly quiz is graded to allow you to easily track a student's progress. For Preschool 1 the quiz usually consisted of sorting, ordering, and a puzzle. Even though the lessons are organized weekly, you can go at your own pace. When you're ready to move on to the next grade level, just pay the 500 Peso tuition and email correo@educazion.net to let them know the class in which you'd like to enroll.

My Overall Impression

Overall I'm very pleased with Educazion.net. I feel that the instruction is worth the 500 Peso tuition, and the customer service is excellent. Everytime I've contacted them, I've received extremely prompt responses. The site also provides a means to network with other homeschoolers in Mexico, and around the world. The cake-topper for me though, is the native instruction that my son receives. The instructions for the monthly activity quizzes are, of course, in Spanish. As a non-native Spanish speaker, that is something I am unable to provide my son.

My one, small complaint with the site is that there are only general course overviews listed. The only way to see the specific course standards are to enroll in the class. However, if you email the school to ask about course specifics, they will proved you with a more detailed description.

If you would like more information about my experiences with Educazion.net or if you have questions, feel free to contact me.

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Heather Magnuson is a non-native Spanish-speaker, attempting to provide her two sons (ages 5 and 3) with a classical, Spanish-immersion homeschool education.  She is documenting their journey on her blog, Aventuras in Homeschooling.  They are a military family, currently stationed in Las Vegas, NV.

A Master List of Spanish Curricula for Bilingual Homeschoolers

Below is a comprehensive list of Spanish curricula for homeschoolers. It is a list of materials and resources for families who are homeschooling their children bilingually or in Spanish.

IF you are looking for programs and resources for teaching your children to speak Spanish, visit my Master List of Spanish Learning Resources.

This list will be continually updated and made available for you to reference with ease via a button in my sidebar.

This post contains affiliate links.

Spanish Curricula for Bilingual Homeschoolers

For a while now I've been thinking about all the requests I get on a constant basis for Spanish curricula. And even though I have shared many of them here on MommyMaestra, there really needs to be one single place that parents can go to and find what is available. Since I do not use a Spanish curriculum with my kids, I really hope that those of you who are homeschooling in Spanish, or are bilingual ed teachers, will share your knowledge and resources with the other families visiting this site.

By clicking on the title of the product, you will be taken to the publisher's/company's website where you can purchase it or read more about it.

Because some of the materials have already been reviewed on MommyMaestra, if you click on the word "REVIEW" next to the title, you will be taken to review article so you can read our thoughts about the product.

Items with the word "RECOMMENDED" next to them were submitted/presented at the suggestion of someone else. Some link to reviews.

IF you would like to review a product on MommyMaestra, please contact me to submit your review. 

COMPLETE CURRICULA

• Nobis Pacem PreK - 12th, Charlotte Mason (REVIEW)
  
  
• Lemonhass
  
  
• Colegio Hebron PreK - 12, Christian based
  
  
• Rod & Staff PreK - 8th, Christian based

PRESCHOOL

 

• Beautiful Mundo Secular (REVIEW)
  
  
• Spanglish Schoolhouse (REVIEW)
  
  
• Niños and Nature (REVIEW)
  
  
• Bilingual Preschool Planner Printable pages
  
  
• Hola Amigo Not really a curriculum, but it is a themed monthly box subscription for preschool.
  
  
• Bilinguitos - Not a curriculum, but they offer virtual classes.
  
  
• ReadyRosie Online school preparedness program (REVIEW)
  
  
• Bilingual Child Bubbles APP (REVIEW)

ELEMENTARY

• Nobis Pacem PreK - 12th, Charlotte Mason (REVIEW)
  
  
• Paco el Chato Website (For 1st through 6th grade)
  
  
• BrainPOP Español Website (REVIEW)
  
  
• Nacho Books (REVIEWS)
  
  
• A great resource for 3rd graders from the Secretary of Education from Nuevo Leon, Mexico. It is a 14 page review of reading comprehension and math. I think there are also editions for 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. (RECOMMENDED)
  
  
• La casa infantíl (RECOMMENDED)
  
  
• Rod & Staff Curriculum K-8th
  
  
• Mexican Governments Basic Education Reform page Free PDFs of Spanish textbooks for grades PreK - 6th (RECOMMENDED)
  
  
• Cursive resources

READING & LANGUAGE ARTS

(Please remember that many of the books listed may be found at a reduced price on Amazon.com. Also, be sure to look at MommyMaestra's series of articles related to teaching your child to read in Spanish.)

• Hagamos Caminos $ program (REVIEW)
  
  
• Lectura para niños $ program(REVIEW)
  
  
• Nacho Books $ workbook series (REVIEWS)
  
  
• Estrellita $$$ program (REVIEW)
  
  
• National Geographic/Cengage Curriculum 
  
  
• Tesoros de Lectura 
  
  
• Newbridge Curriculum
  
  
• National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center FREE downloadable lesson plans (REVIEW)
  
  
• Teaching Reading and Writing in Spanish and English in Bilingual and Dual Language Classrooms Book (REVIEW)
  
  
• Los Bloguitos This website is no longer publishing new content, but what's there is excellent! (REVIEW)
  
  
• ABC Escritura Creativa Website
  
  
• Música amiga Curriculum (REVIEW)
  
  
• DJ Inkers Bilingual preschool & kindergarten booklets (REVIEW)
  
  
• Reglas de ortografia (RECOMMENDED)
  
  
• A list of reading comprehension materials for 1st-2nd grade (RECOMMENDED)
  
  
• Literacy resources from ReadWriteThink (RECOMMENDED)
  
  
• Bosque de la Fantasía 
  
  

MATH

• National Education Association Interactive website with free printables (REVIEW)
  
  
• Math Mammoth in Spanish
  
  

SCIENCE

• Paso Partners Free lesson plans (REVIEW)
  
  
• Curiosikid Interactive website (REVIEW)
  
  
• Dosel en las nubes Interactive website with lesson plans (REVIEW of English site)
  
  
• En Español Illinois University Website
  
  
• CIENCIAS: Un Vistazo Mas A Fondo (for middle & high school)
  
  
• Sunflower/Girasol Bilingual Elementary School Science Lessons

NUTRITION

• Nourish Interactive

PUBLISHERS

• Vista Higher Learning

 SPANISH HOMESCHOOL SITES

• El Hogar Educador Homeschooling magazine in Spanish

(I will continue to update this list. I have a long list of resources, but I prefer to check each one out before I add it here. So check back!)

Last updated: August 3rd, 2022

Calico Spanish

UPDATE: This curriculum has been completely updated and modernized. You can read about Calico's new program here. 

Welcome back to Day Four of Spanish Language Learning Week on MommyMaestra!

If you are looking for a full-immersion program then let me introduce you to Calico Spanish.

Opening the box that contained Calico’s Teach at Home curriculum was a very pleasant surprise! I was immediately struck by how thorough it is. It is designed to teach children in Kindergarten through 5^th grade.

The curriculum includes:

• Teacher’s Manual – A comprehensive guide containing a welcome section that explains about the program; an introductory lesson to help the teacher prepare and become comfortable; and then 15 lessons. Calico offers two sample schedules for varying length of class time. In a 30 minute class, the lesson can be taught over a period of up to 10 days. For 60 minutes, parents might prefer a 5-day schedule. But of course, I can modify it all to work for my family’s schedule.

Each lesson contains songs, calendar time, a specific number, letter, and color, games, "zoo" time/animal introduction, activities and a final closing. Not all of these are taught in one day, but rather spread out over the one- or two-week period. I really like how flexible the lessons are; I can choose to use the scripts provided, or simply teach it on my own focusing on the subject. The lesson scripts are provided in Spanish and English, though they encourage you to use only Spanish.

• Student Activity Book – This books mostly contains the words to the songs the children are learning – which provides them with a wonderful opportunity to learn how to read in Spanish. But there are also a few worksheets and coloring pages, including a blank calendar that they can fill in each month. The book is spiral bound, which I really like because since I have two kids, I can easily make copies of each page without wrestling with the binding.

• Spanish Songs for Kids CD – Very fun and easy for kids to learn. You can listen to a sample here and watch the accompanying video.

• A set of Calico Spanish Flash Cards – A custom set of 149 flash cards showing the alphabet, numbers, colors, etc. We love the illustrations! My kids are very visual and if the illustrations are not appealing, then they get bored. That’s one thing I don’t have to worry about with this curriculum.

• Verbos Flash Cards – 93 action verbs depicted with Spanish words, plus a suggested activity card. These can be displayed on your class board, or used in the lesson.

• First Thousand Words in Spanish – A Usborne fully-illustrated dictionary that immediately captivates children. (Don’t all Usborne books?) My kids love looking through this book and calling out the words.

• ¡Corre, perro, corre! By P.D. Eastman – A super funny book about dogs engaged in all sorts of activities.

• Homeschool Poster Set – This set of posters can be posted on the wall or board in your classroom. It includes lables (months, headers), mini-posters (emotions, colors, numbers by tens), and posters (the alphabet, the parts of the body).

What has impressed me the most about this curriculum is that so much thought and effort has gone into creating each piece. And I SO appreciate that Calico provides me with everything I need, including the classroom posters and bulletin board labels.

As an added bonus, I discovered Calico’s YouTube channel. I’m not sure if these videos are incorporated into the lesson plans (I haven’t run across one yet), but they would certainly go very well with the curriculum.

The curriculum is pretty pricey, though, and costs $349.00. You can purchase it here.  This is the most expensive curriculum I had the chance to review, but I want to remind you that you get a high-quality product that includes all the tools you need to teach the lessons effectively. They are so sure you’ll love their product that they offer a 30-day money back guarantee.

Calico is currently working on an online version that will be $49 for the first month and then $9/month thereafter. And parents will receive physical copies of select materials with their initial purchase.

Again, if you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment below and we’ll get back to you.


Con mucho cariño…

All Bilingual Press Spanish Curriculum

Welcome back to Day Three of Spanish Language Learning Week on MommyMaestra!

Today’s Spanish curriculum comes from All Bilingual Press (ABP).

This company was founded by a family of language teachers. Born in Argentina, Rita Wirkala also lived in Brazil before moving to the United States. She has raised three trilingual daughters – also teachers – who have collaborated with her to create the All Bilingual Press Spanish curriculum.

ABP offers three different curricula:

Español para los chiquitos is geared for children ages 4 to 7. This is a predominantly audio-visual course. (More about this in a minute.)

Español para chicos y grandes has two versions:

• Level 1 is an interactive Spanish course for children and parents. It focuses on audio comprehension and interaction.

• Level 2 is for elementary and middle schools. It was designed to follow Level 1 and incorporates more culture information.

A while back I contacted ABP and asked about reviewing one of their programs. We settled on Español para los chiquitos since many of the parents who have asked me about Spanish programs are ones with really small children.

This course is probably the most economical one I have looked at. For somewhere in between $50 to $70, you can purchase the books and CDs. (It varies because you can purchase the books separately and leave one out, if you prefer.)

As I mentioned, this curriculum is primarily audio-visual in nature and comes with a textbook, 2 CDs, an activity book, a parent-teacher guide, and an optional (audio)book of poems.

The guide provides minimal instruction. Because the activities are pretty short and self- explanatory, or described on the CD, the guide mostly offers suggestions for presenting the vocabulary or ideas for games and other activities.

There are 12 units covering the basics (days of the week, family members, body parts, numbers, etc.). The textbook comes with 2 CDs that are to be used together with the activities in the textbook. The activity book is mostly made up of flashcards that kids can cut out and color, as well as some bingo sheets.

Overall, I found it to be a nice as an introductory curriculum for preschoolers and kindergartners, or as a supplemental curriculum for elementary students.

Con mucho cariño…

Bilingual Resources for Kindergarten

Last month, I received this question on the blog:

Many of you may be wondering the same thing. So since this is a great time to be talking about the different curricula out there, here are some resources for you...


First of all, if you are new to the site, please take a look at some of my archived articles. If you are thinking about Kindergarten and what to teach, you'll want to read the following:


• Homeschooling Your Kindergartener, Part One - This article discusses how to structure your lessons.

• Homeschooling Your Kindergartener, Part Two - Discusses timing and the bilingual aspect of homeschooling.
 
• Homeschooling Your Kindergartener, Part Three - Discuss what exactly to teach in Kindergarten.

 
If you read these, then you should have a good idea about what your kids should be learning in Kindergarten. Your curriculum should be rich in manipulatives and literature. Now you can do one of two things: find resources/lesson plans to teach the various subjects, or buy a complete curriculum.
 
There are a ton of complete curricula out there in English. I began with Calvert and loved it. The whole thing really helped me learn how to structure our class time. Buying a complete curriculum is usually pretty pricey. But many will allow you to set up monthly payments.
 
A few other English curricula that I thought were interesting include:
 
• Oak Meadow - I haven't used this myself, but I have read a lot of very positive reviews and have never read anything negative about them. You can download a sample lesson on their site. It doesn't say it on their site, but I think that I remember reading somewhere that they take more of a Waldorf approach.
 
• North American Montessori Center (NAMC) - A complete Montessori homeschool curriculum.
 
• Simply Charlotte Mason - Everything you need to know about the Charlotte Mason method. The site includes free ebooks, guides, and worksheets.
 
• Ambelside Online - A free online curriculum dedicated to the Charlotte Mason method. Lots of people talk highly of this program.
 
 
Spanish curricula:
 
• Vista Higher Leraning (formerly Santillana)- The world's largest distributor of education materials in Spanish. They now have a US site, so you don't have to place an international order.
 
• Rod & Staff - A Christian-based curriculum. Lots of people have mentioned using this program, but when I called to ask questions about it, the person at the other end of the line spoke only English and didn't really know anything about it. Ummm...
 
• Nobis Pacem - A complete Spanish curriculum of 3 years of preschool, 6 years of primary, and 3 years of high school (which is divided school years in Mexico, but can be adapted to each country). Follows the Charlotte Mason method.
 
 
Spanish resources: (Note- if you go this route, please, please consider buying one of the Core Knowledge series books so that you know what you should be covering throughout the year.)

• Paso Partners - Science curricula for K - 3rd. In English or Spanish.
 
• Primera Escuela - Has lots of great worksheets in Spanish for kids. Especially Spanish alphabet printable worksheets and mini-books.

• Enchanted Learning has a lot of Spanish worksheets, too.
 
• Lectura Para Niños - Learning to read in Spanish. You can download some samples of their Kindergarten worksheets by clicking on the link in the MommyMaestra sidebar.

• Lastly, take a look at this page for resources on learning to read in Spanish.

Con mucho cariño...