The Joy of Teaching

Teaching art in homeschooling is such a joy. As homeschoolers, we have the luxury of spending several hours at a time on artwork.

In the past, we have focused on one artist and one craft project a month. It seems to be a steady pace that allows us to get more out of our art lessons.

TEACHING ART

A terrific art curriculum resource is How to Teach Art to Children. It offers background information, literature resources, and concise step-by-step directions for 96 art projects.

Each of these art projects will help your child learn about the elements of art and then use the elements in the styles of famous artists.

The units have description of the art concept, materials list, full-color example of a piece of art, and step-by-step instructions.

After teaching the art lessons, your child uses the materials to complete his/her own artwork to apply the art concept taught.

If you would like seasonal inspiration for your art instruction, Art for All Seasons offers a variety of kid-approved options.

The layout is easy to follow, featuring a color photograph of each art project. The materials list and step-by-step instructions make Art for All Seasons an easy way to incorporate art lessons into your family’s seasonal and holiday events.

PRACTICE and EXTEND

It is always fun to use one activity to teach more than one subject.

We all enjoy Draw…Then Write to connect step-by-step drawing with simple fun writing activities. Yes, Mom too! 🙂

Each drawing activity is listed by topic, which can be completed in any order you wish. The unit begins by showing the drawing steps and giving a space for your child to draw.

There are additional practice pages to invite your child to continue to practice drawing and complete simple writing tasks about the drawing.

Just a reminder:
Of course, you can select any of these individual titles to use in your homeschooling.

However, TeacherFileBox subscribers can access to all of the lesson plans and activities in these and other Evan-Moor books.

TeacherFileBox is a digital lesson plan library that gives you access to over 18,000 Evan-Moor lesson plans and activities!

Click here to learn more about TeacherFileBox and start your free 30-day trial.

Click to download Evan-Moor’s Art Homeschool Curriculum Guide. For additional guides by subject area, see Homeschool Curriculum Resources and Guides.

Amy Michaels is a certified teacher with 11 years of elementary classroom experience who is actively homeschooling her own children. Her mission is share the best teaching methods and resources with all homeschoolers. Amy supports parents through her podcasts, webinars, and online training for homeschoolers on her website www.thrivehomeschooling.com.

Click here to download Evan-Moor’s Vocabulary Homeschool Curriculum Guide.

When my daughter was about 3 years old, she wanted to know “big words.” I got a kick out of teaching her words like “foreshadowing” or “nemesis” when we would discuss books we read together.

Now that my kids are older, it is important that their vocabulary continues to grow.

Since we use Evan-Moor for all of our homeschooling subjects, I was pleased to find they publish several resources for teaching vocabulary as well.

DAILY WARM-UP

Each homeschool day, we begin with A Word a Day to teach the kids 4 new vocabulary words in a week.

I appreciate how the Teacher Directions shared suggested ways to use the 36 weekly units.

It is quick and easy. We typically complete our A Word a Day warm-up in less than 5 minutes a day!

TEACH

This past year, we started using Vocabulary Fundamentals to teach vocabulary.

One of the fabulous features is that each unit offers with 3 levels of difficulty so you can easily adjust to your child’s needs with practice pages and word play activities. It is also very helpful to teach vocabulary to more than one child at a time.

PRACTICE and EXTEND

When we are ready for vocabulary practice activities that feel more like a game than “school,” I always check Evan-Moor’s Take it to Your Seat: Vocabulary Centers as assignments for practice and to apply skills in new ways. These colorful, hands-on activities are great for workboxes!

The center activities can be completed in any order, and you can also laminate the activity if you wish to use it several times.

Each center activity also includes a follow-up written response activity for your child to complete if desired.

 For additional guides by subject area, see Homeschool Curriculum Resources and Guides.

Did You Know?

Did you know that Evan-Moor wants to support homeschoolers?

Evan-Moor has a digital lesson plan library where you can access all of these titles (and over 400 more) in a subscription to TeacherFileBox.

The subscription includes all subjects and grade levels for $13 a month. Click here to start your free 30 day trial.

Evan-Moor also offers a free Facebook group for subscribers of TeacherFileBox, too!

For more specific teaching ideas and tips for using over 18,000 activities in TeacherFileBox, please join our FREE Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/TeacherFileBoxInspired/

Amy Michaels is a certified teacher with 11 years of elementary classroom experience who is actively homeschooling her own children. Her mission is share the best teaching methods and resources with all homeschoolers. Amy supports parents through her podcasts, webinars, and online training for homeschoolers on her website www.thrivehomeschooling.com.

Many homeschooling families look for effective spelling curriculum options, and Evan-Moor has great options for spelling.

These titles can be used for reviewing, teaching, practicing, or extending spelling skills. This gives homeschoolers a lot of freedom to adjust to what works best for each child.

WARM UP

Building Spelling Skills is a comprehensive resource for helping students increase their spelling skills.

It is organized into 30 weekly units. Each unit has a spelling list and practice pages designed for each week’s list.

Most homeschoolers find one practice page a day is ideal for daily practice.

Each day’s lesson is planned out with no prep required. My kids can complete their practice pages on their own, so it is ideal for our spelling curriculum.

TEACH, PRACTICE, and EXTEND

We like to integrate spelling in our writing activities since writing is where we naturally use our spelling skills.

Evan-Moor’s Skill Sharpeners: Spell and Write is a full-color activity book where kids practice a variety of spelling and writing skills, which are listed on each activity page.

Skill Sharpeners: Spell and Write is organized into theme-based units. My kids like the brightly colored pages, and they enjoy the kid-friendly themes.

We enjoy learning and practicing word families because kids can learn to spell several words at a time by following a particular pattern or letters.

Evan-Moor’s Word Family Games is terrific for hands-on practice of word families.

These full-color activities improve word recognition skills and fluency and include directions, game pieces, picture dictionary, and two activity sheets.

We also like Word Family Stories and Activities for fun and easy ways to practice predictable patterns within words.

This book has engaging, reproducible stories and activities to help kids make connections with word sounds and spelling patterns.

The unit begins by introducing each word family with a quick printable.

Next, there is a one-page story featuring the word family.

Then, student practice pages and a word-slider activity can be completed to provide your child meaningful practice of the word family.

Both Word Family Games and Word Family Stories and Activities are perfect for independent practice. Kids connect to the topics and themes, and parents appreciate how effective these activities are for practicing word families.

Click here to download Evan-Moor’s Spelling Homeschool Curriculum Guide. For additional guides by subject area, see Homeschool Curriculum Resources and Guides.

Want all of these resources for your homeschooling?

Evan-Moor has compiled over 18,000 lessons and activities (including all of the lessons in the books mentioned in this blog post) to create TeacherFileBox.

TeacherFileBox is a digital lesson plan library available to homeschoolers as a subscription for $13/month or $99/year per family.

As a subscriber, homeschoolers can access all subjects and grade levels with their subscription.

If you would like to start your free 30-day trial of TeacherFileBox, click here.

Amy Michaels is a certified teacher with 11 years of elementary classroom experience who is actively homeschooling her own children. Her mission is share the best teaching methods and resources with all homeschoolers. Amy supports parents through her podcasts, webinars, and online training for homeschoolers on her website www.thrivehomeschooling.com.

Click here to download Evan-Moor’s Phonics Homeschool Curriculum Guide. 

Teaching letter sounds is an important part of reading, but sometimes it is a challenge to cover ALL letter sounds and phonics rules. If you are looking for first-rate homeschool phonics curriculum that provide all of the components necessary for understanding and practicing phonics, Evan-Moor is a great choice.

Evan-Moor has several resources to teach phonics in a simple and organized way. The three main parts of your curriculum are Warm Up, Teach, and Practice and Extend

The titles featured in this blog post can be used to build your own phonics homeschool curriculum. If you would prefer, you can use the titles to supplement whatever phonics program you are using.

WARM UP

For quick phonics review and practice, Basic Phonics Skills offers printable skill sheets, as well as Little Phonics Readers that feature the phonics skills in each mini-book.

Each unit begins by introducing a Phonics Fact in a box on the printable skill sheets to provide your child with meaningful practice of each phonics skill.

Another terrific feature is the Little Phonics Readers, which are printable mini-books that allow your child to practice reading specific word families in a simple story.

TEACH

If you are looking for quick, daily phonics lessons, Daily Phonics offers short daily phonics lessons in a systematic way in 32 weekly units.

Each unit has teacher support with daily suggestions for teaching the short lesson and guiding your child through the day’s practice activity.

The student activity pages include listening, speaking, reading, and writing with picture support and a dictation sentence.

PRACTICE and EXTEND

After our kids have learned phonics sounds and rules, we want them to practice what they have learned in meaningful ways.

We like to use Take It to Your Seat: Phonics Centers for hands-on practice of phonics skills.

The activities improve word recognition skills and fluency and include directions, game pieces, and activity sheets. These are perfect activities for workboxes and review lessons!

Each center activity includes a follow-up activity for your child to complete. You can also laminate the activity or turn it into a file folder game if desired.

We also like to work with word families to increase the kids’ reading and spelling fluency. By following the letter patterns, the kids can learn how to read and spell several words at a time.

Evan-Moor’s Word Family Stories and Activities offers fun and easy ways to practice predictable patterns within words. The engaging reproducible stories and activities help students make connections with word sounds and spelling patterns.

The unit begins by introducing each word family with a quick printable. Next, there is a one-page story featuring the word family. Then, student practice pages and a word-slider activity can be completed to provide your child meaningful practice of the word family.

Add a fun element into your homeschool phonics curriculum! If your family enjoys playing games, Evan-Moor has two additional full-color resources that kids enjoy that practice phonics skills.

Both Phonics Games (Grades PreK–3) and Phonics Intervention Centers (Grades 1–6) are brightly colored, easy to follow, and definitely kid-approved.

We like playing the games together or using them as workbox activities when the kids are ready for independent practice of the phonic skills.

Not Sure Which Resource to Choose?

If you would like access to all of these Evan-Moor lessons, they are all included in a subscription to TeacherFileBox, Evan-Moor’s digital lesson plan collection of over 18,000 lesson plans and activities.

TeacherFileBox provides us with resources to build our entire curriculum for all subjects and all grade levels for our family.

TeacherFileBox is available as a monthly subscription ($13/month or $99/year), and it is worth every penny.

Click here to start your 30-day free trial of TeacherFileBox.

For additional guides by subject area, see Homeschool Curriculum Resources and Guides.

Amy Michaels is a certified teacher with 11 years of elementary classroom experience who is actively homeschooling her own children. Her mission is share the best teaching methods and resources with all homeschoolers. Amy supports parents through her podcasts, webinars, and online training for homeschoolers on her website www.thrivehomeschooling.com.

Click here to download Evan-Moor’s Social Studies Homeschool Curriculum Guide.

Learning about social studies is important for children to gain an understanding of our world.

Evan-Moor has several resources that can be used to build your own homeschool social studies curriculum or to supplement an existing homeschool curriculum.

Evan-Moor is a perfect choice for homeschoolers because the resources can be adjusted to your family’s homeschooling needs.

Evan-Moor resources offer quick daily reviews, lessons for teaching social studies concepts, and activities for your child to practice and extend his/her social studies skills.

WARM UP

If you are a busy homeschooling family (and who isn’t?), Daily Geography is a terrific way to introduce basic geography skills in just a few minutes each homeschool day.

The layout of Daily Geography is easy to follow. Each weekly unit focuses on a geography concept. The student pages have just a couple of questions to answer each day.

It is a quick and easy way to consistently teach geography skills in your homeschooling.

TEACH, PRACTICE, and EXTEND

For those of you in the United States, U.S. Facts and Fun is a fun way to teach your child social studies concepts about U.S. events, people, animals, sites, and short stories.

U.S. Facts and Fun is organized in short units to teach and practice each of the skills focused around concepts about the United States.

The ever-popular series of History Pockets introduces children to historical facts through reading booklets, a picture dictionary, and arts and crafts activities.

Each unit in History Pockets has complete lesson plans and instructions.

Kids enjoy the hands-on activities, which can be easily used in lapbooking or notebooking.

History Pockets for grades 1–3 are available for:

• Ancient Civilizations,
• Life in Plymouth Colony, and
• Native Americans

History Pockets for grades 4–6 are available for:

• Ancient Egypt,
• Ancient Greece,
• Ancient Rome,
• Colonial America,
• Explorers of North America,
• Moving West,
• The American Civil War, and
• The American Revolution

The 7 Continents offers complete thematic units for grades 4–6 to help your child explore the features of each of the 7 continents.

Each unit includes lessons about the politics, physical features, resources, and culture of each continent.

When introducing geography to your child, Beginning Geography introduces beginning map skills, landforms, continents, and bodies of water.

The student pages focus on each skill with simple and focused activities to teach kids geography basics.

We like how we can cover each concept in just a few minutes at a time.

 For additional guides by subject area, see Homeschool Curriculum Resources and Guides.

Like Any of These Titles?
We prefer to access all of these titles (and over 400 more) as a subscriber to Evan-Moor’s TeacherFileBox.

TeacherFileBox is a subscription to a digital lesson plan library with over 18,000 lesson plans and activities for grades PreK–grade 6!

You can subscribe by the month ($13) or year ($99), so it can save homeschooling families time and money.

Click here if you would like to start your free 30-day trial of TeacherFileBox.

Amy Michaels is a certified teacher with 11 years of elementary classroom experience who is actively homeschooling her own children. Her mission is share the best teaching methods and resources with all homeschoolers. Amy supports parents through her podcasts, webinars, and online training for homeschoolers on her website www.thrivehomeschooling.com.