Bilingual Homeschool Curriculum Choices (3rd Grade, Kindergarten, Adorable Toddler)

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I can hardly believe that our family is heading into our fifth year of homeschooling!

Here’s what it looked like when we started this journey with my oldest in preschool:

And here is my crew today:

And yes, this non-Instagrammable picture totally captures the vibe of our home.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself that this crazy dream that I had—homeschooling my kids bilingually—is actually happening. Going into this year, I am immensely grateful for the freedom and fulfillment that homeschooling has given our family. If you’d like to learn a bit more about our educational philosophy, this early blog post of mine is where you can start.

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Family-Style Bilingual Learning: What We Do Together

I combine my children in as many subjects as possible, to maintain my sanity and to build a strong family culture. We are finally getting to the point where my adorable toddler can participate in most of our oral work—or at least, play quietly while we do it—and I am all the praise hands for that!

Here’s what we do all together:

English Literature (Read-Alouds)

The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli

Little Pilgrim’s Progress by Helen Taylor

Beowulf by Anonymous (vintage, unavailable)

King Arthur and His Knights by Jim Weiss

Swordsman, Saints, and Scholars: Great Men and Women of the Middle Ages by Jim Weiss

Arabian Nights by Jim Weiss

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

You’ll note that a number of those are audiobooks. We listen together as a family during Morning Time, an accommodation that allows me to focus some attention on my toddler, while saving my energy and reading voice for all of the Spanish-language literature that is not available on audiobook. I do stop the audiobooks and ask questions periodically, like I would if I were reading aloud, to check my kids’ comprehension and clarify any vocabulary that they might not know.

Spanish Literature (Read-Alouds)

Rafael Pombo: Sus mejores cuentos de Rafael Pombo

Rafael Pombo was a Colombian poet and writer who is considered one of the most famous “children’s authors” of Latin America. I know many who love his stories, but our family doesn’t know them, so we’re diving in this year!

La edad de oro de José Martí and Martí’s Song for Freedom by Emma Otheguy

José Martí, poet and journalist, is one of the greatest treasures of Cuban literature. When I recently discovered an anthology of articles from his children’s magazine “La edad de oro,” I immediately bought it (on audiobook and in hard copy) and will be sharing my favorite selections with my kids this year). We also own a great picture book about Martí and his involvement in the Cuban wars for independence (linked above), so I’ll pair these two books together.

El cid contado a los niños de Rosa Navarro Durán

The story of El Cid is as foundational to Spain’s national mythology as King Arthur is to England’s—and since we’re reading about medieval history this year, I wanted to give my kids some exposure to this important literary/historical figure.

Harry Potter y la cámara secreta de J.K. Rowling (our guilty pleasure summer read!)

Poetry Memorization

We will alternate learning poems from IEW’s Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization and memorizing selections from Mare Verum’s Spanish poetry curriculum and my own collection of Spanish poetry. In the summer, we work on Shakespeare memorization, following Ken Ludwig’s venerable manual, How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare. This year, I’d love to complement our Shakespeare work with something from a Spanish dramatist, but after much research, it looks like I’m going to have to develop that resource myself.

History and Geography

We will continue with Story of the World Volume 2. This year I was kind to myself and decided to use the audiobook from the start, so that I can manage the toddler while my older kids are listening. I am hoping that this year we’ll be able to incorporate some of the map work from the book as well, but I’ll be happy if we just work on discussing each chapter and updating our timelines accordingly.

I also have dreams of reading some picture books to accompany our history studies, but to be honest, that’s fairly low on my priority list. Toddler picture book needs might take priority.

Science

We meet every other week with our Spanish Nature Study co-op and this year, we’ll be spending the first semester focused on astronomy. I’m still looking for really great books on constellations and the planets in Spanish, and I might even enroll my kids in an on-line astronomy class offered through a Mexican school. Our big (related) science goal for this year, however, is to learn to use our telescope—which another family gifted to us and we have never even used!

I’ll also be reading selections from Usborne’s La historia de los inventos to go along with our history studies.

Music Appreciation

Aside from the excellent children’s podcasts Allegro Mágico and those from Clásica FM, I have had a really hard time finding Spanish-language resources for music appreciation. I’m not too worried though; we focus on music in the spring, so I have time to hunt for more resources. Last year, we had a wonderful time doing Clap for Classics for six months, and we might pick that back up again. For now, we’ll just keep listening to classical music during dinner and talking about what we hear.

Art Appreciation

We do artist and picture study in English and Spanish, and this year, I’ve chosen some artists to go along with our medieval history study. I specifically chose those who have paintings at the National Gallery of Art in DC (“our” local art museum), so that we can visit their works in person. This year, we’re studying Fra Angelico, Giotto, and Caravaggio, as well as illustrated manuscripts and mythological beasts. During the first six months of the year, we’ll read books about these artists in Spanish and narrate some of their paintings in Spanish as well. Then we’ll switch and spend the rest of the year focused on music appreciation.

Christian Education

My husband is currently working on teaching the New City Catechism (in English) to my kids. This awesome resource is also available—for free!—in Spanish, with an option to learn the shorter kids’ responses.

Each morning, I read from the Bible (in Spanish) to the kids, and this year, we’ll be working together on memorizing a few psalms and hymns in Spanish as well. I am currently reading to them from the devotional Indescriptible and hope to also read through Padre de Huérfanos: La vida de George Müller, a missionary biography that we had on our list last year but never got to read.

Habit Training

A friend just leant me her copy of Laying Down the Rails, and maybe we’ll get to using that, but to be honest, I tend to tailor our habit training around whatever is most bothering me at the moment (for example, leaving used dishes on the table). Then we focus on that habit for a month or so. That’s working fine for our family, but I’m still curious to see if a more systematic approach is worth adopting.

Independent Learning (Individual Subjects)

These are the subjects that I teach one-on-one to my kids. Since the age gaps is close to three years between each of them, we don’t combine for any of these subjects.

Math

RightStart Math all the way. We started with this and have never looked back. It’s time-consuming and manipulative-heavy and I wouldn’t have it any other way. This curriculum has improved my own math skills and filled gaps in my math education that I never even knew I had!

My oldest does need some more rote practice to cement new procedures, so we supplement with Math Mammoth’s targeted worksheets when necessary.

English Language Arts

Third grade: We are working on remediating my oldest’s dyslexia and dysgraphia with the Barton Reading and Spelling System. We’re waiting to incorporate grammar and written composition until he’s a bit further in that program, but in the meantime, he does a lot of oral narration and will be learning to type this year with Touch-Type-Read-and-Spell. Next year, we will likely start IEW and Well-Ordered Language on top of Barton.

Although he is dyslexic, my oldest is also profoundly verbally gifted, and has a vocabulary and narrative capabilities far beyond his grade level. He does about 30 minutes of independent reading per day—despite being dyslexic, he reads above grade level—and listens to lots of challenging audiobooks (in both languages). I’m currently gathering English-language audiobooks for him to listen to during his rest time this year, and the Ambleside Online booklist is one of my favorite resources for that. I also pull some selections from Sonlight’s book lists.

Kindergarten: My kindergartener and I will be starting Logic of English Foundations this year. He is so excited to read and worked really hard this year to learn his first phonograms. I am really proud of him. We’ll also support his reading with the All About Reading readers that my oldest learned to use to read—I think they’re great!

Both boys are using Logic of English’s Rhythm of Handwriting to learn cursive.

Spanish Language Arts

I’m looking to outsource this entirely to an online tutor for this year. My oldest reads in Spanish and my kindergartener is just starting to do so, but I admit that I don’t have time in the day to do any direct teaching in this area. All tutor recommendations are welcome—please send me an e-mail!

Portuguese

Aside from my goal of practicing Portuguese with my kids for five minutes a day (teaching vocabulary through books that I picked up at a library sale), my kids will continue doing conversation classes twice/week with a Brazilian teacher via iTalki (an online service that I’ve also reviewed here). Check out our wonderful tutor’s teaching profile here!

Extracurriculars

I love using on-line classes as a way to help my kids pursue their interests and get them extra Spanish practice. This year, we have been very happy with the following classes and will keep going with:

I also leave lots of time for free play (and playdates) throughout our day. Like many homeschoolers, we school year-round and that gives us a (mostly sane) pace during the week. I do love looking at other homeschoolers’ daily schedules though, so I’ll be sure to post ours shortly—but at least now you have a sense of what we spend our days learning!

And if you’d like to see what we’ve done in past years, check out these blog posts:

What subjects are you studying in your homeschool this year?