(Don’t forget to read through to the bottom for the giveaway!)
One of the fun things about homeschooling is supplementing our regular curriculum. Many homeschoolers have a core curriculum they love, but no one curriculum covers every subject exhaustively. Dipping our toes into a variety of subjects has given me insights into my girls’ individuality as well as inspire us to dig further into areas I hadn’t considered before. No matter what subject you are looking to explore further, Gallopade has something for you!
I’m not looking to start a full-blown language curriculum within our homeschool yet, but I do like the idea of introducing a variety of languages early. Gallopade International’s series, Little Linguists, provides a wonderful way to toe-dip into 10 different languages! This is not a full-course curriculum, but it works beautifully as an introduction or supplement to what you are already doing.
This series sounds fun before you even open the books. Titles like Do you Speak Spaghetti? (Italian), Of all the Gaul! (Latin), and Say WHAT when you sneeze?” (German) invite students to have fun as soon as they see it. These reproducible (Yay for reproducible!) books help children learn other languages through context clues, language similarities, and fun activities. Also included is cultural and geographical information which tie the language to its country of origin.
My girls
constantly ask me how to say all varieties of words in different languages. Although I was in the Spanish Honor Society in high school, I must confess I remember very little and usually have to look things up. I can still translate minimally, but recalling words was never my strong point.
Uh, Oh, Amigo! was so much fun for my girls! Although school happens all together, we rarely do lessons where we are learning the same thing at the same time due to their varied levels of learning.
Because this is not a full curriculum you do not have to go in order in the workbook. I plan to continue to do one page a week when our school year begins to give them consistent exposure to foreign languages. The activities include everything from matching, to bubbles, to fill-in-the-blank. They can be used alone or as a follow-up to a language lesson. Their uses are really unlimited.
Beth was so surprised and excited she could understand Spanish in just the first sentence she read! One of the first pages we used has sentences written in English and only one word replaced in Spanish. I wasn’t sure how they would like this, but they were delighted! Now Beth consistently talks about living in a casa. I didn’t formally teach her casa is house in Spanish, but the format of the activity led her to logically figure it out.
We will also be using From Russia With Love both at home and at church as we partner with a family currently in Russia serving God. I have come to really love this series and plan to purchase more in the future!
Another new product from Gallopade International is a series called
Wake Up the Class. These themed cards provide questions to engage children academically as soon as formal learning time begins with fun questions. There are nine different subject sets including history, critical thinking, writing, critical thinking, and Bible. We had the chance to review the set of Bible cards.
Each set is color coded so if you purchase multiple sets you can easily keep them organized. The content of the Bible cards would prohibit them from being used in most public school classrooms, but these would be a fun addition to a private school class, Sunday school class, or how we use them, in homeschooling.
My girls tend to be morning people and we don’t typically have a hard time getting started on our lessons each day. I like to use these kinds of activities as a break from the routine or in between subjects.
The questions are a fun jumping off point for discussions as well. For kids with a solid biblical knowledge base some of the questions will be more like review, but in addition to the answer the reverse side of the cards also have an activity or discussion jump-off for further exploration. These questions have been well-thought out and will certainly engage your kids!
For anyone in Tennessee and Georgia stop and say, “Hi!” at the Gallopade booth at the CSTHEA Homeschool Show in Chattanooga and the Southeast Homeschool Show in Atlanta. Don’t forget to tell them I sent you!
Now for the giveaway!
There are two prizes to win and two separate winners! Make sure to share with your friends for extra entries.
My girls are only two years apart and we school all together in the same room at the same time, but for the most part their learning has been separate. With the exception of morning devotions which we have done for a while, all other subjects are separate. To be honest, it was easier this way. I could focus on teaching one while another did independent work. This has worked very well so far and I’m not anxious to change up our structure at this point, but I do see the benefit of corporate learning especially now that my youngest will be entering her k-4 year.
I made out my plan, decided what day we’d cover what subjects, and making notes of what I wanted to go over under each subject. Then I had to decide on a name for our circle time. I didn’t want to use the name circle time because I wanted to be more creative. We’ve been learning some Latin which the girls have absolutely loved, so I settled on…
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