I am super excited to share this news with you! Timberdoodle just recently revealed their 2020 Curriculum kits and I am excited to announce that we will be using and reviewing their First Grade Elite Curriculum Kit (with F) throughout the upcoming school year, beginning with this unboxing! This kit is chock-full of amazing products. I want you to get a look inside at what's included and what specifically we will be using. And yes, our school year does not typically begin until August but I wanted to get this unboxing to you quickly as you might already be planning for your next school year. And I have a feeling with the current social climate that we will be using several of these items this summer 😃. I'm really hoping you find this post handy.
Our Timberdoodle Boxes!
A peek at opening up our box! Everything was packed extremely well.
With Timberdoodle, you have the choice of several kit options: Basic, Complete and Elite. We chose the Elite kit which is everything and the kitchen sink when it comes to homeschooling 1st grade. I love the elements in this kit. There is also the choice to select a classic (faith-based) kit or a nonreligious kit if that suits your needs better. We ordered the classic. The customization feature is great and allows you to really get the best options for your student and homeschool. If your child is reading ahead or reading at a slower pace, you can select the correct level for your child. The same applies for Math and other subjects as well. I had F take the tests for Math, Spelling, and Reading and chose the recommended levels for 1st grade because those matched up for where he is currently at. I'd recommend doing this for your child as well. I also already own a few of the kit items so I was able to take those items off when ordering so as not to duplicate. Now, let's dive in!
Timberdoodle's Curriculum Handbook for 1st Grade
This 8.5" x 8.5" handbook is designed to be simple, easy to use and get you started on your curriculum kit right away without being overwhelmed or confused. It's small, lightweight and easy for you to reference as needed. It has lots of tips and tricks for you. I really like the looks of the reading challenge that's included in ours as well as the various builds for our Plus-Plus Mini Set.
There are 4 items in the History component of our curriculum kit: The Story of the World Volume 1 Book, The Story of the World Volume 1 Activity Book, The Story of the World Volume 1 Audio Book, and Famous Figures of Ancient Times.
The Story of the World Volume 1 Set
I already own the Story of the World Volume 1 Audio Book and Activity Book
{We customized our kit to remove these since I didn't need to repurchase the same items. We do plan to use them!}
We did not already own The Story of the World Volume 1 book
This volume covers Ancient Times beginning with the earliest nomads and ending with the last Roman emperor, ~ 5000 BC to 400 AD. It presents world history in chronological order. F does not have much experience with this program so I'm excited for him to jump into it.
We already own this book as well so again we customized our kit to remove it. We are going to use it this year as F learns about Ancient Times.
There are 4 items in the Thinking Skills component of our curriculum kit: Critical and Creative 1, Smart Cookies, miniLUK Set A and B, and the Postman Observation Game.
Our Critical and Creative Grade 1 book
This book contains 46 theme-based units to help your child think in a variety of ways. There are brainteasers, logic puzzles and mazes among other things. I am really excited to see which activities F enjoys the most.
Our Smart Cookies Game
This game helps teach children logic as they progress through 64 brain-building puzzles, in a cookie format! I'm excited for all of us to try this out as it is recommended for ages 6-99!
Our miniLUK Set A and miniLUK Set B
I have no idea what this set is! It seems to be a hands-on, game-like way to teach thinking skills. The workbook collections cover memorization, concentration, visual perception, logical thinking and more. I'm really interested to see how this works and how F likes it.
Yay, another game! This game focuses on your child's visual acuity and memory and how quickly they respond. This is a multigenerational game so again, we all get to enjoy it.
There are 2 items in the Geography component of our curriculum kit: Skills Sharpeners Geography Grade 1 and the World Scrunch Map and 2 items in the Science component of our curriculum kit: Science in the Beginning Set and the Lab Kit for Science in the Beginning.
Our Skill Sharpeners Geography Grade 1 book
This looks like a fun book to learn key map skills and geography concepts with color and fun themes.
This portable, detailed map will allow F to really see places around the world and where they are located. He won't have to worry about neatly folding it up as it just scrunches back into it's bag.
This set includes the textbook and a Helps and Hints booklet as well. This is the first book in the Berean Science series and I'm so excited to use it and see where this series begins. We have not used this book but we have used another book in this series, Science in the Age of Reason (which is the 4th book of this series).
I am beyond excited to have this prebuilt lab kit to go along with our Science program. This kit includes most of the necessary items for all the experiments in this program. This is going to be so convenient to have and should make doing the experiments go a lot smoother as I won't have to spend time gathering the necessary supplies!
There are 3 items in the Math component of our curriculum kit: the Math-U-See Alpha set, the Wrap-Ups Addition and Subtraction, and Mobi Kids.
This is a multisensory, manipulative-based curriculum that looks for mastery of concepts before progressing. I'm excited to use this with F this year and see how he does with it.
Wrap-Ups Subtraction (orange) and Wrap-Ups Addition (green)
These portable, math manipulatives are great for drillwork and learning math facts. I'm interested in seeing what F thinks of them.
Our Mobi Kids
If you know us, then you know we love games. Mobi Kids is a fun and simple math game that uses colorful tiles. It will be fun to play this with several of the kids and see what the family thinks.
There are 4 items in the Language Arts component of our curriculum kit: All About Reading Level 2 Deluxe Set, Spelling You See Level B, Daily 6-Trait Writing Grade 1 and Imagidice.
All About Reading Level 2 Full-Color Edition Deluxe Set
I'm super excited to use this reading program with F. We have used the All About Reading Pre-Reading level in the past and really enjoyed it. I really appreciate that they upgraded their products to color. I think this is going to be a great addition for F this year.
I have never used this program before but I have heard of it. Again, I'm excited to see what F thinks. I like the looks of the multisensory approach and this is the universal set so it includes everything we will need, even the erasable colored pencils!
I wasn't familiar with the trait writing concept. This book uses this method to determine if a child's writing is skilled or not. The six traits are content, organization, word choice, sentence fluency, voice and conventions (which include grammar, spelling and mechanics). I'm curious to see how F does with this book.
Our Imagidice
These dice are used to inspire imaginative storytelling without the burden of writing, spelling, etc. I can't wait to hear the tales F creates.
There are 2 items included in the STEM component of our curriculum kit: Robotics Play 600 Pets and Plus-Plus Mini 1200 piece set and 2 items included in the Learning Tools component of our curriculum kit: Mad Mattr Craftsman and the Test Prep Grade 1 book.
In this set, F will get to build his own robots. I'm excited that he is going to get to experience the fundamentals of simple automation. There are step-by-step instructions on how to build seven moving pet robots. Everything is included except two AA batteries.
We are already huge fans of Plus-Plus so this set is such a great addition to have! There are endless possibilities for builds with these simple shape pieces. I love that this set includes an assortment of 10 different colors.
Our Mad Mattr Craftsman set
Mad Mattr! We love it. This moldable, stretchable, doughy like compound is a blast to create and build with. This set includes the brick maker mold and six extruder tools - circle, square, star, triangle, hexagon, and house-shaped polygon. I can see F getting a lot of play time with our Mad Mattr.
Our Test Prep Grade 1 book
This books offers students the essential groundwork needed to prepare for standardized tests. I've never really concentrated on standardized test taking skills, especially at this young of an age so I'm really interested in using this with F and seeing what we think. I definitely think it can't hurt!
There are 5 items included in the art component of our curriculum kit: What's New? What's Missing? What's Different?, the Aquarellum Cosmos Set, Doodle Washington D.C., Djeco's Cosmos Foil, and Do Art Coloring with Clay. We already own and reviewed What's New? What's Missing? What's Different? so we customized our kit to not include that.
In this kit, there are two pictures to paint along with all the necessary supplies. This looks like a really high-quality set and I'm excited to see F's results.
This looks like a really fun drawing book. There are several prompts with doodles specific to Washington D.C. itself, but there are other doodles that are more universal. I'm really glad to have a drawing book for my younger crowd and I'm excited to see what creations lie ahead.
Our Djeco Cosmos Foil
I already know that we are huge Djeco fans. We have used several of their products and have not been disappointed. This space-themed foil set looks fantastic. There are 12 space scene cards to decorate and I can't wait to see what F thinks of this unique art process.
This kit uses pre-printed boards for children to apply clay to in order to create amazing art pieces. Again, this looks fantastic and has everything included that we will need.
And that is our Timberdoodle First Grade Elite Curriculum Kit in a nutshell! I am stoked. I will be doing more in depth reviews of individual products as we use them so stay tuned for those! And as always, please feel free to ask me any questions. I'm glad to help if I can 😉.
