CKLA Free Language Arts Curriculum

I found another free reading and language arts curriculum I want to share:  CKLA Skills series.    This is a full language arts curriculum, but I've mainly used the reader (which are included from KG Level 4 up, and are decodable and engaging and have great illustrations .  I really adore the free printable readers and have been using them to supplement the readers from the other curriculum I use with the kids I tutor in reading.    New skills are added gradually and in the earlier grades are marked in the text.   While I haven't used the rest of the curriculum, it looks solid (at least at the Kindergarten level, which is what I've mainly looked through). 

But man, I wish they made these easier to find on their site.   They aren't all listed in one place  (at least that I could see).  In stead you have to use their search function to find them, and they don't always come up in order.   So, I thought I would link to these resources in order to make it easier for you all to find.

The curriculum covers grade KG - 3.   They have other curriculum on their site that goes further which you can also find here.   Also, this site has interactive online versions of  3-4 of the stories for these levels.


CKLA Language Arts Skills Series


Kindergarten Skills

Note:  Readers are not offered until KG Unit 4.  The names of the readers are included next to the unit link.

KG Ancillary Materials (Used in various levels)

KG Unit 1

KG Unit 2

KG Unit 3

KG Unit 4 - Pet Fun

KG Unit 5 - Ox and Man

KG Unit 6 - Kit

KG Unit 7 - Seth

KG Unit 8 - Sam

KG Unit 9 - Zack and Ann

KG Unit 10 - Scott



1st Grade Skills
 

1st Grade Ancillary Materials

1st Grade Unit 1 - Snap Shots

1st Grade Unit 2 - Gran

1st Grade Unit 3 - Fables

1st Grade Unit 4 - The Green Fern Zoo

1st Grade Unit 5 - Kate's Book

1st Grade Unit 6 - Grace

1st Grade Unit 7 - Kay and Martez

2nd Grade Skills

2nd Grade Ancillary Material

2nd Grade Unit 1 - The Cat Bandit

2nd Grade Unit 2 - Bedtime Tales

2nd Grade Unit 3 - Kids Excel

2nd Grade Unit 4 - The Job Hunt

2nd Grade Unit 5 - Sir Gus (Chapter Book)

2nd Grade Unit 6 - The War of 1812

3rd Grade Skills

3rd Grade Ancillary Material

3rd Grade Unit 1 - Classic Tales

3rd Grade Unit 2 - Rattenborough's Guide to Animals

3rd Grade Unit 3 - How Does Your Body Work

3rd Grade Unit 4 - Stories of Ancient Rome

3rd Grade Unit 5 - Adventures in Light and Sound

3rd Grade Unit 6 - Gods, Giants and Dwarves

3rd Grade Unit 7 - What's in Our Universe

3rd Grade Unit 8 - Native American Stories

3rd Grade Unit 9 - The Age of Exploration

3rd Grade Unit 10 - Living in Colonial America

3rd Grade Unit 11 - Intro to Ecology

Paper Penguin Craft

I've done this craft with several kids I nanny or tutor, ages 4-7.   All enjoyed it and had fun.  It's a pretty quick one...takes 10-20 minutes.

The first time I tried this we cut out paper circles for eyes...the kids really struggled cutting those small circles, even the 7 year old.  That's why I switched to googly eyes the next time I did this.


SUPPLIES NEEDED:

Cardstock or construction paper in the following colors:  

• Black
• White
• Orange
• Light Blue
  

Glue (I prefer glue sticks for this one)
Large Googly Eyes


It's fairly straight forward.

1.  Cut off the bottom of white sheet of the paper, about 2-4 inches up for the snow in the background.   You can make the cut a little curvy, or go straight across.   Glue this to the bottom of your light blue paper.

2.  Cut a black tall oval a little bit smaller than your blue paper.   Glue it on the paper so it's sitting on top of the snow.

3.   Cut a white oval shorter and less wide than your black oval.   If it doesn't look big enough to put a face on the black, cut it down a little more.  Glue it towards the bottom of your black oval.

4.   On the edge of a black paper, cut two thin semicircle to make the wings.   They should be about half the length of the black circle that makes the penguin body.  You can cut them separately like in the penguin above, or fold the paper  in half first so you can cut two wings at once.  Glue those on the edge of the black and white circle, so that the top part is fully in the in the black area, and the bottom sticks out into the blue background. 

5.   Glue your googly eyes to the top of your penguins head. 

6.   Cut a small triangle for the nose.   With younger kids I just had them cut a corner off an orange paper.   Glue it under the eyes.


And you have a penguin!

Bread Pan Train Cakes

For two years in a row, when my oldest son was younger, he asked for a train cake for his birthday.  He STILL remembers these cakes and talks about them.   Read on to learn how I made them. 

As you can tell, the frosting is not perfect on either of these.   I'm not a master baker or cake decorator by any stretch of the imagination.  But that means that you don't have to be either to make these cakes!   They don't take a lot of skill...just time and BREAD PANS.

Yep, that's right, these cakes were made using bread pans. The first type only uses a larger bread pan (around 9 X 5"....doesn't have to be exact), and the second also used a smaller bread pan (around 6 X 3"). Both also require cup cake tins.

Now, they will take some time though.    It may take you a couple hours just to frost and decorate these things (never mind the time baking them).  And frosting anything can be tricky...but just know it doesn't have to be perfect.

TIP:  If you add frosting on thick it's easier to fix mistakes and less cake crumbs get into the frosting. 

You don't need a lot of special tools to make these cakes.   I do think a frosting spatula makes things so much more easy, but you can use other tools to spread that frosting.  And while you can use fancy cake piping tools to do some of the details on these cakes, store grocery store bought icing writers or cookie icing will do the trick too.

   
DISCLAIMER:  In the paragraph above, and a few other places on this page, you will find some affiliate links through which I could earn commissions.   Hopefully they are also helpful in defining terms though, too, and wont feel too spammy.

Train Cake 1

 

For this cake you will need:

• 1-2 bread pans, around 9 X 5"*
• One cupcake pan.
• Baking cups (for cupcakes)
  
• 1 Box Cake mix (flavor of your choice)**
• Oreo cookies
• Graham Crackers (optional, for tracks)
  
• Candy decorations (optional)
• Food coloring (whatever colors you want for your train)
• White frosting to color (2-3 tubs)
• Chocolate Frosting OR black food coloring (if you use chocolate cake mix).
  
• Plastic baggy and rolling pin (or something else to smash oreos).
  
• Icing writers or cookie icing in color you want for your train window, OR a piping kit (if you prefer to pipe frosting for the window)
• A frosting spatula (recommended) or knife, for spreading frosting
• Large mixing bowl, smaller bowls, and something to stir with.
• A large plate or something else to put the cake on.   Should be at least as wide as a cookie sheet. (I used a pizza pan covered in wrapping paper)

*If you want a super small cake, like for a child's smash cake or something like that, you could use smaller sized bread pans.    This would also make the cake fit on a smaller plate.  You will need to use a mini-cupcake pan if you are doing this with 6 X 3 or similar bread pans.

**The train chimney will be the color of your cake mix.  If you get a white cake mix you can add food coloring to get another color you would like. 

1.  Mix cake mix as directed.

2.  Line cupcake pan with 2-3 cupcake liners and fill half way with cake mix.     Pour mix into bread pans  until they are about 1/3 filled (or do one pan at a time then clean and repeat).  Cook for whatever time is listed for cupcakes on the box.  Test with toothpick to make sure cupcakes and cake is it is done and cook more if needed (you will probably need to cook bread pan cakes quite a bit longer, but it may be less than for other cake sizes listed, so I start checking when the cupcakes are done then check every 5-10 minutes).  You may have extra cake mix, and that's fine.  It can be used if anything goes wrong with the first batch.  

3. Make your frosting if you are doing home-made frosting.  Mix the colors you want for your train in separate bowls or containers (I just bought several .  I used chocolate frosting for under my "coal car" as it blends better with the oreos, but you could also use white frosting and food coloring.

4.  Prep your cake plate.  If you have a "not so pretty" cake plate (such as a cookie sheet), you can line it with birthday paper like I did.  Lay down pieces of graham cracker to make tracks. 

5.  Take cakes out of pans and let cool.  You can take your larger cake and put it directly onto the cake plate on top of the graham cracker tracks, with the curved side facing up (do not trim it).   It should be placed to one side, to leave room for the coal car.  This piece will make up the bottom half of your engine, as shown below.

6.  Cut the 2nd bread pan cake it in half.   One half will form the top of the Engine, and the other will form the coal car, as is shown below.

7.   I did not trim the bottom cake before placing the top piece on the engine.  You can see this created a bit of a sloped back affect (like a cartoon train made to look like it was going fast).   If you prefer a straighter look you can cut an l shaped section the size out of the bottom cake to place the top piece into.   Before placing the top piece, frost the top of the bottom cake.   This will help that piece stick and add a tasty layer of frosting. 


8.  Finish frosting the top of the cake.   Just smooth as flat as you can (it can be imperfect and still look cute).  A frosting spatula can help with this (I found it super handy), but you can also just use a butter knife (spread with non serrated side).   You can use Icing writers or cookie icing with the nozzles to draw windows (or you can pipe them out of frosting with piping tools  if you have them, though this can be a bit more challenging).  I placed some candy balloons on ours, and you can decorate it with any type of candy if you would like.  

9.   After the engine is frosted, place an unfrosted cupcake on the top/front to make a smokestack.

10. For my coal car, I cut off a sloped piece to make it look like one side was bigger.  If you prefer it flat you could just trim off the top of the cake to make it flat, or trim one side so that it matches the slope of the other (so that when you add the Oreos it will look like a mound).   Set this on the tracks behind the engine.

11.  Take out 12 Oreo cookies and split them apart.  Set aside the sides with frosting.  Put the sides without frosting in a plastic baggie and roll over it with a rolling pin until the cookies are crumbled into small chunks.  Set aside.

12.  Frost the sides of the coal car with whatever color you would like it to be.   Do not frost the top yet. 

11.  Frost the top of the coal car with either chocholate icing or another dark brown or black colored icing.  Stick the oreo chunks on the frosting to look like coal.

12.  Press the frosted oreos, frosting side in, on the side of the engine and coal car to make wheels.

You now have a completed train cake!

Train Cake 2

For this cake you will need:

• 1-3 bread pans, around 9 X 5"*
• 1-2 small bread pans, around 6 X 3"
  
• One cupcake pan 
• Cupcake liners
  
• Cake mix (flavor of your choice)*
• White Frosting to color (3-4 tubs)**  
  
• Food coloring (whatever colors you want for your train).
  
• Icing writers or cookie icing in black or another color for your train window, OR a piping kit (if you prefer to pipe frosting for the window, which I did).
  
• A frosting spatula (recommended) or knife, for spreading frosting*
• Large mixing bowl, smaller bowls, and something to stir with.
• 2 Rectangular cake boards (for placing cake on).  
  

*The train chimney will be the color of your cake mix.  If you get a white cake mix you can add food coloring to get another color you would like. 

**You will need four tubs of frosting IF you plan to frost your cupcake wheels.  I used chocolate frosting to frost mine.    

NOTE:  You can add as many train cars as you like in the middle, but will need to adjust the amount of cake mix and

1.  Mix cake mix as directed.  

2.  Line cupcake pan with 9-12 cupcake liners and fill half way with cake mix (you only need 8 cupcakes, but it doesn't hurt to have a few back up cupcakes).  

3.  Next prep bread pans by buttering and flouring the pans.   You will need 3 cakes from larger bread pans, and two from smaller bread pans.     Pour mix into bread pans until they are roughly 1/3 full.   You may have some leftover mix, which can be used if anything goes wrong with the first batch.

4.  Cook both bread pans and cupcakes for whatever time is listed for cupcakes on the box.  Test with toothpick to make sure cupcakes and cake are done and cook more if needed (you will probably need to cook bread pan cakes a bit longer, especially the larger ones, but it may be less than for other cake sizes listed, so I start checking when the cupcakes are done then check every 5-10 minutes).

5.   Let cakes and cupcakes cool.  Add food color to your frosting (one color per tub), and stir well.  Close lids until you are ready to frost.

6.  You may want to take two of the larger cakes and arrange them on the first cake board to make sure they fit (or all three if you manage to find an exceptionally long  cake tray).   I just overlapped my trays.   You could also cut the back of one board and the front of the other to make the right size, and then just smoosh them together on the table so it looks like one tray  (and if you do this it's even more important to try out the arrangement of your cakes beforehand).  

7.   STEAM ENGINE BASE CONSTRUCTION:

• Take one of the larger cake pans out and trim the arched side so it is flat.   Lay it horizontally on one side of the cake cake board with the trimmed side down (to make it easier to frost).  You may want to measure it against the size of your smaller cake pan cakes when trimming so they are the same depth.
  (NOTE:   Hey, you may notice that in my final I actually just put the rounded side up in my final cakes.  I can't remember why I did this.  It could be that the bottom of some of my cakes didn't make it out of the pan well.   It could be that I just decided I didn't want to trim stuff.   I'm suggesting this now because it's worked in other different cakes I've made using bread pans, and I think it would have made this look a little nicer, but it didn't look bad as is, so you can skip the trimming if you want). 
  
• Next take one of the smaller bread pan cakes, and cut off roughly 1/3 of the cake.   Place it above the larger cake like it is positioned in the picture below (I placed this arch side up in the picture, but bottom side up would probably be more even). 
• Frost this cake now, before adding the box car behind it.  
• Lastly, arrange two cupcakes above the front of the larger cake to make a smokestack.  You will need to put a dot of  frosting between the two cupcakes so they stick together, and then press them into the frosting on the bottom cake.
  

Cake Layout - Engine

TRAIN CAR CONSTRUCTION

7.  Trim your 2nd large cake so one side is flat, and place it behind the first with the trimmed side down.  


CABOOSE CONSTRUCTION

8.  Trim your 3rd large cake so one side is flat.   If working with two boards, overlap or arrange them as you will present them, and then put your cake trimmed side down towards the back of one of the boards, lined up behind the other cakes.  (If you are only working with one board, just line it up behind your other cakes). 

9.   Place the 2nd smaller cake centered above the larger caboose cake/

10.  Add food color to your frosting (one color per tub), and stir well.  Frost your cakes. Add any details you would like (such as windows and decorations, using your preferred tool:    Icing writers or cookie icing  or piping bag.  I used a wide flat piping tip to make the windows and line the roof of the caboose, but you could also do these other ways.

 

11.  If you want, frost your cupcake wheels (optional).  I only frosted the top.   Put a small dollop of frosting on the bottom of the cupcakes and place them beneath the train cars as shown above.   This frosting dot will help attach them to the cake board.

12.   In the first picture of this cake (2nd picture at the top of this page) you can see my "whip cream" smoke.  I do NOT suggest using whip cream for this.  It looks ok there but in a few minutes it was whip cream puddles.  If you do want to make smoke, I suggest doing so with white frosting.   You can experiment with frosting on a paper plate to find your preferred method for making clouds.    

Africa and African Countries: Resource List

The following are resources I've found related to African and African countries.   Mostly it's free online resources.

I haven't used all of these resources personally. I'm not an expert on this topic, and nor do I have a cultural or ethnic heritage related to Africa, so I wouldn't be the best person for a "best of" list.   This is just a "what I've come across" list.  I'm compiling this because I feel like Africa is a region of the world that wasn't given enough attention in my own education, and I have tried to give my children more knowledge of Africa than I have.   

When the pandemic first hit and many parents were suddenly home with their children and looking up resources to homeschool (or just do something educational with their kids until they were back in school), I made a Africa Unit Study with the idea that maybe some parents would use this while their kids were home.  Since then I've collected more homeschooling/educational resources on this topic and needed a separate post to share them.   Enjoy.


Note that this is a mix of secular, neutral, and Christian curriculum.  I've tried to mark if the curriculum is religious, but may have missed some, so make sure to preview before using if you want to avoid religious or non-religious materials.

KEY TERMS

BOOK STUDY:   These are resources intended to be paired with a book related to Africa.  The book is usually not included (but libraries often have them).  I will try to put more info about the book after the link.

LAPBOOK:   A homemade book about a topic, often to be put together in a folder or notebook.

UNIT STUDY:  A topical study, often incorporating various subjects in a way that ties them back to the main topic.   Can be as short as one day, or as long as a year or more.




GENERAL

Africa Unit Study by Imaginative Homeschool (Me!)

Africa Unit by Adventures in a Messy Life
(I've included her individual country units in the Country section below, but at this link new African country studies will be shared here as she completes them).

Africa Countries Color by Number (Multiplication)

Free sample pages from Geography Through Art
These have a few African crafts.  Christian curriculum.


REGIONAL

WEST AFRICA

• Book Study -   Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears: Unit Study and Lapbook by Homeschool Share
  West African folk tale.  Study covers African animals.
  

BY COUNTRY

Algeria

• Algeria Unit Study by Adventures in a Messy Life
  

Angola

• Angola Unit by Adventures in a Messy Life

Central African Republic

• Free sample pages from Geography Through Art
  (On pg 12, numbered 30, they have a craft related to butterfly art which is done in the Central African Republic and several other African nations, not mentioned.   I suggest also taking a look at this page to see examples of this art.)
  

Benin

• Benin Unit by Adventures in a Messy Life

Botswana

• Botswana Unit by Adventures in a Messy Life

• My Book About Botswana:  Print Copywork by Write Bonnie Rose
• My Book About Botswana:  Cursive Copywork by Write Bonnie Rose
  

 

Burkina Faso

• Burkina Faso Unit by Adventures in a Messy Life

Burundi

• Burundi Unit Study by Adventures in a Messy Life
  

Cameroon

• Cameroon Unit by Adventures in a Messy Life

Cape Verde (Cabo Verde)

• Cape Verde (Cabo Verde) Unit by Adventures in a Messy Life

Djibouti

• Djibouti Unit Study by Adventures in a Messy Life
  

Egypt
Note:   I've included some resources on modern Egypt, but am not including resources on Ancient Egypt here because there is SO MUCH available and it would take up too much of the page.

• Egypt Lapbook by Homeschool Share (Focuses on modern Egypt)

• Book Study - The Day of Ahmed’s Secret:  Unit study by Homeschool Share
  A story of a delivery boy in Cairo who has a special secret he is waiting to tell his family.
  
  
• Africa Unit Study: One Day Free Sample - Egypt, by Gather Round Homeschool (part of a larger unit study, which is not included)
  

Eritrea

• Eritrea Unit by Adventures in a Messy Life

Ethiopia

• Ethiopia Lapbook by Homeschool Share
  
  
• Book Study - Faraway Home:  Lapbook and Unit Study by Homeschool Share
  The Faraway Home (not included) is about a child who's father is going away to visit his childhood home in Ethiopia, and the questions this spurs.  
  

Ghana

• Ghana Lapbook by Homeschool Share
  

Kenya

• Kenya Lapbook by Homeschool Share
  

Malawi

• Book Study - When Africa Was Home: Unit Study by Homeschool Share
  After returning back to the United States, and family misses their home in Malawi.
  

Morocco

• Morocco Lapbook by Homeschool Share
  

Somalia

• Somalia Unit by Adventures in a Messy Life

Tanzania

• Tanzania Lesson by The Barefoot Mom

• Ready to Read:  On the Savanna,  by Gather Round Homeschool
  Christian curriculum mixing geography and phonics lessons, themed around the African Savanna.   This is a single sample lesson from a larger unit, and covers Tanzania, and the phonics concepts of ar vowel teams and r-controlled vowels.   The Tanzania material could be used separately from the phonics material.
  

If you know of other resources that should be on this list, please leave me a comment about them.  Thanks!