* What is Daily Bread?
* Daily Bread - Year 1
* Daily Bread - Year 2
* Daily Bread - Year 3
* Daily Bread - Year 4
* Daily Bread - Weekly Schedules
* Daily Bread units, alphabetical listing
* Daily Bread units, topical listing
* Free Homeschool Printables
* KISS Grammar
* Other Curriculum I Like
* Terrific Resources
This is the online version of my curriculum guide, Daily Bread. All of the content of the print version, with the exception of the reproducibles, is available here (or will be, once I finish getting it all up). The yearly outlines provided here as "Year 1, Year 2," etc. are only the simpler "overview" version. The more extensive yearly outlines, which you would work from on a daily basis (if you are using the full program, and not just using the resources for individual units) is the page called "weekly schedules." The unit pages currently provided here are not all that will be available here; I just have not had a chance to add them all yet.
Suggested overall (non-unit-specific) resources for use with Daily Bread or other unit study programs.
The paragraphs which follow are the book's introduction.
Introduction
Daily Bread is designed to work with a classical education approach to unit studies. The framework is set up on a 4-year cycle. This will allow you to study each unit three times, focusing first on the grammar stage, then the logic/dialectic stage and, finally, the rhetoric stage.
Daily Bread is designed to be flexible. Think of this guide as a tool. Don't feel trapped by it; put it to work for you. Rearrange or replace units as needed. A few of the units - such as Child Training and Courtship & Marriage - are not necessary (and may even be undesirable) for young children. You may choose to replace these units with your own, or perhaps extend the units which precede or follow them. One or two of the units offer several different "levels." Cells, Reproduction, & Genetics is one example. With a young student you will probably want to focus exclusively on cells (or cells and general, but not human, reproduction). With an experienced student, you can add genetics to the mix. If you use the curriculum from 1st grade straight through to 12th, you will complete each unit 3 times, so you don't have to panic over missing something.
Each year is divided into three 12-week periods. One week at the end of each period, plus an additional week at the end of the year, is designated as "Catch-up or Choose Your Own." You can use these weeks to finish up any leftover assignments from earlier units. You can let your children use these weeks to study topics of their own choosing. You can even skip these weeks if you like (but you'll need to catch up on the Bible reading).
Daily Bread is also designed to be thorough and comprehensive. If you cover each of these units well, you should cover just about everything you need to cover. (English, mathematics, and geography are exceptions, although English and geography can both be integrated.) Art and music history topics are included with the appropriate units to allow you to study them alongside the appropriate time periods.
Each time you complete the Daily Bread cycle (4 years of units), you read through the entire Bible. (In other words, if you use the program for 12 years you will read the Bible three times.) The text is not in biblical order; it is in roughly chronological order. Roughly, because I have chosen not to split up individual books, with the exception of Psalms. Those Psalms which specify that they were written following certain events have been placed with the readings of those events. Aside from that, you read straight through a book, then move on to the next. Many of the New Testament letters are grouped, because so many of them were written over such a short span of time, and the gospels are split up, so as not to bore the student. Revelation is a pretty "heavy" book to end on, so I've placed it next-to-last.
History units fall in chronological order, as well, along two separate lines. Ancient history and modern history are studied somewhat parallel to each other. This allows for studying ancient civilizations alongside appropriate biblical texts, while giving the student a feel for the chronology of history.
As many units as possible have been fitted to the biblical context - or at least given a Scriptural "jumping off" point. ("Jesus breathed His last…" for Respiratory System, for example.) Some units just don't fit, like World War II or Inventions & Inventors. I have not forced artificial connections for these, but have simply designated them as units which are not "connected" to the Bible readings. There is more about this in the "How to Use this Book" section.