The curriculum
Ten strands across six tiers. Tiers T0–T3 (K–6) are specified objective by objective; T4–T5 are outlined.
T0 · Foundations
Grammar stage · ages 4–6 · 1.5–2 hours a dayOral and physical. The child learns to attend, obey, sing, recite, and decode. Almost nothing is written; almost everything is spoken aloud and repeated.
That the child can sit under the Word, hold attention for twenty minutes, sound out a word, count a hundred things, and answer thirty catechism questions with joy.
Bible & Doctrine
Daily, first thing, with family worship.Biblical narrative, redemptive history, systematic theology, and church history. The organizing strand — every other strand is taught as a servant of this one.
Retell, orally and unaided, eight core biblical narratives — Creation, the Fall, the Flood, God's promise to Abraham, the Exodus, David and Goliath, the birth of Christ, and the crucifixion and resurrection — and place them in chronological order.
- Assessment
- Oral narration prompted only by a picture card; parent shuffles the eight cards and asks the child to lay them in order.
- Mastery criterion
- At least three accurate sentences per narrative and all eight cards correctly ordered, on two occasions.
State that the Bible is one book with two Testaments, written by many men but authored by God, and open a physical Bible to the correct Testament on request.
- Assessment
- Oral question plus a physical open-the-Bible task.
- Mastery criterion
- Correct Testament located in under 30 seconds, four times out of five.
Recite twelve assigned Scripture verses verbatim with their references.
- Assessment
- Weekly recitation to a parent; end-of-year recitation of all twelve.
- Mastery criterion
- Word-perfect apart from articles, with the reference given before and after, on 11 of 12.
Name the three persons of the one God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — and state that there is only one God.
- Assessment
- Oral question, asked cold on separate days.
- Mastery criterion
- Correct on three separate occasions without prompting.
State in his own words that God made all things for His own glory, that all people sin, and that sin deserves God's punishment.
- Assessment
- Oral narration in response to an open question, not a yes/no prompt.
- Mastery criterion
- All three ideas expressed unprompted on two occasions.
Participate daily in family worship: sit attentively for the reading, sing along, and pray aloud a simple prayer of his own composition.
- Assessment
- Parent observation logged weekly.
- Mastery criterion
- Attentive participation on at least four of five days across four consecutive weeks.
Materials for this tier
- Truth78 (formerly Children Desiring God) — Foundations of Faith / Making Him Known · Truth78 · core
Explicitly Reformed, God-centered, and built on a deliberate nursery-through-junior-high scope and sequence combining chronological Bible survey with systematic theology. Written from a Baptist-friendly (Bethlehem Baptist) heritage, so it does not assume paedobaptism. The strongest single fit for this strand.
Catechism & Confession
Daily, 5–10 minutes; review cycles weekly.Formal memorization and understanding of A Catechism for Boys and Girls, The Baptist Catechism (Keach's, 1695), and the 1689 Second London Confession. Question-by-question progress is tracked in the catechism module.
Recite questions 1–30 of A Catechism for Boys and Girls, giving the answer verbatim when asked the question cold and out of order.
- Assessment
- Daily review of five; weekly cold draw of ten out of order. Tracked question-by-question in the catechism module.
- Mastery criterion
- All thirty answered verbatim out of order across two review cycles.
Recite the Lord's Prayer from memory and state whom we pray to and through whom we pray.
- Assessment
- Oral recitation plus two comprehension questions.
- Mastery criterion
- Word-perfect recitation and both questions answered correctly.
List the Ten Commandments in order in simplified form and state that the first four concern love to God and the last six love to neighbor.
- Assessment
- Oral listing; then sort ten cards into the two tables.
- Mastery criterion
- All ten listed in order and correctly sorted into the two tables.
Materials for this tier
- A Catechism for Boys and Girls (144 questions) · Founders Ministries / public domain · core
The simplified Particular Baptist children's catechism. Full text is bundled with this curriculum and loaded into the tracking app, so progress is recorded question by question.
- The Illustrated Baptist Catechism (Paul Cox) · Founders Press · supporting
Visual aids for the youngest children; helpful for holding attention during the daily five minutes.
Language Arts
Daily.Phonics, reading fluency, spelling, penmanship, English grammar, and composition.
Produce the name and the primary sound of all twenty-six letters, shown in random order in both upper and lower case.
- Assessment
- Flashcard drill, shuffled, timed.
- Mastery criterion
- All 52 forms named and sounded correctly within three seconds each, on two occasions.
Blend spoken phonemes into consonant-vowel-consonant words and segment a spoken CVC word back into its phonemes.
- Assessment
- Twenty oral words, ten to blend and ten to segment.
- Mastery criterion
- 18 of 20 correct without counters or other supports.
Read aloud an entire decodable reader at the CVC-plus-digraph level.
- Assessment
- Cold read of an unseen decodable book.
- Mastery criterion
- 95% word accuracy with no more than two parent corrections.
Print all upper- and lower-case letters and the digits 0–9 legibly between primary ruled lines, with correct starting point and stroke order.
- Assessment
- Dictated letter sheet, graded for formation and placement.
- Mastery criterion
- At least 90% of characters legible with correct stroke order observed by the parent.
Answer questions in complete sentences and retell a short story in correct order without prompting.
- Assessment
- Parent observation across a week plus one recorded retelling.
- Mastery criterion
- Complete sentences in at least eight of ten observed answers; retelling in correct order.
Materials for this tier
- All About Reading / Logic of English Foundations · All About Learning Press / Logic of English · core
Explicit, systematic, multisensory phonics covering all 44 phonemes and the six syllable types. Either program will meet LNG.T0 and LNG.T1 objectives; pick one and finish it rather than switching.
Literature & Recitation
Daily reading; recitation weekly; formal presentation each term.Read-alouds, independent reading, poetry memorization, oral narration, and public recitation.
Recite two short poems or nursery rhymes from memory before an audience of at least three people.
- Assessment
- Family recitation evening.
- Mastery criterion
- Both delivered from memory, audibly, facing the audience.
Listen attentively to forty read-aloud books across the year and narrate something from each.
- Assessment
- Reading log with a one-line narration recorded by the parent for each title.
- Mastery criterion
- Forty titles logged, each with a narration showing the child followed the story.
Name who the story was about, where it happened, and what happened, for any story read aloud.
- Assessment
- Oral questions after ten different read-alouds.
- Mastery criterion
- All three answered correctly for at least eight of ten stories.
Materials for this tier
- Memoria Press literature guides and poetry sets · Memoria Press · core
Well-sequenced classical reading lists with recitation built in. Roman Catholic and broadly Christian selections appear; read ahead and substitute where the theology matters.
Latin
Daily from Tier 1; 20–40 minutes.Classical Latin vocabulary, forms, and translation — chosen for its grammatical rigor, its yield in English vocabulary, and its access to the theological tradition.
Pronounce the Latin alphabet using ecclesiastical pronunciation and sing two Latin hymns or prayers by rote.
- Assessment
- Oral pronunciation check and singing with the family.
- Mastery criterion
- All letters pronounced correctly; both pieces sung from memory.
Mathematics
Daily, 30–60 minutes, plus 5 minutes of fact drill.Arithmetic fluency, conceptual understanding, and problem solving, taught as the study of order in a created world.
Count aloud to one hundred, read and write any numeral from 0 to 100, and count a set of up to twenty objects with one-to-one correspondence.
- Assessment
- Oral counting, dictated numeral writing, and object counting.
- Mastery criterion
- Counting to 100 unaided; 18 of 20 numerals written correctly; object counts accurate three times running.
Count by ones, fives, and tens to one hundred, and by twos to twenty.
- Assessment
- Oral skip counting, each sequence started cold.
- Mastery criterion
- All four sequences completed without error on two occasions.
Recall sums and differences within five without counting on fingers.
- Assessment
- Timed flashcard drill of thirty facts.
- Mastery criterion
- 28 of 30 correct within three seconds each, with no finger counting observed.
Compare two sets or two numerals and state which is greater, which is less, or whether they are equal.
- Assessment
- Twenty comparison items, mixed sets and numerals.
- Mastery criterion
- 18 of 20 correct.
Name six plane shapes, identify and value the penny, nickel, dime, and quarter, tell time to the hour, and extend a repeating pattern.
- Assessment
- Mixed hands-on assessment with real coins and a real clock face.
- Mastery criterion
- All six shapes named, all four coins valued, time to the hour correct eight of ten times, and two patterns extended correctly.
Materials for this tier
- Primary: Singapore Math (Primary Mathematics / Dimensions) · Singapore Math Inc. · core
Recommended spine. Concept-first with bar modeling, which produces genuine understanding of the fraction, ratio, and word-problem objectives rather than procedure-following. Requires a teaching parent; it is not self-instructing.
- Alternative: Saxon Math (K–6/5) or Math-U-See · Saxon / Demme Learning · alternative
Saxon if you want incremental spiral review and maximum independence; Math-U-See if a child needs manipulatives and video instruction. Both reach the same objectives. Choose on the child, not the brand — and do not switch spines mid-year.
History & Geography
3–4 days per week.A four-year chronological cycle (Ancients → Medieval → Renaissance/Early Modern → Modern), run twice across K–8, with church history woven in and geography attached to whatever period is under study.
Use yesterday, today, and tomorrow correctly, sequence three events from his own week, and name his parents' and grandparents' names.
- Assessment
- Oral questions and a three-card sequencing task.
- Mastery criterion
- Sequencing correct on three attempts; all named relatives correct.
Name his country, state, and town, and point to his country on a globe.
- Assessment
- Oral question and a pointing task on a globe.
- Mastery criterion
- All three named and the country located, on two occasions.
Identify the seven continents and five oceans on a globe or unlabeled map.
- Assessment
- Pointing task on an unlabeled map.
- Mastery criterion
- All twelve identified correctly on two occasions a month apart.
Materials for this tier
- The Story of the World, vols. 1–4, with activity guides · Well-Trained Mind Press · core
The four-year chronological cycle this strand is built on: Ancients, Medieval–Early Renaissance, Late Renaissance–Early Modern, Modern. Secular in tone rather than hostile; treats Christianity as one religion among others, so the parent supplies the providential reading (HIS.T3.04). Run the cycle in grades 1–4 and again in 5–8.
Science & Nature Study
2 days per week plus a weekly outdoor nature study.Observation, classification, and experiment — beginning with nature study out of doors and moving toward formal method and lab reporting.
Name the five senses and describe an object using at least three of them.
- Assessment
- Hands-on observation task with an unfamiliar object.
- Mastery criterion
- All five senses named and three used descriptively without prompting.
Sort objects and pictures into living and nonliving, and state two things every living thing needs.
- Assessment
- Twenty-item sorting task plus an oral question.
- Mastery criterion
- 18 of 20 sorted correctly and both needs named.
Observe and record the weather daily for twenty consecutive school days using a simple symbol chart.
- Assessment
- Completed weather chart reviewed by the parent.
- Mastery criterion
- At least 18 of 20 days recorded, with symbols matching actual conditions.
Produce ten dated nature journal entries, each with a drawing made from direct observation out of doors.
- Assessment
- Nature journal review.
- Mastery criterion
- Ten dated entries, each drawn from life rather than copied from a book.
Materials for this tier
- The Handbook of Nature Study (Comstock) plus a nature journal · Cornell / public domain · core
Drives the nature journal objectives. Costs almost nothing and gets the children outdoors, which is most of the point at this age.
Fine Arts & Music
Singing daily; art or composer study 1–2 days per week.Hymnody and psalmody, music literacy and instrument study, picture study, and hands-on art. Congregational singing is treated as a graded skill, not an extra.
Sing ten hymns or psalm settings from memory, on pitch, with the congregation or family.
- Assessment
- Parent observation during family worship and Lord's Day services.
- Mastery criterion
- All ten sung from memory and substantially on pitch.
Identify the four instrument families by sound alone.
- Assessment
- Listening quiz with recorded excerpts.
- Mastery criterion
- All four identified correctly on two separate listening quizzes.
Use scissors, glue, brush, and crayon with control, and draw a recognizable picture of an object placed in front of him.
- Assessment
- Portfolio of work plus one observed drawing session.
- Mastery criterion
- Cutting on a line within a quarter inch and a drawing an outsider can identify.
Materials for this tier
- Your church's hymnal, plus a metrical psalter · various · core
The hymn objectives should track what your congregation actually sings, so that memory work serves Lord's Day worship rather than competing with it. Add a metrical psalter for the psalm-singing objectives.
Practical Arts, Logic & Character
Daily chores and physical activity; logic 1 day per week from Tier 2.Household competence, money, physical training, attention span, informal logic, and observable character habits tied to the Ten Commandments.
Dress himself, manage the bathroom, wash hands, and put away his own things without being told each step.
- Assessment
- Parent observation logged weekly.
- Mastery criterion
- Independent on all four for four consecutive weeks.
Obey a parent's instruction the first time it is given, without arguing, delaying, or requiring repetition.
- Assessment
- Daily parent observation with a simple tally.
- Mastery criterion
- First-time obedience on at least 80% of tallied instructions across four consecutive weeks.
Attend to a single task or reading for twenty consecutive minutes without wandering off.
- Assessment
- Timed observation on three occasions.
- Mastery criterion
- Twenty minutes sustained on all three occasions.
Complete three assigned household chores daily to a standard the parent has demonstrated.
- Assessment
- Chore chart with parent sign-off on quality, not just completion.
- Mastery criterion
- All three completed to standard on at least four days a week for six weeks.
Materials for this tier
- Family worship: A Neglected Grace (Beeke) and Family Worship (Whitney) · Christian Focus / Crossway · supporting
For the parents, not the children. The BIB and CAT objectives assume daily family worship is already happening; if it is not, start there before adjusting anything else in this plan.
Mastery scale
- 0 · Not Introduced — Not yet taught.
- 1 · Introduced — Performs only with direct, step-by-step help.
- 2 · Developing — Performs with prompts; ≥70% accuracy.
- 3 · Proficient — Independent; ≥85% on two occasions ≥7 days apart.
- 4 · Mastered — Retained and transferred; ≥90% on a delayed check ≥30 days later.