A Bee Sees

Hewitt Homeschooling Resources

A Bee Sees, is an alternative first grade unit study program from Hewitt that might be used after their Training Wheels curriculum or any other kindergarten curriculum that has taught the names and sounds of the letters, counting up to 20, how to write their own name, and other beginning skills.

In A Bee Sees, children briefly review letters and sounds and almost immediately begin reading short-vowel words. The language and reading move at a slightly slower pace than they do in Hewitt’s other first grade study. Hewitt Early Readers and the companion A Bee Sees Reader are used with the lessons presented from the 500+ page teacher’s manual. The economy program also includes My Fables Book, Addison-Wesley Mathematics 1 and Unifix Cubes.

The standard package adds Mudworks (for creative art ideas) and Music for Minors. The deluxe package adds to the standard package a Big Time Learning Clock, Favorite Thorton Burgess Animal Stories, Old Mother Westwind and 6 Other Stories, Currency X-Change Activity Set, and Attrilinks.

Animals, birds, insects, and other creatures are the themes for each unit. Daily lesson plans cover Bible/character education, math, reading, social studies, language arts, physical education, science/health, and art, although all subjects are not studied each day. Key concepts, objectives, and materials needed are listed at the beginning of each unit. Lessons should take about 2 to 2 1/2 hours per day.

Multi-sensory learning via flash cards, games, art and craft projects, puppets, read aloud, discussion, and math manipulatives make this a more informal approach than programs such as A Beka’s, Christian Liberty’s, or Bob Jones’s. There are some reproducible activity and game pages at the back of the teacher’s manual. Lessons require some preparation time, and a few additional resources such as recordings of particular types of music, pictures (e.g., a diagram of the ear or a picture of a trumpet), bean bags, a kite, hymnal, and a potato. Most of these are easily found around the house, but some might take a little more effort to secure.

This curriculum is great for the parent who wants daily lesson plans already provided but who does not want to use too much in the way of formal academics.