Our Curriculum

I spent a long time comparing different materials and tried to keep Alboy's learning style in mind while choosing.  Hopefully we came up with his best choices.

Reading----We are using the Ordinary Parents Guide to Reading.  I bought this almost by accident.  One of the Mom's on a home school forum sold it for a very low price and I thought I might use it in the future for Grandbaby Supreme.  Instead I discovered that even though Allboy is reading, the lessons in this book will help him improve even more.  I can't say enough about how much I like this resource.  At first I thought it would be more like 100EZ lessons, or Phonic Pathways but it isn't and it is working out great.

Spelling----I didn't concentrate on spelling last year because I really wanted to get Allboy reading on level.  If I had AAS then I would have went for it because it meshes so well with phonic instructions.  It is phonic instruction, just with spelling and it reinforces all the phonemes.  It can get boring since we are starting with level 1 and most of it Allboy already knows but I would rather review then find out there are gaps down the road.







Grammar and Copywork----We chose to continue with First Language Lessons.  It can get repetitive but when a child finishes the program they should really know elementary grammar.  I also use it for memorization and copywork.  I bought Writing with Ease, but I like the passages in here more, and I think that WWE is just busy work if you use this as it was written. 

I also bought and planned to use Explode the Code.  But I discovered after the first week of school that we don't need it.  At least not yet.  Later in the year if he has problems retaining certain letter combinations and needs the reinforcement I still have it, but as of right now I am taking it out of the schedule.  Allboy already has nice handwriting, and gets lots of practice with the narrations we do.  He gets phonics from AAS and OPGTR and we read morning and night.  So keeping ETC at this point is overkill.

Math----We switched from Saxon Math to MUS Beta.  I liked Saxon and feel it was quite thorough, but I kept modifying it so that it wasn't so repetitive.  The jury is still out on MUS, but so far we like it.  I was surprised that the DVD guy didn't get on my nerves.  He is pleasant to watch and it doesn't feel like a lecture and I like the hands on manipulative's and how easy Isaiah seems to catch on to the process.  I won't know for sure until we get further into the year.

My all time favorite lesson is United States History!!!  But of course I love history so that isn't a surprise.  Last year I followed Story of the World and I like the concept of learning History from the beginning of time on, but in reality it just didn't translate.  Of course we did some cool hands on activities and learned some cool stuff but it didn't feel like History to Allboy.  I think it felt more like a fairy tale because it was too far away and too long ago.  So instead this year I am hoping to light and then feed a fire in him about history around us.  We are into our Native American Unit and will work up to the Civil War.  We are blessed to live here where history can come alive and we can actually experience where it happened.  In September we are going to a PowWow in Hampton and we are learning about the first Americans by geographical location.  I couldn't possibly list all the resources we are using because I go to the library weekly but there are a few I couldn't have put this together without.    http://www.guesthollow.com/homeschool/history/americanhistoryindex.html    This is a complete curriculum using History as the spine but I took a lot of her recommendations for resources and mapped out how I wanted to present it using the materials I have on hand, could find at the library and the field trips we can take.  Her hard work is a Godsend and I am VERY grateful.   I also am using  these to make notebooks and maps.

For Science I had a harder time.  It is hard to find a great science curriculum that isn't too dry, but also is based on science instead of religion.  I am a Christian and I believe that God created the world, but I don't think he did it in 6, 24 hours days.  To believe that I have to suspend all the credible evidence to the contrary.  I think the creationism debate is a dead horse and I refuse to beat it, but I want my kids to get science in science class.  So we found R.E.A.L. Science , Earth, Rock and Space and after looking over it in depth I couldn't be happier.  My partner in crime is in charge of labs and he and the kids will hopefully enjoy it.  I don't care about rocks and weather, but when they get to astronomy I will get interested again.

So these are our cores.  But I wouldn't say they are all the materials we learn from.  We learn on walks, from movies, as many books as we can delve into, and each other.