Curriculum Choices for 2011-2012 School Year

**Deep breath**

Don't you just LOVE picking out and browsing and searching and researching curriculum??? I do. I absolutely love it. I think I'm just about done making decisions for next year. All that's left now is to actually....pay for it.

And plan it, teach it, blah blah blah. Details, details.

Here we go....oh, for new readers my girls are 7 and 11. They will be entering 2nd grade and 6th grade. Well, probably more like "first and 1/2" but that's a topic for another time.

Math
I will not need to buy anything for math right now. (Whew!) Sweetheart will be finishing the last 10 lessons or so of this

and then starting this

Little Bit will be continuing to work on this

Bible
We'll get back to this in a minute. But the curriculum we were using last year, we still love. I don't think we'll have time for this in our school day, so we will use it some nights for family worship time.

Handwriting

Sweetheart will use this

and Little Bit will use this

Pretty simple and easy.

English/Language/Writing/Grammar

For the first time ever I will be teaching these topics! I chose this 

based on Erin's TOS review. Sweetheart is SO excited about this curriculum. I am too, honestly.

Little Bit will be using something similar to what Kenny is doing in this post. I cannot find those printable pages for the life of me, but I can make some. She will also have copywork.


Spelling

We will continue using All About Spelling. Love it. Can't say enough good things about it. Sweetheart will be on Level 4 and Little Bit on Level 2. (I'm an affiliate so if you buy....click that link!)

Science

This one is up in the air. Not the curriculum we'll be using, but how much we'll be in each other's business. For Little Bit, I chose this

but I want Sweetheart to do it too. We will hopefully use these

But Sweetheart needs more than that. Along with Carrie's kiddos, she will be doing this





and using these

But I want Little Bit to do that too. So...they may just "sit in" with each other. Probably I will just act like both of them are for both of them, you know? I'll figure out how to work them both in later.

And now for the exciting one (and expensive one!). We will be using this for History and Reading (and Bible)

Sweetheart will be studying core D+E (American History) from Sonlight. I am thrilled. I've eyed that Sonlight catalog for years. When I finally sat down with S and confessed what I really wanted to use he said, "How much?" Then I told him. And then he said, "That's nothing. Get it." I love him so much. (Thank you for mowing honey!) And our Bible will be taken care of through this curriculum.

And then last week I decided I really wanted her own thing for Little Bit. But buying core A new does not make sense as 1. we don't have the money for both cores and 2. there are no others behind her to use it. So I am going to beg, borrow, and check out this core in pieces. I'll git 'er done, but it's going to take work.

Along with that (here comes the "first and 1/2")...Little Bit and I started using this at the end of last school year.

We are going to keep plugging along in it until reading clicks for her. She's getting there. It's exciting to watch. She is enjoying this book a lot and it is working so much better than anything we've done previously. Maybe the timing is just right? But we'll keep going with that book as long as it's useful to us.

I am so excited about all these choices--especially the new ones. Math, Handwriting, and Spelling are old hat so they aren't as exciting. :)

I hope this post is helpful.. If you have any questions about anything I've chosen, I will be happy to answer them. I know curriculum choices are very personal and we are all so blessed to homeschool these days with so many choices before us. Paying for all this is going to take work, and honestly I'm not buying all this. I'll share about the finances of curriculum next time.