Wednesday, June 15, 2011

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.

24 comments:

  1. I just love, love, love these posts, Brenda.

    How do you schedule your day? Or is that a subject for another post?

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  2. :)

    For this next year? I have NO idea!!! But...here are some ways we've done it in the past:

    http://familyrevised.blogspot.com/2011/03/in-theory-this-is-what-we-do.html

    http://familyrevised.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-heart-my-new-schedule.html

    http://familyrevised.blogspot.com/2009/08/help-for-homeschooler-dreaded-schedule.html

    Oh i've done so many things....yes. I may need to post about it on it's own!

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  3. I have seriously considered Math u see. Can you tell me how you like it. My 7 year old is good at Math he just don't like it.
    Also I have heard a lot about the Science through zoo... WHat do you think about that? It is really as good as all the hype about it.
    Come visis me
    www.ourjoyfulliving.com

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  4. Our congregation ordered that Bible class curriculum, but we haven't used it yet. Would you recommend it?

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  5. Sam...the Karyn Henley? I taught the whole 1st grade year of it about 4 or 5 years ago. My older daughter learned SO much! I have taught KH curriculum from nursery through 1st grade and I will say this: she is very child- friendly. In fact, she is so child friendly you may have to use one year older than it says. For example...the 3's curriculum in the nursery class and the 3's curriculum for the 2 year olds. The only change I made for 1st grade was we didn't do learning centers. I just chose from all the suggested activities and we all did them together but there were only 5-7 kids in the class. We only found one lesson that we theologically disagreed with--and caught that before it was taught. Can't think what it was. Overall, I liked it!

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  6. I meant the 2's curriculum in the nursery class.

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  7. Angie..MUS was a life saver for us. Not everyone likes it. We were using Abeka math and about the middle of 3rd grade it all just fell apart. I told my daughter to go throw her math book in the trash and I spent a week researching. What I like is they MASTER one thing before they go one. They don't learn everything every year. Instead, you fully learn adding....then subtraction...then multiplication...then division...then fractions. Because of that, your child might appear to be "behind" the public school calendar. But rest assured if you keep plugging along they will really know math!
    Major plus? Mr. Demme teaches the lesson on DVD so mom can learn right along with child! This will be a must in the older lessons for me!
    And I'll probably do a post on science....

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  8. Oh and Angie, since your son is good at math...you can spend one day on a lesson or 3 weeks. You can totally move at your child's pace.

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  9. Love your choices! I, too, have way too much fun planning and researching for the next year. I'm almost done with my selections, but still a little bit to go. I was on the TOS Review Crew and sadly didn't get to review Writing Tales, but I've chosen it for next year for my 6th and 4th grader. So excited! I've heard nothing but wonderful things about it!

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  10. Oh, I feel special! 2 shout-outs in a week! ;-) I've been excitedly waiting for this post, just to see all of your plans together! I absolutely love Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We're going through it with Joel (we have been going through it for almost a year, noooo rush!) and are finally almost done. It has never failed us. in fact, the one reader I have who we quit the book early and tried something else with, well... he's still a struggling reader at 8.5 years old! :-/ Any curriculum suggestions for that?! Since you have great reccomendations for just about everything else!

    I'm really interested to hear how the combining of two Sciences go. The Apologia Notebooks are great! There are some "Junior" ones available, too, which are less writing and more coloring/fill-in-the-blank type things.

    And yet again, I've rambled on... I told you I was excited about this post! ;-)

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  11. The Bible Study Guide. We are talking about the same thing, right? lol We were also wondering how sound the curriculum was, as we only have the first part at the church right now. We were trying to find an affiliation, but the site says they have none. Thanks :)

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  12. Erin, I've only seen the junior one for anatomy. Are there others????

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  13. No Sam...we aren't!! Ha! The
    Bible study guide is very sound and I have had NO problems with it! It is pretty much straight out of scripture. I would feel very confident about it. My girls love it!

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  14. OK--I just saw on Jeannie Fulbright's website that the junior Zoology II notebook should be released July 2011. Oh I hope so b/c that would be so much better for Little Bit!

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  15. Looks like a great year ahead! I love reading about other people's curriculum choices! It's funny how I get all excited about next year when I am soooo ready for this one to be over! ;-)

    We use Heart of Dakota curriculum and love it! My up-and-coming first grader will be using Little Hearts for His Glory and my up-and-coming 3rd grader will be using the Preparing Hearts guide. I love how the Bible is woven into every subject, the lessons are short, and we get to use wonderful living books for our history and science.

    I will be trying out All About Spelling for the first time next year and am very excited to see how it works!

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  16. Thank you thank you thank you...


    :)

    Kingdom Blessings,

    Janet

    www.homeward4.blogspot.com

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  17. We love Sonlight! Happy homeschooling!

    Celee

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  18. We're using Alpha right now too! It's been great :-)

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  19. Looks like a great list! And I agree the planning part of the school year is the BEST part of the school year!

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  20. We love HWT and Apologia as well.

    Looking forward to reading about the financial aspect soon.

    Thanks you for linking up with me. This has been fun to read all of these posts.

    I am now following you as well.

    http://trainingchildrenupforchrist.blogspot.com/

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  21. Great choices!! I know you will have a great year! Look forward to hearing how the phsyics book works!

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  22. looks like a great plan, we are using Writing Tales and really enjoying it. Good luck!

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  23. I hope you have a wonderful year! :)

    ~Lynn

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  24. It looks like great choices! I am so fortunate that in the province that I live in, we get funding from the government that covers most of the cost of curriculum (about $700 per child per year) and swimming lessons and field trips, so the cost doesn't have to play into my decisions as much. Sounds like you are doing a good job of making it work though. Hope you have a great year!

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I don't get to talk to a lot of actual grown-ups during the day, so your comments make me really happy! :)