Our Curriculum

I indicate below if I wasn't happy with a particular curriculum.  If nothing is said about it, we generally liked it and used it throughout the year.

2009/2010 - Emilia's Kindergarten Year

Science - Sonlight A - Kindergarten
Read Alouds/History/Geography - Sonlight K
Reading - Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
Math - Horizons K

2010/2011 - Emilia's 1st Grade Year

Science - Sonlight 1st Grade
Read Alouds - Sonlight list online - got the books from the library
History - Story of the World: Ancient Times (I was not a fan of this - multiple historical errors and not written based on a Christian Worldview)  Emilia then listened to Mystery of History Vol. 2 that I borrowed from the library
Geography - U.S. Coloring Book by Winky Adam
Art - Come Look with Me books:  "Animals in Art" and "World of Play"
Music - Stories of the Great Composers for Elementary Students
Math - Horizons 1
Unit Studies - Amanda Bennett's Download n' Go - Magnificent Moon and Davy Crockett

2011/2012 - Emilia's 2nd Grade Year and Jonny's Kindergarten Year

Jonny (K)
Math - Horizons K
Reading - Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

Emilia (2nd)
Science - Apologia Anatomy (we only got through the first 6 weeks - it was more advanced than I had anticipated)
History/Geography - Mystery of History Vol 3 (first half of the book - great book!)
Read Alouds - List from Sonlight (Jonny also listened to some of these - checked them out from the library)
Math - Horizons 2
Spelling - Horizons Spelling and Vocabulary 1 (we didn't like this)
Language Arts - Language Lessons for the Elementary Child by Queen Homeschool (great Charlotte Mason type of workbook)

If you want more words, thoughts, and links for various curriculums...
This post outlines the curriculum I used for the first three years of homeschooling 2009/10 (Emilia - K), 2010/11 (Emilia - 1st grade), and 2011/12 (Emilia - 2nd grade, Jonny - K).

2012/2013 - Emilia's 3rd Grade Year, Jonny's 1st Grade Year, and Matt's Preschool Year

Matt (Preschool)
Math - Horizons K
Reading - Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

Jonny (1st)
Math - Horizons 1st Grade
Language Arts/Handwriting - Writing with Ease (we were not a fan of this) Bought a Handwriting Without Tears Printing book - much better
*The rest of the subjects are the same as Emilia's (listed below with *)

Emilia (3rd)
Math - Horizons 3rd Grade
Language Arts - Language Lessons for the Very Young from Queen Homeschool
*Spelling - Sequential Spelling (did not work for her), Changed to All About Spelling in the second half of the year and we were happy with this
*History - Mystery of History Vol 3 - finished rest of the book
*Science - Apologia Anatomy - Tried this again, but never finished it.  Too intense for my kids at these ages.
*Reading - Online lists from various websites - checked out from the library
*Unit Studies - Amanda Bennett's Download n' Go - Ben Franklin

Both Emilia and Jonny also attended Wednesday School where they had a day full of of science, gym, recess, geography, play acting/literature, music, art, writing (for 3rd grade and up), and Spanish.

If you want more words, thoughts, and links for various curriculums...
This post outlines in more detail the curriculum I used for the 2012-2013 school year (Emilia - 3rd grade, Jonny - 1st grade, Matthew - Preschool).

2013/2014 - Emilia's 4th Grade Year, Jonny's 2nd Grade Year, and Matt's K Year

Matt (K)
Math - Horizons - Finish K and start 1
Handwriting - Handwriting Without Tears Printing (first semester) and Cursive (second semester)
Reading - Easy Readers
*Matt did what he could handle listed below with * and went off to play the rest of the time

Jonny (2)
Math - Horizons 2
*Rest of the subjects are same as Emilia listed below with *

Emilia (4)
Math - Horizons 4
Language Arts - Language Lessons for the Secondary Child Vol. 1
*Spelling  - All About Spelling Vol. 2
*History/Geography - Trail Guide to Learning: Paths of Exploration (tried for 6 weeks and did not work for us)
Changed to Switched on Schoolhouse Hist./Geo. 3rd Grade (they could do it on their own - worked very well for us that year)
*Handwriting - Handwriting Without Tears Cursive
*Science - Half way though the year we started Answers in Genesis "World of Animals" (fun and easy for these ages of kids)

All three were also in Wednesday School (as explained above in pink)

If you want more words, thoughts, and links for various curriculums...
This post outlines in more detail the curriculum I chose for our 2013-2014 school year (Emilia - 4th grade, Jonny - 2nd grade, Matthew - Kindergarten)

2014/2015 - Emilia's 5th Grade Year, Jonny's 3rd Grade Year, Matthew's 1st Grade Year, Tommy's Preschool Year

Emilia (5)
Math - Horizons 5
Language Arts - Language Lessons for the Secondary Child Vol. 2
*Other subjects...see * below

Jonny (3)
Math - Horizons 3
Handwriting - Handwriting Without Tears Cursive
*Other subjects...see * below

Matt (1)
Math - Horizons 2
Handwriting - Handwriting Without Tears Cursive
*Other subjects...see * below

Tommy (Preschool)
Watched Leap Frog Letter Factory about 7 times (a friend of mine suggested this) and memorized all the letters and their sounds with no problem.  He loved it!  I loved it!  Win, win!

I also got him some preschool type workbooks, a Handwriting Without Tears printing book, and the Horizons K book so he can do something if he wants to while the others are doing schoolwork.  I don't force this (frankly I don't have much time to make sure he can read and write yet).  It's just in case he's interested and so far, he hasn't been too interested.  ;)

*Other subjects...see * below

*With the closing of the Wednesday School program our kids were involved in the past two years, we enrolled all four of them in Classical Conversations.  We meet one morning a week with our CC community (from 9:15 to Noon for all four of the kids and then again after lunch for only Emilia who takes a 2 hour writing/grammar class), and each child has their own classroom with a tutor who explains the information they will be learning the following week.  I rotate around to each of my children's classrooms, so about once a month they each have me in their class.  But they see me a lot throughout the morning as I can pop in on any of them at any time.  It has been a huge blessing in our homeschooling lives.  We all learn the same information together by listening to songs.  It's amazing what my kids (even our 4 year old) can memorize.  If you want more information about Classical Conversations, you can go to their website by clicking here.  There's probably a community in your area that you could check out if you're interested.

We have tried to add our curriculum on to what we're doing in CC because it really does fit in nicely.  I can take our Answers in Genesis Science curriculum and open to the page of the stuff we're memorizing for science to go into more detail, but frankly we don't do it that often.  I can also take our Mystery of History and coordinate it to the information we're memorizing (someone already did the work for us!), but usually we don't even do that.  We will watch videos from this website as someone has already put that together for each week for any CC person to utilize - awesome!

By the time we have memorized the stuff for the week, done math, reading, and handwriting (plus the extras that my older kids are involved in - afternoon CC writing/grammar class for Emilia that has homework, and piano lessons and acting in a play for both), our schedule is full enough.  Besides, the creator of CC says over and over that "The Memory Work is Enough!" and I have seen that this is the case as my children make connections/learn more on their own.

I will add more curriculum choices as we go through the years.

Thanks for reading!




Linked up to the Not Back to School Blog Hop.

7 comments:

Heidi @ Home Schoolroom said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

It was great to read your plans at Heart of the Matter, Heidi. I also have a big sister who would like to help with her brother's education! It can be great to watch when it works well. Amen to the prayers for patience and wisdom and loving kindness...we could all use more!

Sarah at SmallWorld said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

Funny--I realized after I did my post that I didn't list Bible as a subject. It's just so much a part of our lives, we don't necessary do a separate study using a curriculum. We have in some years, but the Bible is just so awesome on its own!

Heidi said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

Sarah, I hear ya! Thanks for visiting. :)

Heidi, Thank you! Amen to more prayers.

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