Not Back to School Blog Hop~Curriculum Week

As many of you know, I have a bit of an addiction to homeschool curriculum. Don’t all homeschool moms? I mean, there are so many choices for us to look over. My goal is to hand pick curriculum that will meet my childrens’ learning needs, styles, and desires, without breaking our budget or causing my dear husband to need to worry over yet another income avenue.

We have some extra, or special needs that I must consider when making curriculum choices.

• Dysgraphia
• Amount of handwriting required.
• Time needed one on one.
• Preparation time
• Is it adaptable?
• Is it going to help enforce Biblical principals?
• Will it teach something I won’t approve of? Evolution, “adult” material?

I try to find material that will be easily passed down from one child to the next, with some modification to meet each child’s needs. This helps save us money in the long run. I don’t mind spending $120 on a Math curriculum, if I will be able to use it on six or more children. I mean that is $20 a year for math. Honestly, I have not seen a curriculum for $20, that is complete, so this makes sense.

I also like to be able to combine grades as much as possible. We do a lot of family school type things. Bible, Science, History, Geography, and so forth.

So, now that you know a bit about my criteria for curriculum, here is our list for this year:

Preschool:

Books from Rod and Staff, a variety of their story books and a few of their workbooks

Kindergarten:

Again, I am using Rod and Staff books. We are combining our preschool and kindy children. I will do a bit of “extra” with the kindies, but for the most part they work together. Trying to get a hold of McRuffy Math K for her on the cheap.

Second Grade:

Bible–Our 24 Family Ways, 21 rules of this house, Yearly Bible reading plan.

Math–MeRuffy Math–this is new to us, and I LOVE it!!!

Phonics–Explode the Code

Spelling–A Reason for Spelling–Again, new to us this year, and we really enjoy it.

Grammar–Easy Grammar–she really likes it.

Reading–Various books that correspond with her ability, and our studies.

Fifth Grade:

Bible–Our 24 Family Ways, 21 Rules of this House, Yearly Bible Reading Plan, and Proverbs People

Math–Teaching Textbooks–New this year–LOVE it!!!

Spelling–Phonetic Zoo, and SpellQuizzer

Grammar– Character Quality Language Arts, Writing Tales and Shurely Grammar–pulling meat from all to put together a custom curriculum for our dysgraphic student.

Reading- various books that correspond with other studies through the year.

Family:

Copywork–I make handwriting, copywork and notebooking pages for everyone using Startwrite.

History–TrughQuest and Homeschool in the Woods Time Travelers CDs. After a bunch of prodding from God, we are also adding The Prairie Primer and supplementing with some units that will go with it. It will over ride some of the listed curriculum at various times, as it does cover many subjects.

Science–Apologia/Jeanie Fulbright Exploring Creation with Zoology series–We have Flying Creatures, Swimming Creatures, and Land Animals. I do this differently then others. Our family is nuts of nature study and zoology, therefore as we find something that interests us, I go to these books and put together a plan to dig deeper.

Geography–A Child’s World of Geography.

Unit Studies–We do unit studies all the time. Many of our studies will be put together using Download N Gos via The Old Schoolhouse Store. I also put together our own studies as we see fit.

We also use various computer games to supplement. Quarter Mile Math, Rainbow Rock, Typing Instructor, are among a few.

I am also on The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew and will have lots of curriculum to review and add in and out throughout the year.

This post is part of the Heart of the Matter Not Back to School Blog Walk. For those waiting for Holy Housewives, it will be later, as I have a sick child, and haven’t written it yet.