And….some of you may be wondering what we are doing…..and some, well, you have your own homes to run and are quite busy. So, I’m going to make this year’s Homeschool Curriculum post, short, sweet and to the point. Because this is my year of keeping things SIMPLE (remember)?
Our home is filled with the laughter and energy of three children, who are learning and growing. That means I have a lot going on (who doesn’t, right?). So, my desire is to integrate and combine as many subjects and topics as possible. However, I want each of my children to learn in the way they were created to learn, about topics that interest them and help them grow a love of learning.
Sounds close to impossible……but, that’s where I believe God gives us families that are united, in our gifts, talents…and areas where are are a little weak.
With that being said……this is what we are doing this year.
Bible and Apologetics
We will continue to read the Bible Chronologically and discuss in the morning and at lunch. Daddy will end each evening with Family Bible Worship.
Apologetics:
Who is My Neighbor – this is the third book in the series….and we have loved the first two, I can’t wait to begin this one!
Combined studies for 1st, 4th and 5/6th grade
Integrated Unit Studes through GeoMatters – Paths of Settlemen:
History, Language Arts, Nature Studies, Geography and Art
Now, if you read my blog, you know, I am not a ‘box’ girl. I do not like boxes, I do not want to be put in a box…and I don’t want my children there, either. And I found great freedom last year with notebooking based on the Principle aspects and reading of Beautiful Feet Books. We still have a few books we need to finish there and we will, once we hit those particular timeframes with Paths of Settlement.
I LOVE Paths of Settlement, because it wraps up all that I need in a beautiful package and I have the freedom to pick and choose what i want to do and how I want to do it with each child~a more in depth post about this fabulous curriculum will come later at the month…for now, suffice it to say, Debbie Strayer is one of my heroes.
CORE
- DK Pocket Weather
- DK Pocket Rocks and Minerals
- Klutz Watercolor Book
- Wee Sing CD/Book
- U.S. History Atlas
- Children’s Illustrated US Atlas
- Eat Your Way Through the USA
- Profiles from History: Volume 2
- Rock Study Kit
- U.S. Presidents Flash Cards
- U.S. PlaceMap
- Large Outline Map of the U.S.
- Mark-It Timeline of History
- USA Activity CD
Resources
Courage of Sarah Noble
Matchlock Gun
Ambush in the Wilderness
Abigail Adams
The American Revolution
Guns for General Washington
George Washington
The Cabin Faced West
Justin Morgan Had a Horse
Francis Scott Key
The Eve of Revolution
Drive Through History, America
Robert E. Lee
Abraham Lincoln
Clara Barton
Laura Ingalls Wilder, Young Pioneer
Janie’s Freedom
Samuel F. Smith
The Klondike Gold Rush
Theodore Roosevelt
Yankee Blue or Rebel Grey
Good Ol’ Cowboy Stories
2012 Election
We will revisit our Freedom Friday series to cover the Mayflower Compact, The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America. I am currently in the process of improving those posts, but would love for you to use them for free in your home or co-op. I am forever grateful for Lynn from Founder’s Academy for helping me with those!!!
MUSIC
Music Lessons This year, the children will be taking violin and piano (if I can get them in….I have procrastinated in signing up for lessons and am praying we can get spots for each of the children!)
Composers: Young Scholar’s Guide to Composrs
I am REALLY excited about this curriculum from Bright Ideas Press!!! We will study one to two composers per month using this curriculum – have you heard about it?
Science
Yes, Path’s of Settlement has science/nature…..and it is a very good study about Weather and Rocks (which my children are enjoying), they have also requested to continue with Apologia Science at least twice a week – yes, they love science.
Now, this is where it gets a little sticky……..and I pray that my two older children are going to step up to the plat
e for what they have signed up for.
4th and 5/6h grade Anatomy and Physiology
1st Grade Swimming Creatures
Math
1st, 4th and 6th Grade
General Math: Math U See (all three)
1st Grade only: Life of Fred (I want to try these out with the little guy as he begins his Alpha from Math U See)
All grades: These Living Math Books
Writing
IEWA – 4th Grade and IEW B for 6th Grade
1st Grade: IEW PAL (finishing last year’s curriculum)
4th and 6th grade
Books of Interest to be selected at the library and the McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers
4th Grade – My daughter will be using Reading Horizons to help increase her ability to read
1st Grade
Books of Interest and the books from the Sonlight Core 1 that I already have in our home, as well as continueing with IEW A
Notebooking
Now, I will be wrapping ALL of this together using the great resources over at Notebooking Pages. I love the pages available and the new notebooking publisher is fantastic. (if you have not joined…you need to, prices are increasing in September 2012)
As always, I will continue to use Jimmie’s Collage and the Notebooking Fairy for additional notebooking supplies.
Extra Curricular
My first grader will be working on some fun activities from Mama’s Learning Corner
Games -
we will be adding a ton of games this year – as we will play at least one board game daily. This is a list of the games we have (added) to date)…I have a few more on my wish list
- Scrabble Alphabet Scoop
- Blokus Classics Game
- Say Anything
- Apples to Apples Junior – The Game of Crazy Comparisons!
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Foreign Language
- Prima Latina: French
- Rosetta Stone: French
Additional Geography
WonderMaps by Bright Ideas Press
Schedule
I am using the Ultimate Homeschool Planner for managing our home and homeschool this year. I absolutely love the simplicity of it and - I enjoy writing in it every week!!!!
And…I’m adding some things to a list for me to learn this year….maybe I’ll share that later. But for now, I want to know:
What are your children learning this year?
Subscribers can share their 2012-13curriculum comments here .
Don’t forget to link up with the Not Back To school , Becoming a Strong Woman of God, (school) days gone by and the Modest Mom Blog (psst….we already started school, but we’re going to attend not-back to school parties all week – are you doing the same?)
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. GeoMatters, Apologia and Bright Ideas Press have provided their products to my family in exchange for our honest opinion. I will be posting about these great curriculum choices throughout the year…no other compensation has been or will be received. Reading Horizons has also provided their homeschool online curriculum for a paid review. That review will be published this month….with my honest opinion. Suffice it to say, we do not utilize any curriculum we are not fully in love with, regardless of whether we are paid to review the products or not!
Looks good. I am trying out that planner this year. I also got my high schooler the four-year hs planner. Hoping it works for him.
Sara, I am LOVING it and my oldest and middle have one… the one for younger students! I can’t wait to see how this year goes! It’s going to be exciting!
I love seeing all of the products you’re using and really like how you organized the post. (It gives me some ideas for next year.
)
Thanks for sharing your homeschool ideas with the world. I look forward to reading them all!
Jennifer, you have always been an inspiration to me….wish I had pictures of the kids during our first two weeks of school…using all of these amazing products, but I’ve been so busy….no time for taking pictures, editing, etc…..can’t do it all!!! Love you dearly and I know we are going to meet in real life this year!
I can’t wait to dive into some of the other Apologia What We Believe books. I will be looking forward to hearing about this one as you go through it this year.
Kim, You are really going to enjoy them…..they are so awesome. You are in my prayers, sweet friend! Thank you for sharing and encouraging others!
We will be done with Book 1 by Christmas (we’ve gone through it twice!) I know we will want to start Book 2 right away.
What a wonderfully full and blessed year you are already having. I’m with Jennifer – I love how you have organized this post. Very easy to read and enjoy your resources. So many things I am remembering that I didn’t really include. Like the election study we plan to do. But that’s what weekly wraps are for, right?
Tricia, Thanks – I have been so incredibly busy these past two weeks, I almost did not get to it, but my dh took the kids to the pool and I had a little quiet time. Thanks for the words of encouragement….it’s going to be a busy year….I’ll need a lot of prayer from my friends! And…I left a few things off, too…that I’m now remembering as I read other posts – so yes, that’s what the wrap-ups are for!!!!
So many things that you wrote reminded me of things I forgot to include in my planning list this year. It definitely sounds like you have found what works for you and have a great year ahead!
Sharla, Thanks! Last year, I started pulling my little guy in….this year, it’s a full day for him, I’ll need a ton of prayers….
Hi Rebecca – It looks like you have a great year planned! I love that you added the 2012 Election into your line-up! I plan on doing a unit on it at that time, but didn’t think of including it on my list.
And if you are interested in connecting with other Apologia users, check out the Apologia Blog Roll that I host on my blog at:
http://myjoy-filledlife.blogspot.com/2012/07/apologia-blog-role-2012-2013.html
Blessings!
Sarah,
Oh, I remember seeing your link up for Apologia users – thank you for the reminder! Feel free to utilize my free lessons for the election…I am re-writing them and creating graphics…to help them aesthetically. However, the videos are great and the work sheets are very nice! Of course, notebooking would be great with them, too!
Thanks so much Rebecca!
We school similarly, lots of notebooking and keeping the children learning together as much as possible. I have 7 kiddos ranging from 11 years down to 6 months old. I shared our plans in the NBTS blog hop here:
http://ourbusyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2012/08/curriculum-for-seven-kids-2012-2013.html
We’ll be in the 1800′s in history, oldest has physics while the younger ones do science together with living books and nature study all around.
Tristan,
Thanks! I’ll have to drop by so I can soak up your wisdom for homeschooling multiple children…. I seem to be stretched a little more this year since I added our little guy to the mix.
It sure looks like a great plan! My younger child is entering first grade, too, and we also love to combine subjects whenever possible. I will be checking out your free history lessons for our unit on the elections and government before the 2012 presidential election. Thank you for offering those, they look like a great resource!
I had no idea you were using Trail Guide to Learning – woot woot !!
I’m linking up this to my today’s post! Love the variety !!
Yes ma’am…I’m slowly writing my review in snippets here and there throughout the days of our homeschool….I must not be doing a good job, though if you didn’t realize we were using it. I hope to have a full post up by the end of the month, but I’ll be sharing it through the whole year.
I’m going to try out a Life of Fred high school level book for my 15 year old. He’s done up through Algebra 2 with Saxon and I totally believe in Saxon and love it, but he’s not a mathematician and is just done. So I’m going to give him Life of Fred just to read and browse through and work problems as he likes or not. We’ll see how that goes.
I can’t wait to hear how it works out for your 15 yr old…..I have heard great things about it… Maybe it will spark his love of learning math again.
Looks like you’re going to have a great year! We’re using the same Composers study for our Music Study this year… REALLY looking forward to it!
Good Luck!
~Sherri
Sherri, The composer study was definitely an answer to a prayer. My husband and I could not find one that met all of our requirements…and then, i found this one! So excited about it!
We will also be using POS this year. I notice that you are supplementing in several areas. You mentioned your children liked Science and requested to continue. Did you feel POS lacking in writing and reading?
Becky,
For ‘lacking’….no. However, I am not very proficient in my understanding of writing…and already had the IEW programs provided to us… my children love the IEW program and asked to continue it. So, I do not have them do all of the writing in POS, as we are using IEW. For reading, they recommend 20 minutes of reading per day with something the child has chosen….so, the reading that I have listed…is due to that. For Science…we just flat out love science and often have two science curriculums going at one time anyway…and my children requested the two topics this year in addition to what we are doing with POS – so, not lacking….just filling a request for a love of learning….now, if they ‘do it all’…it will be interesting…but, I don’t want to lose them by not providing them with what does interest them. But…we’ll see…it may take two years to get through all of it and I’m fine with that!!!! GREAT questions!
My 3rd grader is doing Swimming Creatures and she is so excited! We are starting our ocean box tomorrow.
Good luck with your school year.
OH, I can’t wait to see your Ocean Box!!!!!
I’ve heard lots of good things about Paths of Settlement. It looks like you have a good year planned.:-)
Looks like a great school year is planned!
We primarily stick with the online programs, but that seems natural to me, since we are all gadget junkies, lol. Neither of my boys enjoy math. They do well enough with it, and the math that they work on in their core (Time4Learning) certainly is more than enough. But I would like for them to NOT grumble every time it’s math time. I have heard a lot of good things about Life of Fred, and the hubs and I are in the process of checking it out. I definitely like that it’s something that could work for both of them, even though they are 5 grade levels apart!
I saw several things listed in your post that I’m unfamiliar with, so I’m off to do some Googling!
Thanks for sharing and I hope you have a wonderful school year!
Katie
Katie, Let me know if I can answer any questions regarding our curriculum. Have a fabulous school year!
Thanks so much!
Popped by from the “Not-Back-to-School” Blog Hop: Curriculum Week!
Hope that you have a happy homeschool year! Happy planning for 2012-2013!
Hope that you will pop by to say hello over at my blog and my Pinterest boards too!
Colleen a.k.a. Pinterest Mama
http://pinterest.com/f5th/
Sunrise Learning Lab
http://sunriselearninglab.blogspot.com/2012/08/new-school-year-right-around-corner.html
Thank you for sharing! I know what you mean I can hardly believe I am on my 7th year of homeschooling
We are also using U.S. Presidents Flash Cards and U.S. State Flash Cards. As far as Anatomy and Physiology I am waiting till next year as I am also enrolled in college and will be taking A&P 1 and 2 this year and I feel I can better teach after I myself have completed my own studies. We also love Unit Studies! We like to do topics that my children are interested in. Our core is a program we use online called Time4Learning. In addition to all of this we will be focusing on reading and doing book reports.