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• Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - SHARE and Tell: What Do YOU Use for Curriculum?

Okay ladies... it's that time of year for me when I sit back and start evaluating our homeschool year, thus far.  I hate this time of year, really, because so far in the five years of doing this, I have yet to be completely satisified with the way things have went.  (My storage closet full of various homeschool curriculums would prove that!)

This year is a little different, in that I have learned a lot about myself and how I like to teach.  I'm also learning more of how my children like to learn.  So far, we've stuck with Math-U-See for our mathmatics from the very beginning.  But as far as every other subject goes... I think I've tried them all (okay... just kidding... probably only half... a;sdfja;sdlkjf;aslkdjf).

So I'm curious what you're all using out there and why... I'm okay with some of the other things we've been doing, and will happy to continue with them the remaining year... but I'm not really happy with my history.  There are aspects of it I really like (love the color pages, puzzles, paper dolls, ect!), but there isn't as much bible history in it as I would have liked.  I really would like to have a history curriculum that is God's history... are there any out there like that?  I also would like it to be from a christian standpoint, and not ingrained with certain denominational beliefs... you know... just the facts. 

Not only am I asking you to share what you use for your curriculum, but any that you've tried and not liked... be sure to tell the reasons why.  We know in teaching our children that they're aren't all the same and don't learn in the same way all the time... so why, as teachers, would we be any different?  What's good for one, may not be for another and vice versa.  I'd also really appreciate hearing specifically about your history/bible program as well, and if anyone has used, or is using History Alive by Diana Waring, History textbooks from Christian Liberty Press?

SHARE and Tell:
  • What have you used or are currently using for:
    • Bible
    • History
    • Science
    • Math
    • Language Arts / Phonics
    • any other things... (electives, character training, ect...)
  • With each subject, please share the "pros" and "cons" you've found with the material (please include the subjects you may have tried and quit as well... this will be helpful to many others too).
  • UNSCHOOLERS - I want your input too!  Specifically, what do you do to cover "history" in your home?  Please share any other comments you'd like on your way of homeschooling!
Thanks for sharing!  May this be a blessing not only for me as I seek what the Lord would have me teach my children, but for those of you who may be in a similar situation with one subject or another.

In Him,
Amy

(If you post this on your blog - I know this certainly could take enough space - please leave a comment here so we can find it... Trackbacks are great too, so if you have any questions on those, I'll try to help... just email me.  Thanks!  I've also shared my answers in the "comments" section...)

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Comments

•Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - Untitled Comment

Posted by kleo30
This is the time of year that I evaluate what we've done. In 9 years I've never been completely satisfied with how it's going. Some years are better than others. This year is OK. I just made an adjustment with our Algebra and my son can hardly wait to get his new program.

We use and love Sonlight for history. I'm not using it for high school, but rather am using Notgrass World History and American next year. We love books here, so look for literature based programs that are little planning for me :)

Science we're using Apologia curriculum. We are using the Young Explorer series this year and are loving Astronomy. It has a nice mix of reading, notebooking and experiments. We've used General and are using Physical this year and will use biology next year.

Math has always been Saxon. We've loved it til Algebra. We're switching to Teaching Textbooks for high school math.

I cannot find any LA that I am happy with :) We're trying BJU next year. I want a "canned curriculum" and I am tired LOL. My kids are weak in LA but are much stronger in math and science. I think it is a boy thing.

For Bible we use the Bible and For Instructions in Righteousness. I use that book to get verses to copy and memorize.

Gosh, this got long. I don' t know how to do a trackback. I'll quit rambling now LOL.
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•Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - I'm curious,,,

Posted by Juliestew
but don't have much to offer in the way of advice yet. Mine are still young...7,6,4,almost 2. I'm very attracted to the relaxed homeschool way of life and am still weeding my way through all of this. I am curious about Math U See. I like the name but when I look at it on the internet it looks awfully bland, no color, all black and white. I'd love to actually see a book or whatever the curriculum looks like. Any suggestions or help?
Juliestew (julie)
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•Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - Untitled Comment

Posted by DiWilliams
I just posted my answers on my blog ... wow, that took a long time to type!
Blessings ~ Diane
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•Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - My answers...

Posted by DandelionSeeds
MATH - Math-U-See: As I stated above, this is the only thing we've stuck with from the very beginning... I've really enjoyed it for all three of my children that have started school. They also have a CD, which I would highly recommend in getting as you can "pop it in" and they can learn their lesson from someone else... my kids have enjoyed this (a little variety) and it's been nice on me as well because it frees up time for me to help another child. We use erasable colored pencils for them to color with (in correlating with the manipulative blocks) and it really sets up foundational qualities for math (and since I was and still am, horrible at math... and hubby is not, it's important for my kids not to have to count on the fingers! tee hee). The one con to this program is some of the verbage he uses to help the kids grasp what the numbers mean... for example: "ten" is called "one-ty"... the "T" meaning tens... it takes a little bit of time to help the kids get that... two-ty is twenty and so on... He explains that William is called Bill but his real name is William... and that's how the numbers are as well. As I said, it's a little tricky, but it's based on building a strong foundation in understanding the place values and so it was worth going through for me, anyway. I also like that it carries through to high school... I've thought of Saxon (seems to be very popular, but have heard from many that they stopped using it in High School). I guess the kids have never complained about it, so if it ain't broke... don't fix it! a;sldkfj

SCIENCE - A.D.A.M. The Inside Story: This is a CD and does an amazing job on explaining anatomy. Overall, it's christian (the characters are Adam and Eve) but there are still a couple of comments like "if Adam has a few beers" and Adam and Eve getting ready for a Halloween party (we don't "do" halloween) that I wasn't thrilled with. I really can't say enough good about it inspite of those couple of things... my children have loved it (all ages) and there's other things to interact with, as well as quizzes and more advanced things for later on in high school. It's done a great job explaining things, and we've done other things to accompany the CD to reinforce what they've learned. The The Anatomy Coloring Book has been excellent and would be great for high schoolers as well... For more "hands on" activities, we've used The Body Book and love that too! Because I'm pregnant, we've also added The Nine Month Miracle that has been great to "see" what is happening to the baby. (It's a CD with Adam and Eve again.) In the spring and throughout the summer (something fun to do) I plan to begin Jeannie Fulbright's Zoology Science book and I'm very excited (as I KNOW my boys will be!)

LANGUAGE ARTS - After great searching and desiring a complete language arts program that I didn't have to piece spelling, vocabulary, reading, ect with, I think we've finally found it! We just started Language Arts Through Literature a few weeks ago, but I'm enjoying it so far. It's been especially good for my second grader who has struggled "getting" reading. I hope this will be the phonics to finally work. My kindergartner is doing it as well (with the second grader) and my fourth grader has been able to do it on his own. Some have said the spelling is easier than it should be, however, after years of not doing spelling with him, it's working out well (so in that respect, I'm probably not a good one to ask on that part).

HISTORY - As I said above, I've been doing Story of the World: The Ancient Times and haven't been particularly happy with the "skimming" of biblical references. There's more reference than some curriculums, but my nine year old is "correcting" things that are in the book even... so... I need something more and something that I don't have to read ahead of time to make sure that I don't have to take out things that aren't fact. Maybe the later books are better, but this one has both minimal biblical references, along with myths that my second grader is having a hard time differentiating between. I have to keep reminding him what is fact or not, and it makes me wonder what he'll remember. The Activity Book that goes with it has been fun for them and I would tell anyone that's going to use the book to get the activity book as it helps reinforce the reading.

BIBLE - I believe (or would like to find) a curriculum that ties history and bible together! As for scripture verses... the kids are in AWANA, so they memorize things for that. We also do some devotions and get read different books about people that influenced the world for God. I'm really into the life application of the bible and making it real to my children, and right now at their ages, this seems to be going well for us. My nine year old just began the The Power of a Praying Kid and I also have been reading books from the The Sowers Series as well as some from Christian Heroes: Then and Now Series. Both are really great. I've also been reading Hero Tales: Volume 1 with my nine year old and have really liked that too. (And just found out there was a volume 2 and 3!)

EXTRAS - Yes, I'm crazy and we've even added a study in The Princess and the Kiss. I just LOVE the book and I'm doing it with the boys and girls because I think it's SO important. This wasn't taught to me, so it's especially dear to my heart now that my life is so different. When we're done, I'd like to do the study on the Squire and the Scroll as well.

Okay.. that's enough for now... I'm excited to see what you guys have to say! Keep the comments comin'!
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•Wednesday, January 25, 2006 - What we use

Posted by eyecorn
This is what we use for DS...DD is still too young....

Math: VideoText Algebra...DS loves it. We tried to switch just to see how it would go...none of them made it past 10 minutes. We really like the way they teach...very straightforward, not tricks and gimmicks.

History/Geography: We have struggled here. SOTW was too basic for him. I did buy the book on CD and we enjoyed it (DD likes it, too). But the student text is too young. So, I've had to supplement and pull together stuff for him. He just finished the "Uncle Eric" book on Ancient Rome and how it affects us today. We are using Bible Trails Geography from Geography Matters...I really like this because it covers Bible history and not just geography.

Science: We used Rainbow Science...we like the way the book is written, but DS had a 3 year program done in 1 1/2. So, we supplemented. I also had him read "Exploring the World Of..." books from Master Books...these are GREAT science books.
Next year we are going to use Bridgette Ardoin's science curriculum.

I'm at a point where I need to get DS on a good history program...I'd be curious to see if anyone posts about Tapestry of Grace..

Michelle
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•Wednesday, January 25, 2006 - i blogged!!

Posted by Peakmore_Academy
just wanted to say THANK YOU for checking up on me from time to time. i've blogged again now, and will try to keep up on it!

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•Wednesday, January 25, 2006 - Ahh Curriculum

Posted by JeanaG
This has been a never-ending cycle of excitement, frustration and disillusionment for the past nine years. I've ended up writing my own at times, but there have been some things I have stuck with. Sorry I don't have links. I don't know how to do that yet. :-)
Bible- Greenleaf's Guide to the Old Testament - I find myself going back to this often. It's simple to use (read the Bible, narrate, ask questions). I've also used the Children's Inductive Bible Study (2nd Timothy, Sermon on the Mount, etc). http://www.lamppostpublishing.com/bible_studies_cibs.htm These are good starting about 4th grade. The kids can mostly do them on their own, and it gets them studying the Word.
Beginning LA - Sing, Spell, Read and Write - tried others, always come back to this one
later LA- I use ABecca for Grammar, but only once every few years because it's too repetitive for me. It's very solid and thourough. Otherwise I use Easy Grammar and book studies such as Progeny Press and Total Language Plus. I purchased Write Your Roots this year and have done all of one lesson. I like it, but I think we'll get into it more next year. Maybe...
First few years - Five in a Row - I love FIAR. It's so easy to use. You can get as elaborate or stay as simple whatever you want. It goes along with my philosophy of not making small children push too many pencils.
History - This is the one I go round and round with. I've tried Diana Waring's History Alive. I liked it to a degree, but I got overwhelmed by how many resources I needed that I didn't have and never finished it. I have been a bit more successful with Mystery of History. It's a lot easier to use. You can read the story and do or not do many of the activities as you want. I also used Konos - like the timeline, got overwhelmed. I also love many of the sources at http://www.amblesideonline.org Many of the books are right on line. One book I purchased that I love is Trial and Triumph (Church History) by Richard Hannula. We read this as a history/devotional/character/fun book. I've also used Heart of Wisdom's Biblical Holidays book so the children can relate the their Jewish/Biblical history. heartofwisdom.com
Science - Mostly Nature Study - love the Christian Liberty nature readers and Anna Comstock's big black book (although this can be overwhelming). I tried Considering God's Creation, but got bogged down with all the little paper books you have to make. Some people really like this, however. This year I purchased Real Science 4 Kids Chemistry book. We've done one lesson. If I don't have all the materials, I get bogged down with it. My friend is using the Reason for Science which she loves because they give you all the materials you need. I will probably order this next year. http://www.areasonfor.com/HomeSchool/ We also do a lot of unit studies in this area, which I make up.
Character - I use Personal Help for Girls with my older girls. This is a great study. You can discuss the things in it, if there are things you don't agree with. A friend of mine LOVES Maidens of Virtue www.visionforum.com and I plan on looking into that. I've made up a lot of stuff myself in this area. I've always wanted to order Character First. http://store.characterfirst.com/iwwidb.pvx?;multi_item_submit A friend of mine loved it, and I feel certain that I will too. :-)

Sorry this is such a long post. I think I'll post it on my blog as well.
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•Wednesday, January 25, 2006 - Untitled Comment

Posted by RaisingFaith
We are "relaxed schoolers", not quite unschoolers because we do have a sort of ecclectic approach to our materials.

Right now we are working through Star Meade's "Training Hearts, Teaching Minds" (I might have flipped the title, LOL). It is a guide through the Catechism. We really like it.

For History, we are usin' "The Mystery of History", I've not had any objection. It's Biblically based. We also read random historical books (fiction and non-fiction) as well as movies, Vision Forum carries a lot. I keep meaning to start a timeline so we can plot out what we read about so that our kids can plug in and see where things are in history. While we don't use the principle approach, they explain a really great method of analyzing events in history through a biblical worldview. You might check into that. Another idea is gettin' a hold of a chronological Bible (The Daily Bible is NIV, but there are KJV ones too) and usin' that as your ancient history and then check out books from the library as you come across each new people group.

The rest is pretty much whatever we're interested in. The kids are pretty animal crazy, so that usually takes care of a lot of science as they love to check out animal books from the library. Our "Animals of North America" encyclopedia is probably the most used book in our home other than the Bible. This year Dh is doin' Chemistry with my oldest and they are both havin' a blast (uh, no pun intended). I'm hopin' to get some field guides so we can start gettin' into plants.

We're pretty happy with it, there's some tweakin' that needs to be done. I think I'll be "tweakin'" every year until I graduate our last child. LOL! I'm hopin' to incorporate more Charlotte Mason methods next year, but we'll see.

I know I didn't follow your format, LOL! Sorry! I hope my ramblin' is a little bit helpful. LOL!
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•Wednesday, January 25, 2006 - Here's our homeschool ..

Posted by OurHappyFamily
Keep in mind .. my kids are still little .. my oldest is 6yo.

Bible - We do our own daily devotions. I have a Kenneth Taylor devotional book and many children's Bibles. The kids are in AWANA so we get memory verses there. I also want to get some things from Doorposts for extra ideas.

History - We use Sonlight. Currently we are using both the K and Pre-K Cores. My oldest loves to be read to so this has been ideal.

Science - We use Sonlight. I like it but I may switch to a textbook type of curriculum. Not sure on this yet. Science has never been my favorite subject so this is a toughie for me.

Language Arts - We *love* Explode the Code. It alone has taught my two oldest to read. I also read Reading Reflex, which is an awesome book describing just how our children learn to read. Reading Reflex also offers some activities but I rarely do them. I usually apply what I've learned there to regular reading activity. As far as learning to read, I also have my kids watch the Leap Frog Letter Factory and Word Factory videos. Moving forward though, I'm unsure yet as to what we will do. I'm not a big fan of Sonlight LA, which I have used in the past. So I'm looking elsewhere. I was thinking about doing Rod & Staff English which I hear is very thorough. I need to do some more investigating. We also use Wordly Wise for reading comprehension/vocabulary building.

Handwriting - I am going back to Handwriting Without Tears. I did that first with my oldest .. then switched this year to A Reason for Handwriting .. but plan to switch back to HWT. It is much more simplistic and the workbooks aren't quite so busy.

Math - We use Singapore Math. I really liked the Earlybird Series. The Primary series just hasn't been working for my oldest. Math is not "her thing" and I notice that she just doesn't comprehend it the way that they state it. If I twist it around, she usually comes to understand it .. but she really complicates it. So I'm looking around here .. thinking BJU or Math-U-See. Now my oldest son could easily do Singapore's Primary Series as he flew through the Earlybird Series months ago. Then again, math *is* "his thing".

Others - We like the Draw, Write, Now series just for fun. And I'm thinking about adding in Artistic Pursuits next year for my dd (she's the little artist). I'm also looking into either Muzzy or Rosetta Stone for foreign language, most likely Spanish.

I think that covers it. Great idea Amy .. to get everyone's ideas on curriculum. I hope many more participate. It's fun to see what everyone else is using.

Blessings .. Brooke
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•Wednesday, January 25, 2006 - Quick Suggestion

Posted by Melkhi
about history. Maybe you could try to combine SOTW I with the Vos Story Bible. There is prolly a schedule combining the two somewhere on the internet, but I've lost track of it. You could try asking if anyone has one on the WTM curriculum board. You can use the Vos story Bible to help you to decide which Bible event to cover, since it hits the highlights, but you could even just read the story right out of the Bible (Vos has the Bible references listed with the stories) and if you do narrations, have your kids narrate the Bible event and put it in their notebooks with their SOTW narrations. You can find coloring pages of the Bible stories on the internet.

I liked using SOTW, because we always discussed the futility of the pagan way of thinking and compared the false gods to the one true God. I didn't major on the myths, though we did read them (it is interesting to note how there may be some grains of truth lingering from the truth, though very distorted), but I didn't have my kids color the false gods in the coloring pages.

I had a few quibbles with the text, but just did parental editing. I usually take exception to most any history text that I read. They are written by imperfect human beings, and I'm imperfect too! It is great that your nine year old is picking up discrepancies for himself.

SOTW is well-written narrative history.

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•Wednesday, January 25, 2006 - Tried them all (most)!?!

Posted by Anonymous
Gosh, 7 years and this year I've finally found some stuff that I really like.
We do Sonlight for history, science, and bible. Although I really loved christian liberty press stuff and the godly perspective they have. Singapore Math, Learning Language Arts Through Literature. (I LOVE THIS! LA curriculum that I liked was so hard to find), Evan-Moore Phonics Fundamentals for my ds in Kindergarten. I like a really flexible, no prep approach and these are the things that have fit into our home.
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•Wednesday, January 25, 2006 - Ooops!

Posted by grace4gayle
That was my post above. I forgot to log in.
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•Thursday, January 26, 2006 - I use

Posted by Amber
Math U See too--Love it!

LLATL- DD 9yo and DS 7yo use it and like it so far.

History/Bible/Science--we use Heart of Wisdom (HOW), it's GREAT!

We don't HOW for all of sci. and history, but definately Bible. they have e-books which I love now, it's convient. Plus there are GREAT links, you should check it out: http://homeschool-books.com/xcart/home.php. you can get sample lessons too.

With science we do a lot of animal stuff (kinda sorta unschooling) due to the farm animals.

Unschooling--I found this website to be helpful: http://www.suite101.com/lesson.cfm/19413/2976/6

This year felt more to me like my 1st year of homeschooling than the 1st year of homeschooling, but I think the best. I've only been HSing for 3 years.

0:) Amber
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•Monday, February 6, 2006 - History

Posted by Anonymous
I just read your blog and wondered if you have looked into Tapestry of Grace history curriculum. What you described you wanted in a history program is exactly what is in Tapestry of Grace. Take a look at their website. www.tapestryofgrace.com
They have a forum on the website..click on "forum" on the left of the screen after going into the in depth website. Any of your questions can be answered there.
It's an AWESOME history curriculum. There is also a yahoo group where there are many ladies who have been using it ever since it came out. If you have any questions about the curriculum you can ask it there, also. The yahoo group is called TOGLooseThreads.

Hope this helps!!~
Susan :)
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I'M "JUST" A MOM...
and a woman seeking the Lord's Will (daily), a wife (striving to keep the romance alive), a "Smamma" (Step- mother) of one and a homeschooling mom of seven (I was never going to have children), who starts every day over (after messing SOME thing up the day before), knowing God's grace is overflowing (just like my laundry), and so thankful He's blessed me more than I'll ever deserve.

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