Tell me about your curriculm

[Garnet]

Please include deatils to what books, etc. I'd like to hear a "mom pinion" about the differnces. Thanks! :heart

[Micah]

We are using Ambleside....it is a Charlotte Mason philosophy. :)

We use living books (instead of text/workbooks, and nature study for science)
www.amblesideonline.org

[blessedmomof4]

We follow the Classical Education style. Some links:
http://www.triviumpursuit.com/index.htm
http://www.classicalhomeschooling.org/
http://www.welltrainedmind.com/classed.html
http://www.gbt.org/clasced.html

The Well Trained Mind (http://www.welltrainedmind.com) - This is what I try to follow. I don't implement everything they suggest (i.e. we don't do all the notebooking, memorization, etc.).

Science - Unit studies that follow Classical Ed/WTM

History - Story of the World Volume 1 this year. (http://216.105.52.221/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=2) I don't have the Activity Guide this year but plan on getting it for Volume 2 next year.

Rod & Staff (http://www.milestoneministries.com/store/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=SC:)
Math - I've used the 1st and 2nd grade books so far. I only use the TM and student books, not the blacklines, flashcards, etc. I really like how they use repetition to teach. Sometimes it can get boring when my dd has caught on to the concept being taught. When that happens I just shorten the lessons (i.e. instead of doing a page of repetitive problems, I have her do the rest of the lesson w/ money and place value).
Reading - I've only used the 1st grade books with my oldest dd. She caught on to reading SO quickly that she was reading 3rd and 4th grade level books from the library before we finished R&S 1st grade! I'm impressed with how they gradually introduce words and the repetition.
Phonics & English - I've used 1st and 2nd grade Phonics and we just started 2nd grade English. I like the progression of how things are taught.

Handwriting Without Tears (http://www.hwtears.com) - Used Get Set for School, Letters And Numbers for Me, My Printing Book, and Cursive Handwriting. Last year I switched to Italic with my oldest dd and loved it until cursive. We switched back this year and she did MUCH better w/ cursive. I don't think I'll have my other dd's use italic.

McGrawHill Spectrum Spelling - I'm not thrilled with it but my dd LOVES it. She's in the 4th grade book right now and is doing well. She likes all the puzzles and activities in it.

Things I have used in the past:
Getty & Dubay Italic (http://www.cep.pdx.edu/titles/italic_series/) - See comments above.
KONOS (http://www.konos.com) - I LOVE using unit studies! This just didn't work for our family. I would like to have the volumes anyway so I can incorporate the ideas into WTM.
[b]McGrawHill Spectrum - Language Arts[b] - Just recently switched to R&S for English. The Spectrum books (my dd was in the 3rd grade one) just wasn't challenging enough.

WHEW!! I think I got everything! lol

[erinee]

I'm using Ambleside, too, and a little bit of FIAR, especially with Megan. For math we are doing Miquon, but we might switch to Math-U-See at some point. For phonics & reading practice, we're doing Pathways. We'll do a little Spanish, too, but probably just the Jumpstart Spanish software to keep it fun & light.

I think that pretty much covers everything!

[hearttender4]

Are you considering for an 8 year old boy? I was thinking you said that on another thread. My 8 year old son reads a chapter or two from a Magic Treehouse book each day, recently started Saxon math 54 (he learns math really fast though), and uses Handwriting Without Tears plus copywork or letters or his own ideas for writing. That's it for the basics. I like to keep it simple. He also listens to me read aloud from whatever we are using at the time in Bible, history, science, literature, and poetry..

[ShangriLewis]

Like everyone doesn't know that I use KONOS!! We do this in a pretty relaxed manner. We love it. I can teach all the boys at once and it's pretty low cost. I don't do any planning. I just start ordering materials from the library. We read alot during the week and then take a day every week or so to do fun hands on stuff.

Gibran is, also, doing A Reason for Handwriting and Spectrum Math 1. Although, I don't really believe in formal math education till around 10. But, he want to do it and he didn't want grade 2. It's from Staples. He has a notebook for math and that's in there along with math games and fake money. Porter does starfall.com alot and has a few cheap Kindergarten workbooks from Costco. I just bought him the Get Ready for the code book to start this next week.

I was attracted to Classical Education from The Well Trained Mind. But, we realized that we feel uncomfortable introducing other religions and some societies to our children. Right now we want them to work on their relationship with Christ and family. So, in High School we will do a Chronological study and work on Christian Worldview. We will most likely use KONOS HOW then or just make our own.

I sitll consider us very close to unschoolers because Gibran has helped me pick out our curriculum. He knows he can still spend all day in a subject even though it's not our current unit.

Heather

[JessicaTX]

I use A World Of Adventure, it's a unit study of world history chronologically. All my kids sit in for the current chapter of the book we are reading and answer questions about it. The study covers social studies, bible, science, fine art, history, language and spelling. All my kids do the art and generally science together. I use Five in a Row for my littler ones, although my ten year old often sits in on it. My 6 year old raced through Math-U-See and was through by december, so she's using the 2nd grade lifepacs I bought on sale just in case, lol. My ten year old is just using a 5th grade math workbook that I bought at the bookstore. I started with A Beka for his math, but it didn't suit us. My 10 and 6 year old both use a typing program on my computer, my 4 and 2 year old are still working on mouse control, lol. I am looking at handwriting stuff to use with my 4 year old, he can read and add and subtract, but he can't write worth beans. My older 2 get lots of handwriting practice with spelling and writing, and I also have them use their Awana books for copywork. We aren't doing any formal language yet, but are studying latin and greek roots. I'm using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons for my younger set. (The two year old loves to do lessons to, I just keep going over the first 5 with her, lol.) I was using Alpha-phonics for reading/handwriting practice, but my kids prefer EZ lessons right now. I use Reading Reflex for the games in it. Well, my kids think they are games anyway =)

[MamaBeth]

Sarah is using SOS grade 3. What I like about it: it encourages her to work independently, and she enjoys "making good grades." Not all questions are directly stated within the text, which means she has to read, pay attention and THINK about her answers. I like being able to just go into the teacher's application and decide if she should redo the lesson for more practice, or less work (like in math) because she has the concept down. I like grading her little essays and such. I like that she comes to me and says "Hey mom, did you know.." I like having the flexibility to rearrange the order the units are done in, or skip them altogether. Sarah "tested out" of a couple of the units in math rather than review them. That was easy to arrange as well. While Windows ME can have problems running the software (a problem with ME and NOT within the SOS programming), we haven't had any problems with it although we did learn that she can't have Adventures in Odyssey streaming at the same time, which again is a problem with ME and not SOS...but that just means that she has less to distract her from her work.

What I don't like about it: The third grade, and from what I can tell of the 4th grade level of History/Geography has very little actual history and geography in it. It's more like "Social Studies" than anything else. So Sarah and I are planning to do Story of the World instead. She MIGHT do level 5's History/Geography, depending on how she likes SOTW, or she may do both. Also, within Language Arts I'm finding that the spelling lesson and quizzes are too close together. That may be because of our calendar set up. So I've taken to going into it at the start of the unit, writing down each lesson's words on paper, and helping her to review them orally and in other ways than just the lesson and the Spelling Bee game (which she likes, but is hard to do with the words that are homonyms). Also, the words are arranged logically following various spelling rules, but just isn't working well for her. If you'd like a sample list I could write one down for you and try to show what I mean by it. We are considering not including spelling when we install next year's, and using another spelling program.

ALSO...SOS's new version is being launched right now. It has more games and more features, so we are both looking forward to next year's program.

In the past we've used Sonlight. I've loved it, because I love reading to the kids. They like listening to stories, just not necessarily ones from Sonlight. Some they've loved, and if they haven't liked it, it's sitting on the shelf to maybe try again later. When we tried to go by the IG, it went well, but both Sarah and I preferred to just sit down and read the stories. She liked their Science books, and so did I. Their language arts is advanced, but very solid. I liked it, but Sarah didn't. But she's dealing with dyslexia and dysgraphia too. She just really works better on the computer than on paper.

For this coming year with Logan, since he likes workbooks, we're planning to give AOP's Kindergarten Language Arts LifePacs a try, mainly because Logan is talking about using SOS when he's "big enough" which will really just depend on his reading skills although the new program will have a feature that will read the text to the student, so he may be able to use it sooner than 3rd grade. For math we've been using Miquon and will likely continue it, although I'm debating LifePacs versus Horizons. For Science we'll get the Sonlight Science K, but I don't think we'll do the activity sheets, just read and do the experiments. History/Geography will be SOTW with Sarah (and activities...we're really looking to do more activities next year and less paperwork).

[hescomingsoon]

Hi:

We started out using A Beka because that is what it seemed everyone I knew was using. We didn't like it and switched. It is quite advanced. Very long chapters, filled with, in my opinion, too much information. Then we switched to Christian Light. Didn't like that either. My one daughter is a struggling learner and I felt that these two curriculums were too much for her. So, we switched to Rod & Staff and we absolutely love it. The prices are great and the repetition is great as well as each of the lessons. Now...we don't use R&S science, we use R&S Math, Language and History.

[SandKsmama]

I've finally decided! I'm going to be schooling a 9 year old girl(she'll be nine then) and a 4.5 year old boy next year...my 9 year old has been in a classical Christian school for K-3rd, so she'll be in 4th grade and the little guy will be doing pre-K.

Math - Math-U-See www.mathusee.com (http://www.mathusee.com) My dd has spent 4 years unsuccessfully doing Saxon math, so we knew we weren't going that road. My dh and I watched the demo video from MUS and are *very* impressed by the philosophy behind it. Looks good, and next to Saxon it's the curriculum I hear about the most.

Grammar/Language Arts - I don't know yet LOL. I'm looking at Simply Grammar and some other stuff, but haven't decided about this yet. My dd is using Zaner/Bloser handwriting (http://www.zaner-bloser.com/html/HWgen.html) at her school now, so I'll probably continue with that next year. She's using A Reason for Spelling (http://www.areasonfor.com/HomeSchool/Default.aspx), which she loves, but I'm uncertain if we'll do that or not - it has kind of a lot of busywork.

Latin - Probably Latina Christiana, unless the Latin teacher from dd's school gives me her curriculum like she said she would :-)
http://www.memoriapress.com/

Everything else: Unit study with My Father's World. With dd, I'm going to do Exploring Countries and Cultures, and with ds, I'm going to do their Kindergarten program as fast or slow as he needs it. http://www.mfwbooks.com/index.htm It's has a gentle, Charlotte Mason-ish approach, has a literature base, and also has hands on activities.

hth! I'm getting excited!
Amanda

[4Cygnets]

We use

Explode the Code

A Beka Arithmetic

First Language Lessons (from A Well Trained Mind)

A Beka History and Science (we read these together very informally and supplement with lots of books from the library)

Starfall.com for reading

Handwriting Without Tears

[Sandy]

We've used a variety of things over the years. I am NOT a one-curriculum kind of gal.

Rod and Staff English--used this through the 8th grade and said "we're done" with grammar
Singapore Math (primary)
Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1 and 2
Apologia General Science, Physical Science, Biology, Chemistry, Advanced Biology (and will do Adv. Chem and Phyics with my ds)
Literature--whole books from 1st grade on (Did Little House books in 1st grade, progressed to Little Women in 5th grade, etc.) Currently my ds
(who is beginning high school) is using SMARR's Intro to Literature. I love the reading list!
History--many different sources--lots of original documents, Hakim's History of US, Carson's A Basic History of the United States, will
probably use Biblioplan/Story of the World with my youngest
Geography--Runkle's Physical Geography
Government--Skousen's The Making of America
Economics--Carson's Basic Economics
Worldview--Understanding the Times (I highly recommend this for high school students!)
Bible--mostly devotional-type studies but we also spent a semester on Courtship and Dating (see Courtship vs Dating by Jehle)
Spelling--used ASCI, but will probably use Rod and Staff with my youngest
Plan to use Professor Phonics Gives Sound Advice with my youngest

Don't like Abeka, Bob Jones or Alpha Omega...but that's just me!