Re: Am I the only one totally curriculum shopping yet?
 

For first grade:
Writing with Ease for narrations and copywork/handwriting
First Language Lessons
All About Spelling
Singapore Math
Miquon Math
Rightstart games
SotW V.1 including AG and extra reading list
Real Science Odyssey Life science in conjunction with Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding (This is a dream more than a plan at this time, but I'm hoping to work it out.)
Other things being considered: Song School Latin, Leading Little Ones to God and Lollipop Logic

Re: Am I the only one totally curriculum shopping yet?
 

Just ordered our first set... Starting K4 with Ethan this fall:nails Using Abeka.

Re: Am I the only one totally curriculum shopping yet?
 

Still just window shopping, but i have a (tentative!) Plan.
Notgrass draw to learn about jesus
notgrass walking in peace
writing with ease 2
First language lessons 2
Teaching textbooks 3 and 5
explode the code 2 (second grade)
Independent readers (fourth grade)

Looking at:
Guest hollow american history
Guest hollow physics or human body
real science 4 kids -chemistry

Re: Am I the only one totally curriculum shopping yet?
 

I've been contemplating for months...not really shopping, but browsing for sure.

We're finishing up Sonlight core B/C this year. I ended up picking & choosing and replacing a lot. So, I'm not sure if I'm going to do Sonlight again. I think I just want their read-aloud list & their reader list for next year. We're going to continue with Story of the World & Saxon math.

I have to decide if this is the year to invest in science curriculum. Mango is a science teacher, and our lives are filled with science constantly anyway. :shrug3

Re: Am I the only one totally curriculum shopping yet?
 

I'm working on it but I'm weird. I like to start a new year in the spring. Things feel new and exciting. Plus we've had a strange three months with a crying babe so we are due to start in again.

Re: Am I the only one totally curriculum shopping yet?
 

I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on Sonlight B+C. That is what I was going to do this year. What didn't you like about it? What did you replace/skip?

Re: Am I the only one totally curriculum shopping yet?
 

Well, it's kind of ridiculous...and a bit of a story, but I'll try to keep it brief & you can ask questions if you want!

We used Five in a Row (FIAR) for K-3. In 3rd grade we fizzled out a bit, and most of our weeks centered around Story of the World (SOTW), rather than FIAR. So, for 4th grade, I decided I was ready to make history w/living books the core of our curriculum, rather than FIAR. So, I purchased the Instructor's Guide (IG) for Sonlight B/C. I bought all the other materials used or borrowed from the library.

Briefly, Sonlight's IG for B/C has a schedule, which includes Bible readings & memorization, history readings, Read-Aloud schedule, poetry readings, readings from Usborne's history encyclopedia, readings from a book called Window on the World, selections from a geography songs CD, and readings from Aesop's Fables. I purchased the readers schedule separately. You can do this so that you can choose books according to your child's reading level.

So, from that list of included items, here's what I did:

- Bible readings...We kept pace with these until I decided I'd rather follow the Torah portions for the week.

- Bible Memorization - We've done some, but not all of this.

- History reading from A Child's History of the World - A month or two into the school year, I decided that I really preferred SOTW to the children's history book used by Sonlight. So, I replaced their history readings with SOTW.

- Usborne Encyclopedia - We coordinate our pages with SOTW instead.

- Read-Alouds - The first, most disappointing, thing that I discovered regarding Sonlight B/C, is that for this core, the Read-Alouds do NOT coordinate with the history core. It is my understanding that for the other cores (or maybe it's just for the older grades) the Read-Alouds and the Readers are somewhat coordinated with the history curriculum. HOWEVER, we LOVE the read-alouds, and I think Mane is learning a lot from them. She's learning about places and people and times in history...just not in sync with the history curriculum. So, we've followed the read-aloud schedule (minus a few books I could not find & did not want to order from Sonlight).

- Poetry Readings - We have our own poetry books that we read from. I don't like Sonlight's choice. BUT, having a schedule that tells me to read poetry encourages me to read poetry!! :giggle

- Window on the World - I looked at this book at a homeschool book sale and decided against it. It just isn't my favorite.

- Geography Songs - I'd probably like this. I just didn't purchase it.

- Aesop's Fables - No throwing tomatoes, but I think Aesop's Fables are weird. We read some & then moved on to other things.

Ok, so it looks like I don't used the IG at all, right?! The thing is, I'm a big fan of the Read-Alouds, and I think it might be worth buying the IG just to have a schedule for reading, along with their comprehension questions & suggested map & timeline activities (included in the IG). At the beginning of the school year, the IG schedule really prompted me to stay on track with Bible reading, memorization, history and poetry reading, too...even though we were using different materials. Now, I feel like I've got the rhythm, and I don't use the schedule as much. The schedule also has places to fill in things like Math, Language Arts & Science assignments for the week. Of course, I could draw up my own weekly schedule, but there was something about having it premade that made me really use a schedule this year! :O

I'm considering using Sonlight again, but I want a core with history, read-alouds & readers all integrated. I might hold off a year so that we can finish our first round of Story of the World first. I haven't decided yet.

Re: Am I the only one totally curriculum shopping yet?
 

Thank you. That was super helpful. I had purchased Trail Guide to World Geography because I wanted to kind of design my own curriculum around it, adding in literature and some history reading. However, I'm having another kiddo in the fall, and really feeling like my child needs the structure and consistent instruction that I have, thus far, failed to give her. She'll be 9 the weeks before the baby is born, and so far the only real schooling I have done is to teach her to read and get her going on Teaching Textbooks Math. Sonlight is appealing to me because at this point, I really feel like the *only* chance we have to have a "real school year" is if someone lays it out in black and white in front of me and tells me exactly when to do what. And that all of those resources are already in my house. BUT, I am really disappointed that the readings aren't really coordinated with the history/geography. And, while she is reading several years above grade level, her writing skills are grade level at best. So if I get the readers best suited to her from Sonlight (4/5, and I think they'll be pretty easy) I'm afraid the L.A will be over our head.

I just entered my 2nd tri, and I'm wondering if I cobble together my own curriculum (again) this summer, and make a detailed schedule this summer, if I'll be able to manage. I have enjoyed 1st language lessons...as well as writing with ease...agh. I don't know. I need to hire someone just to help me make the schedule. Someone posted a bible curriculum that looked really interesting to me too...

Re: Am I the only one totally curriculum shopping yet?
 

Definitely not! And we won't even be starting homeschooling for another three years! :giggle:giggle I am always reading this forum and checking out tons of different curriculum choices, I don't know how I'll ever pick one when the time comes!

Re: Am I the only one totally curriculum shopping yet?
 

I've started
I ordered Teaching Textbooks 4th grade which should be here tommorow though I'm not going to start her on it for a bit yet..

I'm going to stick to the Catholic Hertiage for her grammar,spelling,religion, literature,science and history and handwriting though so I'll be collecting those soon..

We are going to do time for Learning loosely over the summer

Deanna

Re: Am I the only one totally curriculum shopping yet?
 

I liked T4learning for my older kids. :yes

I LOVE Sonlight, and the concepts, but there is no way I could afford it plus all the extras. If you can do it, I'd say go for it!

Re: Am I the only one totally curriculum shopping yet?
 

Cores D and up have readers and read-alouds that coordinate with the history.

I did Cores B and C, and I thought the read-alouds went with the history quite nicely.

Re: Am I the only one totally curriculum shopping yet?
 

The Instructor Guide (IG) was about $70. I got everything else from thrift stores, used book sales & the library. The only other thing I bought new was the Usborne encyclopedia, which I purchased with a 40% off coupon at Borders before they closed.

You can buy science, math, language arts, handwriting, etc. from Sonlight also, but you don't have to, and those things are not included on the schedule in the IG anyway. They are considered separate curriculum components from the Core.

---------- Post added at 10:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:33 PM ----------

Yes, I just read that if you get B & C as single cores (rather than the combine B/C), the read-alouds correlate, but the B/C combined core doesn't integrate history with read-alouds.

Re: Am I the only one totally curriculum shopping yet?
 

Dh got a rebate in the form of a prepaid Amex, so I used it to order our books for biology on Amazon last week. (dd has kidnapped the human body encyclopedia already :D )

I think I am going to order SOTW 1 materials next and get it all in digital. Then I can print extra copies of the coloring pages/maps etc as needed and do the read aloud on my ipad. I might order the actual CD's though instead of mp3's because I am not so tech-savvy with digital audio stuff.

Re: Am I the only one totally curriculum shopping yet?
 

This is the first year I know just what works and what I want...almost. LOL
So, I'm almost done with shopping. We did Sonlight Core A this year, and I can't decide if I should move to B, or B/C with my soon to be 7 and 9yo.

Sonlight Core B or B/C
-Bible
-history
-readers

Creative writing/comprehension: Writing with Ease 2
Language arts: First Language Lessons 2
Handwriting: HWOT 2
Math: Singapore Math or Horizons with Life of Fred supplement
Science: co-op w/friend doing "The Magic Schoolbus Science Explorations" curriculum

I'm so excited about doing science with a friend!

I'm a little stuck on math. We have been doing Horizons Math since K, but this year it felt like it wasn't explaining stuff enough. So, I bought Singapore Math and have been doing both. I have a hard time understanding the way SM teaches and the kids don't appreciate the boring black and white pages. They like Horizons much better. So, not sure which one I'll stick with, but I'm leaning toward Horizons and hoping with the LOF supplement things will be better understood. Ack!