Our third and fourth years of homeschooling I started to branch out and experiment. We were getting bogged down by textbooks. I started to realize we didn't need to recreate school at home. If something wasn't working, we tried something else. Language Arts was a good example. We read a ton of great literature and tried several boxed curricula and workbooks before I came to realize how much they retained from the literature and how little they got from fill in the blank and rote comprehension questions. We experimented more with narration and we're on our way to becoming a more Charlotte Mason friendly homeschool.
2009-2010
Angel Grade 8
Sonlight Core 100 - U.S. History in Depth
A Beka Matter & Motion
Total Health: A Health Curriculum for Middle School
A Beka Pre-Algebra
1/2 Easy Grammar 8
1/2 Rod & Staff English
Wordly Wise
Apples Daily Spelling
English from the Roots Up
RileyAnn Kindergarten
Sonlight Kindergarten - World Cultures
A Beka My America and My World - Read aloud
Egermeier Story Bible
We did unit studies for science on creation, air, water, weather, yeast & bacteria, owls, astronomy, cells, Usborne First Book of Nature, and the human body. We read tons of books, did experiments, created lapbooks, went on field trips, and created a full size human body using My Body by Patricia Carratello. The kids had fun!
A Beka Arithmetic 1
MCP Phonics Level A
1/2 Spelling Workout Level A
1/2 Wordly Wise K
2010-2011
Angel Grade 9
Oh my...I can't believe we reached high school! Some say it can't be done, but I say it can! It was very exciting to see the shift in thinking in writing and math, which had formerly been struggles.
My Father's World Ancient History and Literature - This program covers the entire Old Testament and has great literature. The student also learns how to write an argumentative paper. The lessons are geared to the student, which promotes independence and allowed me the freedom to work with our younger kids. Great program!
Apologia Physical Science - Yup, we're back to Apologia. I think this is one of the best science curricula for high school. I'm not as sold on the Young Explorer Series, but it's great for a higher level. Again, it's written to the student, which is great for independent study.
Math-U-See Pre-Algebra - OK, so we attempted Saxon Algebra much to our dd chagrin as well as Teaching Textbooks Algebra. Needless to say, neither worked for our family. We were blessed to have a dear friend that was able to borrow us Math-U-See and it was a hit. We did back up and redo the pre-algebra just to be sure she covered and understood the Math-U-See philosophy and teaching style.
Wordly Wise
Language Arts for the Secondary Child by Queen Homeschool - Our girls LOVE the picture study, copywork, and gentle approach to language arts that this program provides. You certainly do not need to supplement the MFW Ancient History & Lit, but I had this book on the shelf and dd wanted to try it.
Rod & Staff Typing for Christian Service
RileyAnn Grade 1
I combined Riley and Ruben for some subjects and really only used parts of curriculum to create our own thing. I wanted to study the Old Testament and start with ancients for history. We're going to do a 4 year rotation to stay on track with Angel. I think it's easier to have everyone studying the same subjects/time periods at their own levels.
Lessons from History - Creation to 100 BC - I LOVE this series! It's a very flexible unit study that gives you a chronological list of people and events in history. There are 5 books in the series covering creation through the 1900's. They are quite inexpensive and provide a wealth of information and resources for studying history, along with geography, Bible, science, writing, communication, and art. You pick and choose which activities you want to do and which books you want to read.
The Child's Story Bible by Catherine Vos - Old Testament only
History Pockets - Ancient Civilizations - She completed the first 4 pockets to coincide with the time history period we studied.
Charlotte Mason's Elementary Geography - Read aloud to Riley and Ruben
Simply Charlotte Mason Genesis through Deuteronomy & Ancient Egypt - Used bits and pieces
Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans - Read aloud to Riley and Ruben
My Father's World 1st grade - I really only used the Bible and phonics
First Language Lessons - First half of the book for 1st grade
1/2 Spelling Workout Level A - Finished from last year
Sonlight 1 - We read Sonlight books for literature this year
Science - again this was a conglomeration of things including parts of NOEO Physics 1, parts of Janice VanCleave's Science Around the Year, Thornton Burgess animal books, and MFW from A-Z
Math-U-See Alpha
Ruben Kindergarten
My Father's World from A-Z
1/2 Math-U-See Primer
MEP Reception Year
Ruben also participated with Riley for Bible, history, geography, and science
To be continued....
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