Homeschool Curriculum, 2010-2011--slightly tenative version.

I really love it when people publish their homeschooling curriculum, ideas, struggles and victories. So while I know that this post is not for everyone, I hope you'll indulge me as I post on what Glen and I have come up with for next year's curriculum.

Math, Phonics, Language and Readers: We're sticking with aBeka this year, though we'll probably move away from the arithmetic in the next few years. I bought the reader's new and dirt cheap on eBay last year, but that's as far as I've gone in actually purchasing for this year.

Bible, History, Geography, Science and Music: My Father's World. I'm very excited about this curriculum. We're using the "oldest child, 2nd grade" curriculum this year and will move into the 5-year cycle next year. Olivia and Madeline will be able to jump right in wherever we are as they get to 2nd grade.

To be honest, it was a big struggle to know what direction to go in for history and geography. I was online for hours researching. I've heard so many good things about Sonlight's curriculum and I especially loved how they integrated so many classics. However, MFW won me over because I like that I won't need to teach individual classes once I have two or three kids in school. MFW also includes science and Bible in the basic package. I've added the Tchaikovsky package from their deluxe package for music.

Too, Sonlight is quite a bit more costly.

Timeline: I've been very intrigued with the idea of making timelines for history so that the children will have good context as they learn. I love, Love, LOVE Sonlight's timeline, but since their history is set up differently, I would have to buy the book and all the stickers in one year. But I love that style--a little more free and unique. So I've come up with a plan that I hope we can stick to. (Don't laugh.) I'm going to buy the Sonlight book, but we're going to print our own visuals as we run across the people/places/inventions, etc in our studies. Surely with that huge information highway, we'll find what we need, right???

Handwriting: A Reason For Handwriting This year's curriculum transitions to cursive.

Art: Draw Write Now, book 1 by Draw Your World.

Read-Alouds: I'm not going to buy all the read-alouds now. We'll borrow or buy as we find them cheap. But this year, I'm going to definitely include read-aloud time in our school day. We do read together now, but not in a structured way, and so it's very hit and miss depending on our days and level of exhaustion! :) I'm hoping that if I have a list I want to get through, I'll do better about it. We're going to mix the Sonlight list with the My Father's World list and maybe switch out a few with our own picks. We'll see how that goes.

So I think that's everything. I'm grateful for all I've learned this year (maybe a post on that coming soon), and I have BIG plans to do even better next year. Ha. I said not to laugh.