Homeschool Curriculum choices for the 2015-2016 school year

Hello :)  Just want to say a quick thanks for all the texts from my last post!! You guys are so good to me :)  I wanted to go ahead and get up a list of the curriculum we are doing for school this year.  I am not a boxed set curriculum kind of homeschooler- I like options and picking what best fits my kids needs.  We pick and choose from different curriculums and it has worked out great for us!  Lets get started:

Math- Math-U-See.  We used Singapore math last year and we HATED it!! It was not a good fit for us.  I felt like my kids definitely need more hands-on, visual math learning, and Math-U-See is both of those.  I had found the manipulatives set at a homeschool curriculum sale and then purchased the rest of the kit on the Math-U-See website  http://mathusee.com/.  I need another manipulatives set (Shelley!!! I am going to make it over to get that- I promise!!)  and I only bought one workbook bc I'm planning on having the kids just write out the problems in their own notebooks so we can pass the workbook on down to Thatcher when he needs it.  Speaking of Thatcher, he will be doing preschool at home this year and I will be getting him familiar with the Math-U-See manipulatives and very very basic math ( counting, skip counting, number recognition)

English/Grammar-  Rod and Staff.  We absolutely LOVE this English and Grammar curriculum.  Rod and Staff is extremely thorough and really hammers these grammar rules into your brain.  The illustrations are very sweet and simple and its all black and white, so if your kids like the colorful artwork to go along with their work, this workbook does not have that.  This is also a Christian based curriculum, so they bring everything back to God's word- love that!  I don't see us doing anything different for our English and Grammar for a long time.  

Reading-  We don't have a set curriculum for reading.  I go on the Sonlight site http://www.sonlight.com/ and print off their reading list for the grades I need and thats what we do for reading for the year.  This year they are still studying American history for their history so I've also picked alot of books from that time period.  They both really enjoy reading, so I just have them read the book and tell me about it.  For Thatcher this year, we will be starting the book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons"  by Siegfried Engelmann.  I'm guessing we probably won't make it too far through the book this year, but I will be reading lots and lots of books to him and Atticus, like we always do.  For the books I'm going to be reading to them, we may start the Narnia series.  We finished the Little House series last year and LOVED them!!

History-  Abeka.  We also love, love, love this curriculum.  Its well laid out, interesting enough for the kids to read on their own, and Christian based.  Jude and Elsie are both studying American History again this year.  We also do a timeline with our history, so they will both be adding things to that.  Most of the projects we do will go along with what we are doing in history (sometimes Science, will talk more about that further down).

Science-  Apologia.  This Science curriculum is not for the faint of heart.  This is the best science curriculum on the market, I hear.  The kids are doing the "Young Explorer's: The Human Body" this year.  It is covers ALOT of material, and its ALOT of reading.  Like I said earlier, my kids enjoy reading, so it isn't too bad for us.  The other awesome thing is that this is what they do for their science at co-op, so I'm not actually teaching this subject.  I just have to make sure they are getting their reading done at home.  They do their experiments in class also!!  We do try to link art and science together a lot just to give us some ideas of what to draw/paint/build/create.   

Handwriting-  Pentime Publishers.  Im not horribly picky about handwriting curriculums at this point in the game.  I found these at the Great Homeschool Convention and thought they looked like what I needed.  Elsie will be transitioning from print to cursive, and Jude is exclusively cursive this year.  Thatcher will be doing the Handwriting Without Tears this year- Jude and Elsie did this when they were first starting to write and its a great handwriting program.  

Foreign Language-  Latin's Not So Tough!  This will be our first year of Latin, and Thad is teaching this to the kids.  We bought ours from the Greek n' stuff site and I got the Level 1 workbook/quizzes/answer key and the level 1,2,3 pronunciation CD for about $40.  Im not sure what else to say about it, bc I haven't looked at much of it since Thad is teaching it.  I will say, that everything I looked up about teaching Latin, someone mentioned this program, so it must be pretty good and seems user friendly.  We also found German Rosetta Stone at a curriculum sale and Thad wants to try and do that this year with the kids also, but we are going to see how Latin goes first.

Music-  The kids are going to continue piano lessons this year and hopefully do community choir again this year.  They also participate in plays at church and do drama through co-op.  

Health-  Abeka, but I doubt we will do it this year.  They are doing the Human Body by Apologia this year for their Science and so I honestly don't feel like we need an extra health curriculum this year.  Health can also include: cooking, which my kids like to do, talking about healthy food choices, and exercise.  My kids play fall and spring soccer and they will also be doing a gym class in the spring quarter for co-op.

Art- Co-op.  Elsie will be doing an art class at co-op this year.  Jude will be doing his art at home.  

Bible-  Most of our Bible work is memory work.  The kids have memory verses each week and they also memorize the books of the Bible and longer portions of Scripture.  I am farming out Bible this year also for one day a week, my father in law is going to be doing Bible lessons with the kids.  And we, of course, have our daily devotions and this year, they will be journaling each day about what they read and what they feel the Lord is speaking to them through their devotional time.

Memory work-  This is a long list of things usually, but this year I found a lady who has put up free printables for what she does for memory work and I am totally doing those this year!! It is such a great list and covers so much good stuff!!  Memory-Flashcards-Main.pdf  and then her Bible memory flashcards memory-flashcards-BIBLE.pdf.

I hope this is helpful to any of you that are homeschooling your little ones, or are on the fence about it.  We have done a lot of live and learn during this process and we love it more each year!! Let me know if you have any specific questions or need links to anything :)  Also, I know a lot of people think that homeschooling is super expensive, but really, I probably spent about $300-$400 this year to teach three students and most everything that I've purchased can be passed down, so my little guys will be even cheaper to school- major plus if you have a gap between your kids' ages.  I'll try to post soon about the schedule I'm  hoping to have this year and other specifics about what we do here at home :)  Have a wonderful day!

http://www.sonlight.com/

the mundane- the sweet spot

A few months ago, actually Mother's Day to be exact, I decided to not get on Facebook anymore (although I am linking this to FB, bc the few people who read this little 'ol blog, click through from there I think.  I also still check my FB messages, I just avoid the actual newsfeed and anyones, including my own, profile).  I had went back and forth for awhile about just getting rid of my profile, but b/c of two ministry profiles that I had to post on, I kept deciding not to.  Well, I talked to a friend and asked if she would take over the Ladies Ministry page for me and post on there and then we asked one of our older teens to take care of the youth profile.  Facebook is a wonderful and useful way of communicating with a big number of people very quickly.  I had quit putting anything personal, pictures of my kids(unless I was tagged) for almost a year or two.  I had been feeling for awhile that FB was doing something inside my heart.  I would spend too much time reading about other peoples lives and not enjoying my own.  Silly, but true.  I think as adults, we don't feel like those sorts of things will affect us, but they really do.  I have always been strict about media- social or otherwise since I've had kids.  We stopped watching T.V. when Jude was 6 months old.  We have Netflix that we watch occasionally, but thats something thats easily monitored.  I have a rule that in our house, we can only watch Netflix on the weekends, and only play the wii on weekends (unless its summer break)  and I really always tried to apply this to me as well with social media.  I put my phone on silent up on a shelf while we are doing school, and only would take it down when it was free time.  I found myself spending most of that free time on social media, and it didn't make me feel happy or accomplished- it made me feel like I had to do MORE, MORE, MORE!! I felt like I didn't accomplish as much as this person, or I didn't do as many things with my kids as this other person, I didn't cook (at all! ha! I do not enjoy cooking!) really nice meals like this person.  I was a failure! :(  Now, Im being dramatic, but I did really feel like I didn't measure up to what it SEEMED like everyone else could do so easily.  I think these feelings creep in little by little, day after day and obviously not just on social media, but it sure wasn't doing me any good.  I feel like for some crazy reason, there is ridiculous pressure to be able to do all things and to do them all really well and to never have things go wrong or be overwhelmed by life.  Im telling you, thats just not reality!  I think its also become popular to "unplug" and do you know why??  Because, whether we think its juvenile or immature, media affects us greatly!! Whether its comparing yourself to others and not feeling like you measure up, or just simply the added stress of emails and notifications popping up every ten seconds.  It affects us- I don't know all the psychology on what it actually does to our mind and emotions, I just know how it affected me.  I felt like my life wasn't BIG enough, GRAND enough and frankly, that it was just boring.  So, I decided to just not look- I decided finally to stop looking at everyone else's life and to open my eyes to how wonderful my life already was.  Its routine, its mundane some of the time, its normal, everyday life, but its so so sweet.  I stopped comparing myself and my life to anyone else's and I asked the Lord to search my heart.  I stopped being so self aware and thinking when taking pictures "this is going on Instagram!"  Instead, I enjoyed the moment and wanted to capture it, just for the simple reason of looking back and remembering how good that moment was.  I felt relief ya'll- I was measuring my life by what God wanted me to be doing and seeing it through His eyes ( The Lord has REALLY been speaking this to my heart for about a year now- seeing things from His eyes-I'll blog about it sometime soon)  I just want to measure up to God's will for my life and I want to be content.  I don't have to be able to do a million things at once ( although with 4 kids that I homeschool and am with all the time, I still feel like I do a million things at once!! How do you working moms do all that?? You are all amazing!)  I just do the small, simple things that don't get seen most of the time, and I do it with the joy of the Lord.  Right now, I am a servant, thats the stage of life Im in right now and I have been praying for God to give me the heart of a servant, to be joyful in caring for the blessings He has given me.  To not wish this stage away- it goes so quickly and then its over.  So, this right now is my sweet spot- the place where my passion and my calling intersect.  And its a worthy calling- parenthood is indescribable in blessing.  It is truly one of the best, most rewarding things I have ever had the privilege of doing.  So, if you read the last time I posted, the Lord has been slowly working on me about being more vulnerable with people.  Its hard you guys!! I hate talking about things like this because I don't want to be judged.  So, Im praying this speaks to someone, and if not, it just felt good to get it written out ;)  Thanks for reading :)  I also wanted to ask if anyone is interested in any posts about homeschooling and kind of what we do, our routines, anything like that??  Leave a comment and let me know!  Have a wonderful day!