Our 2013-2014 Curriculum Choices

I still get excited about a new school year!!!

New books, new pencils, new lessons, a clean "classroom" and same great kiddos:)

OK... onto the STUFF we are using to encourage our learning this new school year;)

What We Do Together

Each morning we start off with Our Daily Notebooks:) These contain calendars, math fact sheets, memory work, cursive practice and Anna's even has Math Logic Problems and Daily Grams;) Everything that we SHOULD be doing that sometimes gets overlooked.

For Bible we are using Old Story New. These are short little lessons that are chronologically discussed through the New Testament. I love that these lessons are constantly pointing to Christ's love and sacrifice for us. The kids and I are looking up every and reading every passage aloud.... LOVE THIS TIME together!! And it says they are 10 minute devotions... it never takes us less than 10 minutes especially when we take turns reading, discussing, answering questions and praying:)

We've been trying to start Spanish for YEARS! I have a couple of simple resources like Spanish CDs and Kids Love Spanish DVD set that we add in while I prepare lunch or am working with someone alone:)

I have wanted to jump into IEW for years and have been waiting for the kids to be old enough!! I finally got my hands on a copy of All Things Fun and Fascinating! Yippeee!! I am using this with all 3 of my older ones (4/5 grade, 2/3 grade, 2 grade) together. I can see that it's going to be easier for some more than others;)

For history we are continuing with Story of the World vol 4. I originally thought about rushing through it to finish it last year (including working through the summer). But then I realized all we'd be rushing through and decided it would be better to slow it down a bit. We will work hard on getting a chapter done a week, maybe doing a little extra time with WWI and WWII to finish it up this year.

I am super excited about using an actual curriculum for science. The past 4 years we've been using experiment books as our science spine and I've not always been too diligent:/ This year we will be using Apologia's Chemistry and Physics book with the notebooks;) It's just really has FIT right into what I was hoping to find because those were the topics that I felt like we didn't really get a strong foundation. Super excited and looking forward to sharing our experience with it;)

We will finish working on  The Worlds Greatest Artists #1 by Confessions of a Homeschooler!! These are simple lessons with fun project ideas. And by covering one artist every month or so (art once a week) we will have plenty for the year.

For music, Anna is taking piano lessons now (she started this summer)! The rest of us will listen to her... LOL!! And we will study some composers (one a month) using Meet the Great Composers vol 1! We also have collected some CDs of these composers at the Dollar Store from YEARS ago;) Glad we kept them in the move!!

What They Work on Individually (*sorta... nothing is really "alone" here)

Anna - 4th/5th
Spelling - Spelling Power
Grammar - Shurley English 5, Daily Grams
Math - Saxon 56, Singapore Word Problems #4
Reading - books from history from the library:)
Writing - All Things Fun and Fascinating, assignments from Shurley English , book reports


Chris - 2nd/3rd
Spelling - Spelling power
Grammar - First Language Lesssons 3
Math - Finish Saxon 3, start Saxon 4, xtramath
Reading - finish Ordinary Parents (2 lessons a week), books from library
Writing - All Things Fun and Fascinating, journaling and book reports

Lydia - 2nd
Spelling - Spelling power
Grammar - First Language Lesssons 3
Math - Saxon 3, xtramath
Reading - finish Ordinary Parents (2 lessons a week), books from library
Writing - All Things Fun and Fascinating, journaling and book reports

Nate - preschool:)
Before Five in a Row and other books that interest him:)
Leap Frog Letter Factory and StarFall
Bible with us & Jesus Storybook Bible
LOTS of play;)
Letters, Numbers, Shapes
Cleaning up after self
Sitting quietly during reading and Bible time
Coloring and listening to our history

We are linking up to Curriculum Week  2013 at iHomeschoolNetwork:)