Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Curriculum Roundup

Deedee over at Fiddledeedee is doing a curriculum roundup, and invited us to share our curric picks for the year, so here goes!

We school year round, taking off on Fridays for co-op, which technically counts as school, but doesn't help anyone get through their math book any faster! We also like to take off time for good weather, bad weather, sick kids, field trips and happy Tuesday! Going year round is great for us, because it prevents the math slide. That's when every inch of hard fought learning oozes out the ears of a given child. The second year we homeschooled, after a summer off, I CRIED in horror when I realized Isaac had not retained ANY math, and it took us months to re-learn it all.

Our favorite for math is Math-U-See. It's great because if I don't remember how to do something, we whip out the DVD and watch it together. It's great for visual learners, which is what Isaac and I both are, and less stressful than Saxon, which Emma hated.

For Language arts, we use Learning Language Arts Through Literature. I LOVE this curriculum! It's snugly. We cuddle up together and go over the questions, read together, and talk. There is some grammar work done with paper and pencil, but it's not all fill-in-the-blank, which I hate.

Ellie is using Explode the Code for phonics, and I LOVE it. We used Saxon Phonics for the first two, and this is not only easier, it's better!

We are almost done with Apologia Astronomy, and will choose what science book to do next. We will either try botany or flying animals, of which I have the lapbooks for both. We have lapbooked astronomy, each planet at a time, and ended up with an amazing binder that the kids LOVE to look through.

Isaac started using Lifepacks this year. I assumed he'd hate them, but they were free, so we gave them a try, and he likes them! This, the child who hates fill-in-the-blank is filling in blanks half the morning! Ok, not really, just 2 subjects, but we will add more if he wants them.

We started workboxing just recently, and it's been super helpful. I'm only doing it with Ellie, but will add the other kids through the summer. Workboxes are an easy way to organize the kid's work, and a fun way to add in all the fun stuff I forget to use. It helps me stay organized, and keeps everyone moving toward the goal-getting it all done. Wanna see how it works? Check out this site: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dwstdgn_447mphsmf8

I'm continuing to do Five-in-a-Row with the littles. It's a fun, easy lit. based program that covers all subjects but math. We lapbook all of them, and get the freebies from homeschoolshare.com, my favorite website ever! Mac is also doing some stuff from Tot school, mostly the fine motor stuff, because that is where is is lagging a bit. Elie usually whizzes through her work so she can crash his school time, because his is so much fun.

And the girls favorite subject-art. We got a second hand copy of Artistic Pursuits from a friend, something I'd wanted for years, and never been able to spent the money on. I love it SO much, I wish I'd bought it sooner!

1 comment:

Fiddledeedee said...

AWESOME LINKS! I'll be going blind going through all of these! Thank you! And thanks for joining in the Curriculum Roundup.

DeeDee