YES! I want to know, what was on your homeschool curriculum list last year? I am sharing with you my curriculum that I used for the last year, yay! We really enjoyed school this year and my daughter had more fun than she has had in a very long time. But I also want to hear what nuggets you found and fell in love with!
In the Beginning…
When we first started homeschooling when my daughter was in the 1st grade we were very unsure of ourselves. We had no idea what her learning style was or what kinds of things she would do well with. So like many, we decided to go with one company for all of her curriculum. I remember those days well, they were super stressful and filled with lots of moaning, groaning and crying. My daughter had issues with it too! 😉 lol
It just wasn’t meant for us. We were spending 6 hours a day on school, and that was just way too much, especially for homeschooling. For her age we should have been spending no more than 2 or 3 hours on her curriculum. But I really had no clue.
Learning Styles…
As time went on I learned a lot more about her personality, and a lot more about her learning style. I took quizzes like this one here from Scholastic, or this one on Homeschool.com. There are so many sites, too many to list, all you have to do is google, what’s my kid’s learning style and dozens of helps pop up.
Once I really learned what her style was, my next job was learning mine. Not only did it help me know what would work best for me to help her learn, but it shed some light on why I did things the way I did, and why I thought I was not so bright! I didn’t read like others, I was slower and I wrote everything down. Turns out I am very bright, but I am an auditory learner and writing things down, even if I never look at them again solidifies things into my mind so I never forget them…. well almost never! lol With this in mind, my advice to you is find out your kids learning style, it will be a real blessing.
My Curriculum…
So I will get down to business! My curriculum is very eclectic. We like it that way! I don’t go with the one size fits all mentality anymore. We are learning from a dozen different curriculum companies, and dozens of books outside of curriculum and that’s ok. My daughter is finishing up 5th grade, so most of this stuff I am sharing will be for around that grade level. However, many of the items can be used in multiple grades. We are also Christian so most of our curriculum has a faith-filled flair.
Please don’t be intimidated as you look at my list if you are a first-time homeschooler. We did have a lot we were working on. But this is for the whole year and not everything is taught all the time. At least not in my home. We still want to have a life and do some fun things too!
Teaching Textbooks, Math 5 -multiple age grade levels
Discovering Great Artists
Swimming Creatures of the 5th Day, Apologia
IEW –Teaching Writing Structure and Style -Student Writing Intensive Level A
Fix It! Grammar (The Nose Tree) {plus the teachers book}
Duolingo – Spanish {APP on tablet}
Prayers That Changed History
Heroes & Heroines of the Past: American History (Sing Some History, Listen to Some History) {The bullet items below can be purchased extra on the website.}
• Historical Skits
• Countdown to Thanksgiving
• Countdown to Christmas
• Countdown to Easter
• Summer Countdown
• Ten Great Adventurers
• Ten Girls from History
• Heroines of the Past: Bible Study
• Two Little Americans in Spanish California
• Jack and Jill by Louisa May Alcott
RoadTrip USA – A Journey Across the United States
Maps of the United States
Smart About 50 States
Maps of America the Beautiful
Beginner Typing – Mavis Beacon Keyboarding Kidz
AWANA
Worship Team
Guitar Lessons
Hippology {You will have to look this one up 🙂 }
Sport – Horse Show & Regional Horse Show
Baseball
As you can see, our list was quite extensive.
Our Favorite Curriculum…
Our Favorite curriculum by far was Science and History! My daughter motored through her science in less than 5 months. She was loving every second of it. I didn’t do any of the notebooks it called for. For her this year I bought her some spiral notebooks and at the end of each day she had to write her 5 favorite things she learned. If she couldn’t come up with 5 (that was rare) she had to write a story about what she learned. She had to incorporate stuff she had learned into a free-write and man she loved it!
But the thing we both loved was her History! This year we did Heroes and Heroines of the Past: American History. This wasn’t your average history lesson, there was so much more to it. So much so it was almost a unit study. I will do a review on that one soon so you understand what I am talking about! We only did half of it this year. There is a TON of information and we wanted to make sure that we really savored every bite we took. It was fulfilling and I am glad we did it that way. We really and truly fell in love with some historical characters that we otherwise would not have.
Another thing we took advantage of was my daughter’s love for writing. She is a writer no doubt and she is working on two chapter books right now. She wrote constantly this year. She wrote in journals, and she wrote in notebooks about every subject other than math and typing and she flourished. I am proud of my girl.
The Not So Fun…
I can honestly say there was nothing this year that I hope we never do again. But there are a couple things I am thinking about. IEW is an incredible writing program. I am not sure it is the right fit for us though. We will try again this year but I am looking into BraveWriter and will weigh that decision as I learn about it.
Then there is the dreaded math. lol Her program she is using is amazing and she loves it! Truly she does, she just hates math. She is getting incredible grades, but that doesn’t matter, she just hates math. So I can not say that Math is something we will skip, no matter how much she wants to!
So tell me, what did you love this year and what are you changing?
To learn more about why we decided to homeschool check out my post “Are you willing to be courageous and homeschool?”
If you want your little to love learning, check out my post “10 Great Ways To Get Your Kids Excited About Writing!”
Upcoming Posts to watch for…
My book list for last year!
Review of our History, Science and Grammar curriculum! A special sale on an amazing homeschool system to keep you organized!!!
What Do You Want To See?
What is it you want to see? What do you need help with? What would encourage you on this homeschool walk of life? Let me know! I love hearing back from all of you!
Hello! I found you on The Homeschool Nook link up. I enjoyed your post. I would love to know your thought on the Road Trip USA curriculum? We will be studying USA this year and it is on my possible list.
Hello Learninghypothesis and Welcome! I am so happy you came by. We actually enjoy the Road Trip USA curriculum. I would recommend it for kids 6th grade and under but could be used for all of them.
My daughter is just finishing 5th grade and has been through about half of it. We are studying the US for 2 years straight so we can take our time. She liked that even though there was a great deal of facts about the states, some of those facts were fun facts. She also liked that there were pages to color, post cards to create, and mini state cards to create for a lapbook.
It has some maps, shows time zones, landforms (mountain ranges and major rivers), 13 original colonies, US Presidents and state birds. There are links you can click on in the download or on the CD (I got the CD so I would always have it) that take you to videos, songs, memorials. There are even recipes! I think it is quite extensive especially for the cost.
If you would like I can plan a more in-depth review with pictures and deeper explanations in the next couple weeks!
Thanks for stopping by! I look forward to hearing from you!