Wednesday, March 9, 2011

It's that time again, what to choose, what to choose

Sorry it's been a while since my last post. We have had more appointments to run to. Plus we had band last night. And I've been selling stuff on Ebay which can be time consuming with the shipping ect. So I hope you have all been well.
I have been trying to figure out what we will be using for the next school year as far as curriculum goes. I know I'm still going to use Apologia science, I'm just not sure if I'm going to try Amber in General Science a year early, or use the new Young Explorers Anatomy series with all 4 of them.

I also know that I'm going to use Mystery of History vol 2 with everyone. We finished vol. 1 a few weeks ago and instead of buying the next one I decided to try to learn the locations of as many countries as possible. We are working on Europe right now. It's amazing how much I don't remember the countries. I'm hoping the kids remember them much longer than I did! We will probably review them regularly. I also have a curriculum that we will use for each continent when we finish with the countries. It's called Geography Songs. They split it up differently than I am. I am doing all of Europe starting with Iceland, around Scandinavia and down Eastern Europe to Greece and back up. This way they can see where the countries are in regards to each other. I like the way Geography Songs works, but you can't see where each section meets each other.

I have not decided on a Spelling Curriculum yet. I have looked at Calvert Spelling for Amber, but haven't decided yet. For Claire I will probably use Spelling Wisdom. Noah just started his Eclectic Speller (which I have no idea how to really use I'm just picking out words for him), so he will probably use that for at least half of next year.
I am also undecided on whether to use Latina Christiana 2 or Getting started with Latin. I am still confused about the conjugations, so I am pretty certain they don't get it either. When they read the Latin they can translate, but when they have to translate English to Latin, they struggle. I may switch to GSWL.
Amber will for sure go into Analytical Grammar, and Claire will start Junior Analytical Grammar. I really enjoyed this program. It works on one area at a time and continues. She started with nouns, and as she continued adding new parts of speech like adjectives, prepositions, verbs, adverbs... she would continue to have to mark every noun and each other part of speech learned as she continued. It was very good at making things concrete. It has helped tremendously! I highly recommend it.
We will also be sticking with Teaching Textbooks for the girls and I have no clue what to put Noah in for next year. I'm thinking either Singapore Math again, or Math Mammoth. We use Singapore Math right now. Noah is very good with numbers and this math is kind of challenging. It doesn't really get into a lot of introduction though. It's like: Do this. I will have to look at the next books and see if we can manage with them.
I have been thinking of doing some Rod and Staff books with Nate. They have such a great selection of workbooks. My kids have all done them and love them. They don't have a website, but you can google them and call for a brochure. Great Godly materials. He really excels quickly so I hate to buy something and him not get a lot of use out of it. Just in the past few weeks he has learned to spell not only his name but most of ours in the house. Of course mom and dad, not our full names. He started phonics and surprises us by reading random words. I guess he is just around during school so much that he absorbs alot. He has been talking about bat thumbs for a while, and megabats. Guess who is learning about bats in school right now! But tomorrow we start flying reptiles...how cool is that?
Anyway, just thought I'd let you into my homeschool mind so you can see what buzzes around in there while I'm going crazy trying to get to a hundred appointments and keep my house clean, and fold mountains of laundry, and make sure everyone has clean underwear on, and keep the neighbors toddlers from climbing over our fence, and practicing instruments, and making sure the dog doesn't consume all of our toilet paper, and actually doing school (forgot that one), and running to UPS every other day, and doing the errands that people who work can't do and ask me to do because I don't work (apparently). Yikes. If you have any suggestions about any of the curriculum needs I have please feel free to comment. I'd love to know what you use and how it works for you :)
peace out!

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