My Curriculum Choices

When we decided to homeschool, one of the most difficult challenges I faced was not how to work while schooling the 4 children at home, or how to keep the house tidy (since it is for sale) while we still accomplished our goals with learning. Nor was it how to teach a 4-5th grader, 1-2nd grader, a pre-K'er and an infant all at the same time. My biggest challenge was how to choose a curriculum!
The first thing I realized is this: get a moment to yourself, and write down, in detail, what your educational goals are for your children. I knew that I wanted everything they learned to be based upon faith. So... everything in our curriculum, from history to cursive writing encompasses these principles. My 7 year old writes Bible verses to practice cursive. I read from a history book that teaches from a creation perspective. We even have a chemistry book based upon Christianity! If you really think about your ultimate goals for your children, I can almost guarantee you there is a curriculum out there for you. With all that being said, here were my curriculum choices:

Math: Saxon
English: Bob Jones Press
History: Beautiful Feet "History through Literature Study Guides" OR History of the World text and CDs with Egermeier's Bible Story Book
Spelling/Vocabulary: Wordly Wise
Bible: 365 Daily Devotions for Children & Egermeier's Bible Story Book
Science: Apologia's Science "Exploring Creation" Series
Chemistry: Bright Ideas Press, "Christian Kids Explore Chemistry"
Foreign Language: Rosetta Stone Homeschool Edition
For my 3 year old: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

You may notice there is no reading curriculum. There are actually two reasons for this. First, both my 7 and 9 year old are in book clubs for their respective ages within our homeschool group. They each have to read quite a bit and create a book report for their monthly meeting, where they stand in front of their group and present. Secondly, my science, Bible and history curricula are all literature-based studies. With Beautiful Feet History, for example, when we studied Leif Erickson, we read a 150 page book that involved you completely in the lives of the Vikings, from the building of their homes, to the hardships they encountered, to their achievements, inventions and discoveries! When we finish a unit study, such as the Vikings, my children grab their 3-ring binders, and create some pages for their notebooks. Everything we learn is summarized in the notebook, so that they can build on it as they continue their studies, and they will always have something to jog their memory. For the Viking study, they drew a map of Greenland, Iceland, and Scandinavia, along with a Viking ship. They then wrote a summary of why Leif was important to history. We homeschool using a notebooking method, and everything we study is included on our timeline. You will find everything from Creation at the beginning to Christ's miracles, to the last Emporer, to the Renaissance... you get the idea!

Different approaches work for different children. I suggest starting out with a scarce curriculum, then building on it, based upon what you feel is lacking, or what you can fit in. That is one thing I wish I had done differently. Another suggestion I have is to ask your child to write answers on a separate paper as often as possible. This way, curricula can be reused for younger children, or sold after you are finished with them! I have already passed down quite a few books!

If you have questions for me, just feel free to email me! vaagen@bellsouth.net