Written by Jamie Martin, editor of Simple Homeschool and Steady Mom
Over the past month we’ve heard from all of our contributors, each sharing the resources we’ve found helpful (or not helpful!), along with our homeschooling plans for the upcoming school year.
I hope you’ve found this helpful as you begin your own planning. Personally I’ve bookmarked a few resources and recommendations to keep for future years. Now it’s your turn to share!
Each homeschooling family makes unique choices each year based on our educational philosophies and priorities, but we can always learn from each other. So please feel free to jump in today!
If you’ve written a post on your blog about the curriculum you use or will use, please leave your link in the comments.
Even if you don’t have a blog, you can still leave a comment letting us know about your favorite resources.
Enjoy browsing through the links–I’m looking forward to it!
Here’s what we’ll be doing next year (kind of a K-1st-2nd mix for my 4 year old) http://teachingbrady.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/next-years-curriculum/ . There’s also a link in there to the Pre-K/K curriculum we used this year.
I’ve been busy today trying to find shelf space for all the books that came in our Sonlight order. We are doing American History – Core D for the younger set of kids {ages 5-9} and Core 100 for the older set {ages 11 and 13}. My high school aged daughters will be doing an online high school.
We are using Core D and Core 100 this year too! I am excited about using Sonlight again. I am interested in the online high school classes, will you be blogging about them?
Here is my post on our new curriculum for 3rd Grade:
http://www.cambridgeshireacademy.com/2012/01/3rd-grade-curriculum.html
My kids are still so little. We’re doing some preschool stuff using My Father’s World and some Timberdoodle, and reading good books. I’m going to put together a Bible curriculum/reading plan of sorts, but that’s to come. This is a fun age for my family!
http://sensetosave.com/2012/05/18/what-were-doing-for-preschool-this-year-curriculum-fair-2012/
We just received our Kindergarten Oak Meadow Curriculum and have been enjoying it so far. We decided to start now since I work in higher education and I actually have more time to focus on homeschooling (since this is my first experience with it) now that classes are out for the summer. Here’s my post on our first couple of weeks http://therowshow.blogspot.com/2012/05/and-so-story-goes.html
I don’t know if this counts, because we JUST finished a period of discernment whether to continue homeschooling or not (which I wrote about here: http://teachermamatina.blogspot.com/2012/05/when-god-calls-you-to-homeschool-hell.html). 🙂 I mentioned in my post that we’re actually praying about curriculum now. 🙂
In the meantime though, I plan to continue using Catholic Heritage Curricula’s Kinder Core Curriculum (though not all of it); Sing, Spell, Read, Write Raceway series; and supplement with Five In A Row (especially on lazy days {which is most days for this delinquent teachermama! LOL}). 🙂 Lots of read-alouds and more focus on character development. 🙂 Praying about whether to go with Mater Amabilis, Seton or Kolbe in the near future. 🙂
Love and prayers from the Philippines! 🙂
P.S. I LOVE Simple Homeschool! 🙂 Just sharing. God bless you all for this site! 🙂
We will be using Math U See Primer and Alpha along with The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. We will also be continuing the Narnia series as read alouds.
Here’s what we’re doing for a 1st grader, 5th grader, 6th grader, 9th grader: http://naturalmomstalkradio.com/blog/homeschool-curriculum-2012-2013/ It’s heavy on Susan Wise Bauer’s tools.
Thanks for hosting this round up, it’s fun (and helpful) to see what other families find useful.
We’re continuing our classical-ish curriculum, which has Rod and Staff Math and English at its core. We only started using Susan Wise Bauer’s Writing With Ease curricula for our first and third graders two months ago, and I just love it–we’ll be continuing that next year for sure! And I’m ready to teach my 4yo to read starting this summer with her book The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, which worked great for my first two. We’ve got fun stuff to supplement, but that makes up our core.
Here is our plan for the Fall! We are excited! We are using a lot of resources, springboard being Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum by Laura M. Berquist.
Here’s the plan~
http://preschoolhomeschoolfun.blogspot.com/2012/05/what-were-doing-this-fall-curriculum.html
Thank you for hosting, Jamie.
I can’t wait to read what everyone else is using. Here is what our relaxed/ eclectic homeschool is using for teenagers and elementary:
http://anothergranolamom.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/looking-into-the-distance-curriculum-2012/
Thanks for sharing!
I’m so excited to read about what works for everyone! I wrote a little post here: http://thefunmommy.com/how-we-do-school/ We have a 3 year old and a 1 year old, so we are just getting started.
The ages of my kids! I’m off to take a look 🙂
My children are 10, 8, 5, 2, and yet to be born. We are using Heart of Dakota and Beautiful Feet for History (each child at own level). For Science, Exploring God’s Creation with Botany all together. MathUSee, All About Spelling, and Understanding Writing are my pics for the 3 Rs.
I can’t wait to get started! We’re going to school through the summer so we’ll have the freedom to take time off in the fall when our new daughter comes along.
Here is the blog I wrote a few weeks ago about what we have used over the past year. 🙂 – http://crystalbowden.com/that-time-of-year-curriculum-choices/
I haven’t had a chance to put together a blog for next year’s curriculum yet, and will likely wait until after our homeschool expo in July.
We will be continuing with All About Spelling. I write about it here: http://sparksoflearning.blogspot.com/search/label/curriculum
We tried it mid-year and it is the best curriculum for spelling I have ever seen. We are also awaiting Life of Fred books to supplement our math curriculum. I can’t wait to introduce my kids to it. Thanks for all the great links through this series of posts. They have been very helpful!
I’ll have a kindergartener and two in PK4 (twins). We plan to use Five in a Row, along with Handwriting Without Tears, Phonics Pathways, and MEP math (reception level). We’ll keep it loose and fun, with lots of play time and lots of outings.
Here is our plan for our three children next year. We will have a sixth grader, I third-grader and a kindergartner.
http://ourgreathomeschoolexperiment.blogspot.com/2012/05/2012-2013-curricula-and-our-homeschool.html
We are using Verticy Learning from Calvert again next year. My 8 year old will span somewhere between 2nd – 4th grade in skill/ability level as she learns differently. We have loved the 3rd grade curriculum this year and have the 4th grade standing by, it will be a while before we are ready for the next level. I have also use Shiller Math to help her grasp concepts as well as CalcuLadder to help her with daily simple equation practice.
Our circumstances our different as we have a learning disability to contend with in our daily routine. Lydia has Executive Function Disorder that affects Working Memory and Processing, she also seems to have some type of dysgraphia or OT related issue that affects writing ability. So for us, Verticy and the support from Calvert has been great. We are looking forward to another good year with Lydia. My 3 year old may be going out to pre-school so I can have the quiet time Lydia needs.
I hope everyone else has a good year, too. I love the curriculum fair.
This year, which we will begin in June (our first foray into year-round schooling — yay! — the plan is to do six weeks on, one or two weeks off), will be with My Father’s World. DS 14 will be in 9th grade, doing Ancient History and Literature. He will take a biology class through our local co-op, a logic elective, and hopefully a foreign language. DS 12 and DD 8 will be in 7th and 4th grades, respectively, and I’ll do Countries and Cultures with them. DS 12 will be adding Apologia’s General Science and the other middle grade coursework from MFW. We also have DD 3 and DS 2, tremendously active preschoolers, who will be going to school in the fall. With these two littles there is no sitting-quietly-playing-with-special-school-time-only-toys-while-I-read-to-the-older-kids! I love them dearly, but they have worn me out, and my husband and I feel this is the best way for me to give the older kids the attention they need. I hope only to do that for a year (maybe two for the youngest), then bring them back home. This year I needed the structure that the MFW plans give (I feel they are less intense than Sonlight), and that the plans would be particularly helpful to the older kids. I’m very excited by the Bible coursework and focus on people groups around the world — I think it will open my kids’ eyes without reducing God and His word to mere schoolwork. Oh, and I hope to actually do algebra with my oldest!
Jess
I have three boys (9, 6, 3) and the youngest will be attending a church-run preschool two blocks from our house, 4 mornings per week. The older two also went to this preschool. I am very much looking forward to having this time with the older two. Hopefully, I will use it wisely! DS#3 will be at that preschool for 2 years, until kindergarten age. This is a wonderful time, I think, because for these it gives them an opportunity to have fun (and preschool really is fun) while giving mom some time to focus on those older ones who need some more one-on-one. I hope that this time will actually help the homeschool day go by faster as I won’t have to stop every 10 minutes to deal with the 3 year old who is very mischevious and constantly getting into trouble.
I write my own curriculum for our homeschool but we mostly follow Waldorf methods and I’ve found some beautiful resources to help me. I especially love Kindergarten with Your 3-6 Year Old by Donna Simmons (Christopherus) and Seasons of Joy by Annette Frontz.
We still haven’t finished the first level of “All About Reading” from this year so not sure if we will finish our son’s ABC book or not before we start k in July…we’ll see… We’re going to use Oak Meadow’s kindergarten curriculum as our main curriculum with our son. We belong to a classical conversations-style co-op that meets once a month (starting in August). We’re going to share the different weekly info. learned through that and let our son’s interest lead us…We have Mystery of History Volume 1 to use if our son is interested in learning more about some of the history. IF our son is interested in learning how to read and wants more than offered in Oak Meadow’s language arts, I will supplement with “An Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading” by Jessie Wise. We have Getty & Dubay handwriting (level A) to use with him but I’m not going to be very strict about it because Waldorf-styled teaching is more of my aspiration for this year. Basically, the Oak Meadow curric. will be done every week and everything else is just frosting or sprinkles on our cupcake of learning. I have signed up for Waldorf Essentials’ Thinking Feeling Willing year long program to help me with implementing some Waldorf philosophy into my teaching and daily life/rhythm (I need more rhythm & order in our home so this mentoring program is great!). I have “The Big Picture Bible Timeline” from veritas.com & flashcards & some CDS from them to help with the Classical conversations component as desired. I have “Plants Grown Up” from Doorposts to use as desired to do for our devotionals/Bible studies with our son.We also have felt board pieces to use with our Bible stories.
I spent many hours coming up with our curriculum for a preschooler who will be three and a five year old who will be doing kindergarten this year. We will have a very eclectic education with lots of influence from Charlotte Mason, the classical model of education, and a literature based approach. I threw in a few montessori ideas, which actually aren’t listed in this post but will take place in the classroom. We are going to be using Sonlight cores, Winter Promise, and Singapore among other things.
http://uncommoncommonness.com/%20/our-homeschool-curriculum/
I am looking forward to reading all of the other links posted. I love curriculum fairs and classroom posts. 🙂
I LOVE reading about what everyone is doing!!
Sending some out and taking others “round the world”. These are our plans for next year! Here’s my post about it: http://addingtothebeautyblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/looking-ahead-curriculum-plans-2012.html
Love reading everyone’s plans!
Our big change next years is that we are switching Math to Teaching Textbooks. We’ve tried it out, and are very excited.