Never let your schooling interrupt your education.

Q&A Friday: What curricula do you plan to use next year? (2012 curriculum fair)

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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!

About Jamie C. Martin

Jamie is an introverted mom of three, who loves books, tea, and people (not always in that order), and avoids answering the phone when possible. She co-founded SimpleHomeschool.net in 2010 and began IntrovertedMoms.com in 2020.

Jamie is the author of four books, including Give Your Child the World (reached #9 on Amazon's Top 100 Best Sellers list), and her latest release, Introverted Mom (an ECPA bestseller). Her work has been featured by LeVar Burton of Reading Rainbow, the Washington Post, Parents, Today Parenting, and Psychology Today.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Lacey Prewitt

    The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, My 1st book of questions and answers, free resources from the internet!

  3. Lisa

    We will be using Ambleside Online year 9 (sophomore) and years 5/6/ (modern history part) and then a bit of pre-7 for my eighth grader. We are also exploring Thomas Jefferson Education.

  4. Sacipriya

    I am using K12 again for my soon to be 3rd grader and for my kindergartener will try out the Calvert system. I am using both free through different Kansas public schools. Eventually I will move toward making my own curriculums, but this year was my first ever for homeschooling, so I’m still gettin’ my sea legs.

  6. Lise B.

    This is our first year to “officially” homeschool…very excited. My 10th grader will be finishing Math Relief Alg. I (we started homeschooling her 1/2 way through the year this year) and beginning Math Relief Alg. II, MFW Ancient History & Literature, SOS Spanish II, Apologia Biology and a few electives along the way. My twin 7th gd. boys will be using TT Pre-Algebra, MFW ECC, Writing Strands and The Rainbow Science. The hours spent researching curriculum was exhausting, so we’ll see how it goes…

  8. Jennifer

    My daughter is in public kindergarten this year.
    She is well behind according to their standards.
    She reads a handful of site words independently.
    I am unsure the direction we will take next year,
    public or homeschoo. This summer I would like to
    work on her reading with a curriculum unlike the
    public school approach. Any suggestions?

    • marnie

      I’m not sure what you mean by “unlike the public school approach” but we used “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons” with our 4/5 year old. You might be able to find it at your library for a test run before buying.

      • Jennifer

        Thank you Marnie!
        In school she is taught to sound out each letter then combine
        to say the word. She does this and seems to forget the first sounds
        by the time she reaches the end, making it hard to combine
        and read the word. I thought maybe there is another approach.

  12. marnie

    Next year we will be in “Whatever We Can Afford – Make Do With What We’ve Got & Find It Free Online Academy” – i.e. when we get some extra money for curriculum we’ll pray about where it is most needed at the time. We’ll be trying out a 6 wks on/1-2 wks off schedule for the 3R’s & likely do bigger art/science projects on the off weeks. At this point the plan (using the resources we have) is to do a world history/geography overview using Hillyer’s “A Child’s History of the World” as a starting point – Bible reading/discussion together – All About Spelling/Explode the Code/First Language Lessons/Write Ease – Teaching Textbooks 3 (for 3rd grdr)/Math Lessons for a Living Education (for K/1st grdr) – some Five in a Row reads – lots of reading and exploring. Our 9 yr old wants to study more about animals so I’ll be providing her with resources to do some of her own research and exploration in that area throughout the year. We’ll do some kind of focused “adventure” with our 5/6 yr old as well, but haven’t found just the right theme with him yet.

  14. Debbie

    We are doing K and preK3 this year, likely “officially starting” August 13th. My 4 y/o (turns 5 in late August) is an eager learner and has already started her reading and math K curriculum, but we don’t do it on a regular basis. She will enjoy having an official school start date, and my husband will feel more assured if we have a bit of structure.

    We have done preschool at home all along, but we are very relaxed. For more formal K work we are focussing on reading, writing, and math. We will be using Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, Horizon’s K math, and Getty Dubay book A for handwriting. We also will supplement with BOB books/early readers, math games, and writing/fine motor activities.

    We will be studying science and social studies naturally. I am science and history oriented so we often talk about these things as we drive from place to place, work in the garden, look at the clouds, bake cookies etc…. I also try to include a lot of non-fiction childrens books on our book shelves and from the library.

    My just turned 3 y/o will not have formal curriculum. But I know she will want to “do school” too, so she will have pages from our wide variety of prek workbooks. Plus she will be welcome to participate in all activities, reading times and discussions as she has interest.

    We also really like the Leap Frog Letter Factory videos, and my girls watch Sid the Science Kid and Word World several days a week. While these aren’t the heart of our education they are fun supplements and give mom a bit of “free time”

  18. Fran

    Thanks for hosting this curriculum fair! Thanks to it, we are going with Trail Guide to Learning as our main spine for my 2nd-ish, 4th-ish, and 6th-ish graders. I knew I wanted to do American History this year, and I was leaning toward Sonlight, but TGTL gives me more flexiblity to include all three children than a single Sonlight Core does. I am going to use Sonlight’s 3rd grade, 4th/5th grade, and Core E reader packages to enhance TGTL. I can’t wait to dig in to both!

    I will also use Apologia’s Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day for my girls and Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology for my son. I’m going with the Jr. Notebooking Journals for the girls, and the regular Notebooking journal for my son (who hates cutting, coloring, and crafting of any kind!). My kids love the Apologia science series, and they pick up the books just for fun sometimes.

    We will continue to use Math-U-See. I can’t say enough great stuff about this curriculum. I am using now with my nephew (Pre-Algebra) and he has gone from an “F” student to an “A” student. Even *I* understand this stuff! 🙂
    Fran’s latest post: Married to Medicine, Part 2

  19. sarah

    We will be using Oak Meadow 3rd grade curriculum for our 8.5 year old daughter and doing a mix of K/1st grade with our soon to be 6 year old daughter. For our K/1st grade will do a lot of hands-on simple addition/subtraction, “teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons” as she shows interest, and I’m sure she will want to follow her older sister in what she is learning, but tweaked a bit for K/1st grade. Both our girls are coming from a Waldorf school, so we will try to stick with a lot of Waldorf-inspired methods. We also have a 2 year old son to mix things up quite a bit! I would love to hear some tips with homeschooling and those with active toddlers in the mix!!

  20. Angela

    Teaching Textbooks will continue to be our math curriculum of choice, though I’m going to start supplementing more and taking a bit more time to make sure the lessons are fully understood, not just completed.

    I’m going to try the Handbook of Nature Study program to flesh out our science curriculum – the hands-on approach not only gives us more quality time together, but it’s also far more interesting than straight book or video learning.

    We’ll be doing more critical thinking, and I’m looking forward to the discussions: moral and ethical questions that might not come up otherwise.

    It’s probably time to integrate some spelling, too, since we’re on to first grade. I really like what I’ve seen of First Language Lessons and will probably try them first.
    Angela’s latest post: Afternoon smoothie.

  21. Jennifer Perez

    It’s hard to believe that this will be my seventh year homeschooling. My kids ages are 2, 6, 8, 10. We send my two year old to day care right now bc he was in the foster system and needs to stay in until the adoption process is complete. This is what I’m doing with my other three kids.

    WE are doing a unit study on elections using love of learning lapbooks. We will also be reading fictional and non fictional living books on this subject.
    We are also doing a unit study on the Human body using many different resources and living books.
    WE use Gallopping the Globe for Geography and we will be finishing this year by studying Europe, South America, and Antartica.
    Then after Christmas ( we take December off since we homeschool year round.) we will be continuing our Galloping the globe, and continuing in our Us History study. We use different living books, historical fiction, history pockets, etc. We will also be studying nutrition.
    For spelling, reading, grammar, and vocabulary we use Spell to read and write, explode the code, First language lessons, and wordly wise and we just use it according to each child’s level and learning style.
    For math we use Singapore Math according to each child’s level.
    We also let each child pick an extra curricular activity and they take a pe and art class through our support group.

    This may seem like a lot but we don’t do this all at once and def not all in the same week. We also homeschool year round so we take weeks off whenever we need to or want to.

  23. Kaight

    We have 5 children ages 11-2 and we’ll be using Moving Beyond The Page. I really like MBTP. We’ll also use HWOT, Teaching Textbooks for math, and Dance Mat Typing from the BBC ( free). I will add in Writing Strands and also Sequential Spelling but that’s really for me, I don’t need to with MBTP. But our kids really like to write and I want them to have a solid foundation.

    It’s so fun to see what everyone has planned.

  24. Ashlee

    We are embarking on our first year. We have a PK3 & a baby. We’re looking at Sonlight 3/4 then possibly adding all about reading pre-level 1 and Pre-k handwriting without tears. We are going to go one step at a time, especially since we are mid-move and won’t order anything until late July.
    Ashlee’s latest post: Weekend Goal = Accomplished