School Year 2010-2011

A couple days ago, I finally had the chance to sit down and order our homeschooling curriculum for this coming year!

We ended last year with a fizzle and hope to start this year with a bang!  My priorities have gotten back in the proper order, and I'm excited to take on the new challenge of adding a third homeschooler, a bouncing two-year old, and a delightful new baby to our homeschooling days.  Also this year, we're looking to implement the concepts of a daily routine presented in Managers of Their Homes as well.  I'm hoping to give our new daily schedule, which we'll implement 4 days/week,  a test run toward the second half of August and then start school and our full routine the first week of September.  I'll post our school/daily routine once I have it completed...  I'm still in the working it out phase.  I thought I'd breezily get it done this summer, but unbeknownst to us, we have a new BABY!!

So here is what we'll be studying this year, starting with our new kindergartener, MoRgAn!

Sonlight K, which is an introduction to world cultures.  We love this curriculum and have done it in the past.  I can't wait to re-read these wonderful books to Morgan. (and Annika if she'll sit still long enough)  My favorite book in this collection is Jim Herriot's Treasury for Children, Morgan and I just read through it this last spring at bedtime.  Get your hands on it, you'll all love it ~ our public library has it, maybe yours does too. 

Horizons Math K and the DVD MathTacular

Handwriting Without Tears ~ love it for our kids.

We love the Explode the Code series to add to our curriculum for language arts.  Morgan did Book A last year and will complete Books B and C this year.

The boys will be studying Sonlight's Core 4, which covers the second half of American history.  We did the first half two years ago using Winter Promise's American Story 1.  We LOVE the books Sonlight chooses, plus the missionary and world-view focus they include. 

This is Drew's pile of books he'll be reading to himself this year.  Some are fiction stories that took place in American history, and others are non-fiction accounts of great Christians.  He's excited to dive in too and is especially excited that Old Yeller is included. 

Gavin's pile of books!  Thankfully we didn't have to order these this year, Drew went through them last year.  These are GREAT books. 

Handwriting Without Tears for the boys...

New this year in Math for the boys is Teaching Textbooks.  We're really excited about it.  We have enjoyed Math U See these past 3 years, but I've been feeling more and more that using the boy's love of computers in our schooling would help a bunch with the motivation factor and the general excitement about math, which they're both fantastic at.  Check out Teaching Textbooks here.

Also new this year, is Sequential Spelling.  I've wanted to get the boys going on a great spelling program, and I think we've found it.  I've heard rave review about SS, and am excited to get started. 

Another thing my boys love is LEGOs.  What boy doesn't??  I haven't found one.  For science we'll be toying around with robotics and LEGO Mindstorms.  We ordered the above kit from LEGO Education and it's called the LEGO Mindstorms Education NXT Homeschool Pack.  Can I just say, thank goodness for state funding for our homeschooling??  I am SO thankful, and never want to take it for granted. 

And to add to our social studies from Sonlight, I ordered the oldie but goodie computer games Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego and Oregon Trail.  I played these for hours and hours as a kid at a friend's house and can't wait for my kids to join in the fun.  I think my love of history and geography was started chasing Carmen all of the globe as a grade-schooler.  Really! 

That about wraps it up!  We're always adding more books to our library for general reading, and have added some new ones this summer that we're happy to now own.  Someone always has their nose in a good book around here... at this moment, 2 kids are reading, 2 are napping, and 1 is attempting to raid the fridge.  Life is so good. 

I'd love your feedback if you've every used any of the above curriculum!  Please share you experiences.