I'm trying to figure out what curriculum to use this year.  Any suggestions?

What do you and your child(ren) prefer? A lot of reading? A lot of hands-on? Less parental involvement? More? Are you looking for something packaged together?

I like Ambleside Online. It's heavy on the reading. I love curling up on the couch with the kids and reading with them. :)

My dd much prefers hands on.  She loves to read, but not school related things. 

Bible Time- various devotionals plus Bible readings a few times a week

Phonics- Phonics Pathways as base plus free online resources and early readers

Math- Math U See

Handwriting- Handwriting Without Tears

Social Studies- Old Testament with maps of areas covered (free online), Adam and His Kin, Story of the World (audio)

Science- Nature, outdoors, books of interest and life in general plus possibly The World God Made

Other- Five in a Row (Which should be the main, but I like to read a variety of books rather than the same one each day. Plus, I'm really bad at following directions.)

My homeschooling days are past - but we always used Christian Liberty Academy from Arlington Heights, Illnois.    They are amazing - they have their own text books but also use Rod and Staff, Abeka, Bob Jones and more.  YOu used to be able to request certain ones.  Their prices are amazing but you get all books, teachers keys, teachers books, grades kept , and more.   2 different schooling plans and different payment plans if needed.   They are very helpful and always there for questions.  They test your children each year and grade your tests, book reports and consumable workbooks at the end of the year.  They are the best we ever found.  Hope this helps.  Moonpie

Sorry here  is Christian Liberty Academy's link!  www.homeschools.org/index.html

I am using  WinterPromise Animals and Their Worlds Theme for my 6.5 yo this year.  It covers science, a little geography, literature, Bible and arts and crafts.  It has lots of hands-on activities.

Other curriculum:

WinterPromise LA1

Modern Curriculum Press Math A and Singapore Math 1B

Electives: I Can Do All Things Art, God Made Music 1, WP Chess: A Knight's First Moves

We have been doing school for 2 weeks this new school year and I am LOVING the choices I made.

What ages are you kids? 

My son likes lapbooks.  They are great if children like hands on creative type stuff.  We use the Hands of a child ones.  We don't  use a packaged curriculum.  We pick and choose.

My dd is 8 now, going into the 3rd grade.  We used Abeka last year, but hated it.  She was bored by it.  I bought several things at our local Teaching Tree store, but they aren't in a curriculum, just odds and ends.  That is the way I would prefer to go myself.  I decided last year that I wasn't going to buy all from the same place again. 

I second the suggestion for Konos - it seems to the most hands-on program I've seen. It's definately not for us at this time, though. Last year I tried a more hands-on approach and I discovered I really disliked all the projects. We like to snuggle up and read more - this year we're usng Sonlight for most things. I'm adding on my own reading program, and I'm using Math-U-See for math.

Okay, so I just contradicted myself with saying we like more seated stuff, then mention that we use MUS, which is a very hands-on math program. But it's what works for us...and it's not crafty, cut and pasty, which is what we don't get into. :-)

We're using Story of the World Vol 1 with Biblioplan,  How the Body Works and How Nature Works, Singapore Math, Miquon Math, Winstin Grammar, Wordsmith Apprentice, Trail Guide to Biblical Geography, various Greenleaf Guides.  Not sure what else yet...  I will have a 6th grader, 2nd (but reluctant schooler) aand K with a toddler "helping".

Ann

Singapore math-
Rosetta Stone for Latin-
Irrashai and Rosetta Stone for Japanese--
Discover Science - Life Science-

Lots of other independant work books, ect.

There is nothing wrong with piecing things together.  If you can get an idea of what you want dd to learn.  My ds is going into 4th grade, but only one things is labeled as 4th.  we are using...

Abeka Math 4 - it's the only Abeka thing left and we will switch to teaching textbooks next year

Handwriting w/out Tears

How to write a story  -  (teacher created) - available in most teacher stores

US history - made my own, couldn't find anything I liked

Apologia Astronomy -

Elementary Spanish - carson-dellosa

US Geography - Carson-dellosa too

Easy Grammar 4 -

Natural Speller

Lots of misc readers

some people I know use the "complete" type books you can find at Walmart and then supplement around them.  Others use the Spectrum workbooks. 

OK..I'll jump in here, too!

I'll be hsing 6 y.o. ds and  15 y.o. ds this year.  (Woohoo oldest has graduated!) 

These things we'll do together:

Bible--daily--Young Peacemaker and, of course, the Bible

History--4 days/wk--Mystery of History vol.1 adapted for each age (we've used Sonlight for past 6 years, I just didn't want to do more than 1 core again this year)

Music appreciation--weekly--I got a great college text w/cds here at PBS, adapted for each age

Manners/Health--a Frank Schaffer or Carson Delosa book I picked up here and Manners Made Easy for Teens

Phy. Ed.--trampoline, walks, Dance Dance Revolution (Hey--I figure if our ps could buy a bunch of these for gym class, I can count it, too!)

15yo

Teaching Textbooks algebra 1--I can't say enough good things about TT!!!!!!

Creative writing--co-op class

Spanish--Rosetta Stone/co-op class

Theater Arts--co-op class

Spelling--Rod & Staff 5 or Sequntial Spelling (I've seen a ton of improvement with Sequential Spelling, but I'm not sure I want to hold his hand that much again this year.  sigh.)

English Grammar--Chiristian Liberty Applications of Grammar, Book 1

Science--Apologia General Science text (w/ multimedia companion cd and mp3 that reads the book to him and he can follow along)

Art--Feed My Sheep--weekly

6yo

Math--Miquon

Phonics--Phonics Tutor Frequent Words, lots of books, and Explode the Code

Science--just reading lots of books (Lets-Read-and-Find-Out science titles) and exploring outside

Handwriting--A Reason for Writing

Art--I Can Do All Things, weekly

Piano lessons?

Oh...and did I mention lots of reading? ; -)

I know this looks like a lot, but we don't do everything every day.  This year I have purposed in my heart to do Art and Music one time per week.  That is what usually falls by the wayside.  I think because I feel like it has to be a big deal lesson instead of just doing something.  This year I just want to do something.

After how long this has taken me to type, and the number of typos I've made, I think we'll ALL be doing a little Typing Instructor!!

I realize my children are different ages than yours may be, but sometimes it also helps to look ahead.

Blessings!

Tonja

edited to correct typos

Thank you all for the suggestions.  We did Abeka for everything last year and it seemed to be so far below her level that she was just horribly bored.  I bought a book that shows what all she will have to be able to do in order to pass the standardized testing for our state at the end of the year, so we will be working a lot with that and we also have a new Spanish program and Bible program.  I print a lot of stuff off of the internet and have a huge list of spelling words we can work on.  I think that I too will create our own History program this year.  I will probably make a binder of it.  I would really like to find a book of History projects and Science projects that she can do, but I haven't found any yet.

wowio.com has lots of history and science related project books, if you'd like to try them out. I've seen the same books on peoples' wishlists here, too. The names are something along the lines of Pioneer Projects You Can Make and so forth.

We found most of A Beka to be way too dry and unattached. We didn't last a month with the books we had.

ETA: Look for Mr. Wizard books. There are several in the system, and that should provide you with all the experiments you can handle. :) The best part of the Mr. Wizard books is that most of the supplies and ingredients for the experiments can be found in the home, or else acquired cheaply and easily.

Oh, my goodness!  You all certainly do a LOT of work to put your curricula together!  I'm in awe.

We use the K12 (k12.com) curriculum through a virtual academy.  Everything comes from the same place.  Lessons are delivered online as well as through literature (fiction and nonfiction).  It's high quality and thorough.  We all absolutey LOVE the history program.  The phonics was a tremendous success in our home!

~Jori

Yeah unfortunately last year I didn't put enough work into it and we really suffered from it so this year I'm doing a lot more preparation.  But last year I pulled dd out of public school two weeks into the year so I didn't have much time to plan.  It's nice to have more time to work on it. 

Thank you Michelle for the Wowio suggestion!  I just downloaded five great project books that will definately come in handy. 

If you visit the links for schooling and book links in my signature line, I have links to several free resources in all subject areas (sorted and with summaries of content) and links to free digital book sites like Wowio.  For commercial sites that offer free samples, look under "Free or Low Cost" once you get to the Links for Schooling page.  The other links are completely free resources. :-)

Hello!

We are a homeschooling family that uses bits and pieces from a whole bunch of places.  We love variety...not so good with the same old-same old day in-day out.

One curriculum that we absolutely love is our science through noeo.  You can find them at www.noeoscience.com , I think.

It is the only science we use, tons of living books and great hands on stuff.  The amount that the kids retain from this program is amazing!