Homeschooling curriculum

Well, I guess I should take a minute to tell you a little bit about our family.  I have been married to my husband for 15 years.  We have two girls, 10 and 7, who are in 5th and 2nd grades.  They have attended public school until this year.  We had several issues arise last year that "woke me up" to what they were dealing with in public school.  I had no problem with their teachers and the quality of education they were receiving.  I just did not like the negative influences we were experiencing with some of the other children!!!!  It seems this generation is not being taught the basics at home - respect, care for others, morals, etc.  God laid it on my heart in December of last year and I prayed about it.  Every few weeks something else happened that reinforced my desires to bring my kiddos home - from events at school, to things my girls would say, to services at church and things that came up in my devotional time with God.  I think it is the best decision I have ever made!!!!


We started homeschooling this summer.  We started by working on Math, Reading, and Language Arts over the summer.  We started out using Christian Light Publications.  Now, in August, we have started full force.  We are doing a state study - learning information about all 50 states in the order they entered statehood.  We are doing Apologia Zoology 3 - my girls wanted to learn about land animals, so I figured that is where we would start.  We also do a word of the day, on this day - interesting facts, and word ladders.  We are doing "What is the Bible all about for young explorers" for our Bible study along with a book of Bible stories. 

The journey of homeschooling can be quite overwhelming!!!  I never imagined all the curriculum choices and various things you could do!!!!  But we are getting it!  I have spent so much time researching as many of the choices as I can!!!  We started with Christian Light because some of our homeschooling friends use it.  I like it, but my girls didn't like it at first.  I have one who does good with that type of learning (workbook style) and one who doesn't.  So I have been looking at other options when we finish what we have. 

So far, I think we are going to switch to Wordly Wise for vocabulary and go through spelling rules and focus on each rule with a group of words for spelling.  We are going to finish Zoology and the state study.  After the state study, we are going to learn about how the government works and study past presidents.  For math, I am thinking of using Math-U-See.  I like the hands-on activities it incorporates.  I think for reading we are going to do independent and group reading and Tickettoread.com.  This is a great reasource for reading comprehension.  They do a good job making it fun!  We will continue our word of the day and on this day facts.  We will continue Bible stories, but when we finish that, we are going to do "What is God?" by Apologia.  I can't wait to start this!!!!  The girls LOVE Bible time!!!!  I'm also looking for a good character study for us to do to reinforce HOW we behave correctly and WHY.  I'll keep you posted on what I find!  We are also going to do some typing skills and piano.  We also plan to incorporate field trips into our schedule, which I can't wait for!