Today we started our second week of homeschooling for the 2016-2017 year!  I intended to post this last week, but the week sped by, and here we are!

Several people have asked me about our curriculum choices for this year, so I wanted to share what we are using!

Vera is doing a mixture of Kindergarten and First Grade work. Her birthday is in August and she’ll be turning six.

Cordelia (4.5) and Jude (almost 3) are in preschool.  Theodore (almost 1) will be along for the ride.

Homeschool Curriculum 2016-2017

Bible / History / Geography / Literature

Sonlight is known for their core curriculum: history, Bible, and literature. We decided to do Core A, which is for ages 6-8.  It covers creation to the fall of the Roman empire.

We can’t wait to dig into learning about other cultures and ancient history!  I absolutely love studying ancient cultures, so I know this will be such a fun year!

I know curriculum can be expensive, so I’m always looking for ways to save. Buying a whole grade package from Sonlight saves a pretty big chunk, we found!  Also, you can use code “AC20330563” to save $5 on your first Sonlight order of $50 or more!

I’ll supplement our history with lots of library books as well.  I also have some neat ancient history coloring pages and I bought the audio version of Mystery of History (Volume I) for us to listen to as we study each part of history this year.

To go along with the Bible/missions parts of Sonlight, I also purchased a few other things: THUMB prayer cards, a coloring book, and a fabric world map.

Language Arts / Phonics / Spelling / Creative Writing

We’re in the middle of the Sonlight Kindergarten Language Arts.  Vera is working through the Kindergarten readers, and when we finish those (probably mid-August), we’ll begin Sonlight First Grade Language Arts.  She is really catching on to reading and it’s fun to watch!  Spelling is incorporated into this curriculum, as well as some creative writing later in the year.  We’ve also been using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  I bought a lot of things at Target that will also help us with these subjects!

Math

We will be using Math-U-See: Primer (the first level) this year.  It looks very simple at the beginning (but important for establishing a good foundation), so we may breeze through it rather quickly and move into the next level (Alpha).  I love that this includes little blocks to help students visualize (and touch!) the math concepts that are being taught.  I think it will be a good fit for us, but we won’t know until we get into it more!  The younger ones may be able to keep up with this for a while too.  I also want all three of the kids to be able to write their numbers by the end of the year.

Science

We’re using Sonlight science level A this year.  It covers Biology, Botany, and Physics.  We’ll read lots of fun science books on a wide variety of topics: weather, tadpoles & frogs, laws of physics, butterflies, plants, and more.  There are science experiments to do as well, but they don’t always correspond directly to what we’re learning about that week, so we may skip some of those or do them on the weekends.  We’ll also supplement our science with other books from the library about the topics we’re studying (not because the curriculum necessarily needs it, but because that will be fun).

Handwriting

I picked Handwriting Without Tears as our handwriting curriculum (my funny younger brother would like to point out that it didn’t work for him… there were tears!), and I bought both the Kindergarten and First Grade levels of this as well.  We’ll work at Vera’s pace and probably will complete both levels by the end of this school year.  I really like the tactile ways that this curriculum teaches letter formation (wooden pieces, chalkboard, etc.).  It looks very good!  I will work with Cordelia and Jude on handwriting as well.  We love using inexpensive dry erase boards and markers to practice our handwriting too!

Art

I’m compiling this myself using some really neat resources.  This will be very laid-back and unofficial.  We’ll spend some of our free time doing art projects and lessons as opposed to it taking up a portion of the school day.

A few of the books we’re using:

–Drawing with Children
–I Can Draw Animals
–I Can Draw People
–The Usborne Art Treasury
-various library books on great artists

I may do a few more posts on our homeschooling schedule/routine and just our day in general, if you’d be interested in that.  Currently, we’re starting at 8:00AM and finishing everything “official” by 11:00AM. Then we read books and have “free play” time until lunch.  It’s working out great so far!

If you have any questions for me, ask away! I’m no expert, but I’ll share what is working for our family!

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