Reviews and More Curriculum Choices
Today I thought I would start out by updating you on the curriculums I have talked about so far...
We are halfway through our units for each of the boys first novel of the year and so far Total Language Plus gets a big round of thumbs up! They are well written textbooks, with lots of pertinent activities and not so heavy that it becomes a drudge. The boys are currently reading ‘The Sign of the Beaver’ and ‘The Hobbit’ and I feel both are getting a lot out of them.
For Natalie, Language Lessons for a Living Education is a great fit, she is actually getting through it very quickly, doing 3-4 lessons a day, because it’s material we have already gone over several times. I had ordered level 2 because I wasn’t sure where she was, and to my delight she has really improved in this area, so we will finish level 2 and I will be ordering level 3 by December at the latest. It is a nice curriculum, bright and engaging with fun stories, and beautifully Christian-based.
Another thing we have all been absolutely loving, has been our Morning Basket time. We spend some time in the Word together every morning, I read aloud from the Bible and this month have been also reading from A Family Altar devotional book. We pray for our home school and other prayer requests from church or family. It has been a very sweet time so far, a wonderful addition I wish I had thought about a long time ago and a perfect start to our day!
I also read a few chapter of a book of our choice aloud to them, so far this month we have read 'Ruby Holler', the kids really liked the story about twin orphans who finally find a home, and we are now making our way through 'Call to Courage', which is a collection of short stories that build faith and make you think about the best way to handle different situations.
Now, on to introduce other curriculums we are using this year...
Science is Brandon’s absolute favorite subject! He loves it so much and can handle a lot of information, the more the better in his opinion. We have done Apologia in the past and I know it is quite advanced and very detailed but I also know that he can handle doing it on his own and is excited about it! So he is doing Apologia Exploring Creation through Physical Science this year. He is enjoying it so far and keeping a good pace in his lessons. On my end, I have been correcting his work and making sure he grasped everything he needed to. It’s a good fit and we are happy with it!
Ben and Natalie are a bit less scientific, they don’t mind it, but it’s not a favorite. When I came across a curriculum that was based on the Charlotte Mason philosophy of learning through living books, I was really excited! I will make a bit of a disclaimer; the first reviews I read on the internet were bad, people were complaining of the poor grammar and poor information... I almost "walked away" from it, but then I came across newer reviews that stated all the previous issues had been fixed, that they had revised the whole thing and had done a second release and that the curriculum was great. Boy am I glad I didn't let the first reviews I came across discourage me!
I am absolutely loving this curriculum and so are the kids! So much so, there have been tears over stopping at the end of a lesson!! It's called Sassafras Science, the kids learn through listening to me read them a story aloud. The living book is about a set of twins who hate science and have been flunking it in school, they get sent to their crazy scientist uncle's house for the summer and he invented a zip-line that can take them anywhere in the world to go learn (in the first volume: zoology) about animals and enter all the information they gather in a scidat logbook. Through their adventures, they develop a love of science.
It is super engaging, my kids are excited to do science every day, we have been moving along much faster then I anticipated when we got started and I will be ordering the next set about anatomy before December. The experiments are fun, but very simple, which is a plus for me. The kids enter the information they gleaned into their own logbooks and we also read from a great Animal Encyclopedia every lesson, and there are fun ideas for different kind of activities. Basically, it's a great curriculum and I would recommend it to anyone!
We are halfway through our units for each of the boys first novel of the year and so far Total Language Plus gets a big round of thumbs up! They are well written textbooks, with lots of pertinent activities and not so heavy that it becomes a drudge. The boys are currently reading ‘The Sign of the Beaver’ and ‘The Hobbit’ and I feel both are getting a lot out of them.
For Natalie, Language Lessons for a Living Education is a great fit, she is actually getting through it very quickly, doing 3-4 lessons a day, because it’s material we have already gone over several times. I had ordered level 2 because I wasn’t sure where she was, and to my delight she has really improved in this area, so we will finish level 2 and I will be ordering level 3 by December at the latest. It is a nice curriculum, bright and engaging with fun stories, and beautifully Christian-based.
Another thing we have all been absolutely loving, has been our Morning Basket time. We spend some time in the Word together every morning, I read aloud from the Bible and this month have been also reading from A Family Altar devotional book. We pray for our home school and other prayer requests from church or family. It has been a very sweet time so far, a wonderful addition I wish I had thought about a long time ago and a perfect start to our day!
I also read a few chapter of a book of our choice aloud to them, so far this month we have read 'Ruby Holler', the kids really liked the story about twin orphans who finally find a home, and we are now making our way through 'Call to Courage', which is a collection of short stories that build faith and make you think about the best way to handle different situations.
Now, on to introduce other curriculums we are using this year...
Science is Brandon’s absolute favorite subject! He loves it so much and can handle a lot of information, the more the better in his opinion. We have done Apologia in the past and I know it is quite advanced and very detailed but I also know that he can handle doing it on his own and is excited about it! So he is doing Apologia Exploring Creation through Physical Science this year. He is enjoying it so far and keeping a good pace in his lessons. On my end, I have been correcting his work and making sure he grasped everything he needed to. It’s a good fit and we are happy with it!
Ben and Natalie are a bit less scientific, they don’t mind it, but it’s not a favorite. When I came across a curriculum that was based on the Charlotte Mason philosophy of learning through living books, I was really excited! I will make a bit of a disclaimer; the first reviews I read on the internet were bad, people were complaining of the poor grammar and poor information... I almost "walked away" from it, but then I came across newer reviews that stated all the previous issues had been fixed, that they had revised the whole thing and had done a second release and that the curriculum was great. Boy am I glad I didn't let the first reviews I came across discourage me!
I am absolutely loving this curriculum and so are the kids! So much so, there have been tears over stopping at the end of a lesson!! It's called Sassafras Science, the kids learn through listening to me read them a story aloud. The living book is about a set of twins who hate science and have been flunking it in school, they get sent to their crazy scientist uncle's house for the summer and he invented a zip-line that can take them anywhere in the world to go learn (in the first volume: zoology) about animals and enter all the information they gather in a scidat logbook. Through their adventures, they develop a love of science.
It is super engaging, my kids are excited to do science every day, we have been moving along much faster then I anticipated when we got started and I will be ordering the next set about anatomy before December. The experiments are fun, but very simple, which is a plus for me. The kids enter the information they gleaned into their own logbooks and we also read from a great Animal Encyclopedia every lesson, and there are fun ideas for different kind of activities. Basically, it's a great curriculum and I would recommend it to anyone!
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