homeschool

2013-2014 is our fourth year homeschooling. I have a son in grade 10, my daughter is in grade 6, and we have a new baby so it's a whole new ballgame this year! My older son is taking a couple courses at the local public school, plus we are doing these subjects (or at least, trying to):

Math:

Saxon Math
We are still using Saxon with no problems at the grade 6 level (Math 7/6), but my son is doing Algebra 2 for grade 10 and is finding it challenging but doable. He doesn't enjoy math and I would like to find a good curriculum that doesn't use the same format every day.

I had gotten several of the textbooks for free at a local Christian school that had closed, so all I had to get were the workbooks which were not hard to get on eBay or Amazon. The kids like Saxon better than Lifepac math that they used our first year, but those are the only two we've tried.


English Language Arts:

They both have great imaginations and love making up stories, so we decided to use Cover Story and The One Year Adventure Novel curricula, both by Daniel Schwabauer, MA, an award-winning author and teacher. Each day begins with a DVD lesson, then there's a page or two in the textbook, then something to write in the workbook. So far, so good!

We used Learning Language Arts Through Literature last year. It uses classic books as a basis for lessons, which I liked, but we found the lessons very repetitive.

We used Switched-On Schoolhouse from Alpha Omega Publications our second year (very difficult to study for tests and quizzes!), and the first year we used Alpha Omega's lifepacs (a little repetitive and dull).


Science:

Apologia science is our choice again for grade 6 this school year: continuing the Astronomy she started after finishing Zoology 3 in grade 5. Will likely do Zoology 1 after that.

For grade 10, we've gone back to LIFEPAC from Alpha Omega Publications, which we used our first two years.

History/Geography:

Since the Beginning is an older edition of A Beka Book's History of the World grade 7 curriculum. I was able to get it for free and only had to buy the geography component--and the children really wanted to learn ancient history--so it's a good fit. We are continuing where we left off last year, since it's meant to be done for an hour 5 days a week and we only do history twice a week.

We really enjoyed the Exploring Canada's Geography series from Apple Press which we used for grades 3 and 4.
All of the provinces and territories are available (from Scholar's Choice, Tree of Life and more) and it takes a month or two to go through one workbook. The pages are reproducible, so you can use a book for more than one child. The only problem is that there is only one simple test at the end of each; my solution was to make my own quizzes and tests which I'm willing to share.

We used Alpha Omega's 6th grade Lifepacs for grade 7 (didn't want to learn US history) and Canadian Identity, the public school textbook, for grade 8 social studies since my husband taught it for several years (it is not designed for homeschool--I don't recommend it at all).

Bible:

Bibletime Lessons from Bible-n-more.com
These are nice, free Bible lessons that come by mail. I don't need to mark these since they are mailed back for marking.

Art:
We don't use any formal art curriculum; we just make a paper craft or something. I try to do a seasonal or holiday-themed craft.









In the past, we have also done penmanship, for which we used Bible Copywork from Teach Me Joy. Penmanship is not a favourite subject, but this curriculum (which I was able to get for free) was not too painful. This year we will just work on penmanship in their regular subjects instead of doing it separately.

In 2011-2012 we did the Health Quest Switched-On Schoolhouse program from Alpha Omega Publications. The content was good, just a bit difficult for my fourth-grader.

We didn't finish German in 10 minutes a day from Bilingual Books, but we got the program from ChristianBook.com and we think it's great.

Typing Instructor Platinum for Kids was a hit! My kids also loved Dance Mat Typing, an online course from BBC, which they did in 2011-2012, but it only has 12 lessons. We also have Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing but they don't like it.