Our Curriculum for 2009-2010

It's that time of year again...time to purchase our curriculum for the fall. I am so excited this year...changes are definitely coming!! We have had quite a difficult year and I am ready move on. Don't get me wrong, it was quite a learning experience, but we had many challenges and so much was sacrificed. Taking care of Dad was one of the hardest and yet rewarding things I've ever done (aside from parenting), but he is now peacefully with the Lord, so we can concentrate on our own family.

Since we're moving, we need to pack up our school work and figure out where we stand for the new year. Unfortunately we will have to continue with school through a good chunk of July, but once August hits, we will start the new year, ready or not. Lionel will be in 10th grade and Sweet-Pea will be in 3rd. I can't believe it...we are exactly half way through our homeschooling years. We've done 10 years (with Lionel), and we have 10 left (for Sweet-Pea). I never ever thought I'd be 'in' school for so many years!! ha ha I went to school for 18 years myself, and if you add homeschooling to it, I'll have been in school 38 years total!!! Wow!! How come I don't feel that smart though?!?

That being said...below are our curriculum choices for August. Some choices are simply a continuation of what we used this past year, but others are different. We all enjoy changes now and then, it keeps things fresh and makes learning so much fun. This year should be a total blast with the kids!!! I can't wait to move, unpack, settle in our new home, and then begin a new school year! Summer? Forget it...we've had plenty of days off already! =)

Here goes:

GEOGRAPHY:
This year Lionel won't be doing any formal geography. He's had his share of it in past years...US Geography, World Geography, Bible Geography etc. This year he gets a break! Sweet-Pea will be doing US Geography using none other than Geomatters...our favorite geography curriculum. What's even better is that I didn't have to purchase anything for her since we have all the books.


MATH:
Sweet-Pea will be once again using Horizons for Math. She did Horizons grade 2 last year and really enjoyed it. She likes the colorful books and Edward (who teaches the kids' math) enjoys the way it's taught. Lionel will be working on Geometry this year. He's looking forward to a break from Algebra! I love watching Edward teach the kids, it's a great time of bonding for them and it helps Daddy really get involved in our homeschooling. That's huge!


HISTORY:
History is my absolute favorite subject to teach and to learn about!! It is constant, yet as a result the present is affected and changed because of the past...how exciting! I love learning right along with the kids. This year will be much different from last year. Sweet-Pea won't be doing a formal 'history' as we know it. Instead, she will be using Beautiful Feet for their 'Teaching Character' literature pack. This will not only instill a love of reading in her, it will teach her all about Godly character. We're excited to begin! Lionel will not be using Beautiful Feet as we have in the past. It was a very difficult decision for us since we love that curriculum so much, but he has not developed into the seasoned reader that we envisioned, so he needs something different. This year he will be using Bob Jones for World History. These books look fantastic, and we are happy to try something new. It looks like something he will thrive on, and we are confident that he will learn history with a solid Biblical foundation this way. That's what matters.


SCIENCE:
We haven't finished our entire science curriculum this year, but fortunately most of what they learned was more than what the school systems end up teaching. Sweet-Pea learned a LOT about our universe through the Exploring Creation with Astronomy. This year we are moving on to Exploring Creation with Botany though. I'm SO excited!! We will be learning a lot about plants, trees, flowers etc. She's been excited about planing a garden in our new backyard, so that will help with some of the hands-on learning this year. Lionel's biology has been a challenge to keep up with. We need to complete it before moving on to his Chemistry class, but hopefully it'll be sometime this fall. I can't wait for Chemistry - it was one of my favorite science classes in high school. Yaay! We purchased the books along with the multimedia CD and also the very cool lab kit...so we get to use bunsen burners, beakers, test tubes and chemicals this year!! Hmm, I hope we have enough insurance on our new home to cover any accidents. =)


WRITING/ENGLISH:
This is my downfall. I do not like writing! I LOVE to read books, especially classics, but I cannot write for the life of me. Fortunately though, I have a friend who wrote a wonderful curriculum called Writing Tales. This will be used for Sweet-Pea. She wrote the curriculum for 3rd adn 4th graders - perfect timing!!! The books not only look fun, but I know that Sweet-Pea will learn lots from them. She covers everything from reading to spelling to writing (including grammar) with this curriculum. For Lionel, I am undertaking a very intense English/Lit program in hopes of creating a wonderful writer in him. I'm also hoping I learn from it as well. The program is called Excellence in Writing. It's a well known curriculum which has very high reviews. We'll see how it goes. I have to watch the teacher DVD's before I even THINK of teaching it to him...so this year I too have 'home'work.


I will also be using Word Roots and Wordly Wise 10 for Lionel to improve on his Latin and vocabulary skills - in preparation for his SAT's. These books are wonderful and they drill information into you without it being a chore. Lionel enjoys these books and finds them to be an enjoyable way to learn.


FOREIGN LANGUAGE:
A few years ago when we were looking for a good foreign language curriculum, we had already heard of Rosetta Stone, but we thought it was too expensive. So, we found something else and we actually grew to love it even more than RS. We use Learnables. It's put out by International Linguistics Corp. Lionel absolutely loves it. He finds that the drawing photos are a lot funnier to look at than real photos. Of course that's not what is important, but it does help. He has learned useful phrases and sentences, not simply words like you do in most foreign language classes. It's the type of learning an adult could relate to as well as a child, plus it's useful the way it's taught! This past year, he was to continue with the 3rd level, but we spent more time reviewing the 2nd level, so this year we'll finally be able to move on. He will learn the grammatical side of it all, so it will flow and fit together better. By the end of the 3rd book, he should be able to read and understand the language fully without worrying about translation. I took 3 years of Spanish in high school and it got me no where. Lionel is learning so much more at his own pace. He does it all by himself on the computer and in his books. I only grade what he's written, and the answers are all in the back, so it's easy for me. Good thing!

ELECTIVES:
This year we will be learning more about Godly character than anything else! I feel that it's an important part of being a child of God, and learning how to live as He did, is something we all need to strive for! The books we'll be using are Young Person's Character Education Handbook. We'll use this together at the beginning of our school day. Then, Lionel will use 2 other books as well for his personal quiet times. A Young Man After God's Own Heart, and Devotions to Make You Smarter. I haven't decided yet which books I'll be using for Sweet-Pea. Since she'll be learning about Godly Character in her history classes this year, we may not need to use anything else. One possibility is the Beautiful Girlhood book that I've been saving for her. We'll see.



Two other things we'll be using this year are Spelling Power...a wonderful spelling curriculum. I'm a firm believer that the more kids read, the less they need to 'learn' how to spell, but sometimes they simply need that extra push, and this is a great book for just that. We also have been using the Mavis Beacon Typing program, but Lionel got VERY frustrated with it. He'd type things correctly and she'd say he did it wrong and make him do it over etc. So...I looked into other programs and found Typing Instructor. It's WONDERFUL! Both kids have been using it already. Sweet-Pea uses the Kid's version which is very kid-friendly, and Lionel has been starting the grown-up version - still fun and easy to use. I know my kids will learn to type quickly with this program. Both my husband and I are very fast typers, so we're hoping the kids will soon follow suit.



Well, besides violin lessons for Lionel and figure skating lessons for Sweet-Pea, that about covers it. Lionel is in his 6th year of violin and has been doing extremely well. Unfortunately he had no recital this year - it had to be canceled due to a death in his teacher's family, but hopefully nexts year he'll blow them all out of the water after having another year to practice! We are so proud of him for his accomplishments in music. Sweet-Pea is also going to continue with figure skating lessons. She's been taking for almost a year now and has improved quite a bit in that short time. Her first day on the ice was not a pleasant experience (we had tears and sadness), but today, she gets right out there on the ice and does all sorts of things I could never do! We're proud of her as well, and know she'll go far...maybe not to the Olympics, yet far enough to get enjoyment out of it for years to come. =) She also is doing well on the flute. I've been teaching her at home and she's coming along better than I ever expected at such a young age.

That about covers it for our curriculum for this coming year. We have lots of work ahead of us, but we are excited about the changes we've made and the new home in which to enjoy them in!