homeschool curriculum 2010/2011

There are only a few curriculums this year that I am doing with all three kids at the same time. For the most part their individual curriculums look very different from one another. But we still do Bible, Science, and Geography together and here is what we are doing in those subjects:

Bible: We start our morning with Bible. We are still continuing with going through the Bible one book at a time. We started this after Christmas and we finished the OT and are half way through the NT, we are on 1 Peter. The kids are doing great having memorized the books of the Bible. So for 1 Peter, we talk about who wrote the book, when it was written, the main point of the book and then we read one of the chapters or a few verses.
Total cost: FREE
I have also been using the Promises and Blessings book, there is a blessing for each day of the year and I give them a blessing each morning. I LOVE this book and love blessing the kids with God's promises.
Total cost: I bought this book new off of Amazon, $12, there are just some books that I don't want a used copy of.
The book called Walking the Bible is one that we just finished. It was a GREAT non-fiction book about a man who goes on a journey and tries to find the locations of famous Biblical events like the Garden of Eden, where Noah's Ark landed, the burning bush, where the Red Sea parted, etc.... There was a PBS documentary that goes along with it and we watched that after we were done reading the book.
Total cost: $4 for the book (from Half Priced Books), movie sent by Netflix.

Geography: I have several books on Geography that I have bought second hand from half priced books. We recycle through them quite a bit but for this school year I did get this award winning game and a puzzle. We play this game about once a week and we all love it. It is so well made and the kids learn all about each state, it's location, capital, and so on.
Total cost: $22 at Fry's Marketplace

Science:
I LOVE LOVE LOVE Apolagia Science books. Last year we did Astronomy and this year we are doing Botany. I love everything about it, how the text book is laid out, how the science experiments are well explained and most of the items are already items that are laying around the house, and how it is written from a creation perspective but still mentions what other science scholars believe. The cards you see in this picture are vocabulary cards that we made to help learn the big terms we are studying. More on this later, but my boys are very right brained learners and have to have more than just seeing the word, we add pictures and come up with a story for each card and that way it gets imbedded in their long term memory. And for Anna who is very left brain, well it works just as well for her and just drives the point home. I'll expand on the right brain stuff later.
Total cost: $25, I bought this at the homeschool convention this summer.


Anna's curriclum:
Spelling: I used this with Camden at the beginning of last year, Anna is a very strong speller so I thought she would be ready for it and she is doing great with it.
total cost: this was purchased last year so for this year it was free.

Oral reading:
Anna has been reading the books from the 1st grade hooked on phonics program. I also used this program with Camden. I love being able to use things over again. Anna is a very strong reader and we have tons of books in our house so we are never lacking for anything for her to read. We also love the library so she gets books from there to read also. I sit down with Anna each day and she reads outloud.
Total cost: Free, recycled from a few years back.

Math:
I do enjoy Math-U-See and Anna was so excited to get started on this. I was able to borrow the DVD from another homeschool mom so all I needed to purchase was the workbook and I got that for a discounted price at the homeschool convention. The math blocks I purchased at the beginning of last school year because both the boys also do Math-U-See.
Total cost:
Just the workbook, I can't remember how much it cost?

My mom bought this calendar book for Anna. It is great! Each day she looks up the weather report on my computer and then goes outside to look at the sky. She then records the high/low temps and what kind of clouds are in the sky. This has been a big hit with Annagrace.
Total cost: FREE, thanks to Grandma and Papa

Explode the code books are fun little books and very inexpensive. It is a fun way to teach phonics, that is if you like worksheets and Anna loves worksheets!
Total cost: $6

Reading comprehension:
This book is a little on the easy side for Anna but she is enjoying it and doesn't seem bored with it so we will finish it before moving into the 1st grade one. I bought both the K and 1 at convention this year.
total cost: $14

Anna likes using this chart we made to check things off as she does her work. We only homeschool Mon-Thurs because the kids all go to school on Fridays at Eagle Ridge Enrichment Program, which they all LOVE!

Grammar:
My friend told me about this Grammar program and I really like it! It is laid out very well, there is one lesson per day, but we have divided it up over two days depending on how much new material is being covered. It is a great grammar program and it took be a long time to find one I like.
Total cost:
I got this at convention and I think it was about $13.

Jadon's curriculum:
Reading, History, language arts (spelling, vocabulary, writing).
Jadon has a busy schedule this school year. He homeschools with us Monday through Wednesday and then Thursday afternoons from 12:30 to 3:30 he attends a class for homeschoolers taught by a lady who was a homeschool mom/teacher. She teaches a history based language arts class that involves a lot of critical thinking. If you know Jadon, you know he loves to have deep conversations and always has questions that stump even the best of scholars. He clicks very well with this teacher. We had to purchase several books for this class that he will be using all year. Luckily we got them all used off of Amazon and were able to keep it right around $100. The books are very interesting to him and I know we will get a lot of use out of them.
Total cost: $100
These are the books he will be using this month.

And will eventually be using these ones too.

Math:
Jadon is finishing up his Math-U-See program from last year before he starts in on the new unit, I still have to buy that but will wait until he completes this one. He is almost done and then I am going to spend some time using Time Tales Deluxe which I am borrowing from a friend to help drive home those difficult multiplication facts.
Total cost: Free :)


We also make things like this to help remember some important facts: See if you can figure this out:

There are 4 quarts to 1 Gallon. 2 Pints to each Quart, and 2 cups per pint. If you can keep this visual in your mind you'll never wonder again. :)
Total cost: Free
Map skills
Jadon has been working through this map skills book. I am not totally thrilled with it as I even struggle with some of the answers. I find the wording complicated but I have found the pages I like and those are the ones he is working on.
total cost: $6

Spelling:
Jadon is doing a Right brained writing program this semester. One of the steps in this program is working on spelling but using quite a different approach than most people are familiar with. I take words that Jadon has misspelled from his papers or I take them from this list:

and those become his spelling words. We bring the word to life by putting those tricky letters in a different color and then coming up with a story for the word. There is a very specific way of teaching each word, but when we are done with our session he can not only spell the word forward but backward as well. I am amazed! Here is a sample of some of his words:
total cost: FREE

For example, Jadon spells write as rite. So we made this card. Here is the story we both came up with, and you would be amazed at how little time it takes to make a card and come up with a story. The main idea is to have the picture imbedded in the letters, this is how these right brainers learn best and it sticks! We make the word cards together on Mondays. The word is Write, notice the pencils on the "W", they are waiting to be used so they can write on the paper that is waiting on the "t". And it makes me really happy ("e") when Jadon writes a story. Most of our stories we come up with have more action and excitement. This was one of our more boring words.

Art:
Jadon is my one who loves art! He is also in an art class at Eagle Ridge on Fridays but he likes to do art at home too. We don't always involve this in our homeschool days but this is the project he is working on right now. And by the way, he does not get any of his skills from me.
Total cost: FREE

Vocabulary:
I LOVE this book. I got it used off of Amazon and I can use it with all three kids. It is funny, and the boys and even Anna have really liked learning new words this way.
Total cost: used off of amazon, I can't remember the price?

Here is an example of one of the pages:

Government:
This is kind of hard to see but Jadon was learning the branches of the goverment so he put it in the form of a picture and in doing this he memorized the three branches, Legislative, Executive, and Judicial and the pictures give him visual clues as to what each branch does.
Total cost: FREE

And this is the dreaded writing 8 excersise that both boys are doing. 4 days out of the week they take a crayon on this paper and complete 3 figure 8's and then make an "a" and then three more laps and make their "b" and so on and so forth until they get to z. This has so many purposes but it is actually a brain exercise helping the boys make that important cross over between both hemispheres of their brain. Crossing that midline is very important to help open up some blocked learning gates that both boys have. This will make writing easier for both of them and will help Camden with letter reversals. We will do this for about 6 months and then they will be done with it.

Brain Training:
Once a week I am doing a brain training excercise with Jadon. It only takes about 15 minutes and during our session, he is doing exercises that make that very important crossover of the midline and in so doing after several weeks (combined with the writing 8 excersise) we should notice a marked improvement in the ease of writing for Jadon so he won't be wasting so much brain energy when he sits down to write a paper. It all sounds a little strange I know, but if you want more information you can read this post I blogged about previously.
The writing therapy and brain training I am doing with the boys come out of something called the Brain Integration Manual. I don't have a picture of it but I got it off of Dianne Craft's website. It is packed full of usefull information and worth every penny!

Moving on to Camden:
I'm not going to repost the writing 8 excersise or vocabulary book, but Camden is using both of those like Jadon is. We are also doing the spelling words with Camden that we create and bring to life, his words are different than Jadon's though. And Camden is also doing a once a week brain training session to help him with his reading. So with all that said, here are some things that only Camden is doing:
Reading:
I am doing a reading program with Camden that is made for the struggling reader. This program was such an answer to prayer and I am so thrilled to be teaching it to Camden and he is doing GREAT! Our reading session starts with 6 excersises that help with crossing the midline:


After doing the excersises we move on to this book and Camden reads word lists:

We then work on sight words that go something like this:


I didn't make these, they came printed this way.
And we do dictation where I say words to Camden, he writes them down and then reads them back to me. We don't take care of spelling mistakes during this time but do that during our writing therapy.
And after that we move on to reading. Camden is working his way through Merrill readers that look like this.

I'm already seeing his confidence build and he is doing great! We are optimistic that we will see about a two year growth in Camden's reading level after implimenting the reading program, braing training, nutritional supplements and lots of prayer. We are so excited to see him flourish into a fantastic reader!
Lastly, Camden is also doing Math but I am not going to continue with the Math-U-See for him, it doesn't seem to be a good fit so I am just going to pick up a few Walmart math books and use those for now.
If you read all this, you really should give yourself a pat on the back. I know it's a lot of information!