Hi. I am new and needing some suggestions on what curriculum I should use. My DD is finishing PS RD grade and my DS is finishing PS k. We are going to home school in the fall so I wanted to ease into it by doing some busy work this summer. I have bought MUS for both and for my DD I bought Daily Gramms 5Th grd and for my DS I bought Explode the Code. We are going to keep busy with library, nature center, VBS, and a few other field trips. Oh, and lots of reading. Is there anything else I should include for the summer? Also what do you recommend for the fall. I was told about MFW and someone recommended Sonlight. A couple friends put their own together. There is sooooo much out there I don't know where to start. I do want a Bible lesson one way or another. I feel like they are missing out because we have moved a couple years ago and not found a Church home yet. Also I have a busy 2 y/o so I am feeling stressed but excited at the same time. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!
With having multiple children to school and one to entertain, I really like LifePacs. Once your children are reading (so, this may not be relevent for the Ker yet depending) the lessons are self-guided. Not saying you can walk away entirely, but it gives me time. I set up my second grader with what I want him working on, then I can give some attention to my Ker. My older son can read and do the work all in one book (they are work texts). I'm right there if he has a question, but usually he can get through at least fifteen minutes or so on his own. Sometimes longer. Maybe doing a subject or two like that will free you up to work with the other kiddos.
I enjoy putting my own things together, but there was no way I could do that the first year of homeschooling. I recommend a program like Sonlight that will plan everything out for you.
My good friend did Sonlight this year and said it was ALOT of work and preparation. For the first year, I would not recommend it. MFW is supposed to be easy to teach. You mentioned Daily Grams...Easy Grammar is from the same publisher and is a wonderful grammar program. Considering God's Creation is my fav for Science and you could do it with both kids, of course, with the K, it wouldn't be as involved. You can view a full review and sample pages here: http://heartsathomekids.com/store/index.php?main_page=page&id=29 Story of the World is a great History program that the K could also sit in on. For math, horizons is good, but advanced and Lifpac in my opinion is the opposite...seeming somewhat behind or for the struggling child. We use Teaching Textbooks and are finishing up with 4th grade. We loved that math curriculum, but it too is "just" on track, not advanced. There are several spelling porgrams, but whatever you choose, I recommend www.spellingcity.com for aid in teaching spelling. Oftem time people will print the Sonlight reading list per grade and get the readers from ther library. For fun and enriching histiry unit studies, I recommend Time Travelers Series by Homeschool in the Woods. I did another full review here: http://heartsathomekids.com/store/index.php?main_page=page&id=28 The first year is usually a lot of trial and error. Check out www.homeschoolreviews.com to read about many curriculums from other homeschooling moms. Then you can go to www.homeschoolclassifieds.com to buy it used. God Bless you for your decision! He will provide all you need.
I would have to disagree that Sonlight is alot of work and preparation. I have been doing Sonlight this year and it is so well laid out that I need almost no preparation. There is alot of meat to Sonlight but you can tailor it to your family and your children. Our daily Sonlight time usually only takes 1 -1 .5 hrs (Bible, History, Spelling, LA, Science and Reading). It is so well laid out that I would highly recommend this for a new homeschooler.
On a lighter note, how about art work? It doesn't have to be formal and it could be fun. Play music and tell your children to draw what they see or feel. Have them make rubbings from trees and label them. Make lapbooks out of them. Have your daughter make period dolls out of clothespins and dress them. Ems has made people from the Bible, queens, pioneers, and more. Make sock puppets and have the children act out what they read. Go on nature walks and have them make journals, written or drawn, of what they collected. Have them study what they find. Collect rocks and using a book from the library, see if they can label them. HAVE FUN!
I'm doing first grade next year, my 1st year homeschooling. We're using free stuff, other than I did win a subscription to clicknkids.com and have a free trial until aug for readingeggs.com. We also plan to ease into homeschooling this summer. We're doing a lapbook on rabbits (since 3 of our rabbits just had babies) http://www.homeschoolshare.com/rabbit_lapbook.php We'll be doing a unit study on leaves http://www.hshighlights.com/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=67 and I also got the craft unit to go with it http://www.hshighlights.com/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=16 (they are on sale for $2 each-they are PDFs you print yourself) Then I'll let my son chose to do a unit study on either 'The Velveteen Rabbit' or 'Where the wild things are' (both also from the site above) Like you, along with lots of reading, field trips, library, nature center, ect Our plan for next year (fall) is the phonics/spelling through clicknkids.com and then a unit study on farming and for math we'll be using 'total math grade 3' and co-op classes for science (apologia zoology 1) and Social studies (explorers-civil war) and maybe this http://www.sfreading.com/resources/ghbgrd1.html for grammar, haven't REALLY took a good look at it yet, so not sure. For Bible, I'll make it up myself and we'll some books I bought YEARS ago for morning devotionals on obedience, respect, sharing, ect. I think that's it LOL
For our first year we have used McRuffy. http://www.mcruffy.com/1P.htm I just bought the language arts program and the math program. My daughter enjoyed it, and we plan on using them next year as well. The prices were good, the prep work was minimal, and for kindergarten at least it took me maybe 45 minutes a day to work with her. My younger kids like to sit with us and play with the math manipulatives that came with the program...I'm going to buy two extra sets of those for next year. We are planning on adding Sonlight next year as well, but since I haven't taught it yet I can't really say too much about it. I'm excited to give it a try! We are just purchasing the core, and will continue to do our math and LA through McRuffy.
I will be using MFW ECC and MUS with my children. There grades in the fall will be K, 1st and 5th. I decided to switch to MFW because its suppose to be geared for multi aged kids. My current curriculum had a age range but it was difficult to combine in the fall becaues it was a shorter age range.
