Our Curriculum

Choosing a curriculum for our first year of homeschooling was both exciting and overwhelming.  I was completely amazed at the number of options available.  My first instinct was to figure out which option had the best ratings and reviews, but I soon realized that almost every program had both positive and negative reviews.  After a while, I realized the negative reviews had a common thread.  They typically stated the program "didn't work FOR MY CHILD".  I realized I had been forgetting one of the greatest benefits of homeschooling.  I can tailor our curriculum choices to favor our kids' strengths, learning styles, and preferences.  Some children prefer worksheets.  Some prefer hands-on activities.  Luke prefers to listen to good books.

I found a wonderful program called Sonlight that many of our other homeschool friends use (or used at one point in time).  One of them referred to the kindergarten year with this program as "magical."  The history, Bible and literature portions are all read-alouds.  The stories are set in various times and places, so we have blank maps and timelines to fill in throughout the year.  We spent the majority of our summer reading time going through stories that were added to the curriculum after we purchased it (they periodically review their programs) and he loved the selections (Beezus and Ramona, Little House in the Big Woods, and the Complete Adventures of Curious George).   The program also includes Language Arts (including copy work, writing practice and spelling). 

Box Day!  Everyone was excited to see all of our new books!

We're going to continue using Explode the Code for phonics instruction and the Sonlight Grade 1 reader list for reading practice.  We started the readers back in April and have practiced almost everyday, so we'll finish the list early, but I know we'll find lots of other books to read now that Luke's skills are progressing.

We're also going to stick with Singapore Math this year.  Luke will be doing 1A and 1B workbooks and the Intensive Practice book.   I really like the way this program and I've read that if we start with it and stick with it, he'll be really strong in understanding math concepts. 

Luke (and Ben!) learning about the value of money
while finishing Singapore Math K.

One of our many reasons for choosing to homeschool is that we want to encourage our children to research and study on their own.  We want them to know that learning is something that is not just done inside a school building between the hours of 8-3:30.  As a first introduction to this concept, Luke is going to be choosing a topic during each six-week period to research (we're doing year-round school, but that is a different subject for a different post).  He decided that his first topic would be cars.  We plan to go to the library to check out books about how cars are designed, take a trip to get the oil changed (I believe our place will allow him to get out of the car to watch if Aaron holds him), take a trip to the Rouge factory tour, assemble a toy model car, and (just for fun) wash the van.  Cars will not be a staple of our daily curriculum, but I hope having small choices in his learning, he'll realize that he can take ownership of his education.

We won't be completely on our own.  We joined a co-op with about 50 families from our community.  We meet once a week for the kids to go to their classes.  Luke is going to be attending Gym, Engineering (with me!), and Story of the World (History).  Ben will be joining the preschool class and Olivia is taking over the Toddler room.  We've already met a few of the families and I know the boys will make some really good friends.

The boys are also going to enjoy ice skating lessons and after a summer of intro to swimming classes, Luke will be starting Level 1 swim lessons.  Our schedule is really starting to fill up!