Curriculum 2013/2014

Like I said in one of my previous posts, picking a curriculum is HARD!  I would never have imagined there would be so many choices to choose from.  You can really drive yourself crazy trying to figure out which one to use, Trust me I know!!  With much prayer and the help of the spirit I believe I was guided to the curriculum that would work best for us.  Every time I would close the web page and start looking at other curricula, I would always end up back at My Father's world's web page and the feeling I got was that this was the right choice for us and that was enough for me to commit.

Here is our curriculum breakdown.
My Father's World (MFW)

Batman
Adventures in U.S. History by MFW

My daily learning notebook from Confessions of a homeschooler
Bible: MFW (Modified to Kings James Version)
Spelling: Rod and Staff  Spelling by Sound and Structure
English: Primary Language lessons
History/Geography: MFW
Science: MFW
Math: Singapore Math-Primary Mathematics 1B and 2A with Intensive Practice and Math Sprints
Reading: Library books
Art and Music: MFW
Health: Rod and Staff-Proper manners and health habits
Spanish: Rosetta Stone
Typing: Typing Instructor for kids 5
Read Aloud: Read by Mom

Tinkerbell
Learning God's Story-complete First Grade Curriculum by MFW

My daily learning notebook from Confessions of a homeschooler
Bible: MFW (Modified to Kings James Version)
Reading/L.A.: MFW
Math/Geometry: MFW and Complete book of math
Reading review: Library books
History/Geography:  Adventures with Cameron
Science: Adventures with Cameron
Art and Music: Adventures with Cameron
Health: Rod and Staff-Proper manners and health habits 
Spanish: Rosetta Stone
Typing: Typing Instructor for kids 5
Read Aloud: Read by Mom

We were doing "Handwriting Without Tears" but there is a lot of writing already in our curriculum so I decided to take it out.  We tried "Song School Spanish" but decided it wasn't really working out and switched to Rosetta Stone.

Getting settled and our school room

After three months of moving around I am very happy to be getting settled into our new home. A great thing about our new home is that we are able to have a school room instead of having to do school in my son's room.  I always felt bad for him because I would never let him play in his room because I was too afraid they would mess with the school stuff.  We no longer have to worry about that problem.

                                                                  

Our school room last year

Our school room this year.  Loving that the kids have their own desks.

 

We started workboxes this year and we are loving them!

All our supplies

Each of the kids have shutters to hang pictures.  The string is our timeline for this year.

We are still using our behavior chart and it works great.  We also have the school rules up, our Hand writing without tears chart and my first calendar.

New Beginnings

The kid and I have been on the move since the beginning of May thus the reason for not really blogging much.  We have gone from Florida to Colorado to Utah to Idaho then to Washington and back down to Utah and then back up to Idaho and back to Utah again.  Makes me tired just writing it.  Our final destination is Nebraska and we will hopefully be there by the end of the month.   I'm sure you're wondering why we would do all that crazy driving. Well, my husband is in the Air Force and we sold our house a lot faster then we thought was possible so we went on a road trip to visit family from the time we sold our house to the time my husband could leave.  It has been fun but I am ready to have my own home again and to start our new school year in our new home.

Since we are starting our 2nd year homeschooling I thought it would be fun to name our school.  With the help of my amazing sister-in-law, we were able to make a logo with our new school name:  Goldennrod Academy.  Goldenrod is the state flower of Nebraka.  We are excited about our new name and plan on getting embroidered T-shirts for field trips and bags for library books.

Scripture Study

We try to do our Scripture study nightly as a family. We use a program called Gospel Principles Study Guide for Young Children.

Here is the link.
http://www.schoolofabraham.com/html/gospelprinciples.htm#Lesson 1: Our Father in Heaven. 

The kids have loved this program.  They love the songs and the pictures. They also learn to memorize the articles of faith as well as other scriptures.  We have the articles of faith on the wall as well as a little booklet I made them. 

Here is the link for the printable articles of faith.
 http://images.search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0PDoQ2vK2RRExUAivyjzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTBtdXBkbHJyBHNlYwNmcC1hdHRyaWIEc2xrA3J1cmw-/SIG=12rbp0i4c/EXP=1365548079/**http%3a//www.simplyfreshdesigns.com/2010/10/lds-prints-articles-of-faith/

 

Do you really need another reason??

Do you really need another reason why I love homeschooling?  Probably not but I'm going to give you one anyways. :-)  Field Trips!!  

How can you not love being able to take your kids to museums, an aquarium or a fire station whenever you want.  This year, so far, we have gone to all three.

Atlanta Aquarium

This was an unplanned trip but my kids have always loved ocean animals.

 

 

  

 

Fire station

The firemen were very nice and let the kids climb in the truck and wear their jackets.  Batman would just shout out all the answers to the fireman's questions. It was alot of fun!

 

Wonderworks

This was a field trip scheduled by Florida Virtual school.  I'm so glad we went. I think I had more fun than the kids. If you have never been, I highly recommend it.

Curriculum

I never realized how much homeschool curriculum is out there. Talk about overwhelming. When we first started homeschooling we were using a program called time 4 learning. It is a computer based program so most of the work was online and then we would need library books to complete the lesson. Most of the time the library wouldn't have the library books I needed so I felt the program was really lacking for what I wanted for the kids. So then starts the massive search of all the programs and what we want to use. Considering we were already half way through the year I didn't feel good about buying a whole curriculum so I started looking at Florida virtual school. This is the curriculum we are using right now and let's just say we will not be using it again. It is a very complete program but I hate having to follow another persons schedule and I would honesty like to do school all year long and be able to take breaks as needed through out the year.  So once again I have to start the search of curriculums. Thank goodness we have the internet and I  can do tons of research and see many reviews of all the programs.  there is a homeschool convention in April that I am going to so I can check out all the curriculum.  I am really leaning towards one called My Fathers World but we will see how I feel after the convention.

Recess

Did you know in 2nd grade here they are no longer given recess, they have quiet indoor time.  Batman would always come home and say "mom they never let me get my energy out".  I truly feel this was one reason he had such a hard time in school.  Needless to say, we don't have that problem at home.  We can take a recess whenever we need.  We have been having alot of rain lately so for "recess" the kids wanted to play in the water.  They had a blast!!