Curriculum Choices

Below you will find brief reviews of the curriculums I've used, what I liked and didn't.

Sunlight was the first curriculum I used when my oldest was 4.  I had no idea what I was doing and I just wanted everything to come in one box and have lesson plans to tell me what to do and when.  Bible, history, science, 3 math options, english and electives. I soon found out that their Language Arts program didn't work for my son.  So we switched to Veritas Press for Phonics.  I absolutely love the literature in Sonlight's book choices!  For the younger years, the readers and read aloud were perfect.  Fun and educational.  One thing I felt Sonlight lacked (at the time, now I believe this has changed) is there were not many hands on activities.  And when I had my oldest doing Eastern Hemisphere and my middle boys doing the Middle Ages, I found it very difficult to keep things straight so I began looking for a curriculum that was better suited for multiple age kids.

This is a wonderful classical education curriculum.  I may have chosen this all those years ago if they had lesson plans.  I believe they now do.  But I would pick an choose many things from their catalog every year as it tied in well with Sonlight. The main piece I used from VP was their Phonics Museum. I used this through all 4 of my boys teaching them how to read. It is a Kindergarten and First Grade program. Hands on activites, beginner reader books, and handwriting, which I didn't use until my last son.  I used Handwriting Without Tears for the others. Note that VP is a TOUGH curriculum, very vigorous and not for the faint of heart.  But remember you don't need to do it all for any curriculum.

I save this one for last since this is what we are using this year. I like this one best for multiple ages.  This was my saving grace after trying to use my beloved Sonlight when my oldest was in 6th grade.  So at that time I had 6th, 3rd, 1st and a 1 year old. I also like this because one curriculum has all the ages and I'm using year 1 again this year, possibly my last time going through it! It had hands on projects for each age group, same with readers, writing assignments, art activities. I guess this isn't totally all in one as it doesn't have science.  But I love how each of my children can be reading about Gilgamesh at their own level.  Another great thing about TOG is that many of the books can be borrowed from the library.  This comes in a digital form that you can print out.  I have them printed out.  When I got them you had the choice to purchase just the digital format or the paper or both.  I did both.  I did get burned out on this curriculum because I tried to do it all.  No curriculum expects to you to do everything in it.  You are the teacher and decide what is going to work best for your family.

I used this for a couple of year for late elementary and one year in high school.  I feel like the elementary was just ok.  The books are very colorful and easy to read and they have workbooks with activities to do.  It was one of the more easy history curriculums I've used and I didn't have to be involved a ton other than making sure they did the work and checking it.  But I'm not sure how much they learned.  It was all reading and workbook.  I don't remember if there were hands on activities.  The high school on the other hand was extremely difficult even for me.  I would not use the high school again unless I was willing to totally go through it with my high schooler.

I used this for one year and it was all in one book and very light, but I think we made it light.  I used it after feeling burnt out after using Tapestry and trying to do everything in that curriculum. It fit my needs for that year.

This is my favorite writing and grammar program! I have been using it for 10 years now and will be teaching one of the theme books.  They have teacher training that has helped immensely and it is laid out in an easy way for me to teach it.  Many years I have had another teacher teach this as well as I have edited all the papers for my kids.  The IEW format teaches the kids to take a source text and make it their own but doing an outline and then writing from the outline.  Through the year, they learn how to write from multiple texts and how to write from pictures.

IEW also has a grammar program called Fix It, which is very easy to use. The student has a sentence a day to label and edit and at the end of the week they are to write out the correct sentences.  This starts simple and builds as you go on.

Apologia science has a wonderful programs from elementary through high school.  They elementary books and notebooks are easy to use and our written to the student. But most of the time I read to them because I enjoy it and learn at the same time.  Experiments and projects are scattered throughout the book and you can find the materials or by a kit that has all the supplies you need. Middle school and high school progress as they should.

Math has been my favorite subject to teach with reading aloud to my kids as a close second.  I've also used Miquon as a supplement with Singapore.  Miquon uses cuisenaire rods and is a different way of thinking with math.  I found that I'd use this one day a week on our co op day. They would not need instruction from me, just extra practice presented in a different way.  I used Singapore Math for elementary until book 6.  Some of my boys used this one, others I started using a pre algebra book by Dolciani (Jurgensen for Geometry). A very smart math friend of mine found that there wasn't much theory in the newer math books.  So for high school she felt the older (not homeschool books) texts were best. Now remember you know your child best so you need to decide what math curriculum works for your child here are others I have seen but haven't used: Horizons, Math U See, Saxon, Teaching Textbooks (video based) and Chalkdust (video based)