We are a few months into our new school year, as we school year round. Our year usually goes from about June until May. So, we have been using our “new” 2010 curriculum for nearly a full 4 months now. We have made a few changes, so I thought I’d do an update post to let you know how things are going with certain curricula we are using this year!
We are Loving:
- Story of the World, vol. 1 (we are using map pages and activity pages and it is going SO well!)
- Exploring Creation Human Anatomy
(we meet with friends weekly – awesome!)
- La Clase Divertida (also with friends 1x per week – loving this, too)
- Teaching Textbooks 3
- Primary Language Lessons
- English from the Roots Up, Vol. 1
(I added this in after we realized we weren’t enjoying Minimus Latin, this is a very simple curriculum to just “add in” to any plan you may be using!)
Things that still need tweaking:
FIAR ~ our beloved curriculum has not been easy for me to implement with adding our 3rd student, I am trying to only row favorites this year – mostly for Caleb’s benefit, but it’s been hard making information new for the girls and also on Caleb’s level. I just haven’t been willing to do separate levels of FIAR. (yet.) Right now we are still re-rowing my absolute favorites from volumes 1-3 for Caleb’s kindergarten year.
Things we ditched:
- Who Is God? (And Can I Really Know Him?)
(worldview book, with all our reading this year we just are having a hard time getting this in, it doesn’t hold the kids attention very well. I may just need to hold off on this for another year or two.)
- Minimus – Starting out in Latin
(I just did not love this curriculum. The workbook that I thought I was purchasing was not really a workbook, just a book for the student of lots of conversations and comic strips in Latin. My kids are not big auditory learners so this just was not a good fit for us.)
How is your year going so far? Have you made any changes to your original plans??
Hi Candace… I’m a fellow (new) FIAR-er who stalks your blog. 🙂 I don’t think I’ve ever commented, so hi! I have a question for you about SOTW… I love it as a history read-aloud, but the first thing I noticed about Vol. 1 was that it did not start with Creation. It really bothered me that as a Christian, Mrs. Bauer chose to write these books from a secular viewpoint. (At least I think she’s a Christian… maybe she’s not?!) I LOVE these books for the most part and am always curious to see how other Christian homeschoolers have dealt with it and used it with their families. Thanks!
Candace,
I appreciate you sharing what’s working and what’s not.
I was wondering if you could share why you like First Language Lessons and English from the Roots Up? I am trying to decide if I should add some grammar and spelling this year or not but I need easy, not to expensive and that I could handle with several children around (again easy). We follow a CM lifestyle as well…
Thanks so much for the clarification and sharing why you like them. I will put them on my RR wishlist and pray about getting them. 🙂
Candace~Thanks for sharing. I have not heard many of these. With the new babies~I stuck with I knew this year. Abeka and Horizon. Colton seems to be doing well thus far…I am looking forward to learning more and adding/changing as the years go on.