Planning Next School Year
This is probably the first year that I know, without a doubt, that I will continue to use what we are already using. For you newbies, this is a BIG deal for me! It has taken me literally 12 years of homeschooling to figure out what works! Or maybe it’s taken me 12 years to finally quit stressing about it so much? Yep, that’s probably what it is.
I LOVE using free, downloaded books. My major investment into our curriculum in the past year hasn’t been a library’s worth of books coming in the mail, or curriculum packages, or anything like that. It was simply a reconditioned Brother laser printer, for $158. That’s it. I printed out our books, had them spiral bound at Staples, and we continued on our way. For next year, we are doing the very same thing. I am considering having them heat taped this time around though. Staples does that too. Not sure yet if we will or not.
So what are we using? An Old Fashioned Education, level 3 for this year. The reading is fine for my younger son, and just right for my special needs son. The boys will be 2nd and 4th grades, so hitting the middle road is just right for us. Currently I’m looking over the book list and checking to see if we can eliminate at least a couple of titles. There seems to be MANY books covering myths, and I think probably one is sufficient. We may add a couple of other things in. Letters from Egypt looks promising. We already own Happy Scribe Classical History Copybooks, and will be using them for handwriting. Shurley English Level 2 is on the shelf waiting, but only for the grammar portion. Our bigger kids and I really didn’t like Shurley’s writing lessons at all. The grammar is fantastic! We’ll continue using Math U See, because we love it. I am going to try out Sequential Spelling with my older son, because I think spelling gets long and tedious for him and he may benefit from a base word type spelling format. We tried out the first lesson of level 1 today, and he did fine. I ordered it used. We’ll see how it goes.
So, what are you keeping, and what are you tossing? Are you sticking to your guns, or are you scrapping everything and starting over?
I so know what you mean! This will be our 10th year homeschooling and I have gone to the other side. We have always been a less is more kind of homeschool, but I have fallen in love with the Well Trained Mind and since we have been listening to the Story of the World on CD (for fun) for the last year.. we are making the transition for my two girls. The first grader.. not so much.. I will teach him to read and do math games… but nothing really formal. 4th grader will start Saxon and the 2nd grader will stick with our Evan Moor math. Our sophomore will be going through the Chalkdust SAT Course, Apologia Chemistry, geometry, a worldview course, piano, Spanish III and a literature course.