2011-2012 Curriculum

I am so excited about this coming school year. We began our school year last week. Last year was really quite difficult for us with an illness in the family. We are looking forward including all the extra hands on activities this year, instead of trying to get the minimum done.

We are using

• Tapestry of Grace Vol 2: The Middle Ages as the spine of our school year. This will encompass our history, geography, literature, art, and philosophy. I can't even tell you how excited I am about this. I go all nerdy when I start to talk about it. I love literature, so I had to pick a literature based curriculum. I LOVE love love love all of the hands on activities. When I imagine my perfect curriculum, this is what I imagine. I don't love how it is laid out and planned, but I can get around that easily enough.
• Math U See is what we are going to use for our math program. Up until now we had been using Singapore Math. I like Singapore Math, and was happy up until now. I noticed this past year (which would have been third grade for us) the tempo picked up. The lack of review became a problem for us. I started having to supplement our math with lots of visual representation of the problems in Singapore, and since that is the cornerstone of the Math U See program; I am hoping this will be an improvement.
• Rod and Staff is still our pick for Grammar and Spelling. I like the plain, simple, "let's just get this done" nature of it. Grammar is tedious, and I think maybe it is just the nature of the beast. So, at least this is short and sweet.
• Real Science 4 Kids: Chemistry is new for us this year. But the kids are excited about it. It seems to heavily lean toward a little learning and then an experiment to test the knowledge. The kids favorite part is the experiments, so they gave this curriculum their stamp of approval.

The kids are up and ready to start school, so now I had better get all these books off the bookshelf and get started!