It's that time of year again.  Time to start thinking about curriculum choices for the new year.  Time to pour over the catalogues, and make your new plan.  If you are anything like me chances are you often start to second guess your choices.  While I like product A, product B looks really fun, but product C looks good too and round and round you go.  I love choosing the books and products we are going to use for the coming year, but find with so many choices out there sometimes it's like playing Eenie Meenie to finally settle on one.  Thank goodness for Alberta's funding for homeschoolers, without it my list would have to be even smaller and that would make things way more difficult.

If you are just starting out in your homeschooling journey and are not sure what products to buy I highly recommend Cathy Duffy's book Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum.  It will help you discover what your teaching style is, your child(ren)'s learning style and which products work best with those styles.  This gives you a great starting point when navigating the curriculum catalogues.

For my family I think I have finally settled on the following:

For my 4th and 5th graders:

• First Language Lessons for the Well trained mind
• Sequential Spelling
• Writing Strands level 3
• Copy work from Queen Homeschool
• MCP word Study
• Wordly Wise
• Math-U-See Gamma
• Story of the world, with the Kingfisher Encyclopedia of History for outlining
• Ecoutez, Parlez for French
• Eschucha Y Hablemos for Spanish
• Prima Latina
• Sonlight Science 3 (finish this from last year)
• Apologia Astronomy (Fall term)
• Apologia Zoology 1 (Winter term)
• Artistic Pursuits K-3 book 1
• Young person's guide to the Orchestra
• Our Home and native land (Canadian geography)
• Various logic puzzle books

For my Kindy child:

• Handwriting without tears
• Explode the code books A, B & C
• Jolly Phonics (after ETC)
• MCP phonics books K (after Jolly phonics)
• The ordinary parents guide to teaching reading
• History, Science, Art, and Music he sits in with the older kids
• MUS Primer

As you can tell from my choices I am a neoclassical schooler and I (loosely) follow the Well Trained Mind.  If these titles sound interesting to you check out Susan Wise Bauer's book The Well Trained Mind, and her message boards www.welltrainedmind.com/forums