Aug. 18, 2006 - 3:37 PM

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My Favorite Spelling: Spelling Power

My Favorite Phonics: The Reading Lesson (by far!)

My Favorite Math: Elementary; MUS/ Middle-HS; Saxon

My Favorite Science: Apologia

My Favorite History: Tapestry of Grace

Over the past 3 years our schedule has changed immensely. Here is what it looks like this year. The MUSers do math with me in the AM, the olders can do math whenever they would like. The biggest changes this year for us is stepping into Tapestry of Grace which we absolutely love! Teahes HIS story in Biblical order. This curriculum takes as its organizing principle the chronological study of World History (which includes American History). Also adding flexibility we have adopted a 1-5 day weekly schedule instead of Monday-Friday. This has really taken the stress off of me. We do TOG on days 1-5. If we have doctor's appointments or any kind of interruption to our week I substitute a "quick day" into or schedule. It does not include our core TOG material and eliminates most of the work taught by me that day. Then when we start our next school day we pick up on our regular 1-5 day schedule irregardless of day of the week. TOG takes a unit study approach thus all of my children are learning about the same things at the same time. It is just presented at their different learning levels. It is the coolest thing to watch your 2^nd and 8^th graders having a conversation about school sharing about the same topic!

For Phonics I have tried Alpha-Phonics and 100 Easy Lessons. The Reading Lesson has worked far better for my kiddos than any other. I bought the entire package with computer stuff too but have only ever used the book itself. I had the spine cut off, slipped all of the pages into sleeves and have put them into a large binder. I work with my pre-readers one chapter at a time, thus they each get their own small binder to which I add the relevant pages from my larger binder. I also photocopy the sentences and stories from each chapter and staple them into a little book for the kids to read from independently. Their web site offers some neat support stuff such as a chart that we printed off and the kids can add a sticker once they have completed a chapter. They offer certificates, flash cards and everything.

I really like Spelling Power. We use it on and off as I find with numerous kids doing spelling it can be time consuming for me. I really like their approach and carry that over to other curriculums.

We have 2 children using Saxon for math and it is working really well for them. We tried something different for Algebra but a year later ended up back with Saxon. I have one who is a tactile learner and really struggled with Saxon. It was painful to watch him spend 4 hours doing math (not the content just the style) so we started Math-You-See this year. Along with him I put all of my K-3 in MUS. I had never really found anything I really liked for this age group until now and this is perfect!

Apologia is the only complete science program we have used. I have taught science in unit studies but only in bits and pieces. We have used elementary thru high school Apologia and really like the way it teaches to the student and they can pretty well work independently. I always buy the lab kits and CD's as well.

Blessings,

Andrea