The Blessings of Planning Your Own Curriculum
Our history, geography, and reading materials for 2010/2011!
(My little boy is pretty sick, but he wanted to be in the picture!)
For the past two weeks, I have been knee-deep in history books, plotting my way through next year's history curriculum. All this to save $100 on Sonlight's teacher's manuals.
Well, it's not only because of that. I like studying history as a big unit study, so I've been scouring the internet to find crafts, music, movies, recipes, worksheets, patterns for costumes, pictures, and everything else that goes along with our studies.
This year has been our first of really immersing ourselves into the times that we have been reading about, and it has been AMAZING! For the first time, my kids all seem to be invested in the topics that we are studying.
The kids reading "How We Crossed the West: The Adventures of Lewis & Clark" during history today.
Last year, I would have never thought that they would care so much about history of all things, but I think that there is something about really getting to know a time and a place that creates a warm spot in your heart for it.
(Go Bulldogs!)
In high school, I had a history class with a phenomenal teacher named Mr. Greif. It was the very first time that anybody had ever presented history to me as anything but boring book work and trying to quickly find the terms in bold so you could fill in the blank.
I remember that one of our assignments was to add a verse to the Billy Joel song "We Didn't Start the Fire," going in chronological order from where the original song left off. It was FUN and I learned so much!!!
Our Plan:
For the bulk of our studies we'll be hitting all the majors:
Civil War
WWI
Roaring Twenties
Great Depression
WWII
Civil Rights Movement
Space Age
and incorporating other little topics also:
life on the plains
America as a "melting pot"
Wright brothers
Cold War
Women's lib verses the Bible
And a bunch of others.
I'm also adding geography (learning the states and capitals), and doing mini-studies on the presidentsas we come to them (we began this when we got to Washington this year.)
I get asked a lot how to create your own curriculum...
For Math, Language, Spelling and Writing, we use Abeka.
We love them, but you might like a more relaxed curriculum. Or a more computer-based curriculum. Or a cheaper curriculum. It's up to YOU! We have found Abeka to be thorough, rigorous, and organized. We order everything new from their website for our oldest and re-use the books for our other two.
For reading and history/geography, I start by using my free Sonlight catalog as a guide.
Their book list is wonderful, but their prices are a bit high for me. Instead, I purchase them at Rainbow Resource for a discounted price. That's also where I get most of my other resources for things like art, crafts, charts, and other educational materials.
Then, I use the internet to beef up our study materials.
As I mentioned before, we love to study our history like one giant unit study. To do this I have to look around online to find other fun stuff! I find things like crafts, recipes, movies, songs, and printable worksheets or coloring pages. Just Google the era or area that you are planning to study and you'll have more at your fingertips than you could ever complete in a year!
For science we use Sonlight and buy the kits directly from their website.
After trying both Abeka and The Well Trained Mind, we learned that most science curriculum are DRY, BORING, and TEXTBOOK-BASED. We didn't care for that AT ALL and someone told us about Sonlight's LIVING BOOKS. We tried it and are hooked! Science is everyone's favorite now.
We love them, but you might like a more relaxed curriculum. Or a more computer-based curriculum. Or a cheaper curriculum. It's up to YOU! We have found Abeka to be thorough, rigorous, and organized. We order everything new from their website for our oldest and re-use the books for our other two.
For reading and history/geography, I start by using my free Sonlight catalog as a guide.
Their book list is wonderful, but their prices are a bit high for me. Instead, I purchase them at Rainbow Resource for a discounted price. That's also where I get most of my other resources for things like art, crafts, charts, and other educational materials.
Then, I use the internet to beef up our study materials.
As I mentioned before, we love to study our history like one giant unit study. To do this I have to look around online to find other fun stuff! I find things like crafts, recipes, movies, songs, and printable worksheets or coloring pages. Just Google the era or area that you are planning to study and you'll have more at your fingertips than you could ever complete in a year!
For science we use Sonlight and buy the kits directly from their website.
After trying both Abeka and The Well Trained Mind, we learned that most science curriculum are DRY, BORING, and TEXTBOOK-BASED. We didn't care for that AT ALL and someone told us about Sonlight's LIVING BOOKS. We tried it and are hooked! Science is everyone's favorite now.
You can find great ideas at The Homeschool Lounge as well!
I really feel overwhelmed with gratefulness for the resources that God has allowed us to have for our schooling. I don't want to take even the paper we write on for granted. From books, games, and movies to the sewing machine that my mom is letting me borrow--all of it is just such an enormous blessing. Thank you Lord.
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