Good Times!

I got to order next year's school curriculum today! I was very excited. If you're not interested in homeschool curriculum, though, you may want to skip this post. :) Ok, so I realize that will probably be most of you, but I want this all in one place for my own record, anyway. I'll be linking to the publishers' websites, but you can buy most of this at a discount through Rainbow Resources.

So here's what we got.

For science, I found a first grade Sonlight set for less than a third of what it costs new. I've had that for a while, and it's just waiting in the closet for this fall.

Because of his enjoyment of and (seeming) aptitude for math, we're doing two math curricula next year - unless it seems like too much, then I'll drop one of them. For lots of practice and review, we're doing Rod and Staff grade 2. (They don't do K, so he's knows everything in their grade 1 book. I know this because I bought it, and now I can't use it.) For their emphasis on thinking mathematically and creative problem-solving, Miquon math is my choice for his second curriculum.

History will be Biblioplan for Families, lots of library books, and lapbooking on our own.

Phonics is a little unorthodox. I'm only continuing a formal phonics program for spelling purposes. I have this book from McRuffy Press, and we'll be going through 1st and 2nd grade both. I know that sounds really fast, but he can read nearly all of the vocabulary words through the whole book. We have lots of readers, and the library has even more, so we'll just be using those for practice. If it seems like he's not "getting" something, we'll just slow down until he does. The McRuffy book includes spelling practice, so to round out the Language Arts, we'll do Language Smarts.

We also got Mindbenders, and these two computer games from The Critical Thinking Company. Those are technically critical thinking, but they're really just for fun.

For Bible/character, we're doing Plants Grown Up from Doorposts. We won't go very deep into it, I don't think - it will actually last us a number of years. There will also be a lot of Bible in his history this year, because it's Ancient History.

Art and Music are kind of informal. This and Sculpey clay will be art, plus whatever crafts we feel like doing. Stories of Great Composers will be music - I'm looking forward to doing that. I'll probably learn more than Ethan does!

That's it for actual classes. Other than that, I got some things for summer math and handwriting practice, a book of father-son activity ideas, a book on manners, maps, and a sign language board book to try with Alex. Oh, and some geography things as well. If there is actually anyone reading at this point, and you want links for these things, just email me. :)

Now we get to start getting boxes! And that will be REALLY exciting!

Well, for me, anyway.

Just kidding. Ethan is looking forward to getting new books, too.