Homeschooling Choices

We are just jumping into homeschooling...so expect this page to be constantly evolving.

Spawn will be entering 4th grade and will be starting it at home.  Here are some of the things we have lined up for the fall:

Math: Saxon Intermediate 3

-I chose this over Saxon 3 because from what I learned about the program, it is written by the same author as the Saxon 5/4 program and beyond.  What I've heard, is that students never using Saxon, or coming from public school to homeschool do very well with this as a transition getting them ready for Saxon 5/4.  Since Spawn's placement tests as well as his public school have all put him at a "going into 3rd" math level, I think this will be good for him.  Most of it will be review of concepts he's seen this past year, but since we can go at his pace, I'm hoping that he can understand them better.  We'll be starting Math as soon as school gets out, so he doesn't lose what he does know over the summer.

Spelling: A Reason for Spelling-working on his placement

Recommended by a friend.  I just have to do the placement with him to see what level we need to get.

Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting Transition

Recommended by the same friend as the Spelling program.  He's started script this year, but isn't very strong with it, so we're going to start with the Transition book, but I expect he'll move quickly to Level C.

History/Geography: Story of the World, Vol. 1

He's *just* started this year on geography and such in school.  They just finished up learning about the continents, and have started studying Egypt, so I feel this is a good place to start.

Science: Apologia, just need to decide which unit to start with first.

He wants astronomy, and I'm leaning towards that as well, since we'll be studying Egypt, Rome, etc.  Kind of all ties together.

Language Arts:  Debating between Shurley Grammar or Easy Grammar.

I'm not a great English student.  Just ask my mother.  But I know he needs to do it.  I like the look of Easy Grammar, but have heard better things about Shurley, so I'm still not sure on this one yet.

Reading:  Looking at Reading Detective to help with his comprehension, plus we'll work on books that tie in with our history studies.

Still not sure what to do for music and health.  We're members of a local homeschool group that has weekly gym days, so that will take care of his gym requirement-plus he wants to sign up for sports at the rec center. And we're looking at a few Spanish programs for his foreign language requirement.  He already speaks Spanish fluently, so we want to build off that.

I'm planning a unit study on New York State history, but I'm not sure if we'll do it this year or not.  We have to do it by the end of 8th grade I believe.  I know when I did it I was in 4th or 5th, so we'll see what happens.

Religion...we're Catholic, but since he's behind on getting his First Communion, he'll be doing a 2 year course at the Church to prepare him.  I'm not wanting to step on toes there, so we're going to wait to see what comes with that.  We will be studying our Faith in history-it's a timeline approach to history, so we will be following the Bible as well.  He will also be working on learning some verses with his handwriting practice, and we'll be reading through the Bible as a family...I think we'll be adding it into our new bedtime routine that we're working on. We decided together to let him go to CCD for his classes, since we are going to a new Church, it will give him the chance to meet some of the kids there since the parish is a mix of the school district we are currently in and the next one over.

 I'm not going with an all Catholic curriculum just yet, but I might in the future.    Right now, while yes, I want the boys to learn about our faith, we never have been very religious as a family.  We are working up to it and try the best we can.  I don't want (at this time) something where every time you turn the page, it's religious, no matter what the subject.  Since I have just newly come back to the faith, I myself am easing my way back into it and have some things I need to overcome in my own faith life.  Going to a Catholic school my whole life, I liked being able to learn about my faith and have the chance to grow in my faith as well as learn about different beliefs.  I learned about creationism and evolution.  I feel that by learning both sides of an argument, it allowed me to be able to stand stronger in my belief, and be able to better defend it.



as of June 1, 2012


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