Curriculum

Curriculum....what to choose???  Its such a tough decision, so many choices.  What if me make the wrong choice?  Do you go with an all included package, or do we pick and choose from different companies?  OH  MY GOODNESS!!  With this being our first year to homeschool we really had no idea where to start.  I started researching online, and asking around to see what people used, what they liked, didn't like and so on.  While talking to a good friend who home schools she suggested that I first look into what style I wanted to use (Charlotte Mason, classical, unit study, ect.).  I then purchased off of Amazon Cathy Duffys book 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum.    So after reading that book I then was able to come to the conclusion that we will be doing a traditional homeschooling method.

After looking into all the choices we had that fit how we wanted to school our children we were able to narrow our choices down to two!  Pretty good considering we had about 6 that looked great!  Our first factor to narrow down was cost, we knew which ones we couldn't afford so we stopped looking at those! Pretty easy!  That got us down to about 3, and then we decided we wanted to try and school all of our children together using pretty much the same curriculum.  That brought us to 2!!  YEAH we are finally getting somewhere!  Lastly it came back to cost and then doing the easy all in one packaged curriculum.  So our final choice was Christian Liberty Press for Big E, he will be in second grade.

Big E's Curriculum from Christian Liberty Press

Some of Little N's Curriculum

Then for Little N we originally decided to just do a few work books here and there and let him explore.  BUT after thinking long and hard, I believe that he will also want to be included in the workbook process, especially since we are using workboxes!  :)  So we went ahead and bought a few Kumon workbooks, a Bright Start Workbook, and we already had a Preschool Workbook.  So I began to look and try to plan for Little N's school and realized that its really hard to come up with stuff to keep him busy.  I had found a preschool curriculum a few weeks back and just couldn't decide if we wanted to get it.  Well last night I went ahead and ordered it.  Its called ABC Jesus Loves Me and I like it because its all laid out for me, it tells me what to teach and when to teach it!  :)  We will still use the Kumon books and other books for extra practice.

Workboxes

Recently I have been introduced to the Workbox system for homeschooling.  Its a system developed by a lady named Sue Patrick.  She has a whole book on the topic but I have not read it, I have just been researching other peoples blogs to get ideas.  I found this blog called Confessions of a Homeschooler that had a great system and I really fell in love with it.  She used scrapbooking carts to organize her kids workboxes.  I love it!!

Basically the workbox system goes like this:  each child has a cart/shelf/file box or whatever works for your family.  There are 12 of them and each box contains one subject or activity.  The children then proceed through their boxes and when they reach box 12 then they are done with school for the day.

I will be adapting this system to meet the needs of my family so we will be doing our workboxes this way.  I bought these scrapbooking carts, one for each of my older boys.  I used velcro dots and placed two on each box.  Each box will contain one subject or project along with all the supplies they will need to complete that subject or project.  Each of my boys will also have a grid card that also has velcro dots on it, when they complete their box they will take the number card off of it and place it onto their grid card.  Some boxes will also contain a "Work with mom" card or a special card like computer time, outside time or something like that.  I will be posting on the final details later, right now we are in the process of just setting it up.

Reviews of this system are amazing!  The workbox system is supposed to help support independent work and helping with the flow of the day, so you can get in the fun things you want to do but also the academic gets done.  If you are curious about this system all you have to do is google "workboxes for homeschooling" and you will get a ton of hits.  Everybody has a different way of doing and they all seem to work.  So if you have a small space and can't use the carts, I saw someone had used a dish drainer.  Or even just a plastic file box with folders inside.  There are so many options to use with this system, that's why I love it!

Our workboxes.

Exploring what is in the workboxes.

Little N doing a great fine motor activity, placing beans into a bottle.

So happy and proud!