Our Curriculum

Since I was on a search today for some of our curriculum for next year, I thought I would share what we are using.

Math:  We use Abeka Arithmetic.  We do math just about everyday.  We might miss a day here and there due to field trips or incidentals like that but we try to get some math in everyday.  During the summer, we have managed to do some math about once or twice a week since the beginning of June.  I had intended to do a little more, maybe two to three times a week but once or twice has worked out ok so far.

Language:  We use Abeka for this as well.  As with math we try to do Language everyday. We have not done any language during the month of June.  We will start back up in August.  We also use Abeka for reading, spelling and handwriting.

History:  We have really enjoyed The Mystery of History volume 1.  the nice aspect to me of this curriculum is that it starts with Creation and moves chronologically through both Biblical and world history.  Tying them together and showing the student (and teacher! :-)) what was going in Bible History and in the world at the same time!  The activities that go with the lesson can be geared toward appropriate ages and making the time line is fun, that is one of Riley's favorite parts.

Science:  We are using the Apologia Exploring Creation series.  Right now we are in Exploring Creation with Zoology, Fifth Day the Flying Creatures.   We have also done some of Botany and Astronomy.  What can I say about this curriculum?  Well, the things I have learned about God's creation is amazing!  Jeannie Fulbright has covered several aspects of all of the elements of Creation and has done a great job at showing the student why God created somethings the way He did.  There is a reason for everything.  The text is very informative and easy to read.  The experiments can be done on many levels of age groups and are easy to do with easy to acquire materials. 

Music:  Is done through piano lessons which I am teaching Riley right now.  Later on he will take from someone else.  I don't play well enough to continue on past a certain level.

Art:  He is getting through our COOP classes right now.

We will also occasionally do a unit study depending on what is going on.  We might do one on a holiday or a person (that is all we've done so far).  We recently completed a unit study/lapbook on Dr. Martin Luther King.  We also found a free Knights and Castles lapbook at homeschoolshare.com which I hope to complete this summer.

That is our curriculum for Third grade.  We have not made a lot of changes over the past three years or so.  We used the Weaver Interlock curriculum at age 4 and had a lot of fun with that.  We started out in Math U See in Kindergarten and Riley really did not like it.  We changed to Abeka and that worked for us, Riley still doesn't like math but it isn't as much of a battle as it was then.    Other than those two changes we have stuck with what you see above.  Time will tell if we need to make other changes later on down the road.

What are you using?  Have you stuck with the same things each year or have you changed up your curriculum choices?  Was it easy for you to decide?  Let me know, I would love to hear from you!