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!

Thankful for Abeka Bible Curriculum

I wanted to take a moment to tell you how thankful I am for our Bible curriculum!  We are using Abeka Bible right now and we thoroughly love it!  Over the last couple of years we have used our Awana program at church as our Bible and that worked really well for us.  I think it really helped build a good foundation for memorization of the verses.  As this past summer rolled around I began to think that Riley needed a little bit more than just what he was learning in the Awana program so I asked around and did some research.  A friend of mine had been using Abeka Bible for few years and was very pleased at what her girls had gleaned from the curriculum.  She was also very pleased with the memorization part of it as well. 
I got out my catalog and started reading to find out what exactly we needed for second grade.  Through Abeka the homeschool family has a choice to either buy the whole Bible curriculum as a kit or to buy each piece separate.  I knew what I wanted in a curriculum and after reading some reviews I decided to put our bible curriculum together on my own. 
Riley had watched the Bible lesson on a DVD at a friends house one day and loved singing with the kids in class.  There was one thing I wanted.  I already knew I wanted the memorization to play a big part in our lessons as well and my friend was right, Abeka covers that area very well.  There was the second item we needed.  The next and most important item I wanted was for Riley to know the Bible and the message behind all the parables and stories.  I am familiar with most of them but feel so inadequate to aptly tell Riley what he needs to know.  I also am the type of person who needs guidance and direction regarding our lessons.  I was concerned that my short attention span would not allow us to follow a good path or finish a topic adequately.  Abeka's bible lessons are written straight from God's word and written in such a way that it makes sense to a child.  Riley has been able to understand some certain aspects that might have been difficult to explain.  There are wonderful picture cards that help tell the story of the lesson.  The pictures are so beautifully painted and detailed.  Each lesson has several songs we can sing from a book or from CD.  There is prayer time, doctrinal drills and Bible verse memorization (in the KJ version).  Then we have our lesson.
Most importantly, Riley loves Bible!  I am so thankful that he finds such enjoyment from our Bible time.  There have been days that he has asked to do more Bible instead of moving on to Math or Phonics.  How can I refuse that?  Learning to know and love God's word is far more important than the other stuff.  It will come and he is doing well so Bible can take over every now and then.
If you are looking for a good thorough Bible curriculum check out what Abeka has to offer.  It might be just what you are looking for.  So far it is for us and we will stick with it for next year as well!