Skills curriculum is not something that lights a fire under my kids. An explosive science project — yes. The nuances of spiral versus mastery math? Not so much.
You guys, on the other hand, have been hinting madly (I get emails, lots of emails.) that you want to know exactly what we’re using for curriculum this year.
Unlike the kids, I happen to geek out over that kind of thing too. Here’s the lowdown on our choices this year.
Our curriculum is broken into three sections:
Our Morning Time — More details (read: an entire post) coming on that soon. Until you can see our philosophy on it in this Morning Time post.
Our Scholé Group — This is our classical co-op we started three years ago. We are still going strong. A few things have changed since that original post, one of the biggest being our affiliation with Scholé Groups from Classical Academic Press.
Our Table Work — That is what this post is about — all the table work I do with the kids each day on skill subjects. Honestly there isn’t much new and exciting with what we do here. We found curriculum we liked years ago and keep plugging away with it. Here are our choices, though.
Olivia, Age 10
MathUSee Delta — Technically she is reviewing multiplication tables right now because her lack of fluency was slowing her down big time. She is about halfway through with great improvement. I am hoping to have her back on track in the math book before September’s end.
Right now she does a MUS worksheet each day (for one set of facts), the online drill for that problem set, and a review online drill of all the ones she has learned. She must complete the online drill and get all 20 problems correct in under 120 seconds to move to the next set.
Language Arts Loop 1 – One day All About Spelling 3 and the next Prescripts American History Sentences
IEW All Things Fun and Fascinating – We do this class at co-op. She is doing great with it this year, working so much more independently than last year.
Song School Latin 2 – This gentle introduction to Latin grammar (and all the fun vocabulary) is just what Olivia needs.
Language Arts Loop 2 (one day read a chapter, one day activity)
Literature – The Courage of Sarah Noble is her current literature selection. After she is done, she will choose another book from The Arrow reading list. Right now we read and discuss the selection with occasional narration activities like these.
John, Age 8
MathUSee Gamma – I think he is going to appreciate multiplication much more than all the multiple digit addition and subtraction from last year.
Reflex Math – We got this through the Homeschool Buyer’s Co-op. Always working on fluency.
All About Reading 2 – We are such fans! I am seeing good progress.
Language Arts Loop – One day All About Spelling 1 and the next PAL Writing. John is doing level 2 minus the copywork. We are going over some writing conventions and ideas like strong verbs and adjectives. Soon he will start his ABC who/which project.
Song School Latin 1 – He has a harder time with vocabulary than his sister does. We are slowing down to cement memorization of the words.
Classical Copywork – We are using the elementary level poetry book. I like the content and the size of the lines. I had this printed and spiral bound across the top at my local copy shop.
Thomas – Age 5 (Kindergarten!!)
All About Reading Pre-level – We are about halfway through this from last year and moving right along. I love the ease and the prereading activities. Thomas loves the zebra puppet. It’s a win-win.
MathUSee Primer – This one is pretty easy for him. We are skipping right through only slowing down when he doesn’t understand something. I already have Alpha on the shelf and waiting.
PAL Writing – Thomas is doing level 1 which teaches how to form the letters. I love the fact that they start with boxes instead of lines and each letter has a story that helps him remember the sound it makes.
Our Schedule
Basically on Tuesday we go to our Scholé Group. There, among other classes, we get new memory work every two weeks. Olivia often has writing and science homework from that as well.
Each Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings we start the day with Morning Time which lasts for about an hour. After that we move into our Table Work. If we get started early enough almost everyone is done with that by lunch time. Olivia sometimes has a little left over in the afternoon.
In the afternoon we listen to an audiobook as a family and then go on to activities like piano, karate, dance, choir, and religious ed.
It is just the perfect amount for us. The focus is on skills and truth, goodness, and beauty in Morning Time with the subjects that we cover in our community — science, history, fine arts, memory work, handicrafts, and nature study being the icing on our cake.
How about you? Do you have a homeschool curriculum you love?
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