Our Curriculum Choices - Last Year and This Year

I wrote this to a friend who was asking about what we use for curriculum. You know, I don't use a boxed curriculum. I call mine a hodge podge curriculum. A little curriculum - a little bit of this, a little bit of that.  And it works. Some people may have a different preference, but for us, we like it like this. 

This is what we did last year:

• CTC Math This was our #1 pick. And by far, the best. We looked at a few others (CTC Math and Teaching Textbooks) but landed on this one because I liked the format and the fact that I didn't have to teach it was fantastic! But more importantly, each of my kids liked it. So much that they started the lessons at 8pm the night we signed up for our subscription and then they would do several lessons per day because they wanted to). They learned at their own pace but with direction from an official math teacher...that's not me! Knowing that I am not great at math, this was a total WIN! In short, this is a self-paced, self-grading, mastery-based program. The lessons are short, questions are short. By far, this was THE BEST curriculum choice we made. The boys said math was their favorite subject this year. **Check out the placement tests and free trial that is offered. This was helpful in making the decision.)

• The Mystery of History (MOH). This was another TOP favorite. We chose MOH because it was a world history curriculum with a biblical worldview that starts with creation and moves on through modern times, chronologically, in four separate volumes. What I liked about this was that all three of my kids could do history together. We did history 3-4 days per week. We started the week with a pretest (don't think of this as a quiz/test, it's more of a "what do you already know" type of survey), did three lessons (reading and an activity if we chose), and ended the week with a quiz/test (sometimes we did these orally, some were open book, others were done on their own). Danica said history was her favorite subject this year. (We did volume 1 last year. We will do volume 2 this year.)

• Apologia Science This was a little more of a challenge for me. Matthew helped with science A LOT. But a majority of the time, they worked through this on their own. The boys did science together and worked through two different sciences in one year! They each wanted to do something different so they compromised and did Chemistry & Physics (Elliott's choice) for the first semester and anatomy & physiology (Zach's choice) for the second semester. This was totally their choice. Their science curriculum suggested doing science lessons two days a week. Yep, two days. But they were over achievers, you know.  Elliott really liked science! Danica also did Apologia - Physical Science was her subject. It was a BIG challenge because she doesn't like physical science. She is more of a natural science/biology girl. (See my notes below for what we are doing this year for science.) Apologia Science is a GREAT curriculum. In my opinion, you can't go wrong with any of their sciences. Side note: My SIL did the Zoology with her girls this year and they liked it a lot.

• Bible We didn't use a curriculum. We chose to study the Bible expositorily. We took several books, and studied each verse by verse, did some research, tied in a little geography and related it to history lessons where we could. (Just a note...MOH gives a Bible reading plan that goes along with volume 1, and you can follow along in the Bible with most history lessons - I loved that option.) We went through James, 1/2/3 John, Daniel, and Proverbs. We worked on memory verses too.

• Learning Language Arts Through Literature  I thought this was going to be my favorite subject to do with each of the kids (one on one) but none of us loved it. It was just ok. I liked the format of the curriculum, because it was an all in one language arts, but we did not necessarily like the book choices (for book studies). We even noticed several misspelled words and grammar errors! Crazy, right?!?! They offer a placement test to help you decide what level to use. 

• For art, the boys did Art for Kids Hub on YouTube and Danica spent time drawing characters. 

Now for what we plan to do this year...

• Masterbooks General Science 1 (for the boys) They chose this because it interests them. 

• The Riot and the Dance Foundational Biology (for Danica) She chose this because she liked the way the book read - more like a novel rather than a textbook. And she loves the topic.

• CTC Math  (Elliott - 6th grade math; Zach - pre-algebra; Danica - geometry)

• The Mystery of History volume 2 

• Total Language Plus (for Language Arts) Together, we decided we wanted to read more novels. So if I can incorporate language arts with reading, then it's got to be good. I've read all good things about these novel studies. I liked that we could read a book together (or individually) and do projects, writing assignments, and personal response prompts related to the books all while practicing writing, vocab, grammar, and spelling. We're starting with A Wrinkle in Time. If we don't like it, I'll find something else. Another thing I liked is that we can do this together, even with Danica being 9th grade. I can adjust the assignments if I want to require more from her. 

• Bible - We're going to start in Acts because that's where our history lessons start. After that, I'm not sure. (I like Bible Road Trip. Maybe we will do that.)

• Cello lessons for Danica; more Art for Kids Hub for the boys; Danica will continue with her drawing (and do an online course).

• LOTS of park dates, field trips (once the whole COVID craziness lets up and places reopen.)