ready for school

the girls and i are so excited for school to start!

i started researching curriculum back in early spring. 

and i finally finished in mid-june.

i am confident that i have found curriculum that will fit our family perfectly!

if i didn't feel strongly that summer break is so important--we would have 

started already.

that's how excited i am!!

so, this year sofie will be using the following:

math-- math-u-see

i used it last year and we loved it!  this year she will be finishing up the second half of gamma and probably start their next book around christmas

reading-- drawn into the heart of reading

i am super excited about this!  this was an easy pick for me--the curriculum will allow her to read from several genre's and really break down the books in different ways.  i am confident this will be a really good fit for her.

english--  learning language through literature-the yellow book

we used this last year as well--just a different grade level.

art--  rod and staff's artpac

last year i didn't use a formal art curriculum.  i just kinda made up my own seasonal art's and craft's projects.  this will be a fun change!

and, lia will be using:

math--  math-u-see

again, we used this last year and it was a wonderful hands-on curriculum.  lia will be starting the beta book.

reading--  rod and staff's we learn more about God

this was probably my hardest decision to make.  reading is very challenging to lia so i really wanted to find a curriculum that would fit her learning style as well as be interesting for her.  

english--  rod and staff's building christian english

last year i used learning language through literature but i didn't feel it was a good "fit" for lia.  i hope this will be.

art--  rod and staff's artpac

just like with sofie, this will be our first year doing a formal curriculum

and we will be doing the rest together:

science--  apologia's exploring creation with zoology 1--flying creatures of the fifth day

i am super, super excited about this!  we didn't do a formal curriculum last year--just a few experiments here and there. 

history--  the story of the world

this is our first year doing history as well.  since we travel twice a week to kye's speech therapy , the cd's that came with this was very attractive to me.  i have been wanting to incorporate some kind of school into our drive-time and now i can!

geography--  our father's world

we did some general map work last year but a formal curriculum will be new to us this year.  

bible--  character building for families

we worked through devotionals last year and it was really fun.  however, this will be something our whole family will do together.

i really wanted to keep our first year simple.  and it was!  it was perfect!  i wouldn't change a thing about it.

so adding in science, history and geography will be a change for us.  will probably add a good hour to our school-time if not more.  but, the beauty of homeschooling is that we can go at our own pace.

we will still spend our mornings schooling, being done by lunch.  and our afternoon's will be spent baking, doing simple chores, playing outside and getting together with friends or really whatever we feel like that day.

school starts in 3 weeks!!!