Not Back to School Blog Hop Curriculum Week!

It's that time of year again! Time for the Not Back to School blog hop hosted by iHomeschool Network. 

This week's topic is curriculum. I have a sixth grader and a seventh grader. Seventh grader? Because they're close in age, we do Bible, history, science and geography together. Language arts and math are at their own grade level. This seems to work really well for both of them.

I always like to start out school day with Bible study and prayer. We're using materials from the Word of Life Fellowship. Our church kids' and youth ministries use the daily quiet time books, so we've incorporated it as part of our school day. The kids love to discuss the passages of Scripture they've read, and I really enjoy hearing their insights.

For history, we're continuing with All American History but have moved on to Volume II. The first few units deal with the Civil War, so we'll be camping out there for a while. We'll continue our practice of notebooking and reading living history books, too.

We'll be using another Bright Ideas Press product, Christian Kids Explore Chemistry. I'll admit, I've been intimidated by the idea of teaching chemistry to my kids. But I've spent some time reading through the lessons, and it's not as difficult as I feared. It will be a challenge, but I'm up for it. I hope.

Last year we completed a US Geography course. The kids loved it! So this year we're going around the world with Expedition Earth: My Passport to the World. We're all looking forward to learning about other countries and cultures.

For math, we're continuing with Teaching Textbooks. I really, really like this curriculum. The math lessons are on a CD-Rom and are taught on the computer. Each step is demonstrated as the lesson progresses. Students are then given the opportunity to do some practice problems before working out the "real" problems - the ones that are graded. They get instant feedback, whether they got the problem right or wrong. Then they can watch step-by-step to see how to correct any problems they missed. All of the grading is done by the program, too. Love that!

For language arts we are using Soaring with Spelling, Growing with Grammar, and Winning with Writing from JacKris Publishing. We started using these books last year and I loved how they encouraged independence. I can't begin to tell you how my daughter's spelling improved with this curriculum! I'll probably stick with it until we run out of grade levels - it only goes up to Grade 8.

Of course, even though I've listed all my curriculum here, I reserve the right to change it at any time during the school year. That's one of the beauties of homeschooling, the ability to switch gears if something isn't working.

So what are you using in your homeschool this year? I can't wait to find out!