New to HS - help with curriculum

[Guest Kaceyfrey]

Hello! My name is Kacey. We have decided to homeschool starting this fall. We have a 7 yr old who who'll be 2nd gr, a 5 yr old who will be in kindergarten, and our 3rd is turning 3 in June. I am drawn towards the classical more relaxed method. I am attending a curriculum sale next Sat & feel so overwhelmed. I was wondering if I could get some recommendations for curriculum for 2nd grade & kindergarten so I can research them & be more organized to go & be able to purchase. Thank you so much. Any suggestions would be great!

[BoZeeCo's Mom]

Kacey! welcome! I have wanted to homeschool my kids for some time, but only just found this forum and was a little overwhelmed at first. You will LOVE this resource:) I would DEFINATELY check out MEP math. I love it. It's free and would cover all your ages. It's online. Good luck!! And welcome!

[edeemarie]

What I would suggest first is try to figure out how you would like to teach your children (together or separate) and what is most important for you. For us, I need to be able to teach my children together as much as possible, so we combine science, history, Bible, and read alouds (we have used HOD but are now switching to MFW for next year). With math you will have to decide to use a more traditional program (like Saxon- or we use McRuffy, which we love!), or something like Singapore or Math Mammoth. I would suggest visiting websites like CBD that will show you samples of books you may be interested in, or you can go directly to the publisher's website and they should have samples there. I'm sure I left something out, but hopefully this will give you a start! Welcome!

[Aurelia]

Don't buy anything, even at the curriculum sale, until you have figured out what you think will be best for you and your children. It can lead to some very expensive mistakes. The best thing to do is read about different methods, if you haven't already, and see how your children learn best.

 

The most popular choices that I have seen are:

2nd grade:

Math - Singapore or Math Mammoth

English - All About Spelling, Writing with Ease, First Language Lessons

Handwriting is pretty personal, Handwriting without Tears is popular, but I didn't like the font and used Zaner-Bloser, and for cursive have been using The Joy of Handwriting from Teach Me Joy

History - Story of the World. I highly recommend the activity guide, it offers suggestions for supplemental books as well as things to do for each chapter. It's perfectly fine to combine your kids for this, too. If you don't want to start world history yet, you could do world geography with Galloping the Globe, which is made for kids in K-4th grades.

Science - There are lots of different opinions for this. Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding is excellent, but can easily be overwhelming for someone new. Mr. Q has a free life science curriculum, and Sonlight and Nancy Larson offer complete packages, including everything for experiments.

Art - I like Atelier, but it's expensive. It's very, very easy to teach, since the instruction is on DVD. :D Other options are Harmony Fine Arts and Artistic Pursuits.

 

Kindergarten:

Math - I love Right Start level A

Phonics - The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading is popular, but didn't work well here. Other options include Phonics Pathways, The Writing Road to Reading (which also includes handwriting), Webster's Speller, or Dancing Bears

Handwriting, History, Science, Art - same as 2nd grade

[Juliegmom]

We will also begin homeschooling our 2nd grader in the fall. After much research I'm excited to try:

 

MFW Adventures (bible, history and science)

Horizons Math (Sinapore looks great too)

Growing with Grammar (since you're wanting a more classical approach, you may want to look into Primary Language Lessons)

Daily 6 Trait Writing

Spelling Workout B

D'Nealian handwriting (because she's already started this program in her current school)

and lots of reading

 

Good luck finding the curriculum that's just right for you! There is so much out there. Just take your time and remember that you can make changes along the way. Enjoy the journey! :)

[Marie131]

I am a first year homeschooling mom who made the typical first year homeschooling mistake: I spent way to much money on all the wrong curriculum! With that said, I highly recommend figuring out your childrens learning style before spending any money. I bought all textbooks for my hands on kid. It didn't last a month :tongue_smilie:

 

I am hsing the same ages next year, you can see what we plan to use in my signature. Some of the curriculum we haved tried and works great for our family, others will be new but will fit our learninig/teaching style.

 

Good luck! Curriculum shopping is fun! :)

[alisoncooks]

I am a first year homeschooling mom who made the typical first year homeschooling mistake: I spent way to much money on all the wrong curriculum!

 

Same here.

All I can say is research-research-research.

(But even that may not preserve you from mistakes!)

 

I have a K'er now. Had I a chance to do this year over? I'd do Letter of the week and just enjoy it without stressing out over curricula. :D (No worries, lil' sis will benefit from my guinea-pig eldest.)

[EMS83]

Welcome! I'm not a seasoned veteran like many on here; we are starting our first year in the fall.

 

Figure out how much preparation you want already done for you for each subject.

Also figure out the style you want to use, and what your child responds to. Do they remember better after seeing it? Hearing it? Doing it? Different curricula play to different learning styles.

 

I hear that the first year is a trial period anyway, and things get changed and tweaked, sometimes dropped entirely. I'm trying hard to avoid this, but we'll see how it really goes. Give yourself permission to not be perfect. There's plenty of time (I hear) to rectify any mistakes you might make, especially since you're starting so early in her school-life.

 

As for specifics, I highly recommend Phonics Pathways for learning to read. Haven't gotten to where they need independent reading books, though, so I can't help there at all. I am also using this book to create spelling lists for them.

I like the looks of Math Mammoth and Math-U-See, but we lack the funds for these so we are creating our own math program (we're nuts, yes). Many on here love MEP, but I couldn't get into it. It's free, though.

I picked up this book for anatomy, if you end up doing that. My parents happened to get us a neat animal facts binder, so I'm going to select 20 specific animals from that and supplement from the library. We have a garden so that will be plants. If you do earth science, I'm sure others will have some great suggestions.

I want Growing with Grammar, but haven't used it yet. As far as I can tell, it's pretty much only grammar.

I will make up my own copywork selections for writing. Same for dictation.

If I didn't want to do them separately, I would probably get First Language Lessons for grammar/writing. Shurley English also looks good, but more rigid and expensive.

 

That's the general plan here (so far; subject to change a million times). Good luck! Though it's doesn't lessen the overwhelming part, there's many ways to approach all of this. Try to figure out as best you can what would work for your family, and then shop the sale with that in mind.

[delaney]

I am in no way a seasoned veteran in this but here are my two cents:

1. Start with the basics-math, reading, spelling, grammar

Put lots of thought into these. What seems good on paper may not fit your needs. Expensive does NOT mean better in all cases. Some of what is out there is complicated and some is really easy.

2. After you get settled with those choices and get the ball rolling I would look into history, science, and possible an elective like art or a language.

We do Meet the Masters for art and they have the online Mark Kistler lessons. Both of these I got for really great deals on the homeschool buyers co-op.

Do yourself a favor and start read alouds and poetry recitation. That way they will not be something to work in later, but a standard. Both are good for so many reasons and can easily get pushed aside.

Your kids are young so no worries. The women here are AMAZING.:001_smile:

[Guest Kaceyfrey]

Wow! Thank you so much for responding so fast! You all have given me great suggestions to investigate. I can't thank you enough for helping me start this process!

~ Kacey

[fraidycat]

I'm new myself (started last month), and know how overwhelming this can all be. I just wanted to agree with a previous poster to start slow and work your way up. I have a K and 4th grader, but I'm still only concentrating on the 3 R's of Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic. Now that I've got most of those figured out (still flopping around a little in math for DD who has gaps that need to be filled), I've just recently added a little bit of science and next week will start geography. After that, I will add in Art. I also do read alouds, and fun poetry (Shel Silverstein) most days.

 

On my radar, but not until this fall at the earliest: History, Spelling, foreign language, and a more in-depth science. I did purchase a spelling program, but it was one of those "mistakes" mentioned, so I sent it back.

[fraidycat]

I just wanted to add that I HIGHLY recommend getting a copy of "Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: Teachers' Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in China and the United States" by Liping Ma.

 

This would have been my very first purchase had I known about it first. Honestly, I haven't even read the whole book yet. I'm re-reading, digesting, and making notes on the first couple of chapters.