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Curricula that you love..


Aimee
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Michael Clay Thomas language arts. And his books about teaching. And the downloadable pdfs on his website. The one about every student being "gifted in their own way" (not) made me laugh so hard I almost peed my pants.

 

Miss P *loves* Life of Fred. I don't love it, but I appreciate it, particularly for how it helps feed her math enthusiasm. I love being able to bribe her to finish her math (MM) by promising to do more math!! (Ok, maybe I love it a little).

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Our favorites:

 

 

  • Teaching Textbooks
  • Shining Dawn Books nature studies (just did a review of one here this week.)
  • Homeschool Share - FREE unit studies and lapbooks! :)
  • Linguistic Development - for poetry memorization
  • Easy Grammar - especially the Daily Grams
  • Five in a Row - for the early elementary years it's my favorite

 

Edited by CandaceC
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Mystery of History is by far a favorite here!! We LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

 

I am loving Teaching Textbooks! It gets SUCH a bad name here but its great. My kids are doing great. They upgraded Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 to include things that were not included before to bring it up to course standards. My kids are doing great.

 

I LOVE Calculadders for math fact drill. I love the order and presentation of the problems! It really helps to cement facts.

 

 

I like a bunch more but these are my absolute loves! Right now we are VERY VERY VERY happy with everything we are using! FLL and WWE are amazing. My autistic 7 year old is absolutely THRIVING in FLL 1 and he LOVES to do it.

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All About Spelling.

 

Math-U-See.

 

Prufrock Press logic books (we are specifically using Primarily Logic).

 

Rod & Staff English (i.e., grammar).

 

I gotta agree with Five in a Row, for kindergarten, supplemented with Homeschool Share.

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I guess I'm hard to please when it comes to curricula, because my list is so short.

AAS: Hands down the best program I've ever used. It works for my Aspie.. it works for my Dyslexic son.. it's fantastic!

 

and my love it.. BUT... program is

 

MUS: It explains the hows and whys so well even I am finally understanding math. I dont think it works for all types of learners. I can see how some kids may need more repetition in order to remember things taught in previous years. I've come and gone from MUS over the years... but I'm liking what I see in Epsilon so much that I think we are back to MUS for good this time.

I will likely add TT for a little more review, at least in the lower grades.

 

Sonlight: Yes, it's a lot of reading... it can be too much at times. Just slow it down when you need to. I love all the books. I hate to admit it but, I dont think my kids would read nearly as many books as they do if I had to run to the library all the time. With SL I have all the books here.. a simple easy to follow schedule (TOG wasnt a good fit) and my kids love the books. It's a win win.

Edited by Mesa
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Omnibus

SOTW with the AG (just so in love with this)

Leading Little Ones to God and Little Visits with God--our very favorite devotionals

Positive Action For Christ (loved 4th grade)

 

 

Also loved the Cindi Rushton book about nature study--I think it's Nature Study The Easy Way.

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Five in a Row ---and it is good for beyond K as well.

Prairie Primer

Where the Brook and River Meet

Diana Waring's History Revealed

Portraits of American Girlhood (have not used but know enough by reading it to know it will be another hit!)

A World of Adventure

 

 

Okay, can you say I LOVE unit studies!

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We love SOTW... my kids beg for it every day!

 

We also love SM; it works for my mathy son and my not-so-mathy son!

 

And then there is AAS and WWE, which are some of my favourites.

 

For Bible, we have had great success with Studying God's Word and Training Hearts, Teaching Minds.

 

For French, my son is doing very well with L'art de Lire.

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Our surprise hit for the second half of the year was Understanding Writing. My writing-phobic son actually ASKS to do this--whoa!! It's not a program you hear a whole lot about, but it fits us like a glove, and you can't beat $50 for a writing program that covers 12 years!!

 

We also love TruthQuest History and RightStart Math.

 

Christina

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Sonlight: Yes, it's a lot of reading... it can be too much at times. Just slow it down when you need to. I love all the books. I hate to admit it but, I dont think my kids would read nearly as many books as they do if I had to run to the library all the time. With SL I have all the books here.. a simple easy to follow schedule (TOG wasnt a good fit) and my kids love the books. It's a win win.

 

:iagree:

 

 

Also, CLE math!!!! Took us a bit to find this gem, but it is a HUGE hit here!

 

And my son would pitch a huge fit if I took away his ETC!

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Amanda Bennett Unit Studies. They are so easy, cheap, and loaded with so.much. information.

 

Total Language Plus (my oldest is on her 4th guide and wants to keep using them)

 

Our (old) favorite that our kids both loved is Five In A Row for K-3rd.

 

Those are the ones which were big hits for all three of us.;)

Edited by 1pageatatime
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I really like My Father's World but I know that's not what you are looking for.

 

The conservation department here (Missouri) has a ton of free resources and I got a early learning curric with a huge teacher's manual and a bunch of free posters and a few games. Things like that are definatly overlooked.

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Our favorites are:

 

  • Bible Study Guide For All Ages (I call it the TOG of Bible study!)
  • The Sentence Family (It totally revamped our grammar studies this year and will affect how I do grammar with my last two dc.)
  • MEP (puzzle math as my dd calls it!)
  • Apples and Pears Spelling (This totally turned my daughters spelling around in two weeks when none of the rule-based spelling programs would work.)
  • Heart of Dakota (It brought the fun back to our homeschool.)

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Everybody has different favourites. What ages are you looking for?

 

We love

Blend Phonics for reading,

CIMT-MEP, CSMP, Scholastic Algebra Readiness Made Easy and Math Mammoth for maths,

Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting and Penny Gardner's Italics for penmanship, and

KISS grammar for grammar.

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Elemental Science with RSO Science.

These fit together perfectly. The Elemental Science is your spine giving just enough without being to simplistic or too technical. It's simple really read a little and narrate but the impact is great. The RSO has the experiments needed to drive the points home. These experiments are not they typical science curricula experiments for elementary children (believe me I know, 19 yrs of using/looking/studying elementary science curriculum). They have given us many hmmm, wow, ahh, net, and "I didn't know that' moments.

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I guess if we have used it 1-2 years and have no intention of switching or used it with one dc an never considered anything else for the next they could be considered favorites. Here those would be:

 

HWOT for pre-k and K

Math Mammoth

Bible Study Guide for all Ages

Sonlight books And readers (have not used a core yet)

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MEP math (2.5 years and liking it more and more as time goes on)

Miquon (Still love to start with Orange in K and then go to MEP 1, but continue with all but 2 of the Miquon books)

 

Mother Tongue I and Mother Tongue II both by Arnold and Kittredge (free on google) I print them to fit the page and the children can write on them. It has been a nice addition to Rod and Staff. After using R&S exclusively with 4 kids I needed something new! We bounce back and forth, but MT is nice. It uses real sentences from literature and really forces the kids to know the concepts. No answer key and no diagramming, but after years of R&S I can do without an answer key.

 

Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding Vol 1 (We have only used this for 2 months, but it has been great for us so far.)

 

WWS-Only 6 weeks in but I like this! We did not use WWE and starting here with my 6th grader has been fine.

 

Alphaphonics - 7th child just started this. This is the one thing I've never changed and never needed to. Love the simplicity and thoroughness and results.

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SOTW 1 and 2 with AG (trying History Odyssey this coming year, which also uses SOTW 3, but without the AG)

Peak with Books (K literature program)

Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding (can't say enough good things about it - looking forward to using it again this year - both K-2 and 3-5)

Getty Dubay Italic Handwriting Series (haven't found anything better - it was an easy choice)

Math Mammoth (conceptual explanations - very happy with this curriculum. Dumped MCP Math because it wasn't working with big-picture kid.)

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