Some of Our Homeschooling Resources and Curriculum Choices:

Peace Creek on the Prairie   Stay encouraged as a homeschooling mom!

Catholic Icing   Fun and Catholic!

Look to Him and be Radiant - Great resources on Ven Fulton Sheen

Do Small Things with Love

Shower of Roses

Education.com  Fun free worksheets!

Math worksheets!

Catholic Heritage Curricula gentle, catholic approach that is sweet and encourages a love for God.

Math Curriculum- Math-U-See great manipulatives!

Nancy Nicholson-- Stories for Little Folks! Precious, sweet readers for any Christian home!

Catholic Children's Treasure Box Stories  I just love these! 


This Year's Curriculum Reviews
(2015-2016)
UPDATED REVIEW COMING THIS WEEK! (2017) Stay posted!
 


For Math, I use Rod and Staff publishers.  Order Rod and Staff Math online!
I have found that after switching my kids from a previous math curriculum (which was good, but not the best for my kids at this point; I still use their manipulatives), my kids' testing scores skyrocketed in Math.  I like it, they like it, we are sticking with it!  If you can afford a math tutor for the upper grades, it's not necessary, but helpful.  I am currently using one for my high-schoolers as long as she is available.

I like to use a mix of things as I have homeschooled longer.  I prefer to group teach for science, history and some language concepts and writing. It's certainly taken some practice! :) 

I used the Seton books for history and TAN Christ the King Lord of History and Workbook for my eldest in ninth grade.  The Seton books were great as readers and we did group together over some other topics in history in the mornings which were great.  We also used Our Constitution Rocks to study the Constitution throughout the year.  I really liked this for the kids because it breaks down each article in to clauses and simplifies it for the kids to understand, and gives the kids a chance to explore hands on research and current events. Thumbs up!

Science was a mix of things also. We love Catholic Heritage Curricula ... we used the Behold and See 3, Science for Little Folks 2, and Behold and See 6. I liked the Behold and See 6 because it is so rich with information that it was useful for my 6th grader, 4th grader and 8th grader. We added some variations into the science work with my oldest's Apologia General Science. We did not use the DVDs, but had I known before, I would have used them.  It was quite deep with knowledge, and overly thorough I guess, but we liked it. We will use it again, probably try the DVDs, haha.

Our reading comprehension consisted mostly of Catholic Heritage Curricula and Seton books. Although we used lots of media from the library and other random book of interest. our favorites are the Catholic Heritage Curricula Stories of the Saints.  Excellent choice. I've used these all along, and this past year, we chose the saints not necessarily the Volume Level per grade to go by.  We altered some of our Language to use the writing options from the book.  The kids love these.  Both of these Catholic choices are very gentle and they do not have any brassiness towards non-catholics.  My one non-Catholic friend was interested in the reads too! Very informative and encouraging.  The Seton books are hard, and challenging, so using a grade below would be fine.

Our language has been from a few providers as well.  My favorites are Rod and Staff, and Seton. In the past I have used CHC, but felt sadly, that it was too easy and the kids weren't retaining the information well in the later grades.  It was great for early grades and introduction, quite different from Seton which seems over the top.  I found a balance between these top 2.  If the kids struggle with Seton, we fall back onto Rod and Staff until the lesson is learned.   As I said before, we use the Stories of the Saints for some writing, and I also use the Seton Composition 8, selections from the book at a time.  My oldest used Jensen's Format Writing. Only part of the book at a time, of course.

We used Rosetta Stone Homeschool CDROM for Spanish, but had several issues with its performance and availably.  I called the customer service, but had trouble still.  It was nice when it worked, but I ended up using a book called Spanish in 10 Minutes a Day instead after we had issues with RS. I bought this book from Barnes and Noble.  I will continue to use this in the future. The kids can complete a book and learn another language next if they'd like.

The only other thoughts would be: What do I use for preschool, K, and 1st grade this year?
I stick with Catholic Heritage Curricula.  I like the Little Stories for Little Folks  and I use Abeka Book Handbook for Reading along side it with a box of sight words flash cards.  The Bob Books are great too.  I use the CHC handwriting to correlate with the new words that are in the stories, and I am using Seton's Mathematics for K this year. I will let you know how I liked it.

Please leave me feedback if you have used these items or have recommendations!  We love to share this helpful information! :)

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I will update this page as I go along, and find other things that are great.  :)



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