My Curriculum Picks for 2011/2012 School Year

  In 2011/2012, I will be homeschooling a 4th grader and a Kindergartener. It will be our 5th year homeschooling. We only homeschool during a basic September through May school year, trying extremely hard to be finished in April so that we can go outside and play. :) I will be throwing in some extra practice throughout the summer. So far, we have used Abeka for K3, K5, 2nd, and now 3rd grade. My oldest daughter went to a local church for K4 and to a local Christian school for 1st grade.
  BIBLE: For the first time this past year, 3rd grade, we tried Bob Jones for Bible. While I'm not completely and utterly in love with it, it was more in-depth than Abeka. For my age groups, Abeka offers seemingly basic Bible stories. Bob Jones combines more in-depth accounts of said stories with character building. So, Bob Jones it is again this year. I am going to try to make it work for both ages, incorporating printables and extra stories for the youngest. I also have the Abeka Nursery Curriculum that I will be supplementing with for her as well.
   LANGUAGE, SPELLING AND MATH: I swear by Abeka for Language and Math. They start out, even in K3, with a very solid base to build on in both subjects, especially Language. We've had absolutely no problems with Language. We love it! We've had one or 2 kinks with Math, but nothing that we weren't able to smooth out quickly. I've found both subjects are more advanced compared to some other curriculums. I've had no problems with Spelling, so we're sticking with Abeka.
Now, I have spent what seems like countless hours pouring over various history and science curriculums. I know what I want, but finding it has been another story. I like to think of myself as "creative", but when it comes to history and science, well..... Not so much!
  HISTORY: We are going to take a classical approach to history this year. I am using Story of the World Volume 1 for our base, and then we are adding in lots of extra reading books and activities for each era. We will be sticking geography in as we study the countries that go with each era.
  SCIENCE: I came across Nancy Larson Science, and I must admit, it looks fabulous. The price tag is way over our budget though, so... disappointed but not snuffed out, I kept on searching. Apologia was my second choice for both girls, but I just couldn't get away from the fact that NL Science provided all necessary supplies for the experiments. This was so NOT my strong suit this past school year, and usually experiments were never done or end in an epic fail! Well, guess what??? Who knew?? (Not me, that's for sure!) Creation Sensation offers kits to go with Apologia! Yay me!!! (And my kids!) I have contacted them, and while they are not affiliated with Apologia they work very closely with Jeannie Fulbright.
  You can buy the Priority Kits, which save you a little money but require a little more time to prepare. These kits come with all the things you would normally have to buy in bulk or would have a hard time finding. You are responsible for supplying the additional items, such as aluminum foil, paper plates, flour, etc. Most of the things can already be found around your house. One of the great things is, a shopping list is provided for all the supplies that can be picked up at your local Wal-Mart. OR.... If you rather spend a little extra money, $20 I think, you can buy the Deluxe Kits. You have to shop for next-to-nothing!! Woo Hoo!! I'm way more than a little excited about this!
  EXTRAS:
  Music: I have sort of crafted my own music curriculum that I'm hoping to be able to incorporate with both girls. I've pulled from my own experience and knowledge and from various sites online. I will also be giving them both very basic piano lessons for now, because I can play as well as any concert pianist cat walking across the piano. My goal is to teach them to play by ear. I will be pulling from Matthew Stephen's Piano By Ear DVDs that I already have and love.
  Typing: We haven't done any typing yet. I am going to try Typing Instructor for Kids with my oldest.
  Foreign Language: I am going to try Flip Flop Spanish. It has very good reviews on Amazon!
  I love arts and crafts, so I will coming up with themed and seasonal projects for them to work on. We'll also be using some drawing lessons from Draw Write Now, and we love our Ed Emberley's Complete Funprint Drawing Book. If you haven't checked that one out, you should!
  Along with all of the above, I'm going to try to come up with different lap book themes for my youngest to work on.
  SHEW!! Have I missed anything? As if that isn't enough.... I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but for now, this is it!