My curriculum picks for 2013/2014 for Middle School and Down

Phonics and Spelling: This year I am going to try All About Reading. I love All About Spelling and I have two more to teach phonics too. I have pieced together various phonics curriculums over the years. This seems to pull together all the phonics programs I love into one program. Grammar: I found and fell in love with Growing with Grammar for the under 8th grade crowd. From what I can tell from the younger grades Grammar takes 15 minutes or so while actually teaching for retention. I fully expect by high school Grammar it will be just a review “thing”. Writing: Another new pick for me this past year was Essentials in Writing. I have always been a hardcore Institute for Excellence in Writing fan for younger years and Format Writing by Jensen for high school. And while I still think they are fabulous, Essentials In Writing takes so much of the work from me. I used it just for the 1st grader but I am going full out Essentials in Writing next year! Math: I still love Math U See for my pre-Algebra crowd but I really needed to free up more of my time and so I have moved most of my herd to Teaching Textbooks. I fully intend to use Math U See with my younger kids for as long I can. Hand Writing Without Tears: The title says it all. No fuss, no muss. Not time consuming! And last but not least, Konos for everything else!!! This will include Literature, Writing Topics (using Essentials in Writing), Vocabulary, History, Science, Art, Music and more.

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Brain Cells

Josiah (11) total left brain. This looks identical to the one he was shown. Ben, age 12 (learning delayed) When snapping the picture of his cell. He hollared "wait, I think it blinked" Then of course he laughted hysterically. Ben is definitely right brained. Melaina is 9 and is left brained. While her brain cell was not detailed her explanation sure was. On our journey I have learned so much about my children. One of my favorite things about Konos is observing my children. By nature I like to jump in and take over and I like things done just so. Left brained I guess. But by sitting back and observing and letting my kids do the work they learn so much more and I learn about them. What they think, how they tick, there sense of humor. The three brain cells my kids made were a true reflection of their personalities. They each took their time and were serious about their project. The younger kids (1st, K and preK) did not participate in this. They were busy making ta...

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I yearn for order, I love order, I crave order.

Messes seem to paralyze me. You would not guess this from the state of my house. (this is our sock and laundry pile) However, I am also a low key, not a high energy person mostly due to health issues and fatigue. So... I plan. I love to plan actually. I plan meals, I plan organizational ideas, I plan school, I plan to plan. My school year starts out with me reflecting on what I didn't like and did like about the last school year. There are some years I realize that we used a method or curriculum that is diametrically opposed to our homeschool philosophy. This past year is a good example of this reflection. For our family, workbooks aren't necessarily a good tool for us to learn, neither are lapbooks. This year I picked up a workbook for everything. I even had more than one for most subjects. Just the 3 R's took hours, retention was lower than I wanted and the fun Konos stuff tended to be left out in favor for, another workbook. So armed with ...

The HerdKeeper

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