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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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 ...

2 year olds are so much fun

Our current two year old is so much fun. I caught her writing on a bin and asked her for the marker. She says "no problem" and handed me the marker. There isn't a 3 syllable word she can't say. Being number 10 she has a role models left and right. We had to relocate our sugar container to higher ground to keep sticky fingers out.

The Bible is not a self-help book

My dear sweet friend has invited me and my children to come once a week and study I Peter via video web cast. It is a church in Washington State, Mars Hill Church. www.marshillchurch.org. Anyway, he was speaking of the Old Testament being about Jesus and the New Testament being about Jesus. He reviewed many prophesies fulfilled and it was beautiful to be reminded of all that Jesus has done and will do. It is all about Jesus! Out of all the things he said the thing that struck me the most was that the Bible is not a self-help book. Big deal you say. Think about this. How many books in the Christian book store are self-help books. If you do this, you will get this result. If you have this problem read, pray and meditate on this verse, chapter, principle etc. The Bible is not some rule book. Follow the rules and you will get xyz. If you have this problem and follow this formula your results will be..... That is not to say that there is not instruction and warning and tho...

The HerdKeeper

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