Scary First Year Curriculum Choices
Wow! There is so much curriculum out there to choose from. I decided to homeschool our 4 children Scooby, Bear Bucks, Skeeb, and Baby Cakes. I looked through lots of curriculum that my friend had. I read about Abeka, BJU Press, The Good and the Beautiful, and more. I looked at popular sites such as Christianbook.com and rainbowresource.com. I also looked at blogs with lots of reviews on curriculum. I also talked to lots of veteran homeshool moms which I’m sure you Mommas understand. The biggest worry on my mind was I didn’t want to fail my kids. Some moms, that I know that were also members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, suggested The Good and the Beautiful. We decided to try it out. I bought the 2nd grade math and the botany science unit. After trying those out for the summer we decided on
- The Good and the Beautiful Math
- The Good and the Beautiful Science
- The Good and the Beautiful History
- The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts
- Speedy Spanish I
- Montana State History from a Christian Perspective
Speedy Spanish 1 Update
Speedy Spanish 1 didn’t work out well for us. Being my first year, it was extremely hard to figure out how to do our normal subjects and add Spanish to everything else. I decided to drop it after a couple of weeks and try it again later. My 4th grader Scooby struggled doing the program by himself so I think it would be more effective to do something we could do as a family. However, I absolutely loved the songs. My son loved to sing them as well.
Language Arts Update
The spelling part of The Good and the Beautiful wasn’t effective for my younger children. My kids would get most of the words wrong when they were quizzed on the words. We decided to start Spelling Connections. Spelling Connections worked a lot better for all of my children. Likewise, the writing curriculum wasn’t as thorough as I wanted it to be. I bought some different workbooks to supplement the program to make it through the year.
Montana History Update
I liked this curriculum. It taught my children a lot. We didn’t do everything the way the teacher’s guide said to. We definitely adjusted things to younger children since we did it as a family. Nonetheless, with all the adjustments I feel like my children learned a lot.