Our 2013-2014 Curriculum

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I remember not too long ago when I was suffering burnout so badly I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it through the next homeschooling year. There was no way I was looking forward to starting a new year.

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It’s a testament to our curriculum that I was so excited to start our school year this year. We’ve been at it for almost two weeks now and things are going great! I couldn’t be happier with our homeschool curriculum choices.

I totally credit Trail Guide to Learning with starting the turn-around over a year and a half ago. Although it’s an all-inclusive curriculum, we’ve added a bit and made some tweaks due to my kids’ learning styles and their strengths and weaknesses, along with the fact that we wanted to give a couple of things a test-run before starting high school again next year. Really? How can that be?

Along with solid, well-fitting curriculum choices, having assignment sheets is working out unbelievably well for Josh and Megan this year. Everything that they can do independently (math, grammar, Bible study, reading, and some extracurricular assignments) go on that sheet, along with notations of assignments that we’ll be working on as a family.

The daily lesson plan/worksheets that I found to go with Apologia’s Exploring Creation with General Science (see our curriculum page for the link) have made science easy and fun. There is a sheet for each day with the reading assignment, space to define vocabulary words, and room to answer the “On Your Own” questions. There are also lab sheets for each lab assignment. Awesomeness!

So, if you want to know what we’re using this year, why we’ve added and tweaked where we have, and what’s working for us, visit our 2013-2014 curriculum page. Be ready to link yours up tomorrow with a special curriculum link-up edition of the Weekly Wrap-Up.

 

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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

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11 Comments

  1. Kris,
    This will be our first year of homeschooling and we are very excited. I have an 8 (almost 9) year old daughter going into 3rd grade that LOVES to read. I need some advice from you seasoned moms as this is all new to me and lets face it, I have NO IDEA what I’m getting into.

    I an curious to know your thoughts on Sonlight. How does it compare to Trail Guide POE? Both programs have my attention but as I’ve stated, this is all so new to me and I’m not sure what to look for. What is the main difference in the two programs?

    I’m so happy to have found your blog as it has been quite helpful and strangely quite comforting, lol.

    1. How exciting to be starting on your homeschool journey! That’s such a fun age and having an eager reader is such a huge blessing. I’d love to be able to help you decide what program to use, but I’ve never used Sonlight or even looked at it terribly closely, so I can’t say anything knowledgeable about it other than it’s literature-based. About Trail Guide I’ll say, I wish I had known about it a few years ago. Because my kids were older when we discovered it, we started with POS and I really, really regret missing all the great books in POE. Have you read my review of Paths of Settlement? I’ll be posting one for Paths of Progress soon.

  2. Yes, I’ve read it!! Your review is what lead me to POE. Since reading your comments I’ve really scoured the net looking for all the reviews I can find. The great news is most all of the reviews are favorable. The bad news, well…there really isn’t any. It sounds like a fascinating program and I cannot wait to check it out. I will be going to the HS event in ATL at the Galleria next week. Just out of curiosity, where in GA do you live? I, too, live in the Peach State.

    1. I’ll be at the Southeast Homeschool Expo, too. I’ll be at the Lexercise booth. You should stop by and introduce yourself.

  3. I love POE. It has everything that I needed in the last year. We are finishing it up this year, because of unforeseen schedule issues. We were only able to get through the first half. I have a few of the curriculum additions you added Kris.

    Kris, can you show us the child’s assignment checklist you use. I am trying to find one or design one for my children. They are in middle school and are transitioning to a more independent side to completing school tasks. The SP Workbox system idea is great, except that I need to do it everyday. I am wanting to give my children the option to work ahead where they are understanding a subject.

    They also need to start planning their time to complete assignments.

  4. Hi Kris!
    My name is Keri and I have been homeschooling for several years now. ( My 2 kiddos are 11 & 6 years old ). For the mostpart we have been doing 100% Online (Time4Learning) for our curriculum. I love the program, but I have noticed that my oldest writing could be better and I think that is because I have not added enough since most of our lessons our done with a key pad, then a pencil and paper. So, thank you for sharing “Write Shop”. I have been looking to add something like this and it looks Great! 🙂

  5. We have been using a mix and match curriculum. We lean toward unschooling, but this year we are really excited because we are going to enroll in the new high school online program from T4L. My daughter is going to take English II, Algebra I, World History, Biology, Economics and Personal Finance, then we will supplement with Vocabulary Spelling City, Drive Thru History, an online writing course, and whatever else my daughter is interested in learning. She is a right-brained visual learner so the video lessons will be great for her.

    We are both sooooo excited about high school now. In all honesty, I am the only one who was scared! {grin}

    Joyfully,
    Jackie

  6. Hi Kris! This will be my 7th year homeschooling. I am wanting to use Trail Guide this year but I am not sure if I should start with POE or POS. I have a rising 6th grader, rising kindergartener and a pre-schooler. I am a little worried that my 6th grader might be a bit bored if we start with POE. We used to use Sonlight so the good news is we have most of the literature books already for both POE and POS, so I would probably add some more reading on my own. I am planning on using our old Sonlight curriculum for my 2 younger kids. Thanks for all you do and for all the encouragement to other homeschool families!

  7. You said, “The daily lesson plan/worksheets that I found to go with Apologia’s Exploring Creation with General Science (see our curriculum page for the link) have made science easy and fun. There is a sheet for each day with the reading assignment, space to define vocabulary words, and room to answer the “On Your Own” questions. There are also lab sheets for each lab assignment. Awesomeness!”

    Where can I find this?
    Thanks!

    1. I believe I found it through Donna Young’s site in the Apologia science section. It may or may not still be available because, after seeing Apologia’s workbooks designed to go with their science programs, I’d say there could easily be some copyright issues there. I hope you find it! If not, the Apologia student notebooks are really great. Hope that helps!

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