Curriculum Choices 2012-2013

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I have been preparing, planning and organizing for next year’s school year.  I have to say I am extrememly excited to begin all of our new courses.  I get really excited when new crisp shiny books come in the mail.  I wanted to share the things we are doing so that I may possibly help some of you in your choices for next year. 

Our main curriculum this year is the Memoria Press.  They have a boxed curriculum for grades Pre-K through 6th grade.  I’m not using all of the boxed set, but a large part of it.  I have a Kindergartner and a 2nd grader this year.  We are using their Literature Guides, First Start Reading, Classical Phonics, Prima Latina and writing programs (New American Cursive, Copybooks).  I am SO excited to try this one out.  I spend a lot of time researching curriculum over the summer and this one looks fabulous.  It is Christian, and very literature/classical focused, which I love!!  I will be telling you later how it is going, for sure!  I have to tell you, though how amazing this company was to work with.  They let you pick and choose any level and parts and pieces of the boxed sets.  They promptly answered all of my questions- a very impressive company!

Along with that… for history we are using Story of the World again- we will be starting the second volume this year. 

Our science curriculum is from Apologia again.  We’ll be doing Exploring Creation with Zoology 1: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day.  I also ordered the Junior Notebooking Journalto go along with it- I have looked through it and am very impressed.  So exciting!  I may also get Real Science-4-Kids Chemistry Pre-Level I .  This is still a maybe, though.  I need to find it used… hopefully!  🙂

For math this year I am NOT doing Saxon again. We did not love it- at all.  We’ll be trying a new one from Christian Light Publications.  I have spent way too many hours researching math curriculum.  Hopefull this will be a good fit for us this year.  We’ll also supplement with Math Mammoth and Life of Fredfor fun and variety. 

We are trying an art curriculum this year and I am really excited about it.  It is called Home Art Studio and it looks fabulous!  We’ll be starting with the Kindergarten level and doing it all together.

We will be using another great program called The Phonics Road to Spelling and Reading level one.  I am hoping this will work for both kids, but we’ll see.  It is a full language arts curriculum including spelling, phonics, handwriting, reading, grammar and an intro to Latin.   This is another one that I have been looking at and drooling over. 

We’re taking music classes this year from a local Let’s Play Music teacher- this should be lots of fun, too! 

We’ll also do LOTS of reading of great books, studying artists and musicians, doing fun geography lessons, lots of field trips, and attending our weekly co-op classes. 

Thoughts, suggestions?