How to Choose Curriculum!

Curriculum??? AHHH???
     "So and so" has this and "so and so" has that and "so and so" is teaching Latin and "so and so" ect.  Want the low down on curric?  Here is is..... There is a crap ton and its all good, depending on who you are and who your kids are!!!  So, how do you sort through all of it and make a decision?   I have two suggestions for you:

1. START SLOW.  Don't spend a lot of money, be very very simplistic.  Get into a good rhythm.  If you are starting with your oldest being kindy, even just a Costco work book is fine while you get into the swing of things.  Read a lot, play a lot and don't do more than 40 minutes of school everyday.  INFACT, 3 days a week is even better for "sit down stuff".  If not, you will burn out and feel like a failure.  If you are starting with older kids and multiple grades, combine as much as you can (read my post on block schedules and on 4 day school weeks.)  Keep it pretty simple, your kids need to defrag from public school and all of you need to learn how to be homeschoolers.
2. Figure out who you are.  Everyones main decision making falls into 1 of 4 categories (you actually are a primary and have a secondary and we will focus this into curriculum choices only).  This means when you are face with a decision, lets say "homeschooling you think either: 1 is fun!  Homeschooling sounds fun and bright and like sunny days and field trips, 2 I need a clue. I can not move in that direction unless I can research it to death, with lots of lists and make sure I have everything I need to even consider it.  In fact this might sound so overwhelming that I don't do it at all and sit around instead.  3 let's get it done.  You make a decision and you move on it, go go go anything can be accomplished and you can drive it through, including homeschooling. 4 is right or wrong.  Is homeschooling right, is it wrong?  You go through every aspect weighing out each thing and if its right you do it.

     What does personality actually have to do with any of this.  I will tell you.  

1 is fun: You will think it is very, very fun to look at and shop for curric.  You will think its fun to get all the crafts and sparkly things and games.  You will think every field study and field trip and tid bit is fun!  Sounds great huh?!  Sounds fun?!
     You will not think it's very fun when all of that takes up so much time that you can not accomplish much.  You will not think it is fun when you have to write your own lesson plans.  You will not think it is fun when no one is learning and the babies are crying and you feel like you are failing.  If your secondary is a 2 you might even get so stuck in researching (slowly) that you can't even use 

     1 is fun Mom, you need to pick easy curric.  Stuff that thinks for you.  Little to no lesson planning.  You need things you can combine grade levels on, working kids in groups and, well, like a party.  You need flexibility to throw caution to the wind and march to your own beat but also on the days when you are not so inspired, that you know what to fall back on.  

     DO NOT pick curriculum that is too "involved", requires a lot of prep work, or has too many elements.  You might be able to "grow into" that spot (especially if you are a secondary 3 or 4) but not starting off.  Don't get fancy and add too much to your plate.  Your kids know you are "One Fun Mom" and if you try to teach differently then who you are... they will not like you as their teacher.

2 gets a clue: Heres the deal 2's.  You take your time, you research, you have lists and notes and paper (I hate paper).  You love google.  You like to beat a dead horse, you just can't stop making sure you have all the info.  Sometimes you may even get paralyzed in it all.  2's move slowly for the most part.  Once you have the info though your secondary number will kick in:  1 Now lets have fun, 3 let's get it done or 4 this is right/wrong!  You really need to utilize your secondary thought to move forward.
     If you are a secondary 1 then please for the love of everyone, pick things the 1 picks.  You need too or you will never enjoy what you are doing.  You can however pick things that have a little more "check off the list" then the 1 does.  You like lists and you like to be able to check things off.

     If your secondary is a 3 then you will probably be fine.  Your 3 will "get it done".  Just don't pick things that need additional research.  Do your research first, pick the curric and have it not require you to continue looking for things like... like books.  You need a built in list so you don't get caught up in more googling.

     If your secondary is a 4 then you need to remember to be flexible.

3's Get it done!: The great thing with you is that you get things done.  The problem will be that you might not think outside the box or to stop a while and smell the homeschool roses.  When picking curric, you will really rely on your secondary to help you choose and then you will drive it through.       Your kids might think your choices are not that great or that they are bland (unless your secondary is a 1), this is because you are very practical.  Be sensitive to them and pick curric with your secondary number in mind in order to not get stuck in only serving what seems practical!  BE CAREFUL IF you are a secondary 4 who thinks homeschool should look like public school you may just "get it done" all the way to the homeschool graveyard.  Be very careful you don't push whats not working.

Right/Wrong 4:  Oh 4's.  You really could go one way or the other.  It depends on what your 4 thinks is right or wrong.  If your 4 says that a loose, unschooling approach is best you will stand in that corner for life, unless your paradigm shifts and you think that a strict classical approach is the way to breed a child genius, then to that side you will run and stand firm!  See the problem 4's?
     When picking curriculum you base everything out of "right and wrong", "black and white", "good and bad".  Most homeschool 4's tend to be more on the scholastic side and often a little too "public schooly at home" (Although all personalities usually hit this at some point in their journey).
     You do very well with complicated curriculum with lots of checks and balances.  You like having curriculum that includes many subjects and goes by the grade.  You like doing things "by the book".
By nature, you will most likely want to stay away from things that are too whimsical, open ended and... imaginative.  You won't think you are actually getting enough done if you do (unless your secondary is a 1, then have at it!).  Your biggest issue will really be overload.  Overloading your life with this very strict school while trying to keep your house clean and organic, homecooked meals on the table 3x a day!  You need to keep in mind for yourself and your children that your children are children and not college students.  Don't overwhelm them with too much AND..... don't think you are a failure either.  Re look at what you picked, make changes, pare down and tell yourself it's RIGHT to be more relaxed and not do "as much" school work!

SO WHEN ACTUALLY BUYING:
     It is okay to mix and match between sources.  Just try and still pick things according to your curric personality.  Google reviews on things and try and get a good feel for what you are going to buy.  Homeschool conferences/fairs/and friends are a good source to see lots of curric and get to know it.  Cathy Duffys  homeschool reviews are a good place to start to get a feel for things.
     I wish I had something more concrete to give you but the truth is still the same: There is a crap ton and its all good, depending on who you are and who your kids are.

My favorite all-around great curriculum:

Queens!

Mystery Of History

                      KHAN (free online math)

                                                                                         TEACHING TEXTBOOKS

 DO IT YOURSELF HOMESCHOOL JOURNALS

BRIMWOOD PRESS

COME AND SEE! a review of one of the Queens Science Currics.

This is my review of the science book "Come and See" by Queen Homeschool.  Here is the synopsis:

"Come and See!  by Casey Queen, story by Mary E. Woodis

180 days worth of science and nature lessons for your pre-readers and early readers contained in one adorable, fun volume!  Join Auntie Mary as she teaches about nature and science through weekly stories and daily corresponding lessons in coloring, drawing, fun facts to read, and hands-on activities for each science topic introduced in the stories!  Spiral bound, consumable."

Sounds pretty fun right?  RIGHT!  So we are in week 14, which is almost half way through the book.  This is the science I do with my boys, ages 4 prek, almost 6 K, 7 1/2 2nd and 9 4th.

One of the things I love about Queens is that there are "suggested" age/grade ranges that the curric works best for instead of the "by grade only" approach that is most common.  One of the reasons I love the broader spectrum that one book can cover, is that it makes it easier for me to teach multiple grades at one time.  Sometimes I have to "beef up" an application or "dumb down" an application depending on what I am using but I have found that THIS BOOK is working very well across the 4 kids/grades I am using it for.

 The story is pretty fun.  Not as "meaty" as say, "Marys Meadow", which I did last year with grades 1st-8th.  Its a light and breezy story of a group of kid/cousins and their Aunt.  As the kids get together to play, they discover things around them.  I love that the kids in the story are learning the same way our kids are learning, through discovery!  As they play, as the seasons change, as they notice things, they are asking questions and learning and we are learning right along with them.

 If I had to pinpoint the "rhythm" of the story to a grade range, I would say it was k-3rd.  My 4th grader though really loves the story and since he is not a big reader (yet), I think he appreciates that the stories are a little simpler than "Marys Meadow" (which he did enjoy).  If he was a strong reader already or say 5th or 6th grade, you could still do this curric but you would prolly want to beef it up and make the applications heavier.  I am not doing that for A9b because this is just right for him this year =)

It is also working well with the other grades I have too.  It really was the best pick for this age range for me this year.   Another thing; my 6th grader loves science and often she teaches the boys their lesson.  Even though she is in the 6th grade she too enjoys the story and the things they are learning.  I often find her doing further research on the topics she did with the boys earlier that day.

There are 36 general, nature science lessons.  Each lesson covers 1 week.  Each week has 5 things to do.  Day 1 is your story and day 2-5 are your applications.  They vary from a coloring page, to a hands on activity.   We block schedule and this layout is very easy for us to accommodate that.  Science days are m/t.  I read the story to them and then they do one or two applications.  Then the next day they do 2 more applications.

The story usually mentions several different "sciencey type things".  For instance: In lesson 13 titled "baby birds", the applications are; Orpington chickens coloring page, Ameraucana chicken eggs/how you like to eat eggs, American Robin coloring page and how to tell if chickens are girl/boy by their combs coloring page.  So those are all the "applications" BUT!!! within the story you also learn about/hear about other things (this is the "sciencey stuff I was talking about) like service berries, mocking birds, worms, other chicken breeds, etc.  Lots of stuff to learn about.

We gather in the living room.  My boys sit on the floor with their school book and crayons and colored pencils and wait (usually with their hands folded because if not they are coloring in their books which they should not be doing...yet).  I hook my computer up to our tv and have google ready.  As we read the story I will stop and look things up, a picture of a service berry bush, a youtube video of a mocking bird, birds eating worms, etc.  It breaks the story up a little but its fun "discovering" with the kids in the story.  It also helps teach research skills early on.

After the story they do their application.  All the coloring pages in this book was a pretty big shift for us from last years "Marys Meadow".  But "Marys Meadow" is a mid/upper elementary/junior high book.  I had to "dumb down" a lot of applications for the younger kids.  I am not having to do that this year and that has been great!
  There are not to many "write this down" applications either.  Which I actually like since most of these boys have limited writing, although they can copy things just fine.  A word or two here or there is much better and doable vs the sentences and paragraphs asked for is some of the higher books.   There are some hand on things that come up like nature walks, or a craft/science type projects. All are things you can do right outside your door or with things you would normally have around your house.  You can use your own imagination as well.
 One week when we were studying bees I googled a craft project to do with them that they all really liked.  I point this out because you CAN HAVE flexibility! It was raining outside and I knew they would blow through the coloring pretty quick so we did painted hand bees and hives.  There was nothing wrong with what was in the book, but there was also nothing wrong with doing something different.

So far we have covered things such as: the life cycle of a frog, bees vs wasps, how to make maple syrup,  flowers, cows, armadillos, opossums, vegetables, different berries, different birds, cats, chickens, grubs, dirt, etc.  Its fun!  It's thorough!  And because you are learning about many different things within one story, you are also learning about how everything is connected together!

The only things I do not really like (and this is for all the science books I have done of Queens so far) is that the books do not correlate to the seasons that follow along the school year.  And lets face it, most homeschoolers still school September-end of May (give or take ;)  Because this is natural science, so many of the applications and projects have to do with what is going on seasonally.  It's kind of weird being told to do a spring planting project in October- kwim?  When I hot stuff like that I usually just youtube it.  This is a small thing though and not anything that "makes or breaks" the program.

My boys are really enjoying this science and look forward to it every week. It is really facilitating a love for learning science and its pretty neat to see just how much they really are retaining.  I think the topics being covered are varied enough that things stay exciting but are not far fetched or over their heads at all.  The story is cute and keeps their interest and thats also a plus!  We are enjoying it, thats for sure!

My top 10 reasons why I love Queen Homeschool Curriculum (queens shout out #2)

     It's no secret, I am not shy about it at all.  I absolutely love Queen Homeschool Curriculum (Queens for the rest of this blog).  Its a Charlotte Mason style Curric. but in  a user friendly "textbook" form.  I could gush about Queens all day but here are the top 10 reasons why I LOVE it!!!

1)     It's so easy to use.  all of their stuff has about the same format.  Either 180 lessons; one for each day of a school year, or by week; 35 weeks for a full school year and there is one lesson within those weeks per school day.  So its the same but laid out slightly different.  This make is extremely easy to use!!  You just pick it up and open it to the day you are on and do the day!

2)     It's gentle but thorough.  "Gentle" really is the best word I can describe for Queens.  It is not in the lease bit overwhelming.  The information and skills are given in small chunks allowing the student to learn in a non confrontational way.  I have NEVER had any of my child become frustrated with a lesson from Queens but I have had them get very frustrated using other things.  When I switched from Classical Ed to Queens I actually panicked because I didn't think something this easy, this gentle, this (dare I say it) fun would actually teach anything.  IT DOES!!!

3)     It's independent for the students.  Once they can read they are off!

4)     It keeps you connected to your students.   In my house I was noticing a trend... A learn through your environment  approach was too loose in sit down work and needed me to be too involved!!!  (hello! I could only take so many nature walks- just sayin'),  I couldn't do that with so many babies and being pregnant, so school did not get done very well.  But strict textbook style learning was so... disconnected.  I didn't feel involved and I missed what the older ones were doing.  Queens is perfect for while it teaches independence, within their lessons there are tons of "go read this to your parent", or "study this picture with your parent, or "have your parent dictate this to you and you copy it", etc.  AWESOME!  now I have independent learners who are told by the book to connect back with me- YES!

5)     The stories are fun!  In the science and math books (I have not used the math books but I know about them), the content is wrapped into a story.  The stories are lovely tales about kids and what they are doing and learning and you are learning right along with them.  Think of your favorite book, picture yourself in that book doing everything the characters are.  (I am really hoping at this point that you like to read nice books.  If you don't... exit stage left please).  Anyway, That is how Queens is.  Putting you in the story!  The stories by the way are not long and boring.  They are short and sweet and even the youngest of kids can sit in the living room and listen in!

6)     It's easy to catch up on.  It's inevitable that we will fall behind but with such gentle lessons its so easy to catch back up.... or work ahead!

7)     It works with all learning styles.  I have kids across the spectrum on learning styles here and we have easily made it work with all of them!

8)     Its easy to make their layout work for alternative schedules.  We actually do a 4 day school week and we have enrichment classes on fridays.  It has never been hard making Queens work with this schedule.

9)     The history/science/geography/bible can all be done "one room school house" style.  This is where you teach everyone the same thing at the same time but the application is different.
    Ex: We can all read the same history lesson but the application that is done for the 3rd grader will be way different than that of the 5th grader.
    Ex 2;  Last year I did Mary's Meadow with 1st-7th grade.  My younger students needed more help in their book as their reading wasn't up to the level of that book (upper middle school/jr high) and there were some things I just skipped with them and had them draw me a picture but it was still doable and they learned a ton!  My 5th and 7th graders were able to do all the applications and way more on the research end and my 5th grader even started her own gardening business and made over $600 this past summer.  So there ya go!

10)     My kids love it!  The one year we changed to something else they did it willingly but they were not thrilled.  They had good attitudes and they gave this other CM type curriculum a great go of it BUT they were not in love with it and by the midway point they were asking if we could "please go back to Queens?" next year.  We did and There we have stayed!




***note: to be fair, I also use Mystery of History for history along with some of Queens history and Teaching Textbooks and Khan for math.

My homeschooling Journey intro =) and my first "QUEENS" shout out =)

     I have been homeschooling now for 11 years (good grief!  That makes me feel VERY old) and have been around the block in my homeschool approach, style and curriculum choices.  It took many years to figure out what my "bent" was and what curriculum really fit that bent.  There is sooooo very much I want to share about homeschooling but this particular post will just be a glimpse, a platform if you will, to build off of.

     A little (very little) about where I started and where I landed.  Short story: I started off very Classical Education. You know, "The Well Trained Mind", Latin, Saxon Math, etc.. Then this thing happened where it wasn't working.... at all... But I soldiered on.  Then there were the "muddled years" where everything just kinda blended into moving and babies and an obstinate first child... and more moving and more babies.  And for some reason the whole  Classical approach was still not working.  So I jumped (desperately tried to survive) into "box curriculum" (you know the kind that is easy to use and comes in a box.... boring) and it limped us along through the "muddled years" as I switched on and off between  using the box stuff  and the Classical Approach to procure superior minded children (HA!).
    Then this amazing thing... (okay- so have I ever told a "short story"?  moving on...)... yes this AH-MAZE-ING thing happened at a homeschool conference.  I saw this!!!

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     This one language arts book change my life.  I mean,  CHAH-ANGED, people.  It introduced me to Queens Homeschool. This in turn introduced me to Charlotte Mason Style teaching.  Oh mylanta (Thanks Tammy for getting that phrase in my head), and all of a sudden we were schooling, AND!!!!! we were liking it, AND!!!!! it was easy to use, AND!!!!! it was working, AND!!!!!! it continues to work to this day!

     One day I will write more specifically on how our first day went because it was a pretty comical day and it showed me just how stressed out my older kids were on our "Classical Muddled" education.

    Since finding Queens, I have only strayed for one year when I decided to try something else, it was fine but we came back to using mostly all Queens.  I don't want to name that "strayed year curric" yet because its actually a fantastic curric and I plan on talking about it one day.  I do not want anyone ruined from accepting its own awesomeness just because I only did it for one year.

  Also when I first started out with Queens they did not have math or history so I found other things that worked for us that still kept with the style of teaching I had landed on.  As Queens has grown I have tried their history but not their math...maybe one day.  Math is entirely a different post altogether as well.  We shall barely speak of it here.

     My "short story" has turned quite lengthy (was anyone really shocked?) and I still have an incredible amount of stuff I want to say about Queens and my homeschooling journey in general but for now this "little" intro should wet your pallet and hopefully you want to hear more.