2014-2015 Homeschool Curriculum Choices

Year 4 here we come. They say the first three years are the hardest so this coming year should be awesome. Right? We've definitely found our groove and a lot of things that work for us. Here's what we're planning to use for the 2014-2015 school year:

Tenor is going into 7th grade. He'll be working through
Saxon 8/7 and then Algebra for math
Rod and Staff  English 7 for grammar
Rod and Staff Spelling 7 (Although I'm debating on whether or not we'll use it.)
Progeny Press for literature (We've had great success with Across the Centuries but I found three volumes at Salvation Army for $0.99 each and Tenor was interested in trying them.)

For his electives, he'll continue with Level 2 of Hey Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek! We're also looking into some computer and technology courses through Alpha Omega (Switched on Schoolhouse) or code.org/learn.

He's also interested in geocaching, robotics, computer animation, and will be taking guitar lessons.

Soprano is going into 5th grade so she'll be doing
Saxon 6/5 and Life of Fred Butterflies and Cats for math
Rod and Staff  English for grammar
Rod and Staff Spelling 5 for spelling
Across the Centuries for reading comprehension. She will work through 3 books.

For her electives, she'll be doing Lessons in Responsibilities for Girls, Volume 2.

She's also interested photography, sign language, and jewelry making.

Together they'll do My Father's World Exploration to 1850.
My Father's World incorporates Bible, history, geography, science, vocabulary, music, and art altogether for multiple grade levels. This is the 3rd year of the 4-year history cycle and the one I've most been looking forward to. This year covers the age of Exploration, the Colonial Era, the Revolutionary War and up to the Westward Expansion plus world history of the same time period. Our science this year is life science: animals and botany.

Our main texts for the year.

PA History will totally be covered with our regular history studies this year so I'm not adding anything additional for that. Since we'll also be doing lots of map work (I'm incorporating activities from the Story of the World Activity Book and MapTrek) and studying the early government of the U.S., I'm not adding any civics or geography either.

They'll also both be doing Institute For Excellence in Writing - U.S. History Based Writing Lessons for writing (which will correlate with our history). Having them both do the same book will lighten my load because we'll work through the lessons together.

The only other things we have to cover are fire safety and phys. ed.  Phys. Ed. will be covered by doing Tae Kwan Do. I'm also looking into swimming, tennis, and horseback riding lessons. We'll see how far the budget can take us.

Our field trip ideas this year include a trip to Williamsburg/Jamestown/Yorktown (during homeschool days this September), the William Penn House, Philadelphia (historical sites as well as the zoo), hopefully Boston, Longwood Gardens, the PA Railroad Museum, the Lancaster Symphony (free open rehearsals), PA State Museum, and the Daniel Boone Homestead. Our local library has free passes to some of the museums, there's Smithsonian Museum Day in September, and Charter Day for PA in March so a lot of those will be at no cost. I'm sure we'll find some library or local conservation center programs to go to as well as concerts. We are blessed to live in an area where the arts abound, and there are lots of free or low cost opportunities.

Sounds fun, right? We'll start in early August so I need to finish all my prepping and planning! It's coming up quick!


Linking up here:
Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
iHomeschool Network