What to teach?!

First of all let me say, that I LOVE to plan. I love to make lists, schedules etc. Now if I could just DO everything that I plan to do... heheh. That's the tricky part!

So with that said, here's how I plan...

I SO love the Charlotte Mason ideals. I love the ideas of nature study, living books, narration, dictation, copywork, art and composer studies, book of centuries... it's ALL so great! We try to do all these things in our homeschool. Every year we manage to do a little bit of everything, and every year we get a little closer to doing everything we'd like to do. For the last 3 years or so, we've still been figuring out who we are. I've been learning about the learning styles of my little people and finding out what inspires them.

How I decide what to teach:
Let me just say, that there are WAY too many options for homeschool curriculum these days! It is WAY overwhelming! But praise God we've found something that not only works for us, but that we LOVE!

For the past 3 years we've used the AmblesideOnline curriculum plan. We LOVE AO! I've made very few adaptations to the curriculum as suggested and been very happy with the book selections. My boys look forward EVERY day to reading their 'AO books' as we call them. Our Island Story, Children of the New Forest, The Little White Horse, The Princess and the Goblin and Little Britches: My Father and I were Ranchers were among some of their favorites this year. But, really, they liked ALL the books! hahah.
As far as math, language/phonics and science we do use recommended curriculum in all these areas except for Spell to Write and Read which I use simply because it is by FAR the best curriculum available :) IMHO. heheheh.


Well, I guess everyone chooses to teach what they think is the BEST, so this is a little bit subjective, but here are my best curriculum picks for language arts, science, math and geography...
AmblesideOnline.org
http://www.amblesideonline.org/New.shtml
AO yahoo group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AmblesideOnline/
printable brochure
http://www.amblesideonline.org/files/Ambleside%20Online%20brochure%202008%20double-sided%20tri-fold.pdf

Spell to Write and Read info
(this is my mentor, Britta's site. She sells the curriculum and fun things that can be used alongside) http://www.morningstarlearning.com/SWR_home.html
SWR yahoo group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SpellToWriteAndRead/

Math u see
http://mathusee.com
MUS yahoo group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mus-users/

Apologia (elementary) Author Jeannie Fulbright's website
http://www.jeanniefulbright.com/home.html
her blog
http://www.jeanniesjournal.com/

A Child's Geography
http://www.achildsgeography.com/


I will be posting some more CM planning tips in the days to come.
Until the next time,