It is that time of year again when homeschooling parents start looking at curriculum for the coming year. Though sometimes doesn’t it feel like that time of year is all year long? I find myself a bit lost. You might find this odd seeing that I have been homeschooling my 12 year old from day one. The reason I feel a bit lost is because I am not planning to depend on the curriculum we have in the past. Normally our core curriculum would be Oak Meadow but I find that my children want to branch out.
My oldest daughter is now working on a math curriculum I used back in school, very hands on and perfect for my visual learner. She loves to do things with her hands and this lets her do just that. I am talking about Hands-on Equations Making Algerbra fun. We are going to use it for her 7th grade math year, adding review of other things and making sure we fully cover the areas needed. She flew through book one and wants to do the same with book 2 now. I wonder how quickly she will get through it all. I hunted for this curriculum, even asking students of my 6th grade glass if they remembered the name of it. No one remembered the name but some remembered the program fondly. I love it personally and I think it helped me in Algebra in the years to come. Seeing my daughter light up over Math like this again has me thinking it might be time to try curriculum outside Oak Meadow for her for 7th grade.
Trying to find secular science for 7th grade for her is proving very hard. A lot of it is young earth or creationism or other things not “real” science theory in my not so humble opinion. We love science and want something very hands on for her in this area as well. I found a chemistry curriculum but it is listed for grade 9 and I do think we should wait on it till then. Someone informed that R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey will be releasing Level 2 Science curriculum but not finding a date for it I am not sure that will be an option for us.
She is enjoying unit blocks, a waldorf type method, and I think we might try and stick with that. A good homeschooling friend, a blessing to my mothering heart, was kind enough to point out the rough curriculum being offered for free from Christopherus, waldorf inspired, a bit like Oak Meadow. This could well work for us to help cover Language Arts, History, Social Studies and such! I am just not sure yet, I need to read more of it.
