Some of our Family's Curriculum Choices and the "why" behind them (part 4)

If you've read part 3, then you know that we use Tapestry of Grace as the main framework for our studies. This incorporates history, literature, geography, vocabulary, writing, and Bible/worldview. It is fabulous, fabulous, fabulous ~ can't say enough good things about Tapestry! Here are some of our other choices and why we chose them. I frequently get asked about curriculum, and I do think it is helpful sometimes to hear exactly what others use, what they like/don't like, and why it works for them.

Math ~ We began using Miquon math at the beginning of our homeschool journey, and really loved it. It was non-traditional, utilized manipulatives for the early years, and used a discovery approach. That is, the student would work with the manipulatives and work through each page and usually "discover" on their own the math principles being taught without needing a lecture or lots of examples. It was also very inexpensive, about $10 per workbook. Miquon only goes through third grade, so we knew we would have to switch curriculum in fourth grade.

At the end of our daughter's third grade year I began researching other math options. I felt it would be good for her to have exposure to a more "traditional" approach since she had used a non traditional approach for 4 years. At our annual homeschool book fair I was able to lay out the fourth grade Horizons book, Saxon math book, and Abeka book side by side and look them all over in depth. I was very impressed with Abeka, and after having my hubby look it over also, and praying for direction, we purchased all the fourth grade Abeka math materials for a total of about $90. Meanwhile our younger boys were all still using Miquon.

Well, Abeka is a great curriculum for some, but it did not work for our daughter. She had a very difficult transition to the traditional "spiral" approach to math, which does not teach for mastery because it spirals around to the same concept over and over throughout the year. A new concept was introduced every couple of pages, and then a small amount of practice was done on the new concept along with review problems from many different previous lessons. On any given page our daughter was doing about 5 different operations plus story problems. The effort it took to switch gears so many times during one lesson was extremely frustrating. There were many tears and many compromises (okay, do only the even numbered problems) and our daughter went from loving math to hating it. I knew I had to do something.

At our homeschool book fair in March of that year, I went straight to the Math U See booth. I had heard good things about this curriculum for years, and I knew it taught for mastery. Generally speaking, an entire year is spent on addition and subtraction, another year on multiplication and division, another year on fractions, and so on. Is it founded on the belief that it is as important to know which operation to perform on any given problem as it is to know how to do that operation. For instance, in this story problem, "There were 4 children and 12 cookies. How many cookies does each child get?", even if the student knows *how* to divide, if he doesn't know *when* to divide he is stuck.

We had previously ordered the free demo dvd, and when we were about 5 minutes into it my hubby was completely sold! He said let's switch all the children right now (one of the beautiful things about homeschooling!). So in the middle of March we put away our $90 worth of Abeka and our Miquon workbooks and started everyone on MathUSee at their appropriate levels. In the 15 months since then, it has been WONDERFUL to see the love of Math return and to see concepts really clicking with not only our daughter but our boys as well. Each lesson is taught by the Math U See founder by way of dvd, and our children really enjoy listening to him! There are 3 pages of practice for each new lesson, as well as 3 pages of cumulative review, so the students are free to do as many or as few of these as they need for total mastery.

We love, love, love Math U See! And this experience was a good lesson for me that even though we had carefully researched and prayed over our Abeka decision, we didn't really know if it was going to work out until our daughter actually start using it. And since it wasn't working, how thankful I am that we were free to switch gears!

Grammar ~ I have had a very eclectic approach to teaching grammar. In other words, we've tried a lot of different things! We used Rod and Staff English with our daughter for 2nd and 3rd grade, and were mostly happy with it. It did give her a pretty solid foundation, but since the student text was non-consumable she had to write her answers in a separate notebook, and the action of moving her eyes back and forth, finding her place in the textbook again after writing a word in her notebook, was sometimes quite frustrating. We did large portions of it orally, but that required my direct involvement. By fourth grade I was looking for something that she could do a little more independently.

Tapestry recommends the use of Easy Grammar, and so I decided to give that a try. This curriculum is very appropriately named! It was easy! It uses the prepositional approach to teaching grammar, first teaching prepositions and teaching students how to recognize a prepositional phrase. Usually, the subject, verb and object are NOT found within the prepositional phrase, so if the student crosses this out then right off the bat they have an easier time finding the other things they are looking for. Our daughter has used this for fourth and fifth grade.

Meanwhile, I used a more "natural" approach with the boys. When L and G were in 1st and 2nd grades respectively, we made word banks out of 3 by 5 cards and recipes boxes. We put color coded dots on each card to specify what part of speech it was, and we made dividers for their recipe boxes. This suggestion was straight out of our Tapestry curriculum! And what a hit it was! On the first day of school that year, when hubby came home from work, our then 6 year old L went running to the front door clutching his recipe box to his chest and said excitedly, "Daddy! I made a word bank today!!". :-)

We added to the word bank all fall, eventually covering all 8 parts of speech. Then I made a little stand up tray out of a cut piece of posterboard, and we made sentences with our 3x5 cards. I labeled the first part of the posterboard tray "subject" and the last part "predicate" and would just talk about those words while the boys built their sentences so they became familiar with the language of grammar. We talked about capitalization and punctuation. This past year we did dictation on little lap white boards, where I said a sentence outloud and they each had to write it, attempting to spell each word correctly, start the sentence with a capital letter and end it with a period.

And that is all the grammar they have ever had! This coming fall our fourth grade son G will start Easy Grammar as his sister did before him, while our third grade son L will help his younger first grade brother C make his own word bank.

Foreign Language/Grammar ~ Our daughter, who will be starting 6th grade this fall, will begin a (Lord willing) 3 year study of latin. Why study latin? There are several reasons. My friend Laurie has written a wonderful post on "why study latin?" on her blog. You can find that here. For us there are 4 primary reasons. First of all, about 60% of the english language has latin roots, and even words that we have borrowed from other languages had *their* roots in latin, so an understanding of latin will give us a better understanding of english. Secondly, since latin is no longer spoken and therefore does not change over time (some refer to it as a "dead language") it is used heavily in the sciences, for instance in animal classification. It is also used heavily in the medical field. An understanding of latin now will prepare our children better for high school and college level sciences, and may be something they utilize in their work environment later. Thirdly, when we come upon latin phrases/verses in our history studies, or in Bible study, we will know what they mean! And we can better understand the men and women who shaped history, particularly our founding fathers, who all had a strong foundation in latin. And lastly, since many latin words were also borrowed by several European languages, a foundation in latin will better prepare our children to study a foreign language of their choice in high school.

So I set out this spring to decide on a latin curriculum. Come to find out, there is a huge "how to teach latin" industry within the homeschool community!! Who knew??? I kid you not when I say there are at least a dozen different latin curriculums to choose from. After much research, prayer, discussion with hubby, more research, bugging my friends who use various things, more prayer, and more research, we finally decided on The Latin Road to English Grammar. We wanted a curriculum that had a heavy emphasis on latin grammar and didn't just teach a few vocabulary words each week, and we wanted something that wasn't tied to a lot of ancient history since that is not where we are right now in our history cycle. I also wanted something that came with teaching dvd's so that I could learn proper pronunciation, since I have never studied latin before. We have a lot of peace about our choice, and I am really hoping it is the right one for us! I was able to purchase the entire volume 1 set used, so it was not a huge expense. Another blessing! I have been told by several others who use LRTEG that the learning of latin grammar so solidifies and enhances the understanding of english grammar that a separate english grammar program is not needed. So we do not have plans at this point for any other grammar for our 6th grader except LRTEG.

Writing ~ I have already mentioned our writing program several times, Institute for Excellence in Writing, or IEW. I just wanted to add here that God is so good to lead us to a program that we can use with ALL our children for the REST of their school careers! No more writing purchases that end up sitting on the bookshelf unused!

Science ~ I will freely admit right here that I dropped the ball on formal science this year. I purchased "Exploring Creation with Zoology 1: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day" from this publisher to use, but we only did chapter 1. Awful, I know. We do so much informal science that I decided to let the guilt go. I am correcting this problem this upcoming year however, by teaching this class myself at our homeschool co-op! We will use the notebooking method while working through this book, which I will address later.

Handwriting/Penmanship ~ We have used 3 different handwriting programs so far, and one year we used all 3 of them at the same time, with different children! Our daughter has only used A Reason for Handwriting, and it has worked for her beautifully. She used their cursive book in third grade and has been writing in cursive ever since. Our next 2 boys had more of a problem with fine motor skills and a weak pincher grasp, so for them I used Handwriting Without Tears. It has been PERFECT for them. I use it this year with C also, and he and L will continue with it next year. Last year I used Draw Write Now with our son G because his printing was so neat and he had no trouble staying within the lines. This fall in fourth grade he will learn cursive with A Reason for Handwriting. Our daughter practiced her cursive penmanship this year by copying famous quotes of Benjamin Franklin.

As I look back at the last 7 years, all the different tools for learning we have used, the different styles that fit us for different reasons at different times, and what God has led us to for this upcoming year, I am so humbled and GRATEFUL that He is in charge of our little home school! If nothing else, I am learning that I truly can depend on Him, for all our choices, for each of the children, as we progress through each grade. He is so good. Thank you Lord!