Our Curriculm

Here is what we are using right now:

We LOVE this. We just finished Ancient Egypt. I recently discovered that there is an activity book and test booklet that go with this. The activities are wonderful! So it is definitely making Ancient Greece even more fun than we had with Ancient Egypt.
This was one of the curriculum recommended in the Well-Trained Mind. I think it is pretty good. It works well for the boys (2nd grade level), but it was too easy for the girls (3rd and 4th grade). But I am going to save the 3rd and 4th for the boys.Since Spelling workout was too easy I have started the girls on Word Roots. I love discovering where words come from and what they mean, and I am hoping to share that excitement. So far it is going pretty well. We are new to this - only on lesson three, so I have not yet seen their application of what they have learned over a period of time.
We begin every day with the scriptures. We studied Genesis and Exodus along with Ancient Egypt and now we have switched over to the Book of Mormon for our study of Ancient Greece since the Greek "Dark Ages" ended around 700 B.C. and Lehi left for the promised land around 600 B.C. This is truly the highlight of the day to see how the children are responding to spiritual things. We really got a lot of out of studying the commandments - using the Institute manual. Now we are using the Seminary manual and the Book of Mormon study guide Institute.
We have gone with Rod and Staff for grammar. It is inexpensive and the books are actually text books so I do not let the kids write in them - this way I can reuse them year after year.
Math-U-See is where we have settled for math. I like the DVDs that teach the concepts when the kids have a hard time. I am not sure if I will continue with this forever but for now it is working. It has helped foster some confidence in a child who previously struggled in math.
This is my new find! I LOVE it. Again, we are not that far into it, but it seems to be more interesting to Mara than Rocket Phonics. We still use the phonics cards from Rocket Phonics to play Go Fish but the manuals just don't hold Mara's interest. She feels "big" reading from the scriptures - even if it is only a few words in each sentence. But she has really progressed since we switched.
This book is great. It has a two page spread on a particular topic - we study it - take notes, draw pictures and then I got to edhleper. com to get reading comprehension articles about the subject. Usually they have a couple paragraphs with questions and a small essay at the end - that is also counting as our writing right now because the kids are still struggling with the concept of a good, solid paragraph.
Edhelper is a great resource for all kinds of things. It depends on what you are using. When we were doing Moving Beyond the Page I never used it. But now that we have switched I use it all the time. Moving Beyond the Page did not leave me time to explore other avenues, so I am much happier now.
We use this DOL manual for board work in the morning. We do one lesson each day - Monday through Thursday. I write it on the dry erase board - they copy it and then correct it with a red pen. They seem to like it! We also do math stories - for example I found one about the three little pigs. It has like 20 questions - I use them as mental math - just two questions a day. For example, number 4 reads - Pig #3 wanted to build a house of bricks. Each side of his 4-sided house needs 100 bricks. How many bricks will he need? Then number 5 reads - How many different ways could the three pigs arrange their houses? It has really opened my eyes at the kids' ability to apply principles taught. Needless to say, we will continue to do these for some time.
This is what we are using for art. We do not get to it very often - like today we did the Cat in the Hat hats instead. But it is neat that it teaches the different concepts of art. Also, the projects are fun and do not require too many supplies.

For music we have started with the notes on the staff and basic music concepts. The kids are in orchestra so the older kids are learning more than we are covering in school - which is wonderful! We are a very musical family though - so we do not worry much about that one.

A couple other books I have bought that I LOVE are:
There is a website vocabularycartoons.com - this is for elementary kids but they have many levels and it teaches words for the SAT. Very, very helpful!

The other book is Dinah Zike's Foldables

This has hundreds of ideas for foldables to help teach and reinforce phonics, spelling and vocabulary for PreK to 2nd grade. I could keep myself busy around the clock making foldables out of this book. But I have had to exercise restraint. This is great for kinesthetic learners.

The other day I was showing Kelli this book and Brooklynn exclaimed "Oh, Mommy is psychotic when it comes to that book." Okay, maybe I am not doing too well with the whole restraint thing.

I think that is it. It keeps us busy. Of course the kids are reading chapter books and doing structured reading depending on whatever books we get from the library. Now we are reading Greek Myths to go along with our history study.