Not Back To School Blog Hop ~ Curriculum Week

Note: I have done only one link for most of these books. Most times I am using my Amazon affiliate link. You can also check your favorite homeschool curriculum provider, discount homeschool websites, used book sellers (Amazon is my favorite), and other places for used books as well as other pricing for new books.

We are a very eclectic type homeschool family. We have used a lot of items over the 22 years I have been homeschooling. This year I have only one student. My son Christopher in 11th grade. He is our youngest, my last to finish homeschooling.

We have mostly done literature based units for History and Science (with some science lab thrown in of course).

We have used many different things over the year for the other subjects, depending on how many children I had to teach and at what ages. We usually choose something for English/Language Arts that doesn't take to much planning for me since I do so much planning for History and Science.

Christopher is not doing any more Math. He is done, and he is glad. Here are his subjects for this year and the books we will be using. If you have an further questions about the curricula, please leave a comment.

Bible:

Bible Study Course, New Testament:  

The Dallas High Schools, September, 1946

We like this study because the main book is the Bible. You study it and there are questions and places to locate/plot on a map as well as things to memorize. Simple and straightforward Bible study. We use the questions as a guide and have lots of good discussions.

History:

Truthquest History Guide: Age of Revolution II (America/Europe, 1800-1865)

I purchased this guide because our favorite, Mystery of History, currently stops with vol. 3. Vol. 4 is still not ready. I like these guides. I especially like the Christian worldview that is evident throughout. She gives you a lot of choices of books to read for each topic. It is a good guide for High School History. One regret is that it doesn't cover Asia or Africa, another that it is not exactly chronological time wise and I had to switch a few things around to suit me better. We are actually finishing up Truthquest History Guide: Age of Revolution I (America/Europe, 1600-1800). We have just a couple topics that will only take a couple weeks then on to book 2.

Light and the Glory, The: 1492-1793 (God's Plan for America) hardback
 andFrom Sea to Shining Sea: 1787-1837 (God's Plan for America)  
I love this series. I am sorry to say I have never read the series to my kids before now. We are almost finished Light and the Glory and ready to move to From Sea to Shining Sea. Other books of Peter Marshall's books (including Children's editions of each book).  I did read them the children's version a long while ago but never version for older kids to adults. I am really enjoying it. I love the Christian worldview the book has. It is nice knowing you are getting the truth about history and not the politically correct washed out stuff that is in text books today. I have already encouraged the kids who already graduated from our school to read them on their own when we are done using them for school.

Story of the Great Republic
This is the last book of this series. We have read and enjoyed them all.

Our Island Story  also FREE at Archive.org - Our island story, a history of England for boys and girls

This Country of Ours  

This copy of This Country of Ours links to Amazon... there was a free Kindle copy of the book there when I posted this list.

 also FREE at Archive.org - This country of ours; the story of the United States

 
The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History
We have really enjoyed the books in this series. A new one for us just a couple years ago. I like the way the books are set up and the fact that they tell the truth about History without any new slants to the History.

A History of US: Eleven-Volume Set with sourcebook
these are especially useful to me in the years after the Civil War as I don't have as many other books covering that time period. We will be using them here and there this year though.

I have the older first edition books. The picture is of the older edition that we have. The link takes you to the new set @ Rainbow Resource. History Revealed: World Empires, World Missions, World Wars You can still find some of the old books/cd's on Amazon, but I would sure like to have the updated sets. They are on my Wish list for sure.We love Diana Waring and all the bells and whistles you get with her curricula.

100 Most Important Events in Christian History

We use this book through a lot of time periods. It is really great for following events that impacted Christianity through the ages.

Invitation to the Classics: A Guide to Books You've Always Wanted to Read

- an introduction to classic literature and its authors. Very useful as we have little information about this from other sources.

The Rewriting of America's History

Again it is good to see the history that has been taken out of most textbooks today.

America's Christian History: The Untold Story

The Rainbow Book of American History

I love this old book from 1955. The writing is good and the illustrations are wonderful. It is also great because I only paid 10 cents for it from a surplus store.

History Through the Ages - Record of Time
 this is a timeline where the kids add figures as you go through your history study
this is ongoing for us

I highly recommend the History Through the Ages Collection of Historical Timeline Figures on CD that goes with the timeline. They even keep the figures up to date and add new ones in to match the chapters of Mystery of History which we use as our spine for our History studies.

For our geography part of History we will be using


WonderMaps which we received as part of the TOS Crew
I love the versatility of this product, see my review of it HERE

and I may supplement with

Blackline Outline Maps of World History
if needed.

The above books are the books we use over and over for History. We use other biographies and non-fiction books also. I will not be listing all of them here, it would make this page way longer. Check my Homeschool Mother's Journal posts to see what we are doing each week with more specifics and check Christopher's book list from Goodreads on my sidebar, too.

Historical Fiction:  
This changes often and I will try and keep it updated on Christopher's School Books widget in my sidebar. 

Science:

Friendly Chemistry (4th edition)
Link is to the search page on Amazon because there are many parts to this curriculum. I wish they would make a set for it and give a discount... but the have not. I do not have this edition. I have the 3rd edition which I bought, used, a few years ago. I have not seen any used copies of the 3rd edition for a long while though. I just did a post last week about an experiment we did. This week we get to play with the Do Wop board... my favorite part of the curriculum.

Exploring the World of Chemistry: From Ancient Metals to High-Speed Computers
The boys have really enjoyed this series. Very well written and interesting too.

I may be buying/using Chemistry 101 dvd's. If not I have other chemistry stuff we can do/use to finish off our chemistry credit hours.

Language Arts: 

Windows to the World: An Introduction to Literary Analysis (Teacher/Student Combo)
We were using a curriculum that I won in a giveaway. It turned out to be a lot of trouble. I am going to contact the company about my concerns. I may do it, parts of it, if they fix the troubles I am having. Since I don't want to wait I ordered this from IEW. This is a new curriculum for us. We have done IEW before but not these lessons. I, for one, am looking forward to it.

Art Appreciation: 

Art Appreciation Lapbook by HOAC

We will use some pages from this for our ongoing Fine Arts study

Artists Activity Pak
from Homeschool in the Woods

Knights of Art - we are reading from a pdf copy that I got here at this link at Archive.org

I have a few other resource we use.
Most of them free online books from Archive.org and free notebooking pages from various places on the Internet.

Music Appreciation:

Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers

The Gift of Music: Great Composers and Their Influence

Composers Activity Pak

from Homeschool in the Woods

A Young Scholar's Guide to Composers CD-Rom Book

We, of course, use a variety of music to listen to.

I got a number of sets of cassettes from Goodwill, for $2.00 each, called

Great Men of Music

here is a link to one of them

Johann Sebastian Bach- Booklet with 4 Cassettes in Boxed Set

We love the cd's The Story of... in Words and Music.

There are a bunch of these for a number of different composers. Here is an example - The Story of Bach

I also have and use other free notebooking pages that I have gotten from the Internet.

Well that is our main curriculum for this year as well as some resources we use for Fine Arts. Christopher also has some electives he is working on including Home and Life Management, Building Life Relationships, and Phys. Ed.

We don't use any books for Phys. Ed.

Home and Life management is like Home Economics except it is more extensive. It includes things like cooking and sewing but adds in things like small engine repair (lawn mowers), car maintenance and repair, home repair and maintenance... stuff for guys and girls.

Building Life Relationships is about all kinds of relationships: family relationships, courtship, and marriage. We also do some books about character. If we have good character, and good characteristics, then it makes it easier to have good relationships.

Watch Christopher's book list on my sidebar. The books he is reading will be updated there. You can click on his Goodreads widget to get more details. I have tagged each book with the subject we are counting it for in school.

I hope you got some inspiration from my post. Maybe found a new book/curricula you want to try out. Again, if you have any questions I would be glad to answer them to the best of my ability.

This post will be linked to the linky at the url at iHomeschool Network... just click the calendar at the top of the page to get all the information you need to join in.

 all content on my blog is ©