Choices of curriculum are wide and varied. As homeschooling parents, we have the luxury to choose which materials we will use with our children to assist their learning for the schoolyear. And it IS a luxury! We can evaluate our students and use materials that will enhance their learning styles.
For many years my homeschooling family used a curriculum which they could participate in much of together. This program was called My Father's World, and we really loved it! When we finished the "cycle" we started drawing more from different programs to kind of piece together our program. With highschoolers, we have had to look at requirements and college-prep lists and focus a little more on classes that are suggested/recommended/required for college prep.
If you have read my blog for the past few posts, you will have read my true confession about curriculum for this year :) :) Although I haven't settled on everything that we will be using this year, here are a few of our favorites!
Saxon Math! Yes, we love Saxon, and by "WE", I mean "ME" haha :) No, really, the kids like it too, pretty much. That's all they've had so that's "math" to them! Saxon style is textbook--lesson + explanations followed by problems that the student has to copy out into their notebook (or paper) and solve. What do I like so much? Great explanations, wonderfully complete variety of topics, and tons of review in every lesson.
Apologia Science! Beginning in 9th grade we use Apologia science. Biology in 9th, Chemistry in 10th, Physics in 11th ... that's as far as we've gotten thus far! What do I like about it? Well, first of all the Christian slant. Plus it's GOOD SCIENCE!! It has wonderful explanations and is very thorough. I was especially impressed with chemistry.
Wordly Wise: My kids just plain enjoy this curriculum, and if they like doing vocab, why not keep using it?!
So--that's where we are at this point. We will, of course, be adding things like grammar, history/social studies, Bible, and more.
OH, and I get a "curriculum break" this year as well--my oldest (12th grader) is going to be taking the early college (dual enrollment) at the community college, so I don't need to pick out curriculum for her this year!
One more note, about buying curriculum. Schoolbooks are very expensive! We usually buy as many books used as we can. Different places I look for used books are websites such as ebay (have found most of my daughter's college books on here for a fraction of the cost in the college bookstore!), homeschoolclassifieds.com, Amazon or bn.com (look under the "used" option), and a few facebook groups. It takes a bit of digging and searching, but you can save a lot of money buying used. If your child is taking a class that needs a particular edition, however, make sure that you pay attention to that and purchase the right one.
There are so many different curriculum options. Pray about it, do your research, find out what works well with your children, and don't be afraid to switch if it isn't working for your family!
I'm sure you would like to read more about curriculum from other homeschooling folks, and you can! Just click the links below:
Blog Post Link: http://schoolhousereviewcrew.com/curriculum-back-to-homeschool-annual-blog-hop-2017/
I'll have to talk to you about Wordly Wise sometime.
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