Favorite Curriculum Choices

I know that I have written several detailed reviews for TOS this year and really have enjoyed getting to use and review a lot of wonderful products most of which I had never even heard of before. A great advantage of homeschooling is that there are so many products out there to choose from for curriculum. What kind make choosing curriculum difficult is that there are so many curriculum choices out there. I though I would tell you some of my all time favorite curriculum that we have used (not including any TOS products. You can read any of my reviews by clicking TOS Reviews in my sidebar.)

Elementary-5 in a Row- One of my all time favorite curriculum for Elementary. Wonderful books, great activities, easy to use, fun! One drawback may be that several of the books are out of print and may be harder to find. I bought several off of www.half.com, found many at even my tiny library, and was able to get others through Inter-library loan.

The Prairie Primer- Probably may favorite curriculum. A Unit Study based on the Little House Series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Lots of great activities, wonderful books and easy to use. Chelsea loved the year we spent on this (3rd grade) and the only other subject I added in was Math. I can't wait until Lily and our new baby are old enough so I can do it again (not really the boys' cup of tea.)

Science- Apologia- The best Science Curriculum I have used. Interesting to read, fun experiments, notebooking exercises. Elementary books can be use with a wide age range (around k-5) making it easy for large families to teach children altogether.

Math- For a mastery type Math Program Math U See is wonderful. It is done in black and white to be less distracting and uses manipulatives so the child can "see" why the answer is what it is.

For a spiral Math approach we like Abeka Math. Both the boys like it (although we do not do every problem and skip some sections.)

Sonlight- I loved using Sonlight! I have used 3 Cores (3,4,100) The instructor's guide makes it very easy to use, the books are wonderful, you can buy everything you need from Sonlight, did I mention the books are wonderful! The biggest drawback to me (and why I don't still use it ) is the cost and the fact that I would have to buy 3 separate Cores for my children because of the age gaps. We still LOVE the books and choose books from the book list for read-alouds and extra literature choices.