Home School Curriculum
The curriculum that we've found to be helpful...
All of the children loved being read to, and we always had a LOT of books stocked on the shelves. With their eagerness for books it was fairly easy to start them reading as well. Alpha Omega Publications had an early phonics series called Horizons (6 books) which was made extremely well. All of the children learned to read with the help of those books. They were not the only tools used in the early years. Other readers were used as well, but the main "tool" used was the Bible.
All of the children started reading from the Bible when they were 4 or 5 years old. Each one would only read the words they knew and whoever was with them helped them sound out the rest of the words. By the time they were 6 or 7, they could read from the Bible almost entirely by themselves. Johannah, for example, could read the Bible faster than most adults - at age 7! The Bible was a major part of the curriculum. All of the children not only read from the Bible every morning (including on holidays and other non-school days), but also learned cursive writing by copying down a verse from their reading. By the end of their childhood each one had read through the Bible at least 7 times! There is no better foundation than that.
For math, Saxon was used almost exclusively, except in the early years. We had a variety of workbooks which started each child out in addition, subtraction, and other simple math lessons to get them ready for Saxon Math. A-Beka was used in much of the other subjects such as science, history, grammar, etc. We never "consumed" the books but instead each book was passed down to the next younger student. All work was done on ruled notebooks costing between 10 - 20 cents, purchased during back-to-school sales.
Of course many other books were read during the course of each childhood... too many to count!
The library wa one source where we could get fast reading material. Garage sales also helped, providing cheap books for the children's voracious appetites. We had a fairly big "library" in our home. Most of the books in it were read countless times.
All of the children started reading from the Bible when they were 4 or 5 years old. Each one would only read the words they knew and whoever was with them helped them sound out the rest of the words. By the time they were 6 or 7, they could read from the Bible almost entirely by themselves. Johannah, for example, could read the Bible faster than most adults - at age 7! The Bible was a major part of the curriculum. All of the children not only read from the Bible every morning (including on holidays and other non-school days), but also learned cursive writing by copying down a verse from their reading. By the end of their childhood each one had read through the Bible at least 7 times! There is no better foundation than that.
For math, Saxon was used almost exclusively, except in the early years. We had a variety of workbooks which started each child out in addition, subtraction, and other simple math lessons to get them ready for Saxon Math. A-Beka was used in much of the other subjects such as science, history, grammar, etc. We never "consumed" the books but instead each book was passed down to the next younger student. All work was done on ruled notebooks costing between 10 - 20 cents, purchased during back-to-school sales.
Of course many other books were read during the course of each childhood... too many to count!
The library wa one source where we could get fast reading material. Garage sales also helped, providing cheap books for the children's voracious appetites. We had a fairly big "library" in our home. Most of the books in it were read countless times.