September 9, 2016

Homeschooling Thorndikes

Our journey has changed just a little over the last three years...we are no longer Oregon Thorndikes, we are now what we lovingly refer to ourselves as, the NodakThorndikes. We moved to North Dakota, my husband changed careers and we started homeschooling our children. I may give you all the nitty-gritty details on the road to ND later, but for now, let's talk homeschool.

I'll spare you the "whys" of our choice to homeschool in detail, but for now just know it was all a positive path-no disgruntled parents, no hating the school system or terrible experiences. We were guided through prayer and our faith in God to ultimately choose homeschool for this season of our lives. Please know we regularly re-evaluate and continuously pray over our decision!

Today I thought I would share what curriculum we will be using this year.
We are trying a few new companies this year and I am very excited about it. Now that we are heading into our third year of school, I'm starting to get the hang of customizing our curriculum for each kid. (There are several links below)

Handwriting Without Tears, Cursive (Younger kids) Printing (Older kids)
Growing with Grammer
Explode the Code

Reading Eggs- This is a great tool I am using for both the younger kids. Hosanna struggles with Dyslexia and reading has been difficult for her. Reading Eggs is a website that assesses where the child is via a placement test and then the child plays reading and spelling games. I have a coupon code for a free 4 week trial HERE

Science:
I teach all the kids our Science as a group and then use age-appropriate activities for each of them. We love Apologia! We are currently finishing up Zoology Exploring Creation Land Animals of the Sixth Day. We are about two-thirds the way through it and will continue into the next year. Once we finish we will begin Apologia Human Anatomy & Physiology. Jeremiah will begin the Apologia Exploring Creation General Science.

History is done similarly to science, as we go over it as a group. We will be finishing up our Notgrass America the Beautiful 1000-1877. We will also cover the process of the election and government for September and October. Once we finish up Notgrass we will most likely begin either Mystery of History or Story of the World Middle Ages. 

I am very excited about our upcoming year! Email me if you want more information.