Back to Our Roots

I am so happy that I allowed myself to spend and extra $40 on shipping a curriculum to and fro that I won't use, and I'm so happy that I have lost countless hours of sleep thinking about and designing and questioning and discussing every nuance of a zillion different curricula and materials, and I'm so happy that I have the sort of husband who will stay up till the wee hours of the night, after having worked 60+ hours straight with little sleep, listening to me go on and on and on. He is a saint. All of this to come full circle back to our roots.

I am returning our HOD box and going back to our first love, MFW. Sparkler and St Jude (whom we've finally named ... woo hoo) will be with MFW K + the lit pack and Bugsy will have the MFWPre pack to engage with during "school", along with B4FIAR (I will include St Jude on this as well since he's had no exposure to good books, ever).

So, my new plan is to teach MFW Adventures to Sugar. To make it a little more CM, I am going to supplement with nature study, music study, picture study, poetry/Shakespeare, and French once per week ... from SCM as I previously mapped out. I will also include phonics lessons through second grade and more read-alouds than are scheduled in ADV.

Theoretically, our long-term plan will look like this:

2011
Sugar: ADV
Sparkler & St Jude: MFWK + lit pack
Bugsy: preschool

2012
Sugar: ECC
Sparkler & St Jude: MFW1
Bugsy: preschool

2013
Sugar, Sparkler, & St Jude: CTG
Bugsy: MFWK (first of two years)

2014
Sugar, Sparkler, & St Jude: RTR
Bugsy: MFWK (second of two years)

2015
Sugar, Sparkler, & St Jude: Exp1850
Bugsy: MFW1 & Adv suppement

2016
Sugar, Sparkler, St Jude, & Bugsy: 1850Mod
Hooray!!!

So, second grade ...

MFW Adventures
TruthQuest Amer Hist 1 commentary & book list
Primary Language Lessons
Spelling by Sound and Structure
Queen Cursive
Pathway Readers Grade 2
Singapore Math 2A/2B
Queen's Math Facts Copywork
Outdoor Secrets & Guide and Handbook of Nature Study (nature)
Come Look with Me (picture)
Artistic Pursuits (art)
Tchaikovsky & American Song Treasury (music)
Favorite Poems Old & New (poetry)
Tales from Shakespeare (Shakespeare)
The Easy French (foreign language)

Simply said, my reason for staying with MFW is that I love it and have loved it AND Jesus and missions are at its heart. I knew that HOD was not a fit for us after I got my box and really dissected it. After piecing together my own curriculum I came to the realization that I could marry the best of both worlds and enjoy ADV while incorporating the CM lessons that I adore. I've also decided to buy the TruthQuest Amer Hist 1 commentary/book list to use for our book basket and to enrich our history lessons with ADV ... to make them a little heartier.

For our family, this is truly as close to perfect as I think we can get, without losing sight of why we homeschool and what we want our homeschool to instill in our children.

Because of Him.