School Books

I finally buckled down and ordered our school books.  This was a hard year for me to decide what to do.  Working at the church office has presented some unique challenges to our schooling and has forced me to reevaluate how we school.  I am a morning person and I am most productive in the mornings.   However, all my productiveness is being channelled into the church and not my children's schooling.  Something had to change.  I am sad to say that this year we are deviating from our normal curriculum, i.e. Tapestry of Grace and Apologia and going straight Abeka.  I chose to stay with Abeka because I am most familiar with it.  We have been using Abeka for math and language for seven years now.  Bryce has used their science for the past two years, so going with Abeka for everything was not a big decision.  For a while I was contemplating using Bob Jones. My good friend, Sue, used the Bob Jone online academy last year for her fifth grader.  She graciously offered to let me use her daughter's books for Bryce and encouraged me to use their online academy.  I looked into it, but the reality was I was still going to have to order all the consummables which was going to be a couple hundered dollars.  That made me relook at Abeka.  They also have an online academy (not as fun as BJ but good).  My other dilema with Bryce was that he is a grade ahead in science and math.  Abeka won't let me tailor his online schooling but they have a program where he can do online school for just his language arts and Bible.  I will then work with him independently  on his math, science, and history. These subjects are his strong suits and mine as well so that won't be hard for me to do. This means while I am working at church Bryce can sit at his desk with his own computer and sit in on his online classes. For Brian I ordered Abeka as well.  He is very self motivated and prefers workbooks over textbooks.  He will like the Abeka books.  For math, he will use his sister's Saxon Algebra textbook.   I am excited that this is the answer we were looking for.

If I could start over I would have started my children with a classical approach to schooling.  I didn't know anything about classical in the beginning, but the more I hear about it, the more I see the students and what they are taught and how they learn I think it is the best approach.  Unfortunately, I can't do it.  There are so many approaches to schooling, so many ways to go about it, so many curriculums that it is overwhelming.  Knowing what I want and knowing what I can do is what it all boils down to.  What I can do is use the Abeka program.  It is a Good program.  I trust it.  I understand it.  I can implement it.  So....the books are ordered and in just a few weeks we will get started.