Any advice for building curriculum for a Christian home school family?

My wife will be home schooling our 4 children.


2 are old enough to begin this year.


She had her heart set on Son Light curriculum, which teaches primarily through literature and the Bible, but financially it's currently out of the question.


Can anyone give detailed advice on how to build our own curriculum along the same lines on a tight budget?


Any help would be sincerely appreciated.Any advice for building curriculum for a Christian home school family?
Buy the Sonlight instructors guide and get the books at the library. It will be more work but worth it! Sonlight is an amazing program. We used it for 4+ years. Something to consider.. they have payment plans, and I am able to sell my used on ebay when I'm done with it for about 75-80% of what I paid for it new. It ends up being very reasonable. She can also combine and teach 2 kids with the same core.





Also check Ebay, HSLDA marketplace for used curriculum, and Craigslist....you may find it used.








Best of Luck!


Jana


http://www.purehomeschooling.com/Any advice for building curriculum for a Christian home school family?
I used Sonlight my first year. I got the Cores used and then borrowed all the books from the library. It costs a lot less that way.





Or look at Five In A Row. http://www.fiveinarow.com/


It's also literature based and is pretty inexpensive if you don't buy all the readers.





You might also try a local homeschooling group for info. Around here there's a church that has TONS of curriculum anyone can check out for the school year.





If they're still young, you can use the bible and the library and give them a wonderful education.











Oh, I combine my 3 boys in the cores, adjusting the work as needed. They have individual math and language arts, but I'd go crazy doing 3 different science, history, bible, art etc...
Teaching with unit studies will help to eliminate the need to for 2 different sets of books.





I am coming away from the structuredness of Abeka and going my own route this year.





My family is using...


Science-Apologia Astronomy ($35 for both students, whole year)


http://www.apologia.com/





History %26amp; Bible-Mystery of History ($45 for both students, whole year)


http://www.brightideaspress.com/MOH1.htm





Math- Math-U-See ($85 with the cost of blocks, can be used by both children, whole year)


http://www.mathusee.com/





We are also using Prarie Primer which is excellent for younger students as literature.


http://www.cadroncreek.com/Merchant2/mer鈥?/a>





My older student is using IEW for writing. http://www.excellenceinwriting.com/





I use books from all over to assign for reading. We practice our penmanship writing cards, letters and notes to friends/family.





There are also curriculum guides put out by ';Teacher Created Resources'; that use a particular literature book such as ';Where the Red Fern Grows'; and implements spelling, penmanship and such into the book. I plan on supplementing with these.


http://www.teachercreated.com/ (search *Literature Guides*)





Good luck!
I agree - buy the Instructor Guide, used if you can (check http://www.vegsource.com/homeschool/ and select the appropriate grade level along the right side) and then get the books from the library. Well over 80% of them will likely be there, and you should be able to get almost all the others through interlibrary loan (ILL). You may have to buy a couple of books, but that should be it.
Look again at Sonlight! I know it seems to be a bit on the expensive side BUT you only buy it once! It turns into a great investment! For us to start Core 3+4 ( and a few things for kindergarten) we spent right about 900.00. We are using it for 2 years that brings it to 450 a year and then we are using it for 3 kids that takes it to about 150 a child /year. Not that bad considering most parents spend 3 times that just sending their kids to school every year. For you it would be an even better deal and since you have 2 kids to home school now they can use the same core so you only have to buy one at a time.





You can do as Jana suggested in buying just the instructor guides but it can be hard to find some of the books and you will have to purchase some books through Sonlight because they are the publisher or because they have a special printing deal.





We tried ACE and my daughter absolutely hated it. She wanted Sonlight back. ACE is a workbook based program. It cost about 40.00 a month for all subjects unless you need the teachers manuals to teach reading and such then it can be quite a bit more. But you have to purchase the workbooks again and again until all your kids are through it. We used it until February when we got our tax refund then ordered Sonlight. My kids are much happier with it.





Remember Sonlight has payment options! You don't have to come up with all the money at once also cut out the unnecessary stuff. You don't need a handwriting program right away. You don't need to purchase all the elective materials. You can just buy a core that doesn't include Science and teach what interests the kids in science using books from the library. Also I do suggest getting the markable map BUT a world map and a map of the US is all you really need. We use the Markable map all the time though I wish they would print it on one page like they use to instead of on 6 pages and fold it like they do now.





You can order Math from another source. Look at the programs they have and then look at the sites for the math curriculum. For example if you like Horizons then go to the Horizons site and order it from them if it's cheaper. We use Math U See (www.mathusee.com)





Look for the Core you need on Ebay lots of times you can find it there for quite a bit less than Sonlight offers it. Do check it out if you buy it from Sonlight there may be a few things missing like the consumable products (lang arts pages, History workbooks etc). You can order just those from Sonlight for pretty cheap.





Look at www.pennywiselearning.com sometimes you can find things there that you need for cheap.





Well I hope I gave you enough to get started! Good Luck!