Our 3rd/4th Grade Curriculum 2008

Someone recently emailed me to ask what curriculum materials my kids are using this year. The main thing is Sonlight's 3rd/4th grade combined curriculum with extra readers. The materials we're using through them, mainly, are:

Math: Horizons Math
Spelling: Sequential Spelling
Handwriting: Cursive Success
History/Geo./Soc.: The Story of the U.S.A.
Art: Draw Squad

and their science experiments DVD and kit. Then of course, there are all the reading books. I wasn't impressed with their science curriculum which seems to be a journal/book that has little do with science and a few mini books with experiments to do once a week. So we are supplementing with some A Beka books we found at a used homeschool book fair. We're using:

Science: Investigating God's World

The second question asked in the email was what a typical day looks like for us. That's almost impossible to answer. Our days are usually all pretty different. Originally our goal was to do our school time in the mornings, but we've discovered over time that it seems to work best during the younger kids' nap time. No two days ever seem to be the same. Tonight we finished our homeschool work after we put the little ones to bed at 7pm just as Daniel was leaving for work. The other day we did our work at the laundry mat. We have Spanish and Grammar CDs that we play in the van so that the kids are even learning as we run errands. Their current favorite song has them endlessly singing "I'm a verb verb verb. I'm an action word." We've also started doing a lot of the read aloud time just before bedtime.

As for Kevin, we're just reading a lot of books, counting out loud, and singing songs about the colors. He can almost count to 10 already! We also bought him the magnetic Leap Frog letters that he switches out to hear their sounds. He can tell you that "K" says "cuh" and is working on identifying all the letters in his name. The girls and I also recently made him a board book using Sizzix dies to teach him the basic colors.