Curricula we use - Our spines

What we use for each grade level each year.
(***UPDATED*** 10/30/2013
The Red Ranger is now in 5th grade and we still use the same spines for our homeschool. We have added a couple and those will be noted below. )

I've been chatting online in many areas with new homeschoolers and I can remember how lost I was when we started as accidental homeschoolers. I decided to add a post about our spines, our starting points for our studies. Over the past couple of years its been hit or miss with some curricula out there but these work for us. Having said that, I'll warn you that not everything works for every student or family and to top it off each child learns differently even in the same family. The good thing about homeschooling is that you can find what works for each individual child instead of just using a blanket system for all.
These are just our base line we add lots of other materials both at home and online.
I'll also add links to future blog posts about how we use some of the below as they are written.
NOTE: If there isn't a link to a company website it usually means that those resources are out of print and must be obtained used. I find my used materials through Ebay, Amazon, PaperBack Swap and Barnes & Noble used sellers.

Complete Curriculum -
Learn at Home Series - /
available for grades kindergarten through grade 6. Gives you a weekly schedule/map to begin with and you can tweak it from there.

Flashkids Complete Curriculum - /
we use this with the Learn at Home series, they seem to compliment each other.

What Your ? Grader Needs to Know series - E.D. Hirsch / Core Knowledge Website

History -
Story of the World - History for the Classical Child - Volumes 1-4 - Susan Wise Bauer /
Story of the World - Well Trained Mind Website
Volume 1 - Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor - 5000BC to 400AD.
Volume 2 - The Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance - 400AD to 1600AD.
Volume 3 - Early Modern Times: From Elizabeth the First to the Forty-Niners - 1600AD to 1850AD.
Volume 4 - The Modern Age: From Victoria's Empire to the End of the USSR.

Each set has a text book of stories, an activity book, a test and answer book, audio tapes or CD's.
We use only the first three items for each era/age. Each Volume Set has grade levels associated with it, however prior to us starting The Ancient Times in January 2013 we've been using parts of all volumes for our history studies as certain days approached on the calendar or if we've done a unit study on a certain time period.

Math -
Math-U-See - Steven P. Demme / Math-U-See Website

English -  Language Arts - Grammar - Reading - Spelling - Writing -
Reading -
McGuffey's Reader's / McGuffey's Readers World/Ray's Arithmetic
Along with many books of choice and classics.
Language Arts and Grammar -
Easy Grammar & Daily Grams - Wanda C. Phillips / Easy Grammar Systems Website
Used along with the components from both complete curriculum books listed above.
*NEW*
Spelling -
All About Spelling - Marie Rippel / http://www.allaboutlearningpress.com/all-about-spelling
*NEW*
Writing/Handwriting -
Handwriting Without Tears - Jan Olsen / http://www.hwtears.com/hwt

Geography -
Currently studying countries with Little Passports.
Little Passports / Little Passports Website
Great World Expedition - WebQuest / Brodie Education Consulting available through CurrClick.com. CurrClick - Brodie Education Publisher Page
Our Homeschool Geography Club

Daily Skills -
This is a daily warm-up or skill building review area that I've added using the following resources each day. Each day there are 3 or sometimes 4 sheets in this folder depending on the content from each source.
Daily Grams from Easy Grammar above - /
Daily Learning Drills - Brighter Child Series - /
Flashkids Summer Skills and/or The Summer Bridge Series - / Flash-Kids Products - Barnes & Noble
Carson Dellosa - Summer Bridge Activities

Please Note: We use CurrClick.com for a lot of subjects. The site is searchable for many materials and also has some free materials each month.
We also use lots of supplemental materials for each subject and we also use online sites.

Dry Erase Houses and McDonald's Happy Meal Boxes

A long time ago I started using Happy Meal boxes from McDonald's to store game pieces, themed games, card games, spelling and vocabulary index cards, story sequence cards, etc. They were cute most of the time because they were all from movies and all about kids, the lids even close up. What could be a better place to store extra's without them being in plain site if you are short on space.
The Night at the Museum ones worked for just about anything related to a museum and the Disney Pirate and Princess ones...well they were great for anything from fairy tales to anything to do with pirates. I usually just put a "post it" with whatever problem or task I wanted The Red Ranger to complete and he tossed the appropriate cards or game pieces inside the top.

Last week I was shopping the outlet section of Really Good Stuff's website and found a set of Word Family Houses with word cards and the houses each have a dry erase strip to write on with a dry erase marker or dry erase crayon with a slit to slide the cards through. I ordered the set and love it, it was only $6.99 to start with (at the time this post was written) and will go much further than just the word families because of the dry erase strip. 
Here's the link to the Word family houses product from Really Good Stuff .

Really Good Stuff Houses

Then I looked at my happy meal boxes -
As any thrifty homeschooling mom or teacher will tell you...one idea will get our minds to working on three other ideas!
Yep, I have re-purposed the happy meal boxes again - who knew they had such a long life....

First off, let me say that I love the ones I bought. I highly recommend them, but they are on clearance, so who knows how long they will be available.
Second, my husband is a manager at McDonald's - I get a lot of Happy Meal boxes...
Third, I have a lot of scrapbooking supplies....:-)

The HM boxes to use are the plain old red ones with the smile on them and of course have no food stains inside. They make it much easier because there are no designs or pictures to worry about but I'm happy with what I ended up with -
and so is Rexy the dinosaur, the card slot is right below his mouth....

1) I started with those "Hello, my name is" labels, I cut the red parts off so that I would only have the white sticky part left, you'll end up with a strip about 3 3/8" X 1 1/2".
2) Then I took page protectors (glossy matte) and cut one down the side so that it opened and then cut a long lengthwise strip that matched the 3 3/8". I then cut this down with the 1 1/2" measurement, this then gave me seven pieces to work with.

Step 1

Step 2

3) I ran the clear plastic strips through my little Xyron 150 sticker maker, I did have to cut the strip down a little lengthwise to fit in the top of my Xyron. Since it was a clear item that I was running through I had to pay close attention so I knew when to add the next piece in, you'll end up with a long strip.
4) Then I peeled the now sticky plastic strip off the paper and covered the white sticker strip (that was left over from the "Hello" tags).

Step 3

Step 4 - Part 1

Step 4 - Part 2

5) Then I just placed combined stickers on the boxes where I wanted to place them. Then cut a slit for the cards to go through with a utility knife. (I think I'll add a colored tape on the slits to make them more noticable.)
6) Using a dry erase marker write the facts/lesson that you want learned or reviewed. It easy wipes off using your fingers or tissue.

Steps 5 & 6

After your child is done with the activity or center you can have them move onto something else while you check to see what ended up in the boxes. Better yet have them check how many they got right with a master sheet.

I see these being used a lot because they'll be adaptable for any subject. In fact after I was done making them and organizing the draft for this blog post The Red Ranger was already into them!
I can't ask for more than that....

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Vocabulary/Spelling City...

One of my favorite sites asked for reviewers of their premium membership for my honest review of their site. Hopefully, I won't be too biased about it, you see we've used the free membership for about two years now when it was just Spelling City...I still have a hard time calling it Vocabulary/Spelling City!! In fact this is the same company that sent me 5 vendor hall passes for the ISTE this past July in Philadelphia and I was quite happy to forward two of those passes onto a fellow homeschooler.

So, yes......I (we) love Spelling City but I.....errrrrr....my son, yeah my son....hasn't had the chance yet to use the vocabulary part of the site. I'm.....ahhhhhh.....HE's quite anxious to try it out since playing a bit with it at the ISTE convention.
We, yes we, can't wait to try everything out now. My disclosure is below and this review will be coming up in three weeks.
Meanwhile, you can try the Spelling City functions for free to see if you might be interested in winning a Premium Membership later.
Oh....and its not just for homeschoolers by the way. There are a lot of school spelling lists and you can easily add your child's spelling list from your homeschool or public school to give the kids a different and fun way of learning and testing themselves. The link for their site is below the disclosure information.

Disclosure:

I've been given a premium membership to VocabularySpellingCity.com for  a candid, personal, online review.

VocabularySpellingCity.com helps students study word lists using 25  different learning activities such as MatchIt Sentences, HangMouse,  and Word-O-Rama.  Parents can create their own spelling lists, find published lists already available on the  site, or use any of dozens of  free  teaching resources on topics such as analogies and compound words.  Be sure to come back in three weeks to  read about my experience.
There might be more  free memberships available for bloggers.  If you're interested, find out  how you can review  VocabularySpellingCity.com.

http://www.spellingcity.com/

Very cool homeschool site for Spelling

I have to thank my friend Renee for this....Thanks Renee!.....
This will work beautifully with our weekly spelling words, add fun and be part of his computer lessons.

Spelling City is a spelling and vocabulary website that uses your own spelling/vocab words. The site will teach, test and use games to help your child with their weekly spelling or vocab words. It verbally spells out the words in the learn section and then uses it in a sentence. The test section (you have to click each individual box) will say the word which your child then types into the box, they can also use the buttons to have the word said again or used in a sentence again, both are done initally upon clicking on the box. You have to do all of the spelling words before clicking on the check me as it does the whole test as a whole. It grades you, allows you to print the report or a certificate. Under the games section there are games and learning activities such as sentence writing practice, my son enjoyed almost of them. I can actually see using this more and more on a daily basis along with and instead of a couple of things we have already started that seem sort of stuffy and old fashioned. I love the idea of him taking his test this way as well.