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My main resources for ideas come from The Well Trained Mind
and Teaching the Trivium
. Also, the Well Trained Mind Forums is a great place to get information.Our Classical Side
We use the Bible because as Ruth Beechick said, "The Bible is the most classic of all classical books, containing the greatest of all great ideas throughout civilizations. Keep it as the core of your home education."
Reading instruction comes from The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading
and just plain old lots of free reading from the hundreds of books we own to the great selection we bring home from the library. We do a little copy work and a little (very little at this point) dictation.
We keep organized notebooks.
We have Socratic discussions.
We memorize facts.
We do most writing assignments in relation to our history studies.
We don't always use history textbooks, but instead spines that may or may not be a textbook or an encyclopedia. We use numerous fiction history novels, primary sources and biographies to complete our history studies.
We outline.
Latin - we are starting it next month.
Our Eclectic Side
We do use some textbooks, like Apologia Physical Science
, Abeka High School Health or Abeka Arithmetic 1
.We take Field Trips.
We play educational video games and board games.
We watch documentaries and shows on the Science Channel, like How It's Made.
We watch The History Channel.
We play outside.
We participate in Scouts as part of our educational and life enrichment program.
We use workbooks. (GASP!) Workbooks get a bad rap by certain homeschoolers, but I think they serve a purpose and there is a time and a place for them. "Workbooks" we love: Explode the Code, A Reason for Handwriting,
Map Skills 
and CLE Language Arts.
For now, this is what we do. As a new homeschooler it was straight textbooks and workbooks for us. I bought all Bob Jones University Press our first year. BJU does have some great qualities, but for the most part I was overwhelmed, my son was overwhelmed and it was pure torture getting through a school day trying to follow everything in the TE's. Of course, today I know I don't have to do everything listed in a TE and I could much more easily adapt and incorporate a textbook in to our school day when I want to.
What's your homeschool style?
6 comments:
Last year we used workbooks, unit studies and random lessons or ideas I found online - just covered what I felt he needed to know for Kindergarten. I used a few books like What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know to make sure I was covering things I hadn't thought about. This year we are doing My Father's World for First Grade (which is Charlotte Mason, Unit Studies and Classical - or something like that, lol... I can't keep up with the labels!), along with a Spanish workbook and a few other odd and end things as I run across 'em. I love doing things along with the holidays, and MFW doesn't include that. So I guess putting all that together would make us Eclectic, eh?
I try to lean more towards Classical as well, but we do have our share of workbooks too...like ETC.
I love your mix of classical and ecclectic :) Isn't it great to have the freedom to tailor learning to what best fits your family?
Mine seems very similar to yours, Mary -- I would say we are Classical, with a slight bent towards interest led learning, too!
We are very eclectic. I love Mrs. Beechick's quote here so much that I want to claim that one. Thanks for sharing it. I've been in planning mode for so long now, and trying to get everything organized. When I am overwhelmed, I need to just rely on God's Word as the core- of our school as well as my life. Thank you!
Love it that I'm not the only home teacher who didn't realize you didn't have to do it all... BJU or ABeka!
It's great how you have been able to mix up the learning/teaching styles.
Ellen
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