Curriculum: So Many Choices

I mentioned that I went to the Homeschool Book Fair to try to make some decisions about what curriculum to use for Allie's schooling next year.  Before I went, I had a few (brilliant) friends tell me that I should do my research before the book fair as it can be very overwhelming when I got there.  Boy! were they right!  Thankfully, I took their advise, and I was SO glad that I did.  Before the Friday of the book fair, I had surveyed as many homeschool moms of older kids as I could get my hands on to see what curriculum they liked and didn't like.  In some subjects, I got different answers from everyone, and in some subjects there was a definite favorite curriculum.  Then, I researched the list of vendors that was going to be at the fair and narrowed down my choices to 2 or 3 curriculums for each subject. For the first half of the book fair, I roamed the convention center and chatted with as many of my "prospects"as I could, and by lunch I had taken 500 steps forward and 498 steps back.  I was more confused than ever.  There are so many great curriculums.  So many combos... history + Bible, history + literature, grammar + spelling,  etc., etc.  I like that concept a lot, but I didn't want to overlap subjects.  I wanted to keep it as simple as possible.  Some that I loved were every subject all-in-one, and I had decided that that was not going to work best for us.  It  took my brain a while to figure out the puzzle... but I think that I finally did it!

Language Arts -
~ Total Language Plus (TLP) - This will be our main English curriculum.  It covers spelling, vocabulary, writing, dictation, literature, etc.  It is set up in workbooks as novel studies, and I think that that will be a good fit for us. There are many books to choose from on the TLP list, and I am going to have Allie read historical novels that correspond to the history that we are learning.  I gave her a choice of several books, and I think that letting her be involved in choosing what she is going to read will be a good thing!
~Winston Grammar - While the above curriculum states that it has grammar included, it seemed to me that they reinforce grammar rather than concentrate on it.  I think that we needed more than that, and I liked Winston Grammar a lot!  It seemed familiar to what Allie had done before (Shurley Grammar) with the addition of some tactile/ visual aids which I think will be good.
~ Journal - I will have Allie journal several times a week.  Some days she will be assigned a topic that might relate to her studies, current events, things that we learned at church, etc. and other times she will be free to write about what she would like to.
~ Spelling Journal - The TLP curriculum that we are using for English includes spelling, but I heard a great idea that I want to implement as well.  We will keep a journal of commonly misspelled words and will work on those as they come up.

Other things that I may use later:
~ Learning Language Arts Through Literature - There were a few Language Arts curriculums that I really liked.  This one combines grammar, spelling, thinking skills, writing, vocabulary, latin, & dictation.  (It is similar to TLP.)  My cousin had the teacher's manual and gave it to me, so I have it as a backup plan if I need it.  LLATL has certain books assigned to each grade level, and Allie has read 2 of the 4 books that this curriculum uses.  That is one reason that I chose to start with Total Language Plus - many more choices in literature.
~ Write Shop - For now, we are not going to do an additional writing program, but this is one that I liked a lot and that we may use during the second semester.

Science - 
~ Apologia, General Science - This was hands-down the curriculum that was most highly recommended by my homeschooling friends.  I have ordered the audio book that goes along with the text book that Allie will use and the CD-Rom that will show her supplemental information and experiments as she goes through her science lessons.

History -
~ All American History - We decided to do American History this year, and I liked this easy-to-use curriculum.  This is my favorite history to study, so I am excited to go through this again with Allie this year.  (Also, the literature books that we chose came from this period of history.)

Math -
~ Private class taught by retired math teacher - Math is a subject that we have wrestled with for several years, and I am excited to have some help in this area from a lady that taught math in public school for 22 years and has retired to become a private math tutor/ teacher.

Bible Study/ Memorization -
~ Chronological Bible - I am excited about the idea that I have to read to the kids from a chronological Bible that I own.  Since Jack will be at school on T/ Th, and I will not be assigning his work, he will not be here for all of our readings, but I plan to read to all of the kids on the days that I can.  I have read from my chronological Bible in the past, and I found it easy to comprehend since it is more like a story than the traditional layout of the Bible.  I am praying that the Lord will use this time to teach the kids (and me), and that I will be there to help them answer questions and dig deeper into His Word as He does.
~ Memorization - I plan to have the kids memorize the books of the Bible this year.  Allie and Jack have done it before when they were younger, and this time I want to have Cooper join them.  I am planning on having the big kids also memorize the different sections of books in the Bible.  For scripture memory, I am going to start by having Allie memorize the same Bible verses that Jack has to memorize for his school.  If there is something that we want to memorize that is different from that, I have the freedom to change my mind, but for now I think that it will be good for all of us to memorize the same Bible verses.  Cooper might even memorize some smaller sections of scripture with us too.

Other -
Allie will also take some classes and try some things that she thinks she might be interested in or wants to learn more about like art, photography, sewing, cooking, etc.  She may also be involved in some sports. We are still looking into these things.