So far I have homeschooled my oldest from kindergarten through 4th grade. We purchase a full curriculum each year and then just do what we want with it, lol! We stick strictly to the books for math, religion, phonics, spelling, and vocabulary; we use most of the coursework for reading and English in the older grades, but substitute more interesting books and projects when desired; and when it comes to science, history, and art we use the books more as a guideline of the level and suggested topics for that year, and we go completely off the trail.

If your OCD/teacher side wouldn’t be able to handle leaving books partly (or mostly) unused and/or incomplete, you could always purchase only the courses for which you would be sticking strictly to the book.

I personally love purchasing a full curriculum because even if there’s a couple of books that we don’t fully utilize, I feel that I won’t have skipped over or forgotten anything (my biggest fear!).

I’ve been homeschooling since early 2002. I swing back and forth on that too. It sounds like you may be a bit like me in the motivation area. I also didn’t do much school the year we lost my baby son so we got ‘behind’…(er). Sometimes I think I’d prefer unschooling or at least a bit looser version of what I’m currently doing but when the economy tanked we had to move back to our native state which put us back near our families. My ILs (MIL in particular) put a lot of pressure on me to be like everybody else so after all the quizzing my children over the years they decided I need to at least be more structured. :b

When I originally started homeschooling I read books by the Moores and other homeschooling families. I tried a few different curriculum packages but didn’t really like any till we tried My Father’s World. It’s a mix of Charlotte Mason, Classical and unit study styles and I actually really like it. So do my kiddos. I also tailor it to our needs we took three years to finish one package with one of my kiddos. Since math and language arts are selected separately according to grade from 2nd through 8th grade we take that at our own pace too. I don’t always use what they recommend either.

My oldest daughter had started to become all around difficult when my baby boy died and I couldn’t deal with fighting with her to do school every day so I cut her loose to do just the basics on her own. When she finally listened to me and tried My Father’s World’s first year of high school she decided she loved homeschooling again.That was pretty awesome.

I skimmed through and noticed someone mentioned BFIAR. That’s a good choice too. I used to have a homeschool review blog for The Old Schoolhouse magazine and got to try that out. It was a little hard to find some of the books but otherwise it was a good curriculum.

I have heard of one person that presents a bit of a different approach. Her name is Carole Joy Seid. This is her site. http://blog.carolejoyseid.com/ She recommends a blend of the Moores philosophy (Better Late Than Early) and a Classical history cycle. She recommends a few different choices for math and reading. You can listen to a recording of her doing a radio interview from her site. If you google her you might be able to find a bit more on her.

Good luck! I hope you find what works for you and your family.

As a college student who was homeschooled all the way through, I completely understand your dilemma. My mom is a very type A person, and so probably through 6th grade or so, she used the ABEKA curriculum (it’s the same Christian curriculum used in some private schools) and all its components. However, around 7th grade, she began to switch things up as she learned my personal learning style (audio and kinetic). We still used ABEKA for math and science(though she cut out most of the repetitive work), and began to use Total Language Plus (http://www.totallanguageplus.com/main.htm) for reading/English/writing, and Apologia (http://www.apologia.com/index.asp?proc=pg&pg=1) for science.

We had some easy days where we did some work and used other experiences as “school” (such as volunteering and field trips). By the time I was in High School, we found an EXCELLENT history curriculum! If you don’t look at anything else, I HIGHLY recommend looking into Diana Waring (http://www.dianawaring.com/). She has three main books and audio cds which can be tailored to every single grade level. There were activities for every learning style, and you can reuse the books for years, adding to the depth of your studying. I still have those cds and love listening to them.

As my mom always put it, decide what you want to be structured (math, so on) and what you want to have more fun with (history, etc). If, as Bella grows up, she latches onto a particular theme or subject, go for it! Don’t neglect the other areas of study, but let her explore to her heart’s content! You are doing a great job of thinking ahead Hope this helps, sorry for it being so long!