My Bible

This is my standard work for homeschooling. It is a guide to a classical education and I refer to it almost daily. I don't ascribe to the unschooling method but want a challenging active curriculum that encourages growth, skills, and thinking. I found it in this excellent book.
I appreciate the tone of the book as well. The author is intelligent and straight forward about the drawbacks of public schooling without being fearful, condescending, or apocalyptic. The final chapter of section III is a short essay called "Some People Hate Homer." It is a statement on why free people need to be educated, period. If we don't know how to think, we cannot govern ourselves, personally or politically. It is very good reading.
Another good read is "The Day of the Amateur" by Hugh Nibley which is for those of you who think only a "professional" is only qualified to teach. We could extend that thinking to just about anything. Only a doctor can heal, only a seminary teacher can be know the scriptures, only a teacher can teach, only a counselor can listen. I reject that notion. An excerpt from that article can be found here.

History Curriculum

We love love love History in our house. Mainly thanks to the excellent curriculum written by Susan Wise Bauer. I can't say enough about the text and the endless Activity Book. We get the text on CD and listen to it in the van. The stories are fun and informative. My kids have no problems paying attention (most of the time). This year we are studying the Middle Ages. Last year was the Ancients, next will the the Renaissance and early Modern (is that right?) so we go in chronological order.

So much branches off of our History study. Most of our reading, art projects, and pretend play spring out of history, not to mention cooking food, music history, and any number of what would be formally called cultural activities.

Science

To go along with the Middle Ages in History this we are studying the Earth and Space. So much fun. We basically just read a section out of the books 2 or 3 times a week. Ethan writes a summary of what we read and Emma narrates and I write most of it down for her in her Science Notebook. We are planning a star gazing trip in the spring.

Lots of other book, activities and experiments go along with this including their science class at Russell Ridge, but these are the basic texts.

Spelling

I haven't noticed too much difference between most Spelling workbooks. I like Spelling Workout for daily Spelling exercises introducing phonics based rules in a sensible order. The children do an exercise and copy each new spelling rule introduced into their Spelling Notebook. We have a Spelling test for Ethan about every week. Whenever he reaches a review section in the workbook.

Ethan is just finishing Spelling Workout B
Emma is in Spelling Workout A

Grammar

First Language Lessons by Jessie Wise is two years of daily Grammar lessons. They are short and easy. Just written out for you, one page each day. My kids are memorizing the definitions of parts of speech, beginning diagramming sentences, memorizing poems, improving writing skills by doing copywork and narration exercises. All in 10-15 minutes a day. Fabulous.

The children copy poems they memorize into their Memory Notebook. They copy Grammar rules and definitions and any other writing assignments in their Grammar Notebook.

Our Math Curriculum

I love Singapore Math. It is the curriculum used in Singapore. Most homeschoolers use Saxon but I did not like it all. It was very long and repetitive. Ethan and Emma are quick learners and just didn't need so much drill, but more application. These workbooks are fun and intuitive. It's the way math made sense to me as a kid though it wasn't taught that way. It's how I worked it out myself to help me get the answers right. I was a math type of kid, and still love math, but you don't have to be that way to use these books. In fact I think these books are great for people who just see math as fastidious filled with lots of boring drill, and busywork.

Ethan is just finishing 2A.
Emma is just finishing 1A.
Jacob is zooming through his two Earlybird Workbooks which have lots of hands on activities. Great colors and illustrations, too.