WOW - it is hard to believe, but this is going into our 3rd year of homeschooling. It has been SO much fun! One thing I've learned is that you DO NOT have to spend a fortune to homeschool. Also, remember, the library is your friend!

We are eclectic. We call our program The DaVinci Program, because we focus so much on art and science. We don't use any formal curriculum. We pick and choose what we like. Along the way, we have found a few things that we REALLY like. Here they are:

United Streaming http://www.unitedstreaming.com - FREE to Georgia homeschoolers. We use this for our video and streaming needs. My son loves it.

Joy Hakim - History of US - A history series that is so wonderful. Both of us just love it. We just read it and talk about it - we don't worry that much with written history work, but when we DO, we use Sonlights' HISTORY OF THE USA workbooks. They aren't as in depth as the Hakim books, but good for reinforcement.

SINGAPORE MATH - We love it. Its cheap as heck too if you buy your books on eBay. If your child is pretty good with math and doesn't need a lot of repetition, you might like this. It seems to work ok on tests too - my son has been scoring 99% the last two years and this is all we use. (But we DO cook and shop together and discuss math a lot.) It is one year ahead, so if you have a 4th grader, you'd use 3a and 3b. There is a placement test that your child can take on the singapore math website.

DISCOVER ART - this is a series by Laura Chapman. You'd need level 4 if your child is in the 4th grade. It is a great curriculm and we have enjoyed 3 of the books so far, and are starting our 4th!

Handwriting Without Tears has been a WONDERFUL for cursive writing.

Rosetta Stone Homeschool Version- Foreign Language (Any). We are doing Latin and it is awesome! It really is highly effective.

Geography - FREE, lol - if you have a decent computer, www.keyhole.com is awesome. Also www.geosense.net is fun & free to play and you can really learn a lot.

Astronomy - FREE - if you have a decent computer, www.stellarium.com is AWESOME!

www.Edhelper.com - this is a subscription website that I use all the time. Basically it is printed worksheets, timelines, some art theme units. I've used it every year. I have the full subscription b/c my son is all over the place in grade level.

And.....lastly....OUR TIVO. Lol TIVO is a must have now. We get all the Classroom shows, and watch a TON of the Style channel, Science Channel, and the history channel. GPTV has Salsa if you are doing Spanish, and also Japanese lessons - you just have to look and there is SO much available out there.

Those are our must haves...along with the Internet in general. We have also enjoyed www.historyscribe.com (Sage likes to draw the stuff), www.brainpop.com, Milliken Publishing books, Carol Marsh books, and Good Apple books.

Those things have been well received and loved. Notice grammar is missing. We hate it and it shows. This year I picked up Harcourt Family Learning Language Arts 5. It's ok for language arts. I'm just not that worried about grammar right now.

We've used some aBeka, some Bob Jones, some Sonlight. It is all ok but I'd prefer that Sage and I just pick and choose.