homeschooling using only ONE textbook

Our family has started a new curriculum for our homeschool.  We teach all the grade levels at the same time, do all the work as a family, and use only one book as our textbook.  We are all learning a lot, not only about the basic subjects but also about daily life.  Our work together only takes us 3 hours in the morning and then the children do independent work at their level.  So far, we have been doing it for a week and a half and everyone is really enjoying it.  We call it Bible School.

As parents we have always said that we want our kids to love and obey God first.  Then, to be productive members of society and finally, to learn some academics.  This new schedule covers all of those in that order.  We use the Bible as our textbook and teach reading, language arts, spelling, science, handwriting, social studies, geography, government, health,  and music.

This is how our day is set up.  First we spend 15 minutes talking about one chosen family.  We talk about ways that they have encouraged us in the past and what good examples we can learn from them.  From this discussion, Mark or I write an email to or call the family to share our list.  We hope to encourage them to keep up the good work.  We then pray for that family and other prayer requests we may have.

The next hour is spent in the old testament.  We started in Genesis Chapter 1 and try to get through at least 1 chapter a day.  During this time we discuss anything brought up is the chapter that would be covered in one of our subjects.  Maybe it mentions stars so we discuss constellations.  Or perhaps a certain king, so we will discuss the design of that government, from kings, all the way down to servants.  We also discuss what God is trying to teach us for our daily life.  We then spend 15 minutes on a project related to the chapters we discussed.

The following half hour is writing time.  We practice handwriting by writing some verses from James.  Our family has decided to try to memorize the whole book and learned 3 verses the first week.  Nathaniel and Virginia also have spelling words during this time.  Naomi works with Mommy on preschool level things.

The last hour is spent in the new testament.  We read at least 1 chapter and work through how we can apply these ideas to our lives today.  We also spend time learning about the culture.  Why did Mary and Joseph have to go be counted for the census?  What is a census?  Why do we have a census today?

Everyone has enjoyed this time.  Both children do math out of a workbook in the afternoon.  I am so glad Mark helped me to implement this idea of teaching everything out of the Bible.  I think I will learn a lot by going through the Bible in order and remembering some stories.  I will also probably learn new ones from areas I have skipped over.

I will try to update my blog regularly with different topics we discussed in different chapters.  Please check in regularly for those.  Also, any suggestions you have for projects to go along with certain chapters would be greatly appreciated.  I will try to include pictures occasionally to show some of our work.