When I was planning The Boy's kindergarten year, an earlier edition of this book was THE number-one best resource that I found. I checked out this new edition from the library as soon as it was available--partly because I wanted to use it to help me plan The Boy's next year, and partly just to see what's new.
The first few chapters of the book help you get yourself together--figuring out your homeschool philosophy, your learning/teaching style, your children's learning styles, and so on. I always want to skip those chapters, but I plow on...because the work you do in those chapters is important for using The Chart.
(That's just what I call it, capitalized like that. Because I love The Chart. A lot.)
The Chart is the next section of the book. It has each of the top picks listed by subject. The top picks are a pretty good mix of curricula I've heard of (Saxon Math, All About Spelling) and curricula I haven't (Genevieve Foster books?). And then The Chart rates each top pick, on a scale of 1 to 5, on all kinds of things--what learning styles it works for, which homeschool philosophies fit with it (told ya that you should do those first chapters!), how easy it is to use, how much writing it requires, whether it has religious content...and more.
After The Chart, you'll find the actual reviews of each of the top picks, with more details about how each program works. I've only read the first few chapters of this new edition, and I'm so excited to plan this next school year (our "year" starts in April) that I might explode or something.
Or...instead of exploding, maybe I'll just make myself a Super Nerd t-shirt and call it good. Hmm...yeah, probably that.
