I also agree with starting with discipline. No doubt the pubic schools have conditioned your children to think critically, weighing points against points, determining fact from opinion. I cannot stress enough how dangerous this is!
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6
The LORD hates critical thinking precisely because it leads to thinking critically about the faith, and in turn about the nature and character of Jesus, whom we cannot see, hear, touch, or converse with, but can nevertheless live with Him in our hearts - if we know how. No school book will ever teach how simply because it will look like a bunch of gobbledygook passed off as spiritual realities to anyone who is paying attention or possesses higher order analytical thinking skills.
The first chapter of the Bible, which tells us about Creation, contains the phrase "God said" a total of 9 times. The statement, "saith the Lord" appears 23 times in Malachi - the last book of the Old Testament. From the first book of the Old Testament all the way through to the last book, you can find the words "God says". The phrase "the Lord said" is written 560 times in the first five books of the Bible. Isaiah claims more than 40 times that his message comes directly from God; Ezekiel, 60 times, and Jeremiah, 100 times. Altogether, the phrase "the Lord said" can be found 3,800 times in the Old Testament alone! Jesus Himself quoted from more than 20 books of the Old Testament. This surely confirms its authority. What school book can boast the same?
Anyway, after your wife has established a home in which you can consistently count on OFT (Obedience First Time),
with a smile, then she can start with the Three Rs.
For my money, there is no better resource than the Holy Bible. My children sit at the table and copy Scripture, picking up that day where they left off the day before. This works on their penmanship, self-discipline, spelling, and many more subjects as they'll pick them up along the way:
Math
Science
Geography
History
Government
Economics
Business Ethics
Pedagogy
Law
Children are never too young to learn the mysteries of the Bible in ways to strengthen their faiths as well as defend it against those who have been taught useless things like Black History Month and Calculus. For example, consider Panin's chart of the Hebrew and Greek letters (the languages that make up the Holy Bible).
Knowing how the LORD speaks to us through the Holy Bible inspires the faithful to learn all they can about it. Consider the glorious and miraculous information found, information that couldn't be made up, that couldn't be random chance:
Now take the total value of Genesis 1:1 2701 and remove 37: 2701-37= 888X3. ( The value of Jesus written in Greek X 3) What's so significant about the number 888? Consider what the Holy Bible has to say:
And there's more! There's enough to spend a lifetime studying if one wishes! And the good news is, this field does not require college tuition! One can do it from the comfort of his own living room! Glory!
So with all this information at your fingertips, I ask, what academic book do you think could compare? Which book do you think is more likely to get your child into Heaven, and which is more likely to get him into Harvard? Of the two options, which did Jesus talk about?