Hey ya'll,
As the 80* and 90* days are upon us, what are you doing to stay motivated with your lessons? Or are you done for the year?
We have been taking our books out on the farm porch or even throwing a blanket down in a park somewhere.
I dont know if your state requires proof of progress testing but Virginia does. Now that both girls have completed their tests with flying colors we are being much more lax. Taking more time to enjoy the outdoors, the beach, hikes, the pool, etc.
But, I wanted to give and end of the year review from my perspective for the specific curriculms we have used in our homeschool this year. Keep in mind I have both a 5th and 7th grader and we like to join up for as many subjects as possible. It makes things so much easier!
*First up we have Notgrass America the beautiful (keep in mind this also covers literature)
I can't stop singing the praises of this curriculum! This was all I was hoping for an more. It worked for both my 5th and 7th grader. We read the chapters aloud and when it came time for both the work book and lesson review my kids really enjoyed it and retained more than I actually anticipated. Now what mama does'nt want that lol.
When it came to writing assinments or reports I would just expect more from my 7th graders papers than my 5th. (Age and grade level appropriate)
I also loved how it incorporated how God created the wonders of America with details from the bible amd scriptures. Even assignments called "thinking biblically"
The many books that come included in the course were wonderful. Our favorite was Amos Fortune. Oh my heart, that book was amazing! There are also little tests on the books or questions to follow to make sure they keep up with their reading. We just chose to read the books aloud together.
*Next up we have Apologia Expoloring creation with Astronomy 2nd edition
This again was more than I expected it to be. The abundence of information even had me learning new things lol. We did cross words, vocabulary, made a solar system and an exploding volcano. This was such an engaging hands on course! My kids loved working on it seperately in their notebooks and together on projects. might I add that they have both a junior and regular version of the "Notebooking journal" which is a fancy word for workbook. If your kids love hands on, get up out of your seat, look at the moon phases, science experiments along with book work, this may just be the course for you!
*For Language arts we used aged appropriate Abeka both writing and grammar notebook and the spelling and vocabulary notebook
This was one course I didnt double up on. I really wanted to teach to their specific level. Overall I enjoyed Abeka, I felt like it truly pushes the kids to reach their full potential. However, my kids found it pretty boring. They often would ask if they could do something different, which lead me to purchase filler workbooks, or assign book reports or essays off the cuff. So as good as it is academically this is a very long and structured course that doesnt have much hands on, or for fun excercises to break up the monotony. So, keep that in mind when looking into this curriculum and more importantly think about how your children learn best. If bookwork is what your children thrive on you've probably met your match here!
*The dreaded math courses, just kidding lol we used Teaching Textbooks (Algebra 1 and 6th grade math)
Whats Nice about this course is that you can do it one of two ways. When you purchase it, it comes with a workbook and several CDs. You can work straight out of the workbook and use the answer book as a guide when correcting or you can put the chapter appropriate disc into your cd drive and they can perform it all on the computer (no internet required) they will even keep track of the grading for you. My little one loved that they could pick an animal avatar to have that would dance and what not if they got things right!
Now for those who may be like myself and don't have a cd drive on their laptop, thats no problem. Amazon sells them for around $12. You hook it up to your USB and poof you are up and running in no time. Which says a lot because im not what you would call tech savvy.
So again with Math I decided to keep the courses seperate for obvious reasons. What one is doing in 7th clearly isn't what the other is doing in 5th. Or perhaps it is in your family. Either way there is an online placement test your child can take for free on their website that will give you an idea of what course to purchase for them. Which im glad I did! Had I not I would have bought pre algebra and basic 5th grade math. So, take advantage of that pre-test!
This course is relatively easy to breeze through. It is somewhat a spiral concept where we went through review than learned new concepts, then review and again new concepts. So by the time you complete the book you have really got that mastery approach going on.
*The fun little course we used for bible was More than words
This course was a blast for my kids, and is pretty self guided. They have different books based on age. Though my girls each got a copy of the same book being so close in age. This course offers 36 weeks and over 400 pages of stories based on the children of the author. So, they are learning through not only the author but through her childrens interpretation. Her children having stories through out the book (My kids loved that part), memory and copy work, scripture study, art, vocabulary, poetry, crossword puzzles. One of my kids favorite parts was that as a reward from their hard work each week they had a mission to accomplish. Examples include, creating a weather station, using binoculars to observe some of gods creations, writing and deciphering secret codes, keepping up with a mission log and reporting things every week. They get quite interesting and it is very hands on. We LOVE this course!
*Last but not least Spanish by Carson Delossa
This is a somewhat vague course but great for an intro to beginner spanish. My children could speak a little and already and knew numbers and such. But this teaches a cornucopia of beginner topics.. Numbers, days, months, weather, clothing, food, etc. ending with basic sentences. Considering i've taught spanish a while back at a private school I can substitute and add more where needed. Again, this is a very basic intro to spanish workbook. If you want a more well rounded course this is not it.
So, overall i'd say that we had a very succesful year. Loving most of the curriculums I chose. Now, If only I can have that much luck next year lol. Wish me luck ya'll!!!
*Remember when your chosing curriculums, most importantly you need to think about how your child learns. You could read 1000 perfect reviews, But that would mean nothing if its not how your child learns and engages in that subject area. So keep and open mind as we start to prepare for next year. Take a deep breath and know you've got this!*
