Archive:
*2020-2021 School Curriculum
*2019-2020 School Curriculum and Review
*2018-2019 School Curriculum and Review
*2017-2018 School Curriculum and Review
*2016-2017 School Curriculum and Review
*2015-2016 School Curriculum and Review
*2014-2015 School Curriculum
*2013-2014 Review
Anna, 6th grade:
Sonlight American History, Advanced Readers 1 We started this, but didn’t get far, because of the parent reading. Getting three children to be ready at the same time was highly challenging and sapped us for the rest of our school day. One kid would still be doing chores, one would be in the middle of math, and one would be stressed out, because they couldn’t find their favorite coloring pencils when I was finally done changing diapers and feeding little brothers and called them to come sit with me and listen. We’ll try it again next year. I’ll make a chart to guide the kids in reading to themselves. Their comprehension will probably be less this way than if I read, but it’ll be way better than not doing it at all!
Teaching Textbooks Math 7 Still like this program. The pacing, the lesson lengths, and the material is top notch. The ability to see every problem worked out individually as needed and the automatic grading are fantastic. It hasn’t given a love of math to any of my children, but it hasn’t caused a fear or hate of the subject either. Somewhere mid year, Anna started struggling, so we pushed the pause button and she will repeat next year instead.
Handwriting Without Tears, Cursive Success I liked this. I feel like Anna’s handwriting improved and there was no stress.
All About Spelling 2 This is a fantastic program. Unfortunately, we only go through several weeks before having to shelve it, because it’s heavily parent-led and we had the same problems with this as we did with History. I still feel like we gained ground in the small amount we covered.
Daily 6 Trait Writing, Level 5 We liked this… it gave us a little traction on a subject that Anna has anxiety about. Not stellar, but some movement.
Christian Light Publications Science 6We had too much on the plate – this one got shelved for next year.
Growing with Grammar 4 I love this program and I love doing it a few years late (4th grade curriculum in 6th grade). This program has small bites of clearly-presented grammar material. Anna is learning the material to mastery, despite a relatively small time and energy investment. I’ll probably have her do one more grammar in a few years… and I feel like she’ll be well prepared, except for fine-tuning commas and learning research paper grammar.
Art – undecided I’m doing this review more than a year later and I don’t remember what we did!
Extra Curricular – tbd
Extra:
Wordly Wise A/B/C Anna enjoyed this as “easy” school. Probably helped with some vocabulary.
Maggie, 3rd grade:
Sonlight American History, Regular Readers 1 See above.
Teaching Textbooks 4 and/or 5 See above.
Handwriting without Tears, Cursive Handwriting See above.
All About Spelling 2 See above.
Daily 6 Trait Writing, 2 See above. I’ll add that Maggie struggles a LOT with the decision-making and launching part of writing and she was able to be successful with this. She still claims she hates writing, but I think it’s as much a function of hating hand-writing as much as it is the difficulty of isolating her thoughts for written communication.
Christian Light Publications Science 3 This was easy and enjoyable for her. It introduced a lot of scientific vocabulary and did a nice overview of subjects.
Growing With Grammar, 2 I don’t think we used it this year.
Art – undecided
Extra Curricular – tbd
Extra:
Wordly Wise A/B/C See above
Carolyn, 1st grade:
Sonlight American History 1 (listening) See above
Singapore Math – (Primary 1A/1B?)Singapore math is definitely more advanced than Teaching Textbooks for this grade. It seemed like there was a big jump between 1A and 1B. Carrie mostly does math self-led and this course was GREAT for learning to “think” math concepts. It’s unclear to me if she is naturally skilled at math or if this curriculum was that great, but she impressed me and did very well, despite minimal support and guidance. I definitely prefer this to the Horizons math that Anna and Maggie started with for their early elementary math. The material is less dry/academic looking math problems and much better in conceptual education of math as well as mental math.
Christian Light Education Science, 1This was very easy and elementary for Carrie, but the sense of pride and self accomplishment while learning the format and process of working through workbooks was valuable. She read very easy material and had to recall it to fill in the blanks. The material was too easy…. but… well, she’s a little kid, so I guess it’s okay.
Christian Light Education Reading, 1 (will start by reading the “Primer” books without any workbooks) It was a pleasure to watch Carrie start the year needing support with the Primer books (very easy reading) and then take off and be able to read the regular level one books on her own. The stories are wholesome without being irrelevant or dull. The practice with reading to herself and reading out loud (Reading out loud took Carrie some practice to get the pauses right! She didn’t “hear” the periods or transitions between narration and dialogue easily.) were wonderful and then the workbooks practice recall… not to mention practice with writing by hand.
Handwriting Without Tears, Printing Power PlusLoved this. Was not stressful and was more clear instruction than some others we’ve used. Having repetitive concepts was helpful to us (such as the “magic c.”
Art – undecided
Kumon: Jigsaw These were easy and fun. She actually didn’t think they were as fun and awesome as I expected, so we didn’t do many. She prefers self-led arts and crafts.
Extra Curricular – tbd
Daniel, Kindergarten:
Turns out that Daniel was learning like crazy, but was not ready for following instructions and doing table work. He learned his letters and numbers and counting and a lot of sign language and many other things, but we didnt’ do formal schooling.
Jordan, 4th grade:
I took too long to review this and I don’t remember what we did this year for Jordan!