A Curriculum Recap: What we Used, Tried, Liked, and Ditched
/We have just a few more weeks of school before we hit the “go” button on summer. Boy, are we feeling ready for the change of pace—but I’m also trying to hold onto the last bits of this year and finish well.
It’s also the time of the year when I begin to look into options into next year—with the helpful perspective of a year to look back on.
Here’s a bit of what we used this year (in a very small nutshell!).
Math:
My fourth grader transitioned from the Good and Beautiful math to Teaching Textbooks this year. I like the flexibility and increased motivation to do his math. I also love that he does it independently. However, I don’t love that it seems to be a lot of multiple choice questions (since it’s on the computer) and the teaching sessions are easy to skip (aka: my son often skips through them and then struggles through the lesson). I think we plan to use it next year, but I do want to add a little more variety and mastery to topics like multiplications, fractions, and division.
My 1st grader used the Good and Beautiful math. He absolutely loves it—and so do I! We work through the lesson together and then he typically hops off to do his review pages on his own. At this level (level 1), I find that it provides just enough and circles around to learned topics. We’ll keep using this with him.
Both my boys like to play Prodigy math as a little reward once or twice a week for finishing up their math lessons.
Language:
I’ll admit that we don’t use a formal language curriculum with my oldest. My oldest tends to be a bit resistant to writing (but loves loves loves to read!), so I’m hesitant to force him to write a lot just to check it off my list. This is an area that I am always trying to find interesting ways to engage him with writing (like writing letters, narration, etc). I know that he can write; he just doesn’t love the act of writing. But language learning is more than writing sentences—it’s reading, comprehension, grammar, and vocabulary—and those are all abundant with the amount of reading he does. But I do love the Word Ladder books for some daily practice (a fun way to add in a little spelling and vocabulary building). Ps. If you have a reluctant writer, I’d love any tips on encouraging them to naturally (and eagerly!) pick up that pencil ;) We are, however, really liking this program for typing practice a few times a week. It’s not fancy, but it does the trick (and adds in some spelling practice too!)
My 1st grader is learning to read. In the last few months, his reading has began to click more into place. Always such an exciting time! We have the Good and the Beautiful language book (we are still on level K), but I only do this once or twice a week with him. We usually stick to him reading to me (these books are his favorite!), using sight word flashcards, doing a page or two from his Explode the Code book, and sprinkling in a little copywork too. Slow + gentle is my philosophy here :)
When we learned about ANTARCTICA, The boys dressed up like arctic explorers like shackleton
Geography/History:
In past years, we’ve focused a lot of history. So, this year, I wanted to change things up. We have slowly gone through the Around the World Part 1 from Beautiful Feet Books and LOVED IT! I have grabbed 95% of the books from the library (instead of purchasing them directly) and found this curriculum to be very affordable, simple, and flexible. I loved that we could all do this together (including my 4-year-old!) and learn about so many places through living books! We also loved watching videos about the country, animals, and people we learned about too. They used a blank notebook to paste in pictures they colored and write a few things about each country/place.
Music:
We have been using SQUILT music for years now and still love it. I love the monthly focus (it frees me up to not have to plan anything!) and makes it very fresh and new every month. Miss Mary offers a listening calendar, but also a membership that includes at least two monthly music classes. We all enjoy these—me included! I have learned so many interesting things over the years and love to learn right alongside my kids!
Bible:
I’d love to say that we have this figured out. But, we don’t! I have bounced between reading from the Bible directly, using Scripture devotional cards, and/or a Bible storybook. I’m not sure why this is a hard area for me to pick something and run—but it is. Perhaps because I see so many directions to take! The kids also do AWANA, so we review our verses weekly. We used to do more scripture memory together, but have backed off from that since beginning AWANA. However, this is something that I really want to intentionally bring back :) Here’s the thing: teaching the Bible to our kids is so important, but I also know that discipleship is more than reading a passage and moving on. It’s really the day-to-day teaching and training that comes all day long.
Science:
We just added in science in January, and we are using the Good and the Beautiful’s unit on Energy. I’m not super sciency, so I’ll admit that some of it goes over my head (ha!), but I do like the open and go structure and that you can adjust the learning. We do the lessons together, but I would say it was definitely more at my 4th grader’s level than my 1st grader (he’s seven). All and all, it’s been good to pull out once a week to do a lesson.
Extra-stuff:
My boys also do Taekwondo a few times a week, meet up with a group for holiday parties and field trips, homeschool gym (when it’s offered), Fika (it’s like poetry tea time), lots of reading books together, and a homeschool book club. Plus, there is a lot of play and free time built into our days—so the boys spend a lot of time playing LEGO, listening to audiobooks on their Yoto (I’ll share more about that on another post!), playing chess, baking, hanging outside, reading books, and self-driven learning (like trying to figure out the Rubik's cube or making stop motion videos). They also help me out a little with shop stuff—so they are usually the first ones to try out an activity, recipe, or idea (and give their input!)
Of course, there’s the day-in-day-out living together and caring for each other and our home (aka: life skills!). Even though we don’t spend a lot of time in the formal books, I truly see the fruit of learning :)
To recap, here were my favorite resources out of all we used:
The Around the World curriculum from Beautiful Feet books: Super easy to use + full of lots of rich content! We’ll be using some of their curriculum next year as well.
SQUILT music: I just love Miss Mary! And I also love that I don’t have to scramble around for a curriculum—she really does a tremendous job of putting together fun and interesting lessons!
Word Ladders: Simple and fun! Even my reluctant writer doesn’t complain about these ;)
The Good and the Beautiful Math Level One. It really is so easy to do, and my son has hardly ever resisted his lessons. In fact, he often has asked to do more.
Little Bear readers: Classic and sweet! My 7-year-old son usually reaches for these when it’s time to read to me.
A-Z books for copywork: We didn’t use them a lot, but they were an easy add-in to freshen things up when needed.
And here’s a list of what we didn’t love (and ditched because they didn’t fit well):
The Good and the Beautiful handwriting books: They looked promising, but I didn’t feel like they explained how to write the letters clearly (and the boys didn’t enjoy them). I plan to grab these instead—for my two big boys. One of my kids really struggles with handwriting, so I’m hoping some consistent practice pays off.
Seasons Afield nature curriculum from Beautiful Feet books: It is a really thought-out and lovely curriculum, bit it just didn’t jive with my kids. So, rather than force it, we pivoted :)
All in all, I feel like this was a good year. Of course, looking back, I see areas where I could use a little more structure and intentionality. I’m not done growing yet as a teacher/mother, so I try my best to remember that I am learning too. So thankful that I can learn how to better adjust to each of my children as they grow too. It’s always a work in progress!
If you homeschool, what did you love using this year? What didn’t you love? What’s next?
ps. some of these links included are affiliate links—but I only share what I’ve personally used and my honest opinions :)
