I thought I would give an update on what curriculum worked well for us last year. This is the original post with my thoughts on the curriculum added in bold. Let me know if this was helpful to you.
For Kindergarten this year I am trying out Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.
*I dropped this right away, way too complicated. I ended up subscribing to Reading Eggs and Math Seeds to make my day easier. It worked! She is now reading easy three letter words.
I am still using Handwriting Without Tears for now but might start using something else.
*We did not use this much. She was just not ready for it.
I went back and forth between RightStart and McRuffy Color Math for her math but in the end RightStart won.
McRuffy is a lot easier for me to teach but RightStart just teaches number sense so well!
So she is doing RightStart Level A this year and it will be my third time teaching it!
*Nope, dropped this also. She did Math Seeds until I got fed up with all the counting and then I tried Singapore Math to finish the year out but did not end up loving that either.
I got God’s Design for Science Plants for Beginners for both my Kindergartener and my 3rd grade twins this year.
*We loved this science! It was easy to understand and all three of mine enjoyed it! We did end up finishing the year with Super Charged Science’s free facebook classes though and they loved those as well.
3rd Grade
I am going to continue using The Good and the Beautiful Level One for reading for the twins.
*This did seem to help my twins progress in their reading. We continued it through the year but pretty slowly.
I printed out my own practice pages for writing and might be using PreScripts Cursive Letters and Coloring World History if I decide to teach them cursive this year.
*We did not tackle cursive last year. I instead bought “Print Handwriting Workbook for Teens” on amazon and loved all the extra print practice it gave them. I ended up getting several of their books.
They are also doing All About Spelling Level 2 this year.
I love how All About Spelling teaches spelling.
*We continued through this program but I slowed way down with it when I realized they kept forgetting older words.
We switched from RightStart to McRuffy Color Math halfway through the year last year so we still need to finish up the Second Grade book this fall.
I think RightStart does some stuff better but McRuffy is a lot easier for me to teach and the girls have been doing better with it so we will stick with this for now.
*They made it through the second grade book and the third grade book!
I have not been real happy with 1st Language Lessons for a while and have been keeping an eye out for an alternative.
The Winston Grammar Program is supposed to be hands on and less teacher intensive.
I also got a hands on grammar book that I might take from during the year.
*We did not end up using either of these. I just decided it was not a priority to push grammar hard in the third grade.
8th Grade
The boys are doing Masterbooks General Science 1 this year!
*The boys did well with this curriculum and learned a lot!
We started Masterbooks Biblical Archaeology later in the year last year so they still have a ways to go on that.
That will put us at the time of Jesus and I am still deciding what we will use next.
I have enjoyed Masterbooks though.
So far Biblical Archaeology has had a lot of geography included also.
*This was a bit repetitive and the boys were very ready to move on when we finally finished this. I made my own unit for the early church history and we tried several things after that. Not really loving any of them. I will share what we landed on in my new curriculum post.
We are using these Spencerian Penmanship books for the boys handwriting to try to improve their cursive.
*Nope, ended up not finishing this.
The rest of their curriculum is online.
Grammar is Brave Writer
*Ended up not continuing the full year with this. I just needed a break.
Math is VideoText although I am really looking forward to moving on. We are going to try Teaching Textbooks Geometry next I think.
*They have been using Teaching Textbooks for a while and seem to enjoy it.
I need something with more help for them and less checking work for me.
*It gives me this! No more constant test checking!
They will be continuing Duolingo for Spanish and Khan Academy for programming.
*We pushed Spanish back a year.
I am trying to keep it simple this year but might add more as the year goes on!
*We added Intro to Logic through Masterbooks and they really enjoyed it. Especially my oldest!
I still really liked it though.
I loved the pine forest in the middle of the sites.
There was no hiking that I knew of but the walk around the campgrounds was beautiful.
The playground near our site was really nice!
The only downside to this campground was the flooding that was going on and the location (it was in the middle of nowhere).
We checked out a swimming spot I found on google the next day and it was flooded also so looked totally different than the pics.
The kids still had fun even if they had to stay close to the shore.
Afterwards we went to the Red Slough Wildlife Refuge to hunt for an alligator 😉
We did not see any but we did see a snake or two and this fawn.
On Saturday we went to Beavers Bend State Park and it was kind of the start of a not great rest of the trip.
This spot was pretty cool though.
And in trying to avoid the crowds I picked a difficult hike which had lots of climbing without the amazing views that make it worth it.
It was one of those push yourself and be happy when you make it back to your car and can be done hiking type hikes…
This was a beautiful campground though that I would not mind staying at again.
