*I really liked giving a curriculum recap last year so I thought I would do it again! All the updates on what we thought are in bold with an asterisk before it.

Both my boys are doing 9th grade this year and here is what they are doing.

Science –Masterbooks General Science 2 (except for the Archaeology book, they did that with the Biblical Archaeology study)

*They have enjoyed both Science 1&2 from Masterbooks and we were even able to go see a cave during their cave study!

History-Masterbooks The World’s Story 2 & 3 (trying out just having them read the chapters and taking notes, I quiz them at the end of the week instead of doing the teachers guide.)

*They went through this set really fast and went into American History with Blessed Heritage, more about that here.

Language Arts –Masterbooks Writing Strands Advanced 1 & Cursive Handwriting Practice for Teens

*As I thought, Writing Strands was not a hit. ha. But my oldest’s insisted he wanted to do it. They are struggling to finish it. 

Math-Teaching Textbooks (for part of the year, they are almost done with the Geometry)

*They did really well with this program and moved on to College Algebra with a local college and did really well with it!

Spanish –Duo Lingo

Literature -Wulf the Saxon, Tennyson, Shakespeare, and other authors and books that go with our history study.

Electives -My oldest is doing a Python course with Udemy and my second oldest is taking a Blender for beginners class with Udemy.

Both do extra programming and math on Khan Academy as well.

 

My twin girls are in the 4th grade and here is what they will be doing.

Math –McRuffy Color Math 4

*They did well with this program again. It has aspects that I don’t love but it is the best I have found so far for them.

Spelling –All About Spelling Level 3

*After realizing they were forgetting all the spelling rules, we backed off for the year. I did the spelling that was in The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts level we did.

Reading –Christian Liberty Readers Book 2

*They finished this and book 3! They like reading true stories and facts more than fictional stories so these are great.

Grammar –Brave Writer Wand Level 2

*dropped this for The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts. We went at our own pace and it worked for us this past year. Just started using Khan Academy grammar to supplement also. I love Brave Writer but it has just not been a good fit for my twins so far.

Handwriting –Prescripts Cursive and Letters

*They begged to learn cursive but were hating it pretty quickly. We did finish it though but went back to the Print Handwriting workbook for Adults on amazon afterwards.

Science –Exploring Geology with Mr. Hibb (this will only cover part of the year. I have not figured out the next part yet. Although I am hoping to have them learn something similar to the boys.)

*This was hard to get through at first but I ended up skimming and that worked better. Now we are doing God’s Design for Beginners Animals. I am seeing a big difference in from last year in my twins level for this science. They are definitely above it this time around. It is good to see that. We supplement with a lot of youtube videos about the animal groups we are learning about and that is working really well!

History&Geography –I am just getting resources that go along with the time period the boys are learning about.

*I bought Masterbooks My Story 2 for them to work through and we are mostly using it to use as a starting point to find youtube videos about different countries. I am finding that watching documentaries during lunch is working great for us. We are also doing Blessed Heritage and I love the people we are being introduced to but we are going through it REALLY slowly.

My youngest is starting 1st Grade and this is what she is using.

Since taking this picture I have already dropped the Singapore Math, it just did not work well for us right now.

Math –RightStart B (I have to add this every year, right? Ha! I have been doing it with her though for the last two weeks and it is going well)

*Yeah, that did not last. We dropped it again, poor RightStart. Switched to Masterbooks Math Lessons for a Living Education Level 1 and it seems like a better fit. Hoping to get my hands on some Life of Fred also though because she loves stories so much.

Language Arts –A Reason for Handwriting K, First Language Lessons for a Well Trained Mind Level 1, All About Spelling Level 1, and lots of readers.

*Dropped all of these. Switched to The Good and the Beautiful and it has worked well.

Science, History, & Geography -same as twins.

 

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!