OneStepAtATime Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Just curious what others found working really well this year? We really hit our stride with CLE Math. The kids needed more spiral review than we had been getting with other programs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 The American Odyssey and Essential Biology. I knew The American Odyssey would be a hit, as we have loved The Human Odyssey series and I had used it before with my older son. But then I realized the other day that this is going to be the end of the K12 history books :crying: I had never used Essential Biology before and had no idea if it would actually be as good as it looked like it would be. I wanted a biology text that was both more than a high school text and less at the same time, and I see now that Essential Biology is exactly that. It is more than a high school text in that it is written to a higher level but less in that it doesn't get mired in the details. Anyway, I was impressed. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 For writing, CTY JHU's young reader's series work very well for my boys in that they are willing to write (type) their assignments every week for electronic submissions. For science, their homeschool hands on science class was great fun for them and a social outlet. They did learn stuff outside their interest which they may not have read or explore in their free time. Flute classes are so far a success for my 9 year old. Music Theory intensive class is a success for my 10 year old, it would take me a long time to teach him what the class did due to peer pressure. German class and the AoPS books still work as usual so no change there. Campbell biology works well as a reference text for older boy. He finds it easy to use. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3girls4me Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 CLE math All through the Ages - guide for history BJU science DVD's - for this mom that needed a break from carrying the weight of all subjects. They loved the DVD's and I got to sit back and relax (aka - check math work) while they learned! Song School Latin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junie Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 WWS I for my ds was a great addition to our curriculum. The Apologia notebook for General Science has been very good for dd12. My homegrown Twentieth Century History class for ds has been very successful. My girls don't like history as much as ds, so we'll see if I can make it work for them as well. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted May 6, 2015 Author Share Posted May 6, 2015 I forgot a couple of things. Something we have just recently started but so far is going really well is the new Fix-It Grammar. DD loves that the lesson is brief, I use Start Write software to type out cursive practice sheets for extra copy work that also gets done quickly, and so far she is gaining vocabulary and grammar knowledge in painless bites and retaining it. DD also has been really thriving with the homeschoolers Drama Class she is part of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Both ds math jumped a bunch - one by design and one because he couldn't settle. The by design one worked really well with NCERT's math and I feel like more homeschoolers should consider it. He also really is liking Jousting Armadillos, though I'm not totally sure yet if it has worked well per se. The picky math student has settled into MEP - we've backed up a little to do some review - and we're mostly really liking it. ACS's Middle School Chemistry worked well. It was really fun. We mostly did the experiments without the worksheets and lab sheets, though we did some of those as well. Brave Writer worked well as always. ;) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted May 6, 2015 Author Share Posted May 6, 2015 Both ds math jumped a bunch - one by design and one because he couldn't settle. The by design one worked really well with NCERT's math and I feel like more homeschoolers should consider it. He also really is liking Jousting Armadillos, though I'm not totally sure yet if it has worked well per se. The picky math student has settled into MEP - we've backed up a little to do some review - and we're mostly really liking it. ACS's Middle School Chemistry worked well. It was really fun. We mostly did the experiments without the worksheets and lab sheets, though we did some of those as well. Brave Writer worked well as always. ;) What is NCERT's math? I don't think I have heard of it...or I wasn't paying attention. :laugh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbgrace Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 CLE math (switched from Singapore Math in Focus in December; I kept Singapore FAN Math, which continues to be a great choice). A friend and I are using a couple of books--Writing With a Thesis and Common Threads--to educate ourselves/form our thoughts for teaching expository writing. Someday I may use those books as written, but we're making our own curriculum for this age. It's working, and I feel good about our composition now. I switched to Getty-Dubay italic cursive. I like the look a lot, and it's clicking pretty well with my, um, problem penmanship kid. Typing Instructor for Kids and blocking ability to watch hands while learning = touch typing success with both! Grammar Made Easy is new to us, and I have only seen it mentioned on this board once (thank you to that person!). I love the sentence combining approach to grammar, and she takes grammar further than either I or a friend--who has used FLL, AG and all of MCT--have seen. I began with it, then put it on hold to finish our final Killgallon elementary book. But I'm excited about it. I think those are this year's changes that I feel sure enough of to call a success at this point. A lot changed really now that I think of it. I'm really happy with where we are right now homeschool wise....just in time for middle school and preteen hormones to shake every thing up I imagine! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScoutTN Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 GSWL and WP Equine Science for Dd New American Cursive and RS math games for Ds 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chelli Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Switching my oldest to Horizons Math when the mastery approach of Math in Focus became too much for her. We are keeping the CWP and IP books (using them a year behind) because Horizons has pitiful word problems. Beautiful Feet for history. I was very worried about using it since people mentioned its providential history flavor (which I most decidedly do NOT agree with!) plus I hated the spine used during the intermediate ancient history guide. I changed out the spine for the guide and have been able to fold my 2nd grader in with my 5th grader. It is the perfect amount of work because I can easily add in more if we feel like it, but the amount assigned is solid if we choose not to add anything in as well. Our new daily schedule of looping our learning blocks so I make sure we never are missing anything. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 What is NCERT's math? I don't think I have heard of it...or I wasn't paying attention. :laugh: The national curriculum of India. It's online for free. But the math is really, really good. The middle school level was what we were using. http://ncertbooks.prashanthellina.com/ 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted May 6, 2015 Author Share Posted May 6, 2015 The national curriculum of India. It's online for free. But the math is really, really good. The middle school level was what we were using. http://ncertbooks.prashanthellina.com/ Thanks Farrar! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebecca in KY Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Love love love Sonlight! I wanted a literature-type curric, but didn't want to write it myself. We don't follow the IG to the letter, the general planning and pulling together of books is done for me. I think Sonlight has literally saved DS's love of learning. We switched to CLE math in January. What a difference! DS was stuck and I felt out of my league. CLE is comfortable for me to teach and DS is thriving. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeriJ Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Switching my oldest to Horizons Math when the mastery approach of Math in Focus became too much for her. We are keeping the CWP and IP books (using them a year behind) because Horizons has pitiful word problems. Beautiful Feet for history. I was very worried about using it since people mentioned its providential history flavor (which I most decidedly do NOT agree with!) plus I hated the spine used during the intermediate ancient history guide. I changed out the spine for the guide and have been able to fold my 2nd grader in with my 5th grader. It is the perfect amount of work because I can easily add in more if we feel like it, but the amount assigned is solid if we choose not to add anything in as well. Our new daily schedule of looping our learning blocks so I make sure we never are missing anything. Wait! What spine did you end up using for BF? That's the only thing holding me back! (sorry to hijack) 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fourisenough Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 The American Odyssey and Essential Biology. I knew The American Odyssey would be a hit, as we have loved The Human Odyssey series and I had used it before with my older son. But then I realized the other day that this is going to be the end of the K12 history books :crying: I had never used Essential Biology before and had no idea if it would actually be as good as it looked like it would be. I wanted a biology text that was both more than a high school text and less at the same time, and I see now that Essential Biology is exactly that. It is more than a high school text in that it is written to a higher level but less in that it doesn't get mired in the details. Anyway, I was impressed. What did you do with the Odyssey books? Just read? Read & discuss? Read, outline, discuss? Did you do any writing re: the reading? I have all of them and haven't figured out how/what to do with them. I tentatively enrolled my DD3 in WTM Academy's Story of the Ancients (for logic stage, but using SOTW and other things), but just reading HO Vol. 1 sounds like a much simpler approach to logic-stage history. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie of KY Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 AoPS and Beast MEP math (starting with level 7) Brave Writer Teaching Company videos - just a variety and telling my kids they have to watch something of their choice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom31257 Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 CLE math, LA, and reading BJU history What didn't work well like I hoped was BJU science. I mainly mean the videos. Ds didn't like them as much as I'd hoped he would. Another disappointing thing is BJU 7th grade history. The Activities Manual is what I love, and the 7th grade book is very disappointing compared to the 6th grade book. I think I'm going with Biblioplan next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happypamama Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Mostly everything in my sig. Fallacy Detective was a big hit with DD7th grade. Singapore is always a hit with DS4th grade. Wee Folk Art books and Come Look With Me art books have been big hits with my early learners. 100 Easy Lessons and MEP are working well with DSKindergarten. Everyone's loved Narnia. But the biggest part has been my organization. OneNote. 45 minute blocks of work, followed by 15 minute breaks -- that has really worked well! And a rotating schedule where I work with each child in a block for the first three blocks has really helped. Everyone knows they will get a turn, and they know to be prepared when it's their turn with me, and they know to work on independent stuff when it's not their turn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeriJ Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 HOD CTC science worked out great for my 6th grader. (we did very few of the experiments) The history in my siggy kind of morphed into BF Early American with Liberty Kids videos and CC cycle 3 sentences. It worked great! Moody Science videos were a hit as a supplement to Science in the Beginning. R&S English...mostly orally, some written...always works well for us. Write On! Mavis Beacon typing. SCM Picture Portfolios lots of audio books for my 1st grader during "naptime". I can't believe all of the literature he got in this year with that method! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted May 6, 2015 Author Share Posted May 6, 2015 Ran out of likes. Ugh! And for KeriJ (and anyone else), don't worry about hijacking. Seriously, discuss as needed. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chelli Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Wait! What spine did you end up using for BF? That's the only thing holding me back! (sorry to hijack) I'm using Ancient Egypt and Her Neighbors from SCM as the spine for Egypt and Mesopotamia. I'm using The Story of the Greeks by Guerber as the spine for Greece. I like the spine used for Rome (Augustus Ceasar's World), but I'm using The Story of the Romans by Guerber to fill in the events that occur before and after ACW begins and ends. I'm also coordinating in simple activities, documentaries, and independent reading for both of my girls, but like I said in my op, if we don't get to all the extras, the basic program is enough. I just really, really, REALLY didn't want to use Streams of Civilization as a spine. :ack2: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 For Shannon: The Big History Project was a huge hit, using the online curriculum plus a bunch of additional resources to flesh it out into a full history and full science. She fell in love with multiple books/series this year, but standouts include The Outsiders and The Belgardiad series by David Eddings Some favorite nonfiction reads - The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond, both Young People's editions. Movies as Literature has been very enjoyable - Arsenic and Old Lace has been the favorite so far. For Morgan: She loved Write from History, reading aloud to me, and she's loving Khan Academy for math review. She also adored Dragonbox. She fell in love with Percy Jackson - she read all the books. She loved movie versions of Shakespeare, especially Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing. Romeo & Juliet - not so much. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom22ns Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 SL Psychology was wonderful! Chemistry with DIVE/BJU has been a great "get 'er done" choice for my science loving, chemistry hating dd. Another successful year of math with Lial's for Algebra 2. Notgrass Government was a surprise hit, definitely get 'er done, but ds got a lot out of it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparrowsNest Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 I am pretty new to homeschooling, and I made some pretty sweeping changes at the beginning of this year! This is what we'll be keeping... What worked: Morning Time. Thank you Cindy Rollins! Morning Time is, as my 13 year old has said, small but mighty. We worship, listen to classical music, go through VP Bible cards, read poetry together, do our memory work (poetry, CC, and scripture), read Shakespeare, and have our literature read-aloud time. Horizons Math + Singapore for the 2nd & 4th graders. (Not a good fit for the K-er, I think, though.) CLE Reading and LA. The only downside is I feel like I'm sacrificing my educational philosophy on the 'Get 'Er Done' altar. Still, all the grand, beautiful philosophizing in the world does no good if it does not come to fruition in the day to day! AAS for my very reluctant speller. Pricey, but for the child who would NOT write a word unless she knew how to spell it perfectly, this has been a good fit. IEW writing for the 4th grader. I know this program isn't everyone's favorite, but the checklist approach has been very empowering for him. VP self-paced history. Kids love it, they've learned a TON, and it's freed me up to work with the kindergartener. Win-win! Oh! And the BBC's typing dance mat (is that what it's called?) My oldest two homeschoolers can type now! Woohoo! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnniePoo Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 CC Foundations was a huge hit this year. The kids loved it, and my effort was minimal. I'd quiz them over lunch 3-4 times per week for about 5 minutes. Daily Grams. Nothing else. Blah. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holly Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 AIG God's Design was a great "get er done" science program. The amount of information was just enough to keep it interested without overloading them. Most of the worksheets were good...lots of labeling and sketching. My one complaint was the lack of science experiments. Having a "movie day" was a hit with the kids...We mostly watched Moody Science and Drive Thru History. We watch a video or two in the afternoon...or sometimes we have a movie morning when we aren't feeling up to a full day of school, but aren't too sick to cancel completely. MOH's Challenge Cards were a great review. DH took over art lessons and is using Drawspace.com. I'm not artistic at all, so this has been a huge weight off my shoulders! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heidi Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 CLE math worked really well this year. My dd11 went to German school this year a grade behind so she could learn German, so I kept her up to speed on math at home. I switched from MM, which was becoming a burden, to CLE. She has liked it much better. However, next year we will be back to homeschooling and will be doing both MM and CLE because I love the depth of MM and the spiral of CLE. Not the whole curriculum of each, but parts of both, and MM a grade behind. I think it will work really well, but only time will tell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hollyhock Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 My guys are all about getting school done and over with so they don't get excited about school stuff very easily. But the one thing that does stand out as a big hit this year is SOTW. We read through SOTW 3 and started 4, and will continue next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FloridaLisa Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 After 3 not-tip-top years b/c we've been readjusting to life, I finally feel really good about our schooling this year. For youngers: *I loved our read alouds. This remains my favorite part of our day and is so refreshing after working with high schoolers or doing my own work at home stuff. *Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization. We used this for the first time and LOVED it. I often hear my kids reciting a line or stanza from a favorite. This was a love and we'll continue next year. *VP Self-Paced History. This was our 3rd year with VP self paced and I continue to feel it's solid, thorough, fun and interactive for my elementary kids. I added in some independent reads for ds. *for dd, we set the math book aside and just played with math. It worked as well as I hoped and we will continue through the summer. She is becoming math literate and really beginning to see and understand the patterns in math. And for my olders: *I LOVED Writing with Skill 3 which I used with my 10th grader and his buddy. I exchanged writing instruction for math instruction (Saxon Advanced) and I got the better deal! I'll use SWB's other writing books with my youngers. I've written about this on the logic board and I'm just so pleased with it. *My 10th grader continued to do history through biographies, excellent nonfiction works and a couple of novels. He loved it; he's a history buff and has an excellent background, so approaching history through really good books was the best way to deepen what he already knows. There was more that worked well and many old favorites (Saxon, R & S English, Cuisenaire Rods). Lisa 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Runningmom80 Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 MCT and Singapore consistently work here. New this year was LL, it worked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdventuresinHomeschooling Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 nm - duplicate post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdventuresinHomeschooling Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 CAP Writing and Rhetoric worked really well for us here in third grade. We have also loved the Who is God series for Bible. A Beka math and SSRW were a great fit for my kindergartener, and we abandoned Saxon math for my third grader and switched to A Beka math for him too, which turned out to be a much better fit. Pentime has been great for both. Also, we really liked these workbooks we picked up called Maps, Charts and Graphs for mapping skills. Bede's History of Me was also a hit in kindergarten. Kindergarten has gone really smoothly this year. Shurley grammar is becoming really tedious, and I am looking forward to starting MCT next year. We have had an unusual year with a cross country move, and we haven't been able to do as many fun extras as we wanted to do. Looking forward to getting back into our usual groove next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnMomof7 Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Well, we are actually only half way through our year due to pregnancy complications and recovery. Doesn't count if our regular get 'rr done stuff just keeps getting done? I hope so :). I hope to try a few new things soon though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted May 6, 2015 Author Share Posted May 6, 2015 Well, we are actually only half way through our year due to pregnancy complications and recovery. Doesn't count if our regular get 'rr done stuff just keeps getting done? I hope so :). I hope to try a few new things soon though. :laugh: You bet it counts. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnMomof7 Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Oh. New to us this year is Scribd Unlimited. It has audiobooks. And ebooks. We love it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 What did you do with the Odyssey books? Just read? Read & discuss? Read, outline, discuss? Did you do any writing re: the reading? I have all of them and haven't figured out how/what to do with them. I tentatively enrolled my DD3 in WTM Academy's Story of the Ancients (for logic stage, but using SOTW and other things), but just reading HO Vol. 1 sounds like a much simpler approach to logic-stage history. I used them as a supplement for both of my kids (not because I don't think they are worth being center stage, but because for the older one, our official social science course was geography at the time, and for the younger one, he was in school and we were doing them as a bedtime read aloud). But if I were to use them as part of a real course, I would have my kids write about the topics we were studying (that's how I'm using the American Odyssey this year). So, for example, in AO, we just finished learning about WWII. My son has decided he is going to write about the Japanese Internment. So he's not answering questions about the entire chapter, or writing about the entire chapter, just one small part. I don't give history tests and I don't require memorization. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peaceful Isle Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 Math U See and Essentials in Writing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluegoat Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 For my 10 year old in grade 4, we had a few things that clicked: LA has gone well all round. Writing and Rhetoric Fable was a hit, after a terrible time with WWE I was worried about another writing program, but we've had no trouble and really enjoyed it. Growing with Grammar 4 was also fairly successful, and Sequential Spelling is the firs spelling program that has gone well for us. Penmanship also improved markedly, all of which makes me think this is in part developmental. History - we have just read through A Child's History of the World and Our Island Story, and used some library books and a timeline we made, but dd says it is her favorite subject, and seems to be retaining it. Layout - this is more about me, but we've used an organization system that is just a page per day, listing what is to be done in each subject, all in a binder. It's simple but seems to work really well. We also found a few literature selections, mostly by chance, that have been popular. One is a book about Mozart in epistolary form, called Letters to Horseface, which was a library discard. The other is called Redcap Runs Away, and is historical fiction, which I found at a thrift store. I pulled it out after I decided The Beggar's Bible, which I had bought new, wasn't really very good. It's one of the better kids historical novels I've seen, actually well written, with an exciting plot, and a lot of information about the setting and period without seeming like it is just a vehicle for teaching history. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momto4inSoCal Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 Math Mammoth worked so well for us. I think the transition (we used MUS and Saxon previously) was rough but now I feel like my girls have a much deeper understanding and are grasping the concepts behind the algorithms. Jr AG We've only been using this the last few weeks and my girls are totally getting it. They are parsing sentences perfectly and doing great with the diagramming portions also. Tossing our Lit guides has been so liberating. My girls are reading more now that I'm not making them answer 101 questions after 1 chapter. Handwriting without tears cursive was great. I just had them do a page a day. I'm not to concerned with cursive but I do want them to read it and to be able to sign their name. They can do that after this year and it was little to no effort on my part. xtra math got them to get their math facts down. They really, really dislike xtra math though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LindaOz Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 What I'm liking: Life of Fred - I'm working through this with 10 and 12yos and it is a cool feature of our day. Grammar Songs - using this with 10 and 12yos. And wow, a totally different way of approaching grammar but really enjoying it. McGuffey Readers as a source for LA skills and writing - doing this with everyone and finding it very beneficial. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheApprentice Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 For my youngest ds, Saxon 7/6 without a doubt. His math confidence tanked last year with MM, but this year it has soared through the roof. That's what matters most, to me. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sahamamama Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 My top three: 1. Switching from Horizons Math 4 to CLE Math 400 for my 4th grader. What a relief. 2. Plodding. Yes, plodding worked very well. Looking back, I can see that we accomplished so much through plodding. ;) 3. Typing up daily work lists at night when the kids were in bed and the house was quiet, printing the lists out and putting them on the girls' desks (so they could get started on Independent Work in the morning), and overall teaching the girls how to become increasingly independent and resourceful. At the beginning of the school year, my twin 2nd graders did almost nothing on their own, but they were ready to move towards more freedom and responsibility. All three girls have really grown in this area this year. It has been well-worth the time invested in setting up things so they could work somewhat on their own, and well-worth the time invested in teaching them routines and talking through how to move through the assignments. We're all together all day, so it's not like anyone is isolated. It's just that they are (usually) no longer sitting there, waiting for me to teach them every. single. thing. This transition has worked out so well this year. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clear Creek Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 The national curriculum of India. It's online for free. But the math is really, really good. The middle school level was what we were using. http://ncertbooks.prashanthellina.com/ Thank you!! I had heard of it, but never looked at it closely. I just printed out parts of the 3rd and 4th grade books to use with my younger two...it doesn't look complete at the elementary level, but it will be a great supplement. It looks like it is all the fun math that MUS is not, lol. Yes, we are switching from MUS at the end of the current books. It doesn't matter how good the teaching is; the curriculum has been pared down to the bare bones (which is good for teaching math for some students), but all of the fun parts of math have been removed. My kids need to know that math is fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmseB Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 What worked really well this year was ramping things up gradually (sort of our variation on plodding!). I was so sick at the beginning of the year that all I could manage was math and LA for the first part of the school year. I was so disappointed that all my grand plans were going to hell in a handbasket, but the kids thrived doing their own audio books for history, astronomy with dad for science...and then when I was feeling better we gradually added in more content. It was good for me and my 2nd grader, as he's now at a pretty good amount of work considering his age and, I feel, really ready for 3rd grade. Now if I can just keep from getting pregnant before we start next year. ;) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FO4UR Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 Essentials in Spelling...getting done without tantrums, and it's actually sticking. Dropping DB for the 8yo in favor of the Treadwell Reader & Companion. He has made a seamless entry into fluency. I'm so happy that we don't have to dance around the "Beer with Bart" issue. :gnorsi: CM written narrations for the 4th & 6th graders. GO. Read. Write. Daily. Progress at a snails pace, but they have both come quite far over the course of the year. SOTW 4 with various biographies. They have loved history this year! Nature stories and nature study. Each one feeds the other. My biggest "ugh" is that they are getting too adventurous...I may lose one in the pond one of these days. (They can swim at least.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverMoon Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 (edited) . Edited May 23, 2023 by SilverMoon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rebcoola Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 DD 8 Language Smarts was a huge hit. Using Aleks math when she finally hit a wall in Singapore its been great review. Didn't work at all was Science in a nutshell she loves the experiments but not the lab reports and she just didn't retain the info. DD 6 Happy Phonics it was perfect for her hands on style. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaeFlowers Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 This year was so much better than last year. Last year was our first year and everything I thought would work, flopped. Saxon math, FLL, VL and Treasured Conversations all worked really well for us this year. Our big flop this year, Building Thinking Skills. I don't know why because it's easy. I think maybe it was just too boring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted May 8, 2015 Author Share Posted May 8, 2015 Loving the responses on this thread. Thanks so much for sharing! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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