For fun: List the TOP 3-5 things that worked well in your homeschool this year...

[ljswriter]

Great thread to read through. I saw a couple of my curricula choices for next term listed multiple times, which makes me feel good about getting them!

 

1. Setting up a bi-weekly LA/Math "track" schedule with focused table time each day

2. Workboxes (and organizing for them in advance)

3. Sing Spell Read Write

4. Math U See blocks (and playing math games with them)

5. Right-brained math (for multiplication)

[godsaggie]

1. Spelling Power

2. Sonlight...I really like having a schedule pre-made for me

3. Making Math Meaningful

[Joani]

1. Exercising before we start schoolwork. ODS runs every morning and YDS and I do yoga.

 

2. Math - Singapore and AoPS have been perfect for us this year. Just ordered Beast Academy, so that should be fun too!

 

3. WWS. I wish we'd had it in about 6th grade, but it's really prepared my oldest for high school level writing.

 

4. Throwing out the XBox. Nuff said.

 

Joani

[phathui5]

1. Setting up a binder with a section for each child where I put their schoolwork checklists for the week.

 

2. Library summer reading- got 6yo ds to want to spend lots of time reading to himself so that he could check off the boxes.

 

3. Science DVDs from the library.

[DeaconsGarden]

1. Going to a year-round schedule with school just 3 days a week - allows me to keep up with the house and appts/errands. Low stress.

 

2. Keeping up with literature read-alouds (they're actually learning to listen for longer periods of time!)

 

3. Turning off the TV and allowing only limited videos/DVDs.

[kalanamak]

Spelling Power

MCT

Key to Fractions (as a supp to SM)

WWE mixed with Writing Tales

Starting to assign work for while I'm at work.

[kalanamak]

1. Adderall for my ADD girl. We got more done in that last month of the school year than in... a LONG time. *insert hallelujiah chorus here* It's been an amazing help, and she's still *her*--but now she can pay attention long enough to understand and do and finish. She's been on a huge art & writing & science kick in her spare time now that she can think.

 

 

How exciting for you!!

[FairProspects]

1. Getting a neuropsych eval. to know what is going on and how to address ds's needs

 

2. Allowing ds to specialize and explore engineering/robotics at a young age

 

3. Allowing ds to continue moving ahead conceptually and accommodating the LDs

 

4. Audiobooks

 

5. Giving up WWE when it became clear that it was a terrible fit for a student with ds's LDs.

[laughing lioness]

1. WWS I- GREAT program.

2. Weekly planning sheets for youngers. Weekly planning "meeting" with ds 17.

3. For ds 17 "Challenge" (for young men ages 12-21) He was asked to come back this spring and train/apply for staff, was asked to be on staff for fall course. He LOVES, loves, loves the people, program, accountability, mission of the program.

4. IEW's Fables, Myths and Fairy Tales. Taught it to a group of 3rd/4th graders. The girls had a blast and one Mom told me yesterday that her dd really blossemed through the writing. The girls were all eager to read their writing aloud, draw pictures, etc. We had a blast!

5. MP's First Form Latin. LOVE.

6. Wes Olsen's Bio and Chem 101. My youngers LOVE them.

 

I could go on... we had a GREAT year :001_smile:

[HappyGrace]

Laughing Lioness- please feel free to go on!!! It's always lovely to hear what is working!

 

This is such a positive thread-it is really re-motivating me for homeschooling-thanks, everyone!

[pineapplehorse]

Zaner Bloser handwriting!!! Finally, a handwriting program everyone in my house doesn't complain about (HWT was a total flop for us :001_huh:)

[laughing lioness]

Laughing Lioness- please feel free to go on!!! It's always lovely to hear what is working!

 

This is such a positive thread-it is really re-motivating me for homeschooling-thanks, everyone!

 

HappyGrace- you asked for it :001_smile:......

 

* Great Courses Shakespeare

* Shakespeare Camp with Caitilin (these boards),whom we LOVE. Next camp is in July. Ds is already psyched and has most of his lines memorized (last yr. was a 2 hr. performance of MacBeth- this year is the Tempest). We are SOOOO blessed to be in a homeschooling community that values the things that we do....I could cry out of gratitude. Seriously.

* McHenry's pre-chem- taught at Tutoring Center. ds 12 LOVED it even though he didn't do so great on tests.

*Lego League- omgosh. What an awesome program. I wanted ds12 to LOVE it. He liked it well enough but not enough for the 6 hrs a week of practice. But his team won "Best programmers" in state.

*Hiring a math tutor for ds 17 (our Lego League coach- she's an engineer- we swapped- I teach her ds writing, she teaches my ds math- how cool is that?!)

* Drama camp- the notsolittles loved it, of course. ds 17 participated in a musical- 2 wks of practice, 3 hrs a day. It went great!!

*Creative Writing class I taught for high schoolers- I learned a ton, ds 17 is now writing HOURS a day and he really, truly GETS what makes a story. I inspired people! :001_smile:What a rush!

*History of the Medieval World. We've been listening to SOTW for years and read HOMW as read-aloud. Great stuff, great overview. I was the one behind the learning curve. My kids are history nerds. They LOVED it, loved the maps, loved the time line.

*Veritas Press history cards, Medieval- dates and title of card. We use them as flashcards.

*Memory work; chem, latin, greek, poetry.

*Read alouds- always great. I love having my kids gathered round, reading, discussing.

[profmom]

Here are some of ours:

 

~ Funnix 2 after 100EL -- dd loves the stories, very effective (ds loved it when he was that age too!)

~ The Potter's School Classical Track for dd-9th grade -- love, love the biblical worldview training and discussions, writing instruction, reading, etc.

~ Potter's School classes for ds-7th grade. High quality classes and we accomplish much more with the accountability.

~ Scripture memory ~ passages in the mornings with all the kids.

~ Dd-9th loved and faithfully used her Dayrunner planner (columns for each day)

[Wordfairy]

1-Homeschool day in a jar helped us to get back on track after lazily coming out from a month of Christmas/New Year's/Gma's bday celebrations.

 

The Children get to pick subjects and times and race to finish their work without a lot of cajoling that goes on after a long break. They are focused and the work is done in a timely way.

 

2-I learned my oldest did not respond to the Spalding curriculum and would rather sing phonics songs like her little brothers. She is truly a kinesthetic learner. So much so we will be using c-rods this summer for math enrichment along with the Winning version of SSRW.

 

3-Speaking of SSRW, I told my mother that she was right and I was wrong. My rising 1st grader will be moving into small chapter books this summer after completing level 1. I never had to fuss with him to practice his phonics or to read because the program makes it easy for kids to put it together with some practice.

 

4-Having the children help keep the common/working areas straight is more conducive to learning (and my own sanity) and doesn't take time away from school like I thought it would. More hands make light work.

[foxbridgeacademy]

Turning History and Science into discussion based learning, BA, LOF, and CTT creative writing.

[Mrs.Gregg]

Top 3: for DD1 IEW year long co-op/workshop that she took. She grew so much as a writer. For DD2 readingeggs.com, she was able to self pace and it enforced what we had been working on together. For both of them they share history and we found mixing in unit studies in between SOTW worked well for us. Also not feeling like we had to do every activity. They other thing we found is to do some of our history reading as part of bed-time.

[HappyGrace]

HappyGrace- you asked for it :001_smile:......

 

* Great Courses Shakespeare

* Shakespeare Camp with Caitilin (these boards),whom we LOVE. Next camp is in July. Ds is already psyched and has most of his lines memorized (last yr. was a 2 hr. performance of MacBeth- this year is the Tempest). We are SOOOO blessed to be in a homeschooling community that values the things that we do....I could cry out of gratitude. Seriously.

* McHenry's pre-chem- taught at Tutoring Center. ds 12 LOVED it even though he didn't do so great on tests.

*Lego League- omgosh. What an awesome program. I wanted ds12 to LOVE it. He liked it well enough but not enough for the 6 hrs a week of practice. But his team won "Best programmers" in state.

*Hiring a math tutor for ds 17 (our Lego League coach- she's an engineer- we swapped- I teach her ds writing, she teaches my ds math- how cool is that?!)

* Drama camp- the notsolittles loved it, of course. ds 17 participated in a musical- 2 wks of practice, 3 hrs a day. It went great!!

*Creative Writing class I taught for high schoolers- I learned a ton, ds 17 is now writing HOURS a day and he really, truly GETS what makes a story. I inspired people! :001_smile:What a rush!

*History of the Medieval World. We've been listening to SOTW for years and read HOMW as read-aloud. Great stuff, great overview. I was the one behind the learning curve. My kids are history nerds. They LOVED it, loved the maps, loved the time line.

*Veritas Press history cards, Medieval- dates and title of card. We use them as flashcards.

*Memory work; chem, latin, greek, poetry.

*Read alouds- always great. I love having my kids gathered round, reading, discussing.

 

 

Thanks, LL! I want to come homeschool in your community! Great stuff! Dd12 would give her left arm to be at that Shakespeare camp. :)

 

Please see my S/O post to this on the Logic board-about finding time to fit everything in once they're getting older.

Edited June 12, 2012 by HappyGrace

[Chloe]

We had a very out of the norm school year with dh working from home for most of the first half of the year and a major move the second half of the year. But it's not been too bad. Here are the successes......

 

1) LOTS of reading. Because of our hectic year, the content subjects were mostly done by reading independently.

 

2) Despite my 9yo's dyslexia and extremely slow reading, he has developed enjoyment for reading. I am really thankful for this!

 

3) Reading aloud The Hobbit. None of us had read it before. We all LOVED it! The kids were always begging me to read just a little bit longer.

 

4) DS12 has come to, well let's say "appreciate", math more. All my kids loath math, but he's the one who has been brought to tears by it the most. He's doing Saxon, after trying it once before and hating it. This year he actually told me he liked his Saxon math book.

 

5) Moving to London! We have taken some incredible field trips and are so excited to study British history more in depth this summer.

[Mrs Twain]

1. Horizons math

2. Spelling Power

3. Memory work--Civics, Government, History, Bible verses. This has been one of the most valuable additions I have made to the curriculum.

4. BFSU--Just finished volume 1 with two of my kids. It was a lot of work, but I am so impressed with what they learned.

5. IEW (SWI-A). My kids' writing improved greatly this year with this. I also recently listened to three hours of Andrew Pudewa's homeschool convention writing worshops which helped me see the big picture and goals with IEW. I think I have become a groupie. :tongue_smilie:

[bleeglaser]

1) Literature! My son loves it! We use Classical House of Learning's free curriculum and it's been amazing for his love of reading and his retention!

2) Homeschool enrichment once a week. This is amazing. All the socialization and fun PS stuff: art, science projects, social studies, PE, spanish, and music. Birthday treats, holiday parties, school pictures, and field trip day. Plus we took our piano lessons there right after "school".

3) Mama learned a lot on how to homeschool this year. I love that I'm letting the boys be at their own levels. And I'm reassured to know I probably will do better with my second son than my first, because I'll have practice.

4) Figuring out that just because a curriculum has good results doesn't mean I have to stick with it. Saxon bored me to death and I'm much happier with MUS.

[bleeglaser]

Oops... double post.

Edited June 14, 2012 by bleeglaser
Double post

[Caitilin]

My top things:

 

1. Rearranging our schoolyear schedule from a quarterly system to a 6-weeks-on, 1-week-off system, with a longer break at Christmastime. Best innovation yet! Gave us much needed time off in all the right moments, and a feeling of accomplishment when we finished a "chunk" of the schedule.

 

2. Killgallon LA for ds11 and ds9+dd8. The modeling format allowed them to compose longer better sentences more easily as well as work on parts of a sentence. A good year for us with this.

 

3. McHenry's Elements in a co-op setting. Kids learned a lot and retained a lot. Win!

 

4. EIL Intro to Lit for dds 14-- we read a lot of books they would never have chosen on their own, and wrote some really good essays. I was pleased and impressed.

[sillymommy]

1. AAS was a hit with my kids!

2. Meal planning through http://www.emeals.com "clean eating plan"

3. Workout for me every morning before kids wake up.

4. Time for me to get away with my sister for a weekend, then with some girlfriends for a week.

5. Trading Facebook for reading Scripture.

[gratitude]

Great thread! :001_smile:

 

1. Meal planning. It cut our grocery bill by at least $50 a week. I wrote out the meals for each day on the white board in the kitchen, and then when it was time to cook and I was tired I didn't have to think of what to make.

 

2. Rod and Staff English 2 ~ great book!

 

3. All About Spelling ~ great spelling program!

 

4. The training of my oldest to focus during school work showed a lot of fruit about half way through this year. Most of the year he was able to do 20% independently, and moved through his work easily and efficiently. Phew. Now for the next 2!

 

5. Reading books aloud is still a great part of our home school. My oldest love for independent reading was also a high light.

[swellmomma]

1. awesome field trips

2. our "hidey hole"

3. participation in guiding/scouts and usiing school time to work on badges

4. Time travellers & homeschool in the woods cdroms/activity packs

5. letting the schedules and go and just letting each day happen as it happens

[Moniksca]

1. Reading and more reading for both my ds'

2. IEW ATF&F - love it we're going to continue with it in the summer

3. Videos, documentaries, and brainpop for unhappy baby times

4. set schedule so older ds could work more independently

5. Mommy down time

[Mommy22alyns]

1. My Father's World

2. xtramath

3. R&S grammar - I'd used part of 2 last year, but really came to love it going through 3.

4. Rebecca becoming more independent

5. Staples back to school supply deals!

[ereks mom]

1. I established an almost-every-day P.E. time; I walked on the treadmill for about 20 minutes while the girls did a couple of 10-Minute Workout DVDs.

 

2. I established a 30-minute Drop Everything And Read time every day. We did it right after P.E. time, so the girls were ready to cool down a bit with a good book of their choice.

 

3. Both girls used Teaching Textbooks for math.