What worked...what didn't. This has been an interesting school year if nothing else. I had some big plans at the beginning of the year, I started some new curriculum that I just knew would be amazing, and I stuck with some old curriculum because it was tried and true. As I sit here a month and a half away from the end of our school year I see that almost everything has changed including many of my own ideas about what home education should look like. Just for fun let's take this subject by subject.
Language Arts--I started all three kids in Rod and Staff English this year and really loved it up until about 2 months ago when I abruptly quit using it. The girls did more than half of their books and I am sure they learned quite a bit but as it got into the second half of the book it became very tedious and had me questioning why anyone would ever have to know this much grammar. Joe didn't make it very far in his book at all...no surprise there. He does know what a noun, verb, and adjective are though as well as basic punctuation so I'd say he's okay. Hannah and Grace have done Daily Paragraph Editing all year and have learned way more from that daily exercise than they ever learned in the English book. I just recently bought Daily Language Review for Grace and Joe and they both enjoy it and it's reinforcing many things they already know. Both of those books by the way are from Evan Moor (my fave). One area that I've totally failed at this year (again) is writing. I was so sure I was going to get a handle on writing this year and I haven't. Towards that end though the girls did most of a workbook called, "Outlining, Notetaking, and Report Writing." We never quite got to Report Writing unfortunately. I am testing out IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing) during this last month of school. The girls did the first lesson today and so far so good. I can see us sticking with this and finally getting a handle on writing. Next year is the year, I can feel it. In addition to all of this we have also started the Evan Moor (my fave) unit study on Nonfiction. We are moving significantly slower than I had hoped to move but that's okay. I had planned to do some of it this year and some of it next year anyway. Trying not to stress about that. Next year for Language Arts we will be doing Daily Paragraph Editing, the Nonfiction unit study, IEW, and possibly a literature study, not sure about that yet.
Math--we started the year with everyone doing what we've been doing since Hannah was in 1st grade--Horizons math. I have always loved Horizons math....until this year. Actually, I still love it but my children do not. Specifically, Grace and Joe. They both became very anxious about math (that's an understatement--crying everyday) and so I finally just did away with the Horizons workbook and started having them do worktexts from
Math Mammoth. It has been a lifesaver!!! I can't say enough good about Math Mammoth--it's cheap, simple, and solid. I will continue using it for Grace and Joe for next year and Hannah will also be doing a few of the worktexts reviewing fractions and decimals as we end our school year and into the summer. We've decided that everyone will continue math this summer. Grace and Joe both struggle with math and have made great strides in the last few months, I do not want them to forget anything! Hannah was doing fine with Horizons math but as she approached the end of the first of two workbooks for 6th grade I decided to give Teaching Textbooks a try and fell in love. She is currently in the middle of 7th grade TT and will stop for now and resume next year. When she finishes that she will start Pre-Algebra, probably mid-year.
History--We started off the school year with Story of the World Volume 2--The Middle Ages and we are still pushing our way through. We have taken our sweet time and are only on about Ch. 17 but we are now reading a chapter a day in order to finish this as soon as possible. We have plans for the kids to study American History next year so I have to wrap up The Middle Ages. I have done no extra projects but we have read a few books to go along with this--Red Sails to Capri, The Bronze Bow, and we are reading The Door in the Wall. We've done a more consistent history program in years past but I am still happy with what we have done and what we will finish before school is out.
Science--Do I have to talk about Science? It's my blog so I guess that answer is no but in the spirit of "keeping it real," here goes--Again, I had big plans. I had borrowed Apologia's "Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day," from a friend and had heard such great things about it. I even bought the lapbook component and was super excited about science. Well, after almost an entire school year we are only on Lesson 3. I surrendered today and packed up the copies I had made of the lapbook along with the book and have it waiting by the door to give back to Amy. It just wasn't meant to be. One of my goals this year was to focus on Math and Language Arts and Writing and to relax about everything else. I relaxed so much that our science curriculum just didn't happen. Oops. That doesn't mean we didn't do science though--we've watched countless episodes of Nova as well as other science documentaries, read Ranger Rick every month, and done some experiments from our science kits. I would venture to say that my kids know more about science than many of their public school counterparts--at least Grace and Joe do. When Grace took the CAT5 last year she scored 100% on the science portion. With that said...I have no intention to neglect science next year. In fact, I have big plans (I've heard that before)--Grace and Joe will do lessons from my new favorite website--
Lesson Pathways. They have some great science units and I'm looking forward to doing a lot of them. Hannah will likely be doing Science with some other kids--Apologia General Science.
Other Stuff--Joe is almost done with his Caldecott Winners Pocket Book, the girls did an Easter lapbook, Joe has read almost all of the A to Z Mysteries--he's on Y, Hannah has learned to cook, Grace has learned to do laundry, and much more. I guess it's been a pretty good school year after all.
We have been very busy here in GA...I will dedicate this post to our fun at Relay for Life last night. The Relay for Life here is huge, supposedly the biggest in the world. One of the upscale salons does haircuts for "free" with a $20 donation to the American Cancer Society. Grammy, Hannah, and Grace took this opportunity to get their hair cut. Hannah has been wanting to cut her hair short and I finally said yes. It turned out very cute and she loves it!
It actually took two ladies to cut Hannah's hair--apparently they were short on scissors and the main stylist was left handed and only had right handed scissors so the main stylist directed the scissors of the other girl. 
I think she loves it! 
The various displays were all so unique and fun. Of course we had to stop at this one. I think that bottom picture of the bus is a riot. 
We had a good evening--we ate Chick-fil-a sandwiches, I had an adjustment from a chiropractor, girls got hair cuts, the kids ate waffle, italian ice, ice cream, and we all shared a fried candy bar from "FrigNBarbecue."' Only in the south...
This is my Momma and my Mamaw, Mamaw is a 6 year breast cancer survivor. We had a great night and donated lots of our dolloars to Relay for Life.
