Our Homeschool Year in Review 2019 (What Worked, What Didn't, and Why)

I figured out two years ago that this would be my most challenging year of homeschooling. In some ways, the previous year was more difficult because of some of the things going on with my kids. But this was the year when I ventured into homeschooling high school, and some of the decisions I made, I second-guessed as I went. My confidence in my abilities took some serious hits early on, and I went looking for solutions. Ultimately, this made our experience better and I have a little more wisdom going forward. This simple Learning Style Quiz gave me better insight on why some things hadn't worked in the past. Kyrie is extremely visual, followed by kinesthetic and I had her figured out. (Also, I'm the same, so that helps.) Evie is very balanced between visual and auditory with kinesthetic at the bottom, which is easier for me to teach. More on Ben later.


Evie (3rd) grade

Reading/Writing/Grammar/Spelling/Handwriting

I didn't follow any formal reading program as reading is a key component of history, spelling, and writing. Evie also blossomed into my earliest reading-for-pleasure kid, which surprised me, as she was my slowest to learn to read. She takes immense pleasure in squirreling off into her room and reading alone. Sometimes I asked her to read aloud to me, just to be sure she was actually reading (because she finishes books more quickly than I expected). By the end of the year, she was just reading aloud to me once a week, because I was confident she actually was reading well.

I introduced her to Writing and Rhetoric midway through the year and she loved it. The first book in the series is Fable. Both Ben and Kyrie used the book previously, and Evie took great delight in asking them to read their fable adaptions at dinner when she had completed that assignment. She is my animal lover, so the topic appealed and the format encouraged her to develop early writing skills. I coupled this with Language Lessons Level 3 to provide a more solid grammar base. All three of my kids have loved Language Lessons--and I have too--but grammar study has been a bit bumpy after 4th grade, so next year, I'm doing something different. I am also a little weary of the same poems after the third time around; I have them all memorized now.

Evie completed Spelling Workout B (she started it in 2nd grade) and also finished Spelling Workout C. I appreciate this curriculum because words are organized by common phonetic sounds, prefixes, suffixes, etc.... It involves some reading, a little bit of writing, and can largely be done working independently. It also gives her the chance to use her printing, a weakness. She learned cursive earlier and has better cursive than either of her siblings did at this age, but her printing is not great. We did use Zaner-Bloser Handwriting for grade 3 too.

Math

Evie used Horizons again this year. She takes charge of her learning (a little too much) by deciding how many of each problem she should do. I indulge her but if she gets a problem wrong she has to do two additional problems. I always appreciate the colorful presentation and the spiral learning.

History and Literature 

I have loved using Story of the World and this year we used Vol. 1-Ancient History 
again. It is my third trip through and while my two oldest have studied this material twice (one at a grammar level and one in late grammar/early logic stages), I realized in trip three, that I CANNOT DO THIS ONE MORE TIME. I have used the activity book very thoroughly, checking out library books that accompany the time period and doing a number of activities to reinforce learning. Only this year I would look at the books and activities without any excitement. I did find different book suggestions on Pintarest boards which helped. But hats off to anyone who can do this more than three times. I cannot. Fortunately, Evie is more of an independent reader and she read a number of recommended literature resources on her own.

Biology (more fully reviewed in Kyrie's section)

Evie joined Kyrie in Biology class, and did little course work other than participating in labs. I personally remembered nothing in science in elementary school other than what a theory and hypothesis were, and so I don't spend a lot of time on science in the grammar stage. But as much as I hate the trouble of labs, I think they have the most value. We currently have about 8 tadpoles and four caterpillars in cocoons to prove it. (Plus those that have been naturally selected not to continue their lives.)


Bible 

I have yet to find a Bible curriculum I like more than God's Great Covenant. It is a little more Calvinist than we are, but is a beautiful survey course with a high view of Scripture. This year we went through Old Testament 1. While Evie doesn't have to do the worksheet pages and quizzes she participates in the Bible reading, text reading, and memory verse. One of my favorite things is that each lesson includes at least a paragraph on how we see Jesus in the Old Testament text.  I have not found the teachers' guides to be useful--I am capable of checking worksheet and quizzes without it.

Art, Typing, Logic

Once a week Evie worked on her typing using Typing Instructor and she did logic exercises on line using MindBenders. In addition to some art projects with Story of the World, we used several different Usborne Art books including Art Treasury and Famous Artists. Evie usually participated in a brief Art History lesson on a famous painting/artist with her siblings and then did a project based on that artist and his/her style. All of these classes happened once a week.

Physical Education

Evie took gymnastics once a week, rode her bike, and jumped on our trampoline. 

Kyrie, 6th grade

Bible (See Evie's review)

God's Great Covenant started our morning 4-5 days a week. Day 1 (and sometimes Day 2) we worked on a memory verse and read a selection directly from Scripture (some were longer and split into two days), followed by reading the book text and continuing memory work the next day. The following day we continued the memory work, talked about key facts and meanings from the lesson and Kyrie worked on worksheet pages. The last day she took a quiz.

History and Literature (see Evie's review)

Kyrie really enjoyed Story of the World Vol. 1: Ancient Times this year. She listened to me read text three times a week, but also had independent reading with additional history and literature resources on her own and turned in a written summary about once a week. She really worked hard at the geography portion, turning in beautiful maps.

Math 

Kyrie loves the format of Horizons Math. Shes benefits from the spiral method and appreciates the organized, regularity (five days a week) of this curriculum. I also learned a little this year about how different math curricula appeal to different learning styles. Horizons is best for visual learners and Kyrie is solidly in that camp. She also likes tests. (So did I. Don't hate us.) (More on how it doesn't work as well for auditory learners in my sections on Ben.)

Biology

I like the simplicity of Real Science 4 Kids and used it for Ben (with Kyrie observing) earlier. Thus, we stuck to the 2nd edition since I had the tools. There are only 10 lessons, but last time around I discovered the difficulty of some of the labs in cold Michigan weather. This year we took the winter off and then resumed when it was warm enough for things to grow. The course takes me 21 weeks, meeting twice a week for about an hour. That said the course ends with labs that take daily work. We currently have tadpoles, caterpillars, and are about to set up an ecosystem for the final lab. Day 1 is a teaching day on the topic we are studying, Day 2 is either a lab or sometimes I reverse the order with Day 3 which requires the student to put together a colorful folder on what they are learning, giving them a chance to rephrase what they have learned and record observations. Day 4 is a multiple-choice quiz. Most of the labs can be done in an hour or two; four cannot and take some time. This is a great curriculum, but since Evie is old enough to enjoy it all, this is my last time through with Real Science for Kids Biology, simply because raising tadpoles and butterflies is time-consuming. (And last time we had a lot of funerals.)

Latin

Latin for Children is the flagship curriculum for Classical Academic Press. Between when Ben went through LFC and Kyrie started, they revised and updated both Primer A and Primer B, making it even better (i.e. more visually appealing, with a variety of different learning styles covered in the way everything is presented). While I expected Kyrie to only take one year of Latin, she has flourished in Latin and this was her second year. Consequently, her grasp on English grammar was strengthened...but more on that later. She worked on this four days a week, watching an instruction online,  memorizing vocabulary, conjugating and translation, and fun activity puzzles.

Grammar, Spelling, and Writing & Rhetoric

I wanted to LOVE Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind. I liked elements of it; it uses snippets of good books to teach concepts so students are exposed to a lot of great literature. It is forthright about how rules evolve over time, and variances. It looks like the teacher has nothing more to do than open up the instructor's manual, hold class without planning and send students off to finish their exercises. But... it is poorly edited. It IS GRAMMAR and it was frustrating when my kids would argue with an answer and I had to review the concept myself, and discover, that yes, they were right and the answer key was wrong. WTM doesn't seem interested in updating errors though they do list errors others find and notify them of, but you have to dig pretty hard to find this on their website. Also, the year started off fairly simple. Coursework could be done in an hour or less a day; then shortly before the halfway point, shifted into overdrive and Kyrie was spending two or more hours to complete a lesson. It felt a little uneven. Oddly, though, Kyrie loves grammar. "Can I major in Grammar in college?" was perhaps my most startling question of the year. If only they would revise it with good editing, I could probably adjust the pace by doing two easy lessons a day so we had time for harder ones. Coupled with grammar, we used Classical Academic Presses Writing & Rhetoric series: Commonplace.  We both love the way this series teaches different forms of writing, encourages (but does not require) a rhetoric component. Bonus: The series is well-edited.  Commonplace focuses on writing a 6-paragraph persuasive essay in praise of a virtue or opposed to a vice. I have found we can rush through two books a year; or we can take our time and complete a book and a half. Once a week she did Spelling Workout G. This year focused on foreign words incorporated into English or on unique categories of words, like words from science or words from sports.

Art, Logic, Music, P.E. 

Kyrie just did Friday lunch art appreciation in which we viewed and talked about a famous work of art and the artist who created it. She did small projects but she loves to write letters and make cards and I let her focus on this. She finished up Mindbenders for Logic, took piano lessons, and also participated in Irish dance. She danced at 6 different care centers and adult living facilities in mid-Michigan this year, which was pretty fun.