It’s time to talk about how our curriculum choices from the beginning of the year are working out for us!

Little Bug, 8 years old

Language Arts

All About Reading Level 3

From the beginning of Level 3, I could tell that Little Bug didn’t really need AAR, however, Little Bug knew there was a Level 3 and wanted to do it. Ha! So, if that doesn’t tell you about this curriculum, I don’t know what does, because Little Bug isn’t exactly the studios type. (She would much rather be off being creative or with her nose in a book.) We completed the first half and I hope Little Bug doesn’t think to ask about the second half. If she does, I may just hand her the second reader and let her read the stories. She could probably read the entire book in half an hour or less! And it is top secret that there is a Level 4!

Little House on the Prairie Progeny Press Study Guide

After completing half of AAR Level 3, this is what we started. It was time for Little Bug to start diving deeper into literature and this has been a perfect fit. I bought study guides designed for 4th-6th grade so some of the material is a bit mature for Little Bug’s thinking, but I just skip over those parts. The majority of the material has provided great questions for discussion of this classic book!

Explode the Code

As I am writing this, Little Bug has just started Book 6. This continues to be a great reinforcement of phonics and spelling rules for Little Bug.

All About Spelling Level 2

Spelling instruction is what Little Bug needs more than the phonics instruction. We are plugging away at Level 2. In the new semester, I am going to make AAS a top priority for Little Bug’s language arts. We need to work through these levels consistently!

First Language Lessons Level 2

I was working through this with Little Bug but once I created our CC English Grammar Notebook, I realized that was all I really needed. However, there are parts of FLL that I think could come in handy, such as the copywork portions of the lessons. I am always looking for good, quality content for copywork and FLL definitely has some.

CC English Grammar Notebook

My goal is to have Little Bug memorize all three cycle’s of Classical Conversations English Grammar Memory Work before she enters Essentials in the 2019-2020 school year as a 10-year-old. We are well on our way with this notebook! I have the Memory Work organized so we are working on this year’s cycle 3 as well as reviewing and learning memory work from cycles 1 and 2. Once Memory Work is mastered, it goes behind a Monday-Friday tab so that it can be reviewed weekly on that day of the week. This system is working well!

Copywork

Little Bug worked through Memoria Press Copybook 2 (print) and now she is copying Bible verses.

This seems like a lot to cover in one day for Language Arts but we don’t do everything listed here every day! Copywork and Explode the Code are done daily during her independent work time. Then, at the beginning of the school year, we did All About Reading Level 2 and First Language Lessons Level 2. Once we finished half of AAR, we did All About Spelling every day and then alternated between doing Progeny Press and FLL. Now, we are doing AAS, Grammar Notebook and Progeny Press daily.

Math

Christian Light Education Math

We finished Level 1 and moved right in to Level 2 after taking a week’s break from math. I have found consistently doing math daily (with very minimal short breaks) works best! Math just needs to be done daily, as a general rule! CLE Math has revolutionized our math time. At the end of the first semester we are midway through LU203. CLE is a solid math program that is teaching Little Bug concepts in bite-sizes her artistic mind can handle. The built in review and flashcard system make the program be everything I could possibly want in a math curriculum for my children.

Sweet Pea, 6 years old

I planned to begin formal academics with Sweet Pea, but after about a month, I realized Sweet Pea wasn’t quite ready. Truth be told, our homeschool wasn’t quite ready for me to take on formal academics of two children while juggling the needs of a 2-year-old and infant! It was simply too much to handle and the joy for me in homeschooling my children was being zapped. I knew it was time to make some changes for the good of my child and our overall homeschool.

CLE Kindergarten II

We had worked through the first three (of five) KII books last year so I pulled these out for Sweet Pea to continue working on. These books are such a wonderful bridge between preschool and formal academics as they provide phonics and basic math practice in a non-intimidating way! I noticed Sweet Pea didn’t have a real good grasp of number sense (counting 1-100 for instance) so I also printed off some free games and activities I found and did those with Sweet Pea along with KII. Sweet Pea’s number sense has increased greatly!

Math Lessons for A Living Education Level 1

Before we completed the fifth book of KII Sweet Pea announced to me that she was ready for “harder work”. I had just seen this math book at one of our CC community days and thought it too would be a great bridge between now and when we start formal academics. I noticed there was a lot of emphasize on writing numbers 1-100, which I have been working with Sweet Pea on, so I thought this book would be a great reinforcement of that, and it has been.

Explode the Code Primers A,B,C

Sweet Pea is working on Book C now and has already completed Books A and B. She has started working on this during her independent work time as well as writing her numbers 1-100 daily. Explode the Code primers are great reinforcement for letter sounds and letter formation. I already told Sweet Pea I am going to buy a second copy of each book for her to work through again! These books are such good practice and she is not ready for Book 1 yet.

A Reason for Handwriting K

We are also working through this handwriting book together. I feel like maybe I didn’t give Little Bug enough one-on-one instruction with handwriting (and instead made handwriting be an independent work item too soon), so I am trying to learn from that mistake and really be present when Sweet Pea is learning her letter formations. Sweet Pea’s handwriting is very nice when she is working through her Explode the Code books and this handwriting book!

Our Together Subjects

Classical Conversations Cycle 3

While I love classically educating my children and the content of CC and how it provides such a solid backbone for our homeschool, I have been disappointed in the lack of “community” felt in any of the three communities we have been a part of. Yes, 3 years of CC and 3 different communities. The first community we had excellent tutors and I wonder if we shouldn’t have just stayed there…but when a good friend couldn’t get in to that community, I switched to our 2nd community. That community was HUGE, clickish and Little Bug’s tutor was horrible and Sweet Pea’s tutor was absent about 50%. We were already registered to begin year three with this same community when I found out our home church was opening up a CC Community, so we transferred our registration there and I felt like finally, maybe we would find true community. We are half way through the year and it’s not happened yet and we have the worst tutor in our entire city, I am convinced.

My girls love CC Community Day, so that is honestly the only reason I have us still going. I like that it is a set day on a weekly basis to get out of the house and be around people, but as far as connecting with people and them becoming our “community” it just hasn’t happened. I’ve been thinking about exploring other options that might would still get us out on a consistent day every week and be cheaper than CC. On the other hand, I was really looking forward to Little Bug doing Essentials the year she turns 10. I’ve thought about possibly taking a break from CC next year and then joining again the following year for Essentials, but something would have to replace CC community day this coming year and I am not yet sure what that could be. We will probably just stick with CC because I am not confident I would do the Memory Work at home without the weekly community day to get us going on that week’s Memory Work.

History & Science

We have really enjoyed reading books about American History. Instead of reading a lot of chapter books to the girls, I’ve been reading a lot of picture books about our American History topics. I love the discussions we’ve had by simply opening a book and reading it together. That is classical education right there! We are finishing up our last books and then the second semester we are going to dive deeper into the human body!

Geography

Little Bug can start with Maine and work her way around the entire USA map and say all the states and capitals. Sweet Pea doesn’t know them all, but she probably knows more than the average 6-year-old not in CC! We had so much fun learning the states and capitals! The girls also consistently did some map tracing this semester! I got to where I would use it for a quiet activity if I needed them quiet and still for about 10 minutes. They got pretty good at tracing the USA. I was quite impressed.

Bible

We started reading a book about the armor of God, but a couple chapters in I decided they needed to be a little bit older. So we started reading The Answers Volume 1 and then Volume 2 before Little Bug requested that we read straight from the Bible again. I loved reading them Genesis last year so we picked right back up with Exodus. During December we read The Jesse Tree again and we will go back to Exodus in January.

Little Bug gave her life to Christ on December 16, 2017! Every day I try to point my children to Jesus and we knew Little Bug was getting so close to making that decision. She prayed by herself on the night of December 16th, which was 7 months to the day after her birth mother called me crying and so ready to receive Jesus as her Savior. Now, I begin the task of mentoring my daughter in her new walk with Jesus!

Sarge & Beau

Sarge’s speech has taken off in the last week or two! He is speaking clearer and pronouncing things better! His vocabulary is also increasing. This is a beautiful thing to witness. We are still in process to get him into speech therapy, but I am just elated to see this progress he is making.

Beau is doing well and has adjusted well to his forever family. He is still very wary of strangers, but we will work with him through all that as he continues to see he is not going anywhere and we are going to love him forever!

Next Semester

We took the whole week of Christmas off school completely and will start our second semester of this school year on Tuesday, January 3rd!

- Elaine