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We had a lot of change this year as far as curriculum and plans. We started the year in a very restrictive charter that is moving towards only allowing a handful of curriculum options. We ended up leaving the charter, having some other things going on, and picking up with some different materials as the months went by. Thus, some of the curriculum I picked last year is not necessarily what my students ended up completing.
Second Grade
Memoria Press second grade went very well. You can catch my review of that here:
Make sure you read the caption because I left a couple of things out accidentally.
MBTP Math 6-8 worked out very nicely, as expected. By the end of the year we moved up to the next level. You can see the entire 7-9 Math package here.
She enjoyed lots and lots of books, especially: The Odyssey by Mary Pope Osborne (read independently), Betsy-Tacy, Amelia Bedelia, A Bear Called Paddington, The Secret Garden (in progress), Where The Mountain Meets the Moon, The Very, Very Far North (and Just Beyond The Very, Very Far North), Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone, BOB, The Princess and the Goblin (in progress), Little House in the Big Woods, and everything else we read. (See instagram posts from this year to see what all we read!)
That being said, we will be using book selections from both Ambleside Online and The CMEC for third grade. We will also likely continue with at least some selection from Brave Writer’s darts. (books will be announce in June!)
As expected, she really liked the Waldorf second grade blocks which included Saints, Trickster Tales, King of Ireland’s Son (in progress), and fairy tales in general. Picture books were also generally a big hit, whatever the topic. Botany kind of fell to the wayside because it felt tiresome to only focus on that subject all year long. So we ended the year with a level C science set from Bookshark. That is going well and we will continue to use it next year.
We also did MBTP for second grader finished the first grade content and moved onto second grade— I would’ve done more if we had was especially nice for science because has experiments and worksheets etc. nice that it’s integrated. We are currently working on the Relationships concept & reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. We previously covered the River Biome on a prior lesson which I know is specifically a state standard in many grades!
You can find my full first grade review here:
Moving Beyond the Page 5-7 First Grade Curriculum Chatty Review
We did it unit by unit, looping it in over time. It took about two years. I prefer using MBTP in this way rather than trying to eat the elephant in one bite, so to speak.
Torah studies: Although it took a while to get into the groove, and we were using other materials, I really really liked the CHAI curriculum, and we will continue with that until it is finished. I chose level 2 based on the written work (didn’t want a lot of writing). It worked very well for my 2nd and 5th graders together.
Fifth Grade
I tried to pivot to Bookshark’s Fifth grade, but it ended up being too intensive. Instead we ended up using many of the readers and some of the read aloud books. We will continue with this into next year. Sadako and Li Lun were two favorites of the books we have read so far. The Journey to the Eastern Hemisphere book and accompanying notebook would have been an excellent option if my student was capable of doing the amount of work it required. However, it was not a good fit for this year and we may try again at some point during sixth grade.
Due to wanting a more structured approach, and in light of the fifth grade Waldorf topics (Ancient Egypt, Persia, India, Greece, etc.), I somehow decided to pick up Story of the World volume 1. Because this student and my 2nd grader really enjoy read alouds, it worked out very well and we did some of the activities as well. We ended up slowing down on this once I saw that it will be covered in next year’s bookshark materials, but it was a very good fit for these particular students.
We did make it into several of the books I shared in the 5th grade curriculum selection video I posted last spring, but not all of them. We didn’t really get to covering Greece, so I will save that for next year which works out as it is a part of the Bookshark level G curriculum anyhow.
I discovered that the math curriculum we were using changed to a mostly online for the lesson format, which was not what I wanted. So we made a rather large change to RightStart Math which has scripted lessons and tons of teaching materials for parents.
You can see more about our new math here:
I also ended up purchasing the Studies Weeklies for fifth grade to serve as an independent work option. However, because this student does not work independently for extended lengths of time, it ended up being something that we loop in to our work together.
Towards the end of the year we got more into using the MBTP history and science curriculum. You can see what topics we have here:
We are currently working on the Lincoln & My Side of the Mountain Units. My Side of the Mountain this is an especially good one for boys who like adventure or Bear Grylls. MP sells a student lit guide for it as well which is also excellent— it has instructions for building a fire. This set also touched off a love and obsession with Space, which is also included. I got several Astronomy options for him for sixth grade as a result.
We didn’t make it through all of the Memoria Press read alouds, so we will read those as we get to them next year. He loved their spelling and will continue with that and their grammar next year.
Eighth Grade
Core Knowledge civics and U.S. History were wonderful. Their science did not end up working out for us. I just started with one of the ELA units — the Harlem Renaissance and that is going good. Be sure to get the teacher’s guide if you plan to use this. He did not take to Oak Meadow Civics, but since he had already completed the Core Knowledge, it wasn’t as big of a priority. Bookshark’s level J was a big flop, as it has been for all of my students I tried to do it with. So Core Knowledge was the main history spine for the year, followed by BF Books, which will be discussed below.
He ended up using Focus on Chemistry for High School as well as Physics 1 by Sabbath Mood, and he liked them well enough. I absolutely adore both of these curriculums and we will use more SM in the future. I really with Focus on had more options!
He is currently working through Beautiful Feet’s Modern American & World History. He really likes the books so that is going well and I will choose more materials from them for him in the future. He may pursue another package as an elective next year.
ELA continued to pose a challenge. I wove in books I knew would be of interest– like the BF level. I also had him work on Tom Sawyer from MP, and Animal Farm from MBTP. He will do more Brave Writer curriculum next year with the possibility of another class. Famous Men of Modern Times was cool once he started doing it. Spelling Workout was good, as usual.
He took Math with Mr. D Math Algebra I, highly recommend.
He started doing Nutrition (see the spine he is using) as an elective, and he liked that. It led to some interesting activities like downloading a food tracking app. He also became interested in side hustles and as a result of some of that related interest he’ll be studying personal finance next year. Relatedly, he also got a bank account for his business and umpiring proceeds!
Latin did not stick. Not sure what he will be doing for languages. He really enjoyed learning German last year until he learned more about the Holocaust and now wants nothing to do with it.
Main Changes
The main other change, aside from SOTW, is that we added WWE & IEW.
In November, we started with level 1 student wanted more of a challenge after seeing what brother was doing so we got level 2. Son got level 3, has been working out great! It uses classic literature and teaches narration, dictation and copy work. It has all of the teaching script in the book now, so you don’t need anything else. I like that level 3 also covers poetry including rhyme scheme and meter. This is another curriculum I had used somewhat, and less successfully, when my teens were younger. I really like it now and would absolutely recommend. Someone suggested I look at MP’s composition, which I found to be substantially similar in a good way. The cool thing about the MP composition is that it has you reading from the books already scheduled in that level versus the random excerpts in WWE.
Similarly successful was IEW. I had avoided it intentionally because I had been severely traumatized by the overwhelming training that is said to be required. This time, rather, I just bought the curriculum and have been using it to the best of my ability as a homeschooling educator with over 10 years of experience. I’m probably not doing it perfectly but it’s working well enough at least! In February, I got the Ancient History-Based Writing Lessons [Teacher/Student Combo] Set.
What I like about this is that the reading passage that the student is working with is topical so you can pick one that you think your student will like or that complements your other studies (what I did). The curriculum is pretty dry so it’s nice to have an interesting piece of content to work with. I liked it so much that I got U.S. History-Based Writing Lessons [Teacher/Student Combo] for my 8th grader in April. I ordered this literally because the topic is his favorite, and despite his loathe for writing he was actually excited to use it right away!
You can probably guess where this is going. Shortly thereafter I ended up ordering for my second grader. I got the Fables, Myths, and Fairy Tales Writing Lessons [Teacher/Student Combo]. MP has a different set that it sells for third grade, but I went off of her interests. I looked at a sample before buying and I won’t be using this until we start third grade.
(Please note, apparently one of the levels of IEW has Christian content, so if you are not wanting that be sure to check first. To my knowledge it’s not one of the levels I’m mentioning here.)
I think that covers all the bases. I probably forgot some things. Let me know if there is anything I left out that you were dying to hear about and I will come back and update. Thanks for reading!
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