Curriculum Review: English

English is such a broad topic. Reading, spelling, writing, grammar, speeches, and literature all forms parts of the subject. Rather than look at what we did each year with Merry I thought we could look at each aspect and when we included that as part of her studies since there was a lot of overlapping.

Her first curriculum, for any subject was “Now I’m Reading.” The series is by Nora Gaydos and I highly recommend it for teaching reading. It starts with pre-readers and goes up in steps. The last page of each book is for after the book is read, it contains reading comprehension questions and sometimes sentence forming activities.  Merry used those in preschool through kindergarten.

Once Merry had a good grasp on sounding out words, we started using All About Spelling. The curriculum’s main draw was letter tiles. Being able to put the letters together 

And trade tiles out rather than having to erase was a positive for us. Mistakes felt less permanent and were less discouraging.  Because of that we continued to use AAS all the way though to level 7 in sixth grade. 

Once Merry had mastered reading, we started reading comprehension. Using the Daily Reading Comprehension workbooks by Evan Moor. We used those from first grade through fourth grade.

Along with reading comprehension, we also started focusing on grammar and writing in first grade. Through third grade we used a free printable workbook published by McGraw-Hill. The workbook was perfect for us, it had four days of grammar lessons followed by a short writing assignment for each Friday. Unfortunately, it was apparently not meant to be free. When I went to get the fourth grade version the site required a school log in code. And the workbook was not sold as a standalone product.

So when Merry was in fourth grade we started searching for a writing/grammar curriculum that would work for us.  The first one we tried was Writing Strands. But that was not a good fit for us. After two years we gave up and in sixth grade we did a year without writing.

Sixth grade was fun because instead of the writing program I made my own literature study. This was the first formal literature class that Merry did. Until this point I had simply let her read whatever interested her from the library and did my childhood favorites as family read out louds. I relied heavily on internet resources, especially teacher-pay-teachers to find guides and activities.  We used fairy tales to talk about plot, characters, and other story elements. We had a poetry unit on the different types of poems. And we did a unit on mythology, particularly that of Greeks and Romans.

In seventh grade, Merry decided to do “Cover Story,” a curriculum that walks you though making your own magazine over the course of the year. It was a good opportunity for me to see where she excelled in writing and where we needed to reinforce ideas. 

The area that needed reinforcing was grammar, so in eighth grade we went through the Life of Fred Language Arts books. As fans of the math books, these were great. They were definitely used more to reinforce rather than teach. And we will probably use them for review later in high school.

Seventh grade was when I started looking for a literature program that would work for Merry. I struggled with the reading lists in some programs or the lack of grading help in others. Then I found Lightning Literature. The middle school curriculum (which we used in seventh and eighth grade) contains the books to read, a student guide with comprehension questions and writing prompts, a student activity book with puzzles and word searches, and the teacher’s guide. The best part was the teacher’s guide made sense to me. The curriculum was a perfect fit! 

At the high school level Lightning Literature is a little more intense. But the grading guides make it easy to explain what is expected. For ninth grade we used the Speeches class. In addition to the reading and writing aspects of the class, Merry had to give 4 speeches during the year.

The Lightning Literature classes have essay writing as a part of them but I wanted to give Merry a well rounded writing foundation. So we also used Write Shop level 1 for ninth grade writing. Instead of the response focus of essays, Write Shop focuses more on the creative choices. Things like word choices, description, and sentence structures.

So that’s how we got to where we are. This next year Merry is planning to continue writing with Write Shop 2 and will be taking American Literature using Lightning Literature. 

Curriculum Review: Social Studies

Social Sciences can be hard to pin down. They include everything from history to geography to civics to cultural studies. 

Like science, in grade school I wanted a class that would be fun, and one which wouldn’t take a lot of time.  I also didn’t have any extra funds in the budget. So I came up with my own things.

Knuffle Bunny’s adventures was my first attempt and I must admit I am super proud of how it turned out. In first grade we studied one continent each month, checking out books from the library and using a children’s atlas. About once a week we would write a letter from Knuffle Bunny as if he was visiting that area. Merry would draw a picture of something we had read about to go with he simple message. Sometimes she picked a landmark, other times a cultural celebration or a common activity.

Second grade we continued to focus on geography and culture, this time with Knuffle Bunny traveling the USA. We would spend one day learning about a state and the next writing and drawing.

Third grade was another curriculum hobbled together by me.  We used the American Girls books to learn about US History. In addition to the story books, I had also picked up many of the extras throughout the years at second hand stores mostly. We had  cook books, craft books, and even paper dolls to go with the studies. And I found a website that offered free printables for American Girl lap books. (https://www.freehomeschooldeals.com/free-american-girl-lapbook-templates/).

Third grade was also the year we joined a co-op so Merry had to double up on history. It didn’t go well. The co-op used “Story of the World” which may have been fine except they were using book 4, which was made for older elementary. Instead of using the entire book, Merry and I only read the one lesson from each week that would be being discussed. And because I found the text uninspiring I sometimes just summarize.

Needless to say, I did not try “Story of the World” again. In fact for fourth grade I was back to trying my own thing.  That year Charry was studying Oregon History using a workbook by Georgina Slinger. So Merry studied with her sister and made lap books to go with the different units, i.e. one for explorers, one for plants, one for counties, etc.

Then in fifth grade I wanted a curriculum that I could use with both girls and I wanted to start putting greater focus on history. That was when I discovered Notgrass. The text books were easy to read aloud. There were workbooks designed for younger kids as well as older. It focused on geography and culture as well as dates and documents. It checked all the boxes. So they did American History together.

Because of the success with Notgrass, in sixth grade we continued with the curriculum, and with doing the subject as a group. That year we used the Civics course. An unexpected benefit was learning about different holidays, like Veteran’s Day and Mother’s Day. Finding out not only what they celebrated but how they became holidays.

Seventh grade Merry was once again on her own, but since Charry was using the Notgrass high school world history, we decided to use the middle school world history. As a teacher I enjoyed the books better when I was only using one level but it still worked well for Merry.

Eighth grade we went with local history again, using the same Oregon History workbook that her sister had used. Honestly I haven’t found a more complete Oregon History curriculum, or any other Oregon History curriculum for that matter. It won by default of existing.

Then came high school, this was where I really wanted to make sure her education was well rounded and covered more than just names and dates.

Last year, ninth grade, we opted for North Star Geography rather than history. The reasons were twofold. One, I feel that having a good knowledge of geography makes history easier to follow. Two, this allowed me to once again combine Charry and Merry. For Charry’s final year of homeschooling it was nice to have them studying some of the same subjects and be able to work together on projects. The primary reason for choosing North Star was the student project that went with it. Over the course of the year they each made their own atlas, with maps they had filled in themselves. 

This year we will be back to using Notgrass. Merry will be doing American History. The curriculum is designed to also be used for literature and Bible classes but we are limiting it to the history aspect.

So long story short, it turned out I prefer simple one year curriculums rather than the popular 3-4 year rotational options. I don’t like using formal text books with younger elementary. And I like curriculum with a broad age range, so one text book but two different workbooks appeals to me. Even though I never found a “perfect” fit for social studies, I have been very pleased with each of the various things we have tried, except for “Story of the World” which was just a bad fit for us.