Take a Look Tuesday (Back to Homeschool Blog Hop)

While the temperatures on the thermometer are still showing triple digits, summer is coming to a close and the public school students are heading back to school.  While the kids and I do our lessons throughout the year with multiple breaks in between, I do typically try to start our new curriculum in late August/early September.

This time around, we're not really starting new curriculum but instead we are re-visiting curriculum that we have started and put down temporarily for other items.  A number of these items are curriculum that you may recognize as review items - when I write that I plan on continuing using a particular item, I do truly mean it.. lol   We will be using a mix of both physical and digital curriculum this year.

Our 2018-2019 Curriculum

CORE COURSES


LANGUAGE ARTS

We will be using a variety of different materials for language arts this year. Since Garrett and Ashleigh are on two different levels, they will begin working independently from each other for the time being.

 First, Ashleigh will be picking up where she left off to finish Readers in Residence from Apologia.  She was really enjoying this particular reading curriculum when we were using it but we got side tracked with a few other projects and it got put to the way side.  She's actually very excited to be getting back into this one as she really enjoyed it and we would like to finish this book before Volume 2 is released. 

For her grammar lessons, Ashleigh will be starting IEW's Fix It Grammar.  We will be starting with The Nose Tree .

 Garrett will starting a new review item that looks like one that we will continue to use for the year and that is a new Level 3 Three-in-one reading comprehension, spelling and grammar curriculum from Reading Eggs.   (Expect a review early next month)

Garrett will also be continuing with Saxon Grammar and Writing 3.  He has done really well with this particular curriculum and I want to keep him with this and finish this book :)

Another item we are picking back up after a bit of a break is Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization from IEW.  The kids should move through the first section pretty quick as they still remember most of the poems they memorized previously.  Both kids will be working with this curriculum.



Finally, for writing, the kids will be using another IEW curriculum. We will be using All Things Fun & Fascinating using Structure and Style. 

MATHEMATICS

For math, the kids will be starting Math Lessons for a Living Education Level 4 from Master Books.  We had started this book back in January but the kids just didn't seem ready for it yet,  and instead we spend the last few months going back and reviewing many of the building blocks that they needed to know before moving on to this level.  We will also be using a few different math workshops from SchoolhouseTeachers.com and extra practice as needed from Math-U-See Gamma.









History

My kids were VERY excited when I pulled out the first volume of Mystery of History and announced we would be revisiting it.  We covered this volume a few years ago but I honestly don't think they retained much of any of it.  This time, we will be supplementing the lessons with lots of short videos, movies, books and activities to really bring home what they are learning. 

Along with Mystery of History, we will be continuing to use the Bible Study Guide for All Ages.  These two seem as if they will work very well together .  I'll be placing an order for the next 26 lessons of this study soon.

Here's the completed student notebooks.. Thank you to Sarah from My Joy-Filled Life for providing the perfect setup for these notebooks..

Science

Another one of our favorite companies, the kids have elected to being Exploring Creation with Zoology 1: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day.  This is probably the very first book I bought when I decided to homeschool and somehow, we never used it.  Time to fix that :)  

We will also be doing many unit studies and nature studies along with our formal science curriculum and will share these as we work on each one.

ELECTIVE COURSES

Foreign Language

Garrett and Ashleigh have both settled in their choice of foreign language.  Garrett enjoys learning Greek while Ashleigh has done very well with her Latin Studies and so they will continue with both of these.  Ashleigh will be continuing where she left off with First Form Latin from Memoria Press and if she finishes it before the end of the year, we will be purchasing Second Form.   Garrett took a break from "Hey Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek!" during the summer but will be picking it back up after a review of what he already knows. Once he completes the book, we will be making a decision whether to buy Level 4 or if we might consider trying Elementary Greek from Memoria Press.

Both Kids will also be using Picta Dicta Vocabulary Builder from Roman Roads.. This is a program we are currently reviewing (expect a review next month) that is looking very promising for the kids and I think will be especially helpful for them, especially Ashleigh.

Handwriting

We will be starting back over with CursiveLogic..  I had the fun job of erasing all their previous work from their books so that we can start over from the beginning (I can't be the first parent to have ever done that, right??).  After they complete the book, we will then just start adding copy work 

With both kids we will be using The Master and His Apprentice for Art/Artist Studies.  However,  as Garrett does not care for Art lessons, Ashleigh will be doing Artistic Pursuits on her own to help learn more artistic techniques.  In place of art, Garrett will instead be learning computer programming starting with Scratch, Kodable and possible Code for Teens.

That's a good idea as to what curriculum we will be using this year.  Of course, as the year progresses, some things may fall to the wayside and some other things may be added.  That's usually the way homeschooling works :)