You can see our detailed curriculum posts by clicking on the graphics below.
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All Together Learning
We do 3 subjects all together and really enjoy our time with our kids all together {most of the time}.
- Mystery of History {finishing level 1}
- World Geography
- US History {YWAM Heroes of History, Liberty’s Kids DVDs}
Daddy has begun teaching Mystery of History which is awesome. We are still finishing the 1st book and will move on to part 2 when we are done. My kids use the notebooking pages, and my daughter colors the coloring page. Daddy teaches and I write notes on our board to help guide the kids with their note taking.
We still love our Heroes of History books. We have extended our learning with the Liberty’s Kids DVDs, to help deepen our American Revolution knowledge, and the kids love it. My oldest doesn’t sit with us to watch these but the younger 2 love them and learn a lot! We finished up reading Ben Franklin and really took our time, discussing so many different aspects of history together. I absolutely love this time with my kids.
You can see our entire World Geography plan here. We are LOVING this so far. We have been focusing on South America and have had fun learning about Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Chile and Venezuela so far.
We have several Little Passports packages that we haven’t opened {I save them for when we study the country}. I pulled Argentina and we had a blast! The little 2 loved the dinosaur fossil!
1st & 4th Together Learning
Ladybug and Krash do 2 subjects together and it is working well! We do Picture Smart Bible {K-3 Old Testament} and US Geography twice a week.
They absolutely love US Geography and I think it’s because they both really love coloring and they love birds. Seeing the bird for each state is very exciting for them! We have completed states through Georgia and they each have a beautiful notebook for review!
- We review all the states we have learned each day we do a new one, we use our USA Geography PowerPoint for this. The PowerPoint show is a favorite and is really great for review.
Here’s a peek into a portion of our US Geography time…
We are enjoying Picture Smart Bible together and have completed through Leviticus.
8th Grade
Pac is by far my least photographed child because a majority of his schooling is done independently or with his Dad. All of my photos of his are usually taken during his science experiments, since that’s the most exciting thing to photograph of an 8th grader’s homeschooling! As you can see, he often has little faces watching him as he works on his experiments.
He is a pretty easy student and we are thankful. Sure, we have issues, but overall he does what he is supposed to do. His dad oversees his math, spelling and science completely. I oversee everything else. Writing is the only subject I am still teaching directly.
One of my favorite portions of his homeschooling is his reading. So far this year he has read more books than he read during the entire year last year! His favorites are in bold, with Peace Child being the absolute favorite so far.
Here’s his completed list…
- Peace Child
- Stink Alley
- Guests
- Amos Fortune
- Indian Captive
- They Loved to Laugh
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer {almost done}
All of his other subjects are going well, we are pleased with our choices for him this year.
4th Grade
This young man continues to amaze me with his dedication to his love in life – gymnastics. He has homeschool practice days that occupy him 3 days of the week, leaving him only 2 full days at home with us. In order to stay committed to his sport he doubles up on his schoolwork on those 2 days so he can be free to practice the other 3 days. This is not a schedule we ever thought we would have but it is working, thanks to his determination to make it work.
He does have a couple of subjects he does 5 days a week, getting them done in the morning hours before heading to practice. He is moving along with Teaching Textbooks 5, which is his main 5 day a week subject. He also does history with us in the mornings before practice.
On his intense 2 school days, he works with both Daddy and me. Daddy teaches him science and Life of Fred math {a supplemental review for him to help work on auditory processing skills}. He is loving science and we are both happy with our choice of Evan Moor for him. Below they were learning about muscles and made an arm model.
I teach all of his other subjects, below you can see him working on Write Shop D, and First Language Lessons 2. He is using the Poem PowerPoint to work on memorizing his poem, The Goops.
Growing with Grammar is a great fit for us. He does well with the format and is learning a lot. He has taken 2 tests so far and did very well.
We are almost done reading our first novel together, Robinson Crusoe. He loves this book! We rotate me reading to him, him reading aloud to me, and him reading on his own.
He also reads books on his own at night and currently really enjoyed 2 books from the I Survived series {The Shark Attacks of 1916 and The Sinking of the Titanic 1912}
1st Grade
I continue to use Lessontrek for her weekly planning and then build her daily work grid from my lesson plan. She chooses the order of her subjects each day.
In no particular order, here’s a recap of her past month. You can see her very first week of 1st grade in our post here.
Science
- We have been enjoying her science together. On a whim I decided to use an Evan-Moor science book and I love it! It is simple, and has a project at the end of each chapter. She particularly loved the shadow picture she made recently! You can see a video of her telling you about her project here!
After reviewing The Curious Kid’s Science Book we decided to add it into our curriculum. She chooses one project to do with Daddy per week. Here she was exploring how different liquids reacted with baking soda. Here is a video clip of her working on this project with her Daddy.
I have been letting her choose an animal to study which has been really fun. We completed our OWL unit and are now almost done with FROGS. I will share a full post with all of our frog fun soon!
Handwriting
Surprisingly handwriting has become a joy! She struggled to get the hang of things early on but with the addition of the Handiwriter grip helper, she has now finally corrected her grip and holds her pencil correctly. She was holding ALL of her fingers on the pencil at one time and I had tried many things. I ordered this as a last try and it worked! Within less than 2 weeks of using it, she is grip-corrector free and naturally holds her pencil better!
We are using Logic of English Cursive. We begin by introducing each letter in the salt tray, she loves this!
We use our own handwriting paper now instead of the papers that come with LOE {some we have left over from a friend who gave it to us years ago}. I use a highlighter for her to trace a few samples.
Here’s a little video from Instagram showing her writing and making a joke. 
My favorite part is an idea she came up with all on her own! She makes a little card after we learn each letter by turning the letter into some sort of shape!
Here’s her collection so far!
Math
We do a few different things for math and our combination is working beautifully for her. She LOVES Life of Fred and is one chapter away from completing the first book!
Mathseeds has been a great fit for her, she has advanced beyond what I ever expected!
I don’t always follow along with what she does in Mathseeds but when she struggles I bring in some hands on help, like these 3D shapes we had!
Spielgaben rounds out our math resources, and we do about 2-3 lessons per week, mostly using the worksheets. See our recent posts here…
Grammar
Growing with Grammar has been a great fit for her and she is breezing through. We do one simple lesson a day and I like the easy workbook approach. There is also a cyclical review included which I also love. I had a sappy mom moment the day my baby learned subjects and predicates. Such big words. Such a big girl.
First Language Lessons is also a great fit for her. We use both because they are different, yet similar. Both are very short lessons and I think compliment each other really well.
Here’s a video clip of her reciting her first poem she memorized, The Caterpillar {she’s using our Poem PowerPoint}.
Reading
All About Reading is a great fit for her and have completed through lesson 14. She is moving along as a reader at a pretty rapid pace now, it’s exciting!
Here’s a video peek at how we have been making the fluency sheets more fun! I choose a secret drawing and draw a tiny portion for every word she reads correctly. The drawing grows as she reads and she loves this!
Ways we supplement reading development…
She has an easy reader Bible that she is reading independently and loving!
We go to the library at least twice a month, sometimes more! Her library books are read daily both independently and aloud!
We are reading the My Father’s Dragon series aloud together and she loves it! We are just starting the 3rd book in the series. Below she is working on a knapsack craft to go along with the book.
Below you can also see her reading aloud to her Daddy. She reads aloud to one of us almost every day. She struggled at first reading aloud to Dad since she was only comfortable with me. We want our kids to be comfortable reading aloud so we encouraged her through her fear and now she reads with him too!
Spelling
She is breezing through All About Spelling Level 1, we probably should have started this sooner! She is up to lesson 15 and most of it has been a review for her so far. I don’t even have any pictures of her working!
Extras
She is enjoying Home Art Studio and recently completed her weaving project.
We Choose Virtues has been a hit! We add one virtue per week and focus on discussing the meaning and story as she colors. We also use the songs {see on my iPad below}. She talks about these a lot and they have really helped her grasp some concepts!
Whew! I think that’s it! It takes me forever to write these posts but they are my favorite to look back on!
You can also see much of our everyday homeschool life on Instagram!
Linking up with Weekly Homeschool Wrap-Up
