WHAT WORKED & WHAT DIDN'T WORK FOR US // 2020-2021 HOMESCHOOL YEAR!

We love gather round :) the year two units are a little more heavy in LA so I don't suppliment anymore besides some notebook paper for copywork and spelling. We'll be switching to teaching textbooks this fall along with our gather round and maybe a bible curriculum! Love so much how simple school feels now

Yes mam! Things we pick we have the best of intentions but we have to be real somethings don’t work as we wished

I am with you girl ! I love Gather Round but I do add additional curriculum in as well. We will also have finished 7 full units and 2 mini units :D We did North American Birds, Asia (My youngest son's fav), Space (My Youngest son's fave), Europe (Oldest Son's Fav), Earth Science (mommy's fav :P ), Human Body- my oldest son is doing this one and LOVING it! while my youngest does Botany - he loves cooking and gardening so we are having a lot of fun ! We will finish up the year with Oceans :D For Math, the boys are really enjoying Singapore Dimensions Math. Science the boys did a Catholic curriculum called Behold and See- loved it- lots of hands on experiments, great notebooks, visual textbooks LOVE. Social was a mish mash of things - government, social justice issues, economy, citizenship and responsibility, community leaders and belonging to a community, cultural diversity etc. We did a ton of read alouds this year and my previously "I hate reading"| boys are now reading on their own and asking me to read more YAY! We also did the Christmas and Easter mini units- Easter was our fav. I;m curious to try the Christmas around the World next year or do the Campfire Curriculum for Christmas...not sure yet. All my curriculuum for next year is officially here and I am sooo excited...probably more so than my boys HA! Wish I had tim to make videos cuz I love our choices. Language Arts..oh boy...the subject that causes tears all around. My youngest did Little Phonics for LIttle Kids, Level A Grammar, and Handrwiting practice. Next year, we will be doing the IEW Primary Language Arts in Writing, All About Spelling 1 and All About Reading 2. Second half of the Year we will tackle IEW Bible Heroes Lesson in Writing and Structure...super excited. My oldest...yah ...he struggles with LA- we switched curriculum lots this year. Finally dropped writing and went just with solidifying grammar, spelling, and writing sentences and paragraphs. Next year, we will tackle LEarning Language Arts through LIterature which coincidentally has many of the same novel study books as his Ancient Civilizations curriculum. Yay.

Horizons Math, Blessed Heritage History, Exploration Education Physical Science, The Good and the Beautiful Science and Building Spelling Skills all worked well for us this year! We enjoy Gather Round as well!

We will be using Gather ‘Round for the first time as single subjects for science and the Christmas and Easter mini units. I changed all but one company for this upcoming year (3rd grade), even though last year went well. All components of language arts will be spread out over different books because I didn’t find any all in one language arts curriculum I liked.

I tried Teaching Textbooks for my 6th grader and it was a fail. I was so sure that it would appeal to her game-loving brain, but she had zero patience to sit through the video lessons. She hated them. I realized that she likes to read it to learn it, so we are moving forward using Learn Math Fast books this year.

I love the not consumed Bible studies! I even find the parent one giving me a lot to think about, which I love!

New sub. Thank you so much for the Not Consumed recommendation. Happy to "meet" you.

We love teaching textbooks it has been our blessing since we started 3 years ago. Thank you for sharing your honesty in what worked and didn't work in your homeschool! I have heard good things about Gather Round. I just subbed to your channel and looking forward to connecting with you!

We’re loving gather round as well! Such a blessing to my family and the unit study approach clicks with my brain so it’s fun for me to teach it as well! My kids have recently started explode the code and love it! It’s been really good for them.

Hey friends! Thanks for stopping by today. I'd love to hear from you guys, what worked for you this school year and what didn't?

We also love Gather Round, Europe was amazing but oceans was astonishing! It makes my life so much easier. We tried fix it for extra grammar but may be trying analytical grammar this coming year for my high schoolers and scm language arts for my younger kids.

Yes!! We has the SAME experience with Masterbooks LA. We wound up switching back to Gather Round and giving the year 2 units a try because they have more LA in them. So right now, we are using GR and Explode the Code as a little extra. It's a little east for my almost 2nd grader, but I love that it's building his confidence because he is a shy and reluctant reader.

April! This just showed up for me, and I didn’t know you were making videos! It’s fun to see you, friend. :)

I think why explode the code was such a let down is because books 1-3 are intended for first grade, 4-6 for second grade. 😬

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Explode the Code is only for phonics. If your kids read well already, they wouldn't be challenged. Maybe try Easy Grammar, since you are already doing Gather Round as a main curriculum :)

Catching up on old videos! I saw that you used HOD at one point. is there a reason you didn’t continue it with your boys?

I may have missed it, but what did you like for language arts? How old are your boys? Maybe I should watch this again...😂 New sub here! Hello!

From Beth: I can understand why explode the code didn't work for you, as it is mostly a phonics program to teach kids to read. So if yours read then you are right it was probably boring for them :) my second grader did 5, 5.5, 6 and 6.5 this year. She enjoys them. But many of my friends use it just till their kids can read chapter books and move on. :)