Thank you! 🥰 I wish my brain was less cluttered so I could put together a coherent sentence! Or at least a thoughtful homeschool year. Haha!😆 Are you guys all set to start this fall?
@SummerMeyers I think so! We're staring next Monday😬 I'm going to try a slow start. I'm hoping easing in will be a smoother transition than previous years🙃 but the new school year excitement is happening🥳
This is so me right now. I've so many things in carts waiting on me to make a decision. I just know what we did last year didn't work. Feels good to know it's not just me.
@@SummerMeyers I had pulled in things from several curriculums and made some of my own. By the end of the year I was so stressed out and overwhelmed. I definitely need an open and go approach this year. Designing things for 2 kids and working 60 hours a week just isn't possible. I'm thinking on going with All about Reading and TGATB math for both kids. Science and history are still undecided lol.
We are Memoria Press family. The MP does mainly its grammar through their Latin program. My kids does the recitation portion which is quick 15 min work if done everyday (I believe there is a lesson plan for it as well) but it accumulates to be a lot to memorize at the end of the year if not done so. Honestly it’s a little dry and we are fine with it. For grammar portion, if you are not using MP Latin, Michael Clay Thompson grammar approaches to analyze the sentence structure (MP does this with Latin in a little similar way) and that improved my child’s writing sentences magnificently. The MCT is classical too. Their vocab program teaches the Latin root as well. Then it use the vocab words in their gram sentences!! I hope this helps!
I'll look into Michael Clay Thompson grammar. That's one I have not heard of! I would love to see a grammar approach that incorporates root words--that sounds so good! Thank you for the recommendation!
@@SummerMeyers There are limited number of review videos on MCT curriculum. I heard it’s due to their copy right? I think their website provides some previews. Their literature and writing was a little hard to teach myself but we love their poetry books so much as well so we use it for vocab, gram and poetry. Have fun researching!
@@logosrhemalego I tried finding some review videos of MCT and you are right, few and far between! And that is a lot of books to juggle during the year. I wish I could find a copy some where so I could get a feel for how it works during the day. I'll have to ponder that one...❤
I think the idea of having quarterly milestones is genius! I'm going to have to do this. We fizzled out and are now going to have to continue with some of our curriculum before moving on because we had SOOOOO MUCH "LIFE" happen this past year. So, as far as the quarterly milestones go, now I will have to figure out what that looks like. But it's genius and will make me feel better about how "relaxed" I've been.
Oh good I'm glad that made sense! Haha! I like the flexibility of saying "I would like to land here by the end of this month" and then saying "ahhhh well, we can fudge it a little!" 😆 😆 Especially when life does happen which it inevitably does! I hope the milestones will give me a bit of accountability. Are you all ready for the new year? ❤
You are real! I love it! Just the verbal processing of all the things! My twins were 4th grade last year and i iust had them read quite a bit and they did some IEW writing and we worked on spelling. I would love to see more books you'll assign your kids this year or will it be included in the literature you are trying?
I've got my personal reading lists for them, but I'm still tweaking it. I really wanted to post some book list videos this summer before school started, but c'est la vie. Haha! I'm a new convert to IEW. My oldest is going into her second year with it, and I love it! What did you guys use for spelling if you don't mind me asking? ❤
@SummerMeyers honestly I literally just took a list from somewhere around where my girls are at ( which isn't at grade level) and did a 5 day a week schedule in a composition book. Day 1 write every word for that week 3x, day 2 write sentences with each word, day 3 write a story with ALL the words from that week's list. Day 4 draw a picture and put the words in it. Day 5 test. It worked fairly well especially since I've been bad at doing spelling this seemed to make the most sense and I kept up on it the whole year. I will attempt christian light LA this year for both 5th and 7th graders and if the spelling is too hard go back to this simple idea!
Summer!! Hi!! Missed you and your videos! I always enjoy watching and love that you guys took a road trip... you know oif you're ever in Northern Ontario you have to stay come stay in the middle of nowhere in the Canadian Shield 🇨🇦 aka on my land 😅 hugs!! ❤
Gina! Thank you! Wouldn't that be awesome to meet up one day? That would be an epic adventure! And any time you come down to the US of A, please swing by North Carolina!
Our year fizzed out and we finished our year this school year that we started mid may!!! It’s the 1st year we set a date for the beginning of the school year!!! I was buying curriculums for this school year and we decided to start the new school year!!! We love classical learning and idk How it’s happening but I see how it’s helping my dyslexic older kids!!! We do memory statements together and it works!!!
My 4th grader is my youngest, and he’s a spicy one when it comes to language arts. We are doing IEW poetry memorization together as part of our morning time. He works with a reading tutor once a week and she gives him lists of words to practice with me. I don’t do any grammar, spelling, or formal writing until age 12 (gasp!) because my boys have dyslexia and it’s pointless until that age. 🤷🏼♀️ Lastly, we read aloud constantly, and that’s the extent of what he’s doing for LA.
Sounds like the perfect kind of homeschool! Lots of families wait for formal grammar and I think in a lot of ways that makes sense! The learning curve is much shorter the older you are so why slog for so long? ❤
I really like how you’re so honest in your videos, homeschooling is beautiful but it’s also complicated in some ways. I use logic of English with my elementary aged child . It includes phonics,spelling, grammar, vocabulary, reading and sentence level writing. (I don’t want to add any formal writing until she has a decent grasp on spelling and grammar) and we just read from different book lists..for my middle schooler I really like writing and rhetoric (from classical Edu press) with Michael clay Thompson grammar (might add the vocabulary book) (from royal fireworks press) and fix it grammar. I bought IEW SSS (fomo and because I know it’s good but I think I’m just going to spread it out for 2 years because I really like writing and rhetoric) it has a reading portion, narration, dictation, sentence play (grammar), and writing. It’s like classical edu and charlotte Mason had a baby. W&R is the only writing program that he doesn’t complain much (he hates writing- like it’s his worst enemy) he loves reading so I let him choose what he wants to read and I also check different book lists and just talk about it like at a book club, I don’t stress about it too much because I don’t want him to stop reading because it’ll become a chore if I add all those book reports and stuff like that. Anyway, I hope you find what works best for your children.
Thank you! ❤ How do you guys like MCT? You're the second person to mention it to me, and I've been looking at it. I haven't found many comprehensive reviews and I can't get my hands on hard copies.
@@SummerMeyers we like it because it doesn’t include a million worksheets, it’s like you’re reading any book and while reading, it explains grammar, with few practice. Once the grammar book is read you start doing a sentence a day to practice what you learned. So with fix it grammar it teaches a concept and you practice it throughout the week, then the next week the same plus previous concepts. (I use it as well, I like both for different reasons ) In the other hand MCT teaches the concept you practice a little and then when you know everything you practice with the sentences. You analyze everything from that sentence (parts of speech, parts of sentence, clauses, phrases and vocabulary words) The vocabulary book teaches it with word study. You learn the stem and by adding it to other parts of word you learn the meaning of that word. Instead of learning a bunch of new words and practicing it in sentences until you know the meaning and do it a million times in a workbook, with MCT you study the stems and learn it like that. My son said that he remembers the parts of speech “job” by knowing the meaning of each word. The writing part isn’t my favorite, not because is not good, but because it teaches the concept and then tells you go do it. Giving many many ideas of writing projects. But for my son that needs that guidance, we just do writing and rhetoric, because it gives you the guidance but also leave room for creativity. So In summary, with MCT you learn by reading and practice a bit, but then add more practice once you know what was taught. The way it’s written too, it’s understandable for kids, it just clicks. I hope I was able to explain it well.
We started our year (first grade) using ELTL and we scrapped it halfway through the year. Some of the books were a hit with my daughter (like Pinocchio) but some of them were just not great literature choices for a first grader (I'm looking at you Five Children and It 😅) It might just be my daughter but at 6 she just did Not have the attention span to sit through 30 pg chapters every time we read. Interested to see how you like it if you end up choosing it! Also, happy to see you've decided to try Total Language Plus!! Excited to see how you like that one!
Oh no! I was worried about that! I've never read Five children and it-- Does not land well on my modern ears thats for sure. Haha! We'll see how it goes-- I might need to just go back to TGTB for my first grader, if it doesn't work out. What did you end up using for her instead?
@@SummerMeyers First grade was definitely a trial and error year- we used TGTB Level 1- she cried every time we had a lesson 😅 She LOVED the readers though so we stuck with those, then we tried Lifepac LA. We liked that at first but I found it to be too classroom-y(?) Like it felt like the activities were written to be done in a classroom setting. Then we finally landed on the JacKris publishing LA curriculum- Growing with Grammar, Winning with Writing and Soaring with Spelling- total game changer! Straight to the point lessons, no extra fluff (its also just black and white though, I know a lot of people need color in their curriculum!) and super affordable!
@@SummerMeyers We're for sure sticking with the Growing with Grammar by JacKris! At this point I can see that being our core grammar curriculum for the rest of the available levels. I think it goes to 8th grade. I've decided to change up spelling and writing curriculums though. We really enjoyed them for first grade but when I flipped through level 2 of Soaring with Spelling I found it took quite a jump in difficulty level and my girl wasn't quite ready for it yet. The Winning with Writing was also great but I decided to try the Spectrum writing because that's the spelling curriculum I've decided to try out this coming year. If we don't like that I will definitely switch back to Winning with Writing though!
So glad I'm not the only one! I can't believe its August already and I'm still trying to figure out my life. 😅😆 Did you end finding something you love for this year?
@@SummerMeyers You know I was literally thinking the same. I meant it went whoosh! I'm like wait huh where am I what's happening. 🤣🤣🤣 Well, I have a mix of things from Abeka, the Good and the Beautiful and a few other things I'm going to use. I'm like okay Lord just help me to get a good plan. We've had some super crazy financial things this year that hit us hard so I said okay well we will do our best and just go with it. 😸😁😎 And our school year sssizzled out too. I think it was that moment of easing right out of it.
@@Blessedgal_3897 That is exactly what happened with our end of the year! Just a pitiful fizzle out. 🤦♀️😆😂 Next year, mama! This is our time! I just need to tuck that crazy back in a little more tightly. 😂😂
@@SummerMeyers 🤣🤣🤣Just crazy isn't it. Exactly what I said. I've been trying to pump myself up. The gal that used to encourage me when first homeschooling my oldest in 2020 before the crazy stuff hit bailed on me so I'm my own cheering corner. This year we've got this. 😁
We use Christian Light Education (CLE) for English Language Arts, it's very thorough & broken down into 10 individual "lightunits" (workbooks) per grade.
@@SummerMeyers I've used it for grades 1 and 3-6. It includes spelling in each lesson as well, but you could totally skip that part for another curriculum if you wanted.
@@ashleylebeau6047 Do you mind me picking your brain? ❤️🤞 What did you think about the reading comprehension? Does it have a book selection or is it something they do within the work book?
@@SummerMeyers So, the Language Arts is just grammar, english, and spelling. They have a separate reading curriculum that we've used, which is also thorough. I really like how it's set up- you can do all the extras in the teacher's manual but my kids just do it all on their own. Also keep in mind it's made by Mennonites so a lot of the stories are centered around that style of content 😀.
@@ashleylebeau6047 That's right, I forgot it was designed by Mennonites. They have a great booth setup at the homeschool conference I go to each year. That's nice that it's independent enough for your kids to run with it! I love curriculums that do that!
Is Grammar 4 the Easy Grammar? I was just looking at Easy Grammar today--Looks really thorough. I'm a little intimidated with how thick the book was. Do you guys manage to do those books in a year?
@@SummerMeyers Sorry, it’s actually called BJU English 4. It alternates one chapter of grammar with one chapter of writing. It has one lesson each day that you do, and my kiddos finish about 80-85% of the book in a year doing 4 days a week. 😊
@@juliequezada7504 I see! What do you do with your books at the end of the year if you didn't finish, if you don't mind me asking? I feel like this happens to us pretty frequently and I always get mixed answers. Lots of people I know just keep going until its done, and a few just move on to the next level. I haven't found a sweet spot with this, so I'm curious what you do. ☺❤
I have used Learning language arts through literature for 4 years now and I love it. At fourth grade (purple book) they can pretty much read the instructions and do it themselves. I just had to make sure she had the supplements (i.e. newspaper, literature books, poster board or other craft supplies). We like hands on but a lot of it is optional.
Oh I'm so glad you commented! Can I pick your brain for a moment? I was just scheduling out my book (I ended up going with Orange? I hope that was the right choice!) and I realized that it is 180 day lessons. We do co-op on Thursday and rarely get school done then so we are looking at a 4 day work week. Do you guys finish the book? ❤
We do because we school all year around. 😂 But also some of the lessons at the first part of the week aren't has rigorous in work. You can easily do 2 days work in one. And there have been times where we would do 3 lessons in one day.
I tried BJU English for two years. I liked it, my daughter did NOT. So we’re trying Sonlight Language Arts D along with the Readers. We are using that alongside Notgrass Our Star Spangled Story because my daughter is a big reader. ❤ 😊 Love your videos. 😂
Thank you! ❤❤ Isn't is funny how different it is for kids vs adults? I love that you are taking her opinion into consideration! Notgrass for the win! I love it!
I have a 4th grader this year! She's my oldest so I guess she's the guinea pig😅. I'm an English major so I'm always checking out Language Arts curriculums. I'm actually going to try English Lessons Through Literature Level B, Blossoming, with her, I was looking for B or C used but only found B so far so that's what we'll start with! She is already using Simply Charlotte Mason Using Language Well and Spelling Wisdom, which I really do like, it's gentle and short and teaches the grammar points, but for some reason I want to do more...😆 She does ULW and SW twice a week so we'll try ELTL on two alternate days. I also had her start Word Roots last year and we'll finish that and move on to the next level. She enjoys that. I also have Crypto Words Jr. for her to try. And we have the first level of Grammar Galaxy that I might try with both her and my 2nd grader once a week to see if we like it, we tried it last year but I couldn't fit it in. So yeah...don't know if that helps..I'm a little all over the place with Language Arts! This is the year of experimenting! Good luck with your new school year.
My guinea pig (my 8th grader 😅) didn't do so hot with my choices in 5th and 6th grade so now my second oldest is going through the experiment again! Haha! By the time my youngest gets to 4th grade, I'll have the system perfected! ... right...? Pretty sure thats how it works. 😉😆 Let me know what you think of Grammar Galaxy. I keep seeing it on the shelves at our homeschool store, and I haven't had a chance to look through it.
We just did TGATB 4th grade. I liked it except the spelling which we changed for Spelling U See. I know you know that option though, so it might not be much help!
😆 I always like to take a poll of what everyone is doing though! Haha! I really do love TGTB. Its comforting to know that I can fall back on it, if we aren't pleased with what we are experimenting with.
Summer can I just say how much I love your videos ❤ girl I could watch you talking about homeschooling all day
🥰🥰 Thank you! Coming from you that means soo much!
Lol I always love your videos 😂 you’re so real and funny. Hoping this year goes smoothly for all of us!
🙏🙏Please let it go well for all of us this year! 🙏🙏 Haha! ❤
I love your videos. Watching you talk out what your brains thinking is so relatable. And you're hilarious too. Perfect combo🙌
Thank you! 🥰 I wish my brain was less cluttered so I could put together a coherent sentence! Or at least a thoughtful homeschool year. Haha!😆 Are you guys all set to start this fall?
@SummerMeyers I think so! We're staring next Monday😬 I'm going to try a slow start. I'm hoping easing in will be a smoother transition than previous years🙃 but the new school year excitement is happening🥳
@@rebekahian I'm a firm believer in easing in transitions. 😆❤️ Works for the pool and school years.
Very interesting and helpful!
Thank you!
I absolutely LOVE that you did the road trip with your kids!! So cool :)
Next time we'll make a real pit stop in Indiana!
This is so me right now. I've so many things in carts waiting on me to make a decision. I just know what we did last year didn't work. Feels good to know it's not just me.
Solidarity! 😅 What were you using last year?
@@SummerMeyers I had pulled in things from several curriculums and made some of my own. By the end of the year I was so stressed out and overwhelmed. I definitely need an open and go approach this year. Designing things for 2 kids and working 60 hours a week just isn't possible. I'm thinking on going with All about Reading and TGATB math for both kids. Science and history are still undecided lol.
@@Amanda-hz1lq Oh man working too! Super woman! How old are your kids?
We are Memoria Press family. The MP does mainly its grammar through their Latin program. My kids does the recitation portion which is quick 15 min work if done everyday (I believe there is a lesson plan for it as well) but it accumulates to be a lot to memorize at the end of the year if not done so. Honestly it’s a little dry and we are fine with it. For grammar portion, if you are not using MP Latin, Michael Clay Thompson grammar approaches to analyze the sentence structure (MP does this with Latin in a little similar way) and that improved my child’s writing sentences magnificently. The MCT is classical too. Their vocab program teaches the Latin root as well. Then it use the vocab words in their gram sentences!! I hope this helps!
I'll look into Michael Clay Thompson grammar. That's one I have not heard of! I would love to see a grammar approach that incorporates root words--that sounds so good! Thank you for the recommendation!
@@SummerMeyers There are limited number of review videos on MCT curriculum. I heard it’s due to their copy right? I think their website provides some previews. Their literature and writing was a little hard to teach myself but we love their poetry books so much as well so we use it for vocab, gram and poetry. Have fun researching!
@@logosrhemalego I tried finding some review videos of MCT and you are right, few and far between! And that is a lot of books to juggle during the year. I wish I could find a copy some where so I could get a feel for how it works during the day. I'll have to ponder that one...❤
I think the idea of having quarterly milestones is genius! I'm going to have to do this. We fizzled out and are now going to have to continue with some of our curriculum before moving on because we had SOOOOO MUCH "LIFE" happen this past year.
So, as far as the quarterly milestones go, now I will have to figure out what that looks like. But it's genius and will make me feel better about how "relaxed" I've been.
Oh good I'm glad that made sense! Haha! I like the flexibility of saying "I would like to land here by the end of this month" and then saying "ahhhh well, we can fudge it a little!" 😆 😆 Especially when life does happen which it inevitably does! I hope the milestones will give me a bit of accountability.
Are you all ready for the new year? ❤
@@SummerMeyers ready? What's that? 😆 🤣 😂 Ready or not!!
You are real! I love it! Just the verbal processing of all the things!
My twins were 4th grade last year and i iust had them read quite a bit and they did some IEW writing and we worked on spelling.
I would love to see more books you'll assign your kids this year or will it be included in the literature you are trying?
I've got my personal reading lists for them, but I'm still tweaking it. I really wanted to post some book list videos this summer before school started, but c'est la vie. Haha!
I'm a new convert to IEW. My oldest is going into her second year with it, and I love it! What did you guys use for spelling if you don't mind me asking? ❤
@SummerMeyers honestly I literally just took a list from somewhere around where my girls are at ( which isn't at grade level) and did a 5 day a week schedule in a composition book. Day 1 write every word for that week 3x, day 2 write sentences with each word, day 3 write a story with ALL the words from that week's list. Day 4 draw a picture and put the words in it. Day 5 test. It worked fairly well especially since I've been bad at doing spelling this seemed to make the most sense and I kept up on it the whole year. I will attempt christian light LA this year for both 5th and 7th graders and if the spelling is too hard go back to this simple idea!
@@allisonward6621 I really love that simple approach you took for spelling! That is brilliant and I might need to steal it. ❤
Summer!! Hi!! Missed you and your videos! I always enjoy watching and love that you guys took a road trip... you know oif you're ever in Northern Ontario you have to stay come stay in the middle of nowhere in the Canadian Shield 🇨🇦 aka on my land 😅 hugs!! ❤
Gina! Thank you! Wouldn't that be awesome to meet up one day? That would be an epic adventure! And any time you come down to the US of A, please swing by North Carolina!
Our year fizzed out and we finished our year this school year that we started mid may!!! It’s the 1st year we set a date for the beginning of the school year!!! I was buying curriculums for this school year and we decided to start the new school year!!! We love classical learning and idk How it’s happening but I see how it’s helping my dyslexic older kids!!! We do memory statements together and it works!!!
That's great! What kind of memory statements did you guys work on? ❤
@@SummerMeyers catechisms and we are adding in history this year!!!
My 4th grader is my youngest, and he’s a spicy one when it comes to language arts. We are doing IEW poetry memorization together as part of our morning time. He works with a reading tutor once a week and she gives him lists of words to practice with me. I don’t do any grammar, spelling, or formal writing until age 12 (gasp!) because my boys have dyslexia and it’s pointless until that age. 🤷🏼♀️
Lastly, we read aloud constantly, and that’s the extent of what he’s doing for LA.
Sounds like the perfect kind of homeschool! Lots of families wait for formal grammar and I think in a lot of ways that makes sense! The learning curve is much shorter the older you are so why slog for so long? ❤
I really like how you’re so honest in your videos, homeschooling is beautiful but it’s also complicated in some ways.
I use logic of English with my elementary aged child . It includes phonics,spelling, grammar, vocabulary, reading and sentence level writing. (I don’t want to add any formal writing until she has a decent grasp on spelling and grammar) and we just read from different book lists..for my middle schooler I really like writing and rhetoric (from classical Edu press) with Michael clay Thompson grammar (might add the vocabulary book) (from royal fireworks press) and fix it grammar. I bought IEW SSS (fomo and because I know it’s good but I think I’m just going to spread it out for 2 years because I really like writing and rhetoric) it has a reading portion, narration, dictation, sentence play (grammar), and writing. It’s like classical edu and charlotte Mason had a baby. W&R is the only writing program that he doesn’t complain much (he hates writing- like it’s his worst enemy) he loves reading so I let him choose what he wants to read and I also check different book lists and just talk about it like at a book club, I don’t stress about it too much because I don’t want him to stop reading because it’ll become a chore if I add all those book reports and stuff like that. Anyway, I hope you find what works best for your children.
Thank you! ❤ How do you guys like MCT? You're the second person to mention it to me, and I've been looking at it. I haven't found many comprehensive reviews and I can't get my hands on hard copies.
@@SummerMeyers we like it because it doesn’t include a million worksheets, it’s like you’re reading any book and while reading, it explains grammar, with few practice. Once the grammar book is read you start doing a sentence a day to practice what you learned. So with fix it grammar it teaches a concept and you practice it throughout the week, then the next week the same plus previous concepts. (I use it as well, I like both for different reasons ) In the other hand MCT teaches the concept you practice a little and then when you know everything you practice with the sentences. You analyze everything from that sentence (parts of speech, parts of sentence, clauses, phrases and vocabulary words)
The vocabulary book teaches it with word study. You learn the stem and by adding it to other parts of word you learn the meaning of that word. Instead of learning a bunch of new words and practicing it in sentences until you know the meaning and do it a million times in a workbook, with MCT you study the stems and learn it like that. My son said that he remembers the parts of speech “job” by knowing the meaning of each word. The writing part isn’t my favorite, not because is not good, but because it teaches the concept and then tells you go do it. Giving many many ideas of writing projects. But for my son that needs that guidance, we just do writing and rhetoric, because it gives you the guidance but also leave room for creativity.
So In summary, with MCT you learn by reading and practice a bit, but then add more practice once you know what was taught. The way it’s written too, it’s understandable for kids, it just clicks. I hope I was able to explain it well.
We started our year (first grade) using ELTL and we scrapped it halfway through the year. Some of the books were a hit with my daughter (like Pinocchio) but some of them were just not great literature choices for a first grader (I'm looking at you Five Children and It 😅) It might just be my daughter but at 6 she just did Not have the attention span to sit through 30 pg chapters every time we read. Interested to see how you like it if you end up choosing it! Also, happy to see you've decided to try Total Language Plus!! Excited to see how you like that one!
Oh no! I was worried about that! I've never read Five children and it-- Does not land well on my modern ears thats for sure. Haha! We'll see how it goes-- I might need to just go back to TGTB for my first grader, if it doesn't work out. What did you end up using for her instead?
@@SummerMeyers First grade was definitely a trial and error year- we used TGTB Level 1- she cried every time we had a lesson 😅 She LOVED the readers though so we stuck with those, then we tried Lifepac LA. We liked that at first but I found it to be too classroom-y(?) Like it felt like the activities were written to be done in a classroom setting. Then we finally landed on the JacKris publishing LA curriculum- Growing with Grammar, Winning with Writing and Soaring with Spelling- total game changer! Straight to the point lessons, no extra fluff (its also just black and white though, I know a lot of people need color in their curriculum!) and super affordable!
@@reneej7584 I'll have to look into JacKris! I haven't heard of that one. Are you going to stick with that next year?
@@SummerMeyers We're for sure sticking with the Growing with Grammar by JacKris! At this point I can see that being our core grammar curriculum for the rest of the available levels. I think it goes to 8th grade. I've decided to change up spelling and writing curriculums though. We really enjoyed them for first grade but when I flipped through level 2 of Soaring with Spelling I found it took quite a jump in difficulty level and my girl wasn't quite ready for it yet. The Winning with Writing was also great but I decided to try the Spectrum writing because that's the spelling curriculum I've decided to try out this coming year. If we don't like that I will definitely switch back to Winning with Writing though!
Girl I'm right there with you. LOL Literally this is my last week to plan and get myself together. 😂 Me too I'm like why can't I ever say no. 😬😁😂🤣
So glad I'm not the only one! I can't believe its August already and I'm still trying to figure out my life. 😅😆 Did you end finding something you love for this year?
@@SummerMeyers You know I was literally thinking the same. I meant it went whoosh! I'm like wait huh where am I what's happening. 🤣🤣🤣 Well, I have a mix of things from Abeka, the Good and the Beautiful and a few other things I'm going to use. I'm like okay Lord just help me to get a good plan. We've had some super crazy financial things this year that hit us hard so I said okay well we will do our best and just go with it. 😸😁😎 And our school year sssizzled out too. I think it was that moment of easing right out of it.
@@Blessedgal_3897 That is exactly what happened with our end of the year! Just a pitiful fizzle out. 🤦♀️😆😂 Next year, mama! This is our time! I just need to tuck that crazy back in a little more tightly. 😂😂
@@SummerMeyers 🤣🤣🤣Just crazy isn't it. Exactly what I said. I've been trying to pump myself up. The gal that used to encourage me when first homeschooling my oldest in 2020 before the crazy stuff hit bailed on me so I'm my own cheering corner. This year we've got this. 😁
@@Blessedgal_3897 I can join you in your cheering corner! We can do this! 💪🎉❤
We use Christian Light Education (CLE) for English Language Arts, it's very thorough & broken down into 10 individual "lightunits" (workbooks) per grade.
Maybe this is the year I should try Christian Light--I hear so many good things about it. What grades have you used it for?
@@SummerMeyers I've used it for grades 1 and 3-6. It includes spelling in each lesson as well, but you could totally skip that part for another curriculum if you wanted.
@@ashleylebeau6047 Do you mind me picking your brain? ❤️🤞 What did you think about the reading comprehension? Does it have a book selection or is it something they do within the work book?
@@SummerMeyers So, the Language Arts is just grammar, english, and spelling. They have a separate reading curriculum that we've used, which is also thorough. I really like how it's set up- you can do all the extras in the teacher's manual but my kids just do it all on their own. Also keep in mind it's made by Mennonites so a lot of the stories are centered around that style of content 😀.
@@ashleylebeau6047 That's right, I forgot it was designed by Mennonites. They have a great booth setup at the homeschool conference I go to each year. That's nice that it's independent enough for your kids to run with it! I love curriculums that do that!
We use BJU Writing and Grammar 4, Sonlight grade 4 readers, Spelling You See, and Handwriting Without Tears.
Is Grammar 4 the Easy Grammar? I was just looking at Easy Grammar today--Looks really thorough. I'm a little intimidated with how thick the book was. Do you guys manage to do those books in a year?
@@SummerMeyers Sorry, it’s actually called BJU English 4. It alternates one chapter of grammar with one chapter of writing. It has one lesson each day that you do, and my kiddos finish about 80-85% of the book in a year doing 4 days a week. 😊
@@juliequezada7504 I see! What do you do with your books at the end of the year if you didn't finish, if you don't mind me asking? I feel like this happens to us pretty frequently and I always get mixed answers. Lots of people I know just keep going until its done, and a few just move on to the next level. I haven't found a sweet spot with this, so I'm curious what you do. ☺❤
@@SummerMeyers I chuck it, and then we move on to the next level. lol 😄
I have used Learning language arts through literature for 4 years now and I love it. At fourth grade (purple book) they can pretty much read the instructions and do it themselves. I just had to make sure she had the supplements (i.e. newspaper, literature books, poster board or other craft supplies). We like hands on but a lot of it is optional.
Oh I'm so glad you commented! Can I pick your brain for a moment? I was just scheduling out my book (I ended up going with Orange? I hope that was the right choice!) and I realized that it is 180 day lessons. We do co-op on Thursday and rarely get school done then so we are looking at a 4 day work week. Do you guys finish the book? ❤
We do because we school all year around. 😂 But also some of the lessons at the first part of the week aren't has rigorous in work. You can easily do 2 days work in one. And there have been times where we would do 3 lessons in one day.
Yay!!! Classical and CM!! :) 😉
Fingers crossed it works!
Lewis.... totally my favorite 😍
I tried BJU English for two years. I liked it, my daughter did NOT. So we’re trying Sonlight Language Arts D along with the Readers. We are using that alongside Notgrass Our Star Spangled Story because my daughter is a big reader. ❤ 😊
Love your videos. 😂
Thank you! ❤❤ Isn't is funny how different it is for kids vs adults? I love that you are taking her opinion into consideration! Notgrass for the win! I love it!
Psh! CZcams totally hid this from me! Glad I am finding it!!
😂 The Algorithm is out to get me! 🤣🤣🤪
I have a 4th grader this year! She's my oldest so I guess she's the guinea pig😅. I'm an English major so I'm always checking out Language Arts curriculums. I'm actually going to try English Lessons Through Literature Level B, Blossoming, with her, I was looking for B or C used but only found B so far so that's what we'll start with! She is already using Simply Charlotte Mason Using Language Well and Spelling Wisdom, which I really do like, it's gentle and short and teaches the grammar points, but for some reason I want to do more...😆 She does ULW and SW twice a week so we'll try ELTL on two alternate days. I also had her start Word Roots last year and we'll finish that and move on to the next level. She enjoys that. I also have Crypto Words Jr. for her to try. And we have the first level of Grammar Galaxy that I might try with both her and my 2nd grader once a week to see if we like it, we tried it last year but I couldn't fit it in. So yeah...don't know if that helps..I'm a little all over the place with Language Arts! This is the year of experimenting!
Good luck with your new school year.
My guinea pig (my 8th grader 😅) didn't do so hot with my choices in 5th and 6th grade so now my second oldest is going through the experiment again! Haha! By the time my youngest gets to 4th grade, I'll have the system perfected! ... right...? Pretty sure thats how it works. 😉😆
Let me know what you think of Grammar Galaxy. I keep seeing it on the shelves at our homeschool store, and I haven't had a chance to look through it.
We just did TGATB 4th grade. I liked it except the spelling which we changed for Spelling U See. I know you know that option though, so it might not be much help!
😆 I always like to take a poll of what everyone is doing though! Haha! I really do love TGTB. Its comforting to know that I can fall back on it, if we aren't pleased with what we are experimenting with.
We are doing bju English for 4th grade
Did you guys use BJU last year? How did that go?
"If you don't say it to the internet, it doesn't happen. Right ?" 🤣
🤣🤣 That's right! I don't think I can count it otherwise. Haha!