Thoughts on our School Year 2007-2008

AS another school year comes to a close I find myself reflecting on the progress we have made. The areas that need more work and the resources we have used this past year. IN light of that I thought I would list some thoughts on the resources we used this past school year, how well the kids liked them, or didn't like them and if we will use them again.

Language Arts Resources:
~LLATL: This is a new resource for us. We started the year using Blue level (1st grade) for Sarah, Orange level (4th grade) for Daniel and Tan level (6th grade) for Mallory. VEry quickly we discovered that Orange was not a good fit for Daniel, as he needed more work with phonics and reading fluency. So we discontinued it's use with him. It was not a matter of the curriculum being a "bad fit" but more a matter of readiness. Blue Level turned out to be a good choice for Sarah. I got easily frustrated with the little "games" included but she loved the whole program. WE did skip some things that seems redundant, but for hte most part did the curriculum as planned. She is ending the year reading well for her age and level. This resourced worked well and we will continue with it next year using the Red level (2nd grade). On to the Tan level for Mallory. AT first, it was a bit of an adjustment for M. The copywork/dictation part took some time for her to get accustomed to, but once we got in the groove of it, we both liked it well. The creative writing assignments were interesting and led to some very nice stories, peoms and writings. We flip flopped with using the literature passage as dictation/copywork but settled on using it as copywork for the most part due to spelling issues. The books chosen for the book studies were all interesting and engaging and she enjoyed all of them. Though we did use the study guides a bit, for discussion we did mostly oral discussion of the books. She has chosen to stick with this resource for LA (except spelling) for next year.

SPELLING: This was a difficult subject this year. We started out using LLATL as the only spelling, but quickly figured out that for Mallory we were trying this out too late! So for both her and Daniel we tried Dr. Aardma's spelling drill until our dog ate it. THe kids liked it but I am not sure it helped a whole lot. We used Sequential Spelling (tried it out for the second time) and they both hated it! We switched to Spelling power for both her and Daniel for hte last 3 months or so of the year and I hate it! I did not see any results, and I DID use the program the way it describes I think we need something different. Sigh.... We have decided to use All About Spelling for next year. I actually wanted to try this when we got Spelling Power but the price scared me away! LOL. Now I wish we had just bitten the bullet and tried it anyway. I feel like we've wasted the last 3 months or so using Spelling Power, I know some people love it, but it just didn't work for us. I'm going to keep it though, cause you never know, it may work at another time or for another child.

PHONICS: For Daniel we stopped using LLATL to do some more intensive phonics/reading fluency exercises, most of which I just threw together. We did continue to use Phonics Pathways and almost finished the book. We discontinued using it about 2 months ago because it seems like he has made the leap that he was getting stuck on. He spent a lot of time this year doing silent reading and we have been adding in oral reading in the last month. I see some vast improvements doing this. We have also added Explode the code workbooks for the end of the year, and into the summer months.

History: Mysery Of History Volume 1.. We did about half of this resource. While we were using it, I really liked it. I did dislike some things about it, like the mapping, but for the most part was happy with the resource. It is well written and interesting. It held Mallory's attention very well, but not quite so with the younger two. We really enjoyed using the time line and it was our favorite aspect of the curriculum. BUT, once we were about half way through, we evaluated the kids to see if they had retained anything and discoverd that even Mallory, who was really enjoying it, had not retained very much. SIGH! After talking to them all, we also discoverd that the things they remembered from history all came from interesting books that we had used as read alouds.. so we are going back to winging history with read alouds again for next year. I have to say that I was disappointed in the results from MOH, because I DID enjoy reading it and using it. I am sure that it works great for other families, as it is a great resource. I am also hanging on to this one for future use as a reference ect.

Science: We continued with Apologia's elementary curriculum. We used Zoo I Flying creatures of the 5th day. We had previously done Botony and Astronomy and loved them. Zoo turned out to be a flop for us. Simply because my oldest two already knew all the information contained therein. WE did about 3/4ths of the book and all just got tired of the upshot hands waving in the air because they knew what I was about to read. We feel we have exhausted Apologia's elementary curriculum right now, so we will try NOEO next year as my middle wants to learn some Chemistry and it was the most interesting resource I found that I would have the least amount of work with.

MATH: Well, we started the year out using MUS for all three. We have used MUS for 4 years. While I have always been a die hard MUS fan, and still think it is a fantastic program, we did make a switch this year for all three kids. Mallory is still have difficulty with memorizing math facts.. her dyscalculia is rearing it's ugly head and MUS was putting so much focus on memorization that she was despondant and hating math. So much so that I would find her scribbles on her assignment sheet declaring that fact! I did plenty of research, since I was so sold out on MUS it was hard to find something that met our needs, but I eventually found Teaching Textbooks. We purchased it several months ago and she is really doing well with this resource. I will try to post a full review of it another time, but we'll have to let it suffice to say that TT has revolutionized math at our house. We are still working on fact memorization but for everyday math, this program is better than apple pie! Once Daniel saw it in action he was done with MUS, lol!! So he switched within a few weeks of Mallory starting it. AS for Sarah, this was her first official year using MUS and she struggled with it from the beginning. It just was not a good fit for her like it was in the beginning with her siblings. AFter much more research I decided to try Rod and Staff and she is doing beautifully with it. I would never have thought that such a traditional textbook math would work so well, but it fits her learning style great, so for now we are staying with it.

We did do some other extra things but those are the main things we used. I am planning on getting reviews posted of the individual resources we used, as time allows this summer.

I'll save the new things we are trying for next year for a seperate post, which I am sure that you are thankful for. ;-)