2015-2016 Coming to a Close

I'm ready for a fresh new start! Spring is just around the corner and I already feel a renewed sense of energy and excitement in my homeschool. Sunshine and shiny new curriculum and books do that to me!

Before moving on, I want to update with a quick wrap-up of our "school year." (Just so you know, our "school year" technically started a year ago, so it's time).





Bo 4K

The heart of Bo's 2015-2016 curriculum was All About Reading Pre-reading, Sonlight P4/5, and rowing a few Before FIAR books left to row (and I snuck in a winter row from Volume 1).  (Also, I'll include summer school in our wrap up, since we school year round.)

What we rowed this past school year: 

Summer:


Fall: 


Winter:


Sonlight  P 4/5: We are still reading away and will be for at least a month or so. At about Week 23, I was tired of skipping around so we stopped reading a week at a time and started finishing up books. So we are still at week 23, but have read all the way to week 36 for several books. We have Mother Goose and Children's Book of Virtues, Tales of Peter Rabbit, and Milly Molly Mandy left for storybooks and a few science books left to read. I'm not starting a new core with Bo this coming school year (we'll save Core A for the following year), so I'm not in a big hurry to finish. We also added in the Thornton Burgess nature books and will continue those this coming school year.

All About Reading Pre-readingBo started AAR when he was 3 years, 7 months and finished when he was 5 years, 2 months. So it took him about 18 months to complete it. By the time we got to letter sounds, he had a good grasp of all 5 pre-reading skills and flew through letter sounds in 2 months. (In truth though, he knew all the letters and most of the sounds by age 3 from completing Tot School. You can see what we did under my "Early Learning" tab and then "Tot School with Bo").

To celebrate, I bought him a Dilly Bar. :)


Eliana (3rd) & Malachi (4th)

Their 2015-2016 curriculum is listed here for reference.

This was a really "off" year for us. I started Eliana off with Bigger Hearts for His Glory from Heart of Dakota - my 2nd attempt to use HOD, and the 2nd time I dropped a guide mid year.

I loved several of the books, though. John Audubon was our favorite. I sold everything to buy new curriculum, but ended up keeping A Pioneer Sampler and a 2nd copy of Thomas Edison, and we will read those this coming year.

We picked up Sonlight D&E - one year American History to replace HOD. We made it through half of D&E. We are up to the Civil War - Across Five Aprils is our next read-aloud and we are on Book 2 of the Landmark Book of American History. We will continue with American History this coming school year with a few additions.

I suppose Veritas Press Online Self Paced History is the source of my discontentment with other American History programs. Malachi did Explorers to 1815. He learned so much that I felt like we weren't learning anything at all. This is such a great program! Since American History is spread out over two years, this helped me decide to spread it out for Eliana as well. I then was on the hunt to find  another American History spine for Eliana (and Malachi who sits in on History with Eliana). If you decide to buy this, please use my referral link - it is half priced until the 21st and so worth it if you have a student that loves fun video learning with games and challenges!

We finished the Sign of the Beaver unit of Blessed Assurance. We did a few more hands on activities, but not many. Malachi whittled fish hooks, made a pair of moccasins, and drank dandelion tea, but we mostly read and did the comprehension questions and discussion. Before that we rowed The Hatmaker's Sign to tie in with our study of Benjamin Franklin, Colonial Times, and the American Revolution.

Eliana finished her Math Lessons 3, handwriting, and BJU English. She has 6 lessons left in All About Reading and is on Step 11 in AAS. I decided to finish reading first and then do the spelling. She'll finish reading this month and then we'll plug away on spelling.


Malachi finished his AAS 5, Math Lessons 4, handwriting, and BJU English. He is 11 weeks into Math Lessons 5 and will hopefully complete that before summer and then take a break from math. He learned 32 Greek/Latin roots from English from the Roots Up and should continue that this coming year at much the same pace (1-2 roots per week). 


Since we did Botany over the summer, I didn't feel much pressure to do Science over the winter, but we will make up for it this coming year for sure. :)

Even though we have a few things that we will finish up, this brings our school year officially to a close.

Until next time... at which time I hope to share what we are doing next. :)

Update: May 5th, 2016 - Elli finished her AAR awhile ago, we took a good long break and she is now on Lesson 18 in AAS. Malachi is on Lesson 19 in MLLE5. Lesson 19 is a review of all new concepts, so I think this might be a good place to stop for the summer. I thought my post would bring a sense of finality to the year, but I guess I need finality on all our subjects. After next week, we'll be done with math and be in the home stretch to finish spelling.