For those who enjoy being bored, here's the recap of this past year's curriculum*.
Classically Catholic Memorization - Beta Year
Same opinion as last year - this is a great all-around supplement to a (mainly) classical home school curriculum. Is it just me, or is beta year so much easier than alpha year? Maybe The Boy is just a year older and more used to the memorization process, but the content did feel more natural. He did quite a bit of the "extra credit" this year and I know it will pay off in coming years.
Religion/Catechism
We basically spent the entire year preparing for Confirmation and First Eucharist (re-ordered Sacraments in our diocese). I was so worried we would skim over Confirmation content that we spent a lot of time on that and *almost* forgot about Eucharist... oops. The bulk of our formal learning was with the "Tell Me About the Catholic Faith" published by Ignatius and Magnificat. I LOVE THIS BOOK. It is very well-written. It brought up several advanced topics but in balanced, age-appropriate ways, two examples being 1) the Protestant Reformation and 2) atheism/agnosticism. Sections included 1) Bible history, 2) history of the Catholic Church, and 3) life of faith (Sacraments, Prayer, devotions).
Other books used: St. Joseph Catechism, First Communion and Confirmation books from our parish, sacrament guidance books from our diocese, and Fr. Lovasik books (Receiving Holy Communion, the Seven Sacraments, the Holy Spirit, Gifts of the Holy Spirit, etc.). We have continued to read from his children's Bible, but he has been doing more independent Bible reading with 1) The Action Bible (cartoon style, which makes it attractive to kids) and 2) The Picture Bible (Iva Hoth) (less cartoon-y and more complete, but still child-friendly).
A big shout-out to Holy Heroes for their FREEEEEEE Advent and Lenten Adventures, Mass prep videos and quizzes, and audio CDs (these are not free, but they are really good and worth the $).
Helpful projects: liturgical calendar from Catholic Icing, a patron saint research project/lapbook to help prepare for Confirmation. His coop teacher helped the kids make a gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit booklet - so neat!
Math
Right Start Math Level D. I supplemented with Khan Academy videos and practice for certain concepts as it was going too quickly for him in places. We love wrap-ups for drilling math facts - Hubby found good deals for these on E-bay.
Language Arts
This felt scattered and I am hoping to find a more comprehensive curriculum for language arts, rather than doing pieces from this book and that. It's worked up to this point, but a place pinpointed for some R & D this summer.
Spelling: SpellWell (same authors/publisher as Explode the Code) - a friendly, fun spelling program that doesn't TAKE OVER YOUR LIFE (you know who you are, you spelling programs...). Made a big difference for him - really liked the option to replace easy words with harder ones if he did well on the pre-test.
Phonics: Explode the Code - did Book 7 and started 8. Good reinforcement of concepts and basic spelling/reading rules. He likes the format and I like the independent learning aspects. Extra activities in the teacher's manual are do-able and don't require bunches of additional time/supplies.
Grammar: Well-Trained Mind Book 1 by Jessie Wise - this is intended for 1st or 2nd grade, but since we have not done much with grammar up to this point, the level was mostly appropriate, especially if I tailored the Enrichment Activities to a slightly higher level. We need something more advanced for this year, but this was a good starting point.
Cursive/Handwriting: Handwriting Without Tears, Kick-Start Cursive, and Cursive manual. I don't care if people type everything these days, being able to write legibly is still important in my book. HWOT de-slants and de-loops several cursive letters, so it's a fairly easy system, both for writing and reading. His cursive is actually MUCH better than his printing. I hardly used the teacher's manual and found it a waste of money. Just doing a page a day was sufficient, but I suppose if you are one of those awesome creative people, go for it!
Typing: Typing Instructor for Kids. He complained about this A LOT because it was SO HARD but eventually he got the hang of it and now it's fun. Lots of games and can set own goals for WPM and accuracy. As a reward for conquering the castle (passing all the lessons/challenges), we got him a personal e-mail address through ZooBuh. This should also help with beginning computer etiquette and skills. I realize I'm behind the times on this, but hey, we can't all be perfect.
Science
Why, why, why do I still struggle with this? I simply cannot find a science curriculum that fits. Too much Big Bang, too much Young Earth, too much "this book will give you ADHD by putting pictures and graphs ALL OVER THE PLACE", too much "do this experiment that will take all week to collect supplies so you can see something change color for 20 seconds". So, we have continued on with unit studies. I was hoping to do 4 (one each quarter), but we squeaked in 3. We replaced most of our school activities for the entire week with the unit and appropriate reading and writing activities. Thank goodness for a great library and a lot of free web resources - but it did take time to collect what I needed, which is why we didn't get as many units done as would have liked. And this kid definitely prefers life sciences to physical/earth science, so we do have some work to do in the future. I did purchase the entire Magic School Bus set of DVDs ($40 on Amazon), and this has been a simple way to introduce topics.
Units:
1) Human Body/First Aid - books, First Aid basics, butcher paper human body and organ systems, blood model (jello plasma, red-hot RBCs, lentil platelets, etc.), stomach smoothies, researched/purchased/assembled First Aid kit for our house, spray foam brain hat... Got a lot of ideas from Pinterest for this unit.
2) Oceans and Coral Reefs - The Boy took the lead on activities for this one and basically independently assembled a complete ocean diorama. It's really cool... BBC Oceans DVD series - very neat.
3) Deserts, Desert Animals, Cacti - books, Desert DVD series, found a free lapbook on Desert Animals on a home school website. For writing activities I found some funny photos of desert animals and other random desert things and had him write a paragraph about what was happening - he came up with some really cute things. He also made a travel brochure advertising desert travel (what will you do? what will you see?) and enjoyed that project.
Social Studies
History: Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer - completed Book 1 and got about half through Book 2. History is still his favorite subject, and learning about barbarians, Vikings, and Franks was that much more exciting this year. Supplemented with Bethlehem Books as read-alongs, but thanks to the Little Sister, our reading time has become more fragmented.
Geography: Our Father's World from Rod and Staff. It's old and Mennonite, but does a good job of discussing basics - continents, oceans, landforms, waterforms, basic nomenclature. He's not crazy about it but likes the map work.
States/Capitols: I spent $1.99 on Stack the States app and he memorized them all in no time flat.
Life skills: 4-H - it's awesome. Gave a demonstration on how to sand wood, did some public speaking at the Communication Arts event, working on fair exhibits, learning about parliamentary procedure at monthly meetings, service opportunities, cooking classes, more cooking/baking at home, etc. 4-H is the bomb.
Music/Art
Piano lessons, music Festival, recitals. Attended a Massenet opera (shout-out to our local university's music department - ya'll are amazing). Starting on more note-reading and theory. We did a listening log last year and wanted to this year, but it slipped through the cracks...
Nothing formal for art. Another crack-slipper. He is constantly drawing/sketching, but feel like we need to find a way to develop this talent a little more... Another area for R & D.
*All unsponsored opinions that are completely my own.
