The Homeschooling Year in Review

We officially wrapped up our 5th homeschooling year last week, but this is the first chance I've had to write this post. I have mixed feelings about how this year went, but for better or worse, it is another year in the books and my boys have completed 6th and 5th grade. Here is an overview of what we used/did in our academic pursuits. We take a rather eclectic approach to homeschooling.

Art - we didn't do as much "hands-on" art as in the past. David did do some "learn-to-draw" books and made some Lego movies. For art history, the first part of the year we watched one lesson a week from the Great Courses: Intro to European Art. They didn't love it - or even like it. So, for the second half of the year, we used Art HD - an app for the iPad which features quizzes on who painted certain art works. For a free resource, I can't complain, and they did get some exposure to classic art.

On the plus side, they were in their second year of acting classes at a local acting school and performed in a few plays. They had a wonderful experience there and performing arts definitely count as art!

Science - I taught a small science co-op with my boys and two other 6th grade boys. We used Behold and See 6 from CHC as our basic text. The book covered a great deal of very interesting material, but I ended up using it as more of a starting point, supplementing the topics with other experiments and YouTube videos (there is some great stuff out there). I learned some interesting things this year in this class - I hope the kids did, too.

Math - David used Spectrum Math 6; 
Isaac used Pre-Algebra from Teaching Textbooks
They both had a good experience.

Social Studies - We used Eyewitness to History: From Ancient Times to the Modern Era as our starting point and then supplemented with many books from the library. David studied ancient times through the Middle Ages. Isaac made it up to the Enlightenment. We'll keep going next year. They also used the Stack the Countries App for geography which is a great deal of fun and taught them a lot.



English - We used Language Arts: Grade 6 (Flash Kids Harcourt Family Learning) and wrote regularly. The boys are avid readers but I also wanted them to read some classics. They complained but got through it. They have also discovered the beauty of Sparknotes to help those works of literature make sense!


Latin - we used Little Latin Readers, Level C

Religion - Faith and Life Grade 6 and Stories of the Saints, Volume 3 (It's intended as a reading program, but we used it just for the stories)