Wrap Up for the 2017-2018 school year

So I posted back in September our curriculum choices for the current school year.  I wanted to do a follow up for that post before I post our new plan for next school year.

I find we are often making changes to things here and there as time goes one, and this year was not an exception to that.

So for 6th grade, we finished one book of diagramming sentences through critical thinking, and started on book 2.... but it just was not sticking.  Grammar has been a real struggle for him, not sure why.  But we ended up trying MCT Grammar, and while we do like it, it still does not seem to be sticking!  So we are trying something new next year. 

For copywork we used some stuff I had saved from online sometime ago, but when those ran out I remembered we had Brookdale review for cursive in the Middle Ages and picked it back up.

We also ended up dropping Piano last month, it became a huge frustration for us both, and while I don't like 'quitting' things, I also don't like wasting my money on something that he isn't enjoying any longer.  His teacher also agreed it was a good time to move on to something else.

We picked up several classes throughout the year with Outschool also which have been great, classes included Medieval Engineering, Lego Engineering, Organization class, Healthy eating class.  All of my school age kids have taken at least one class, and we have been happy with all of them.  My 3rd grader too a Harry Potter class, and my 1st grader a Lego class.

For 3rd grade, Dyslexia Gold has been very successful, I have recommended it to many people asking for Dyslexia help.  He also started OT for Dysgraphia, and went back to HWT for first graders.  The copywork was just too painful (for both of us).  We also did not start IEW as planned, but hope to next year.  He opted not to participate in the History Odyssey lessons, which is fine since he does Veritas Press online.   For science we picked up Mystery Science and A to Z Science, b/c the REAL Science Odyssey was not working for him.  We've determined that he is one of my kids that needs mostly hands of from me, because we bump heads too much.  I have found that with his OT and some other counseling though the frustrations have been greatly minimized, and I'm so grateful!
In an attempt to save money for the pending adoption, I also cancelled monthly subscription boxes and we picked up Visualize Geography (an online program), which the kids love.  We have been pretty laxed with the readers this year, but plan to be a bit more structured next year.

For 1st grade, he loved the looks of the science that his brother was doing, so he also picked up Mystery Science and A to Z Science and is also doing Visualize Geography.  These are the only changes we have made to his program this year.

One of my favorite things about homeschooling is that we can change things up as we see the need, my 2nd son (3rd grader) has by far been the one who gets the most mid year changes, but this year has been very successful, we are happy with his course load and he has improved by leaps and bounds this year!