Hey, all! I'm Violet, a second-generation homeschooler. I use mostly secular curriculum to educate my 2 elementary children. I share curriculum flip-throughs, book reviews, and library hauls!
Thank you! Games with speed components are hard for my kids right now, so we've stuck to variations on memory. We also played Shanleya's Harvest recently, and that went pretty well.
Gotta love Sen. Sir. Ship. Removing or otherwise editing things you don't like isn't always the best idea. It's part of how we got here. Sigh. Oh well. Thanks for the recommendations. Added some to my list.
Love your choices!!! We’re doing Wildwood’s folk songs too!! Someone on the Facebook group made a file of all the songs with the lyrics! Also, we just finished the McElderry Book of Aesop’s Fables and my 3 kids all LOVED it!! They want to read it again!
Love your content and ideas! Is there a way to find your Amazon storefront to support your channel? I’d hate to purchase something based on your recommendation and not use your link, but sometimes I can’t go back to each individual link for purchase. Hope that makes sense! Thanks for the inspiration!
@desireekiski I don't have an Amazon storefront, unfortunately. If you use any of the affiliate links to go to Amazon, I earn a commission on everything you add to your cart (so you don't need to follow the affiliate link for each individual item, if that makes sense). You don't need to buy whatever you click on the link for, either. It's just tracking how you get to Amazon.
Blossom and Root has released v1&2 of River of Voices, which is sort of a secular exploration of US history from many perspectives, and is more progressive. I know better than to plan too far ahead, but im hoping to be able to combine RoV and HQ when we get there since Build Your Library turned my STEAM kid into a history lover.
We are secular and have been using Story of the World too. While it isn't perfect, I think it is the best elementary world history option! It is written in a really engaging and approachable way.
Great video, really helpful seeing your planning. Thank you! I have loved How to Homeschool the Kids You Have, and am looking forward to diving into The Well-Trained Mind.
My almost 7 and 5 year old really like “The Kingdom of Wrenly”, “Greetings From Somewhere”, and “Dragon Masters” series. Each series have adventures or mysteries they solve along the way, but nothing too intense. Definitely worth checking out!
Maybe it’s because I’m old??…but I write much more like Zaner Bloser (continuous stroke). I was public schooled. The first hand writing I used with my kids was ball and stick and it caused a lot of frustration. We much prefer continuous stroke. We are going with either Zaner Bloser or D’Nealian this coming year. I really like the D’Nealian font.
I hadn’t realized that about HQ’s US History… that’s kind of disappointing to me as I had just kind of planned on continuing with it as we moved through each level. 😕 Have you checked out Oh Freedom’s US history curriculum for grades 3-7? It’s one I’ve been considering utilizing as well and it does cover both World Wars. Looking forward to your family subjects vid! 😊
Yeah, it's a bummer. Now I'm expecting to be similarly underwhelmed by HQ's Modern History, especially since the Modern History Bridge skips a lot, imo (based on the table of contents, at least). I looked at Oh Freedom (and it looks great), but I really wanted something with a core audiobook. It uses several books as spines, and not all of them have audio versions available (at least at my library--ymmv).
Here ya go: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BzPlsxi90rhBxbaHne9ynqz3jgJZzvpvJhOK-UGla0E/edit?usp=sharing. I don't have things like Phonics on there, because I already know how that's going to progress
It is hard to find a progressive history curriculum. I got a good deal for Story of the World (everything) secondhand, so we'll be doing the medieval times this year. We also started doing Mint and Bloom: Power of the People this summer, which we'll continue through the school year. We are a literature based family, so I'm sure I'll add in other inclusive/newer books that go along with the topics that we are discussing.
Great choices!!! Have you looked into Build Your Library? They schedule Story of the World Early Modern for their Level 3- I’ve haven’t used that level yet, but they might add other resources in to round out the perspective of SOTW… her literature and reader choices connect to the history so beautifully, it would be worth checking out either way!! We’re currently using BYL Level 5 and it’s early American History and we love it so much!!! The resources she picks are so diverse and interesting- so in depth!! We’re starting BYL Level 1 which schedules History Quest early times and you’re making me excited for jt!!! 😍 I’ll have to go back and watch your other videos on HQ!!
I crossed Curiosity Chronicles off the list almost immediately after glancing through it because the dialogue style made ME crazy. I also crossed off The History of US because of its use of the second person point of view.
It's not something that's been an issue with our read-alouds (I guess they don't have enough dialogue to be overwhelming), so it took me by surprise. It's nice to know other people have had similar experiences, though!
Yes, we'll be continuing with FLL and WWE next year. FLL takes 5 minutes in levels 1 & 2. It looks like it ramps up in Level 3, so I think it will take a little bit longer each day. WWE took 5-10 minutes each day, and I think that will continue to be the case.
I love that human body graphic novel! I feel like my son would love that book! He loves all the facts etc. if you don’t mind me asking which human body unit did you use? We are huge fans of core knowledge so I’m considering that. Thanks!
We used it with BFSU's lessons, so we read it slowly over 1st and 2nd grade (there were 2 chapters that BFSU didn't cover, so we read those at the end). My dd then read the whole thing in order to review at the end of the year. We've never used Core Knowledge, so I can't comment on that.
Your son sounds very similar to my son so it’s nice to see others that get it. I feel like people wonder why I do any curriculum at all but honestly it’s usually his idea! We’ve been dabbling since 3.5 years old. He’s 5 1/2 now and going into “kindergarten” this coming school year. My other son though is almost 4 and not quite ready yet. It’s funny how different they can be. ❤
Yeah, I thought the same thing. AAR is probably really great, but it's so expensive! These phonics primers have worked really well for us (I'm starting Reading Reflex with my son next week).
Great review! We use a lot of the same curriculum you do, except we use Handwriting without Tears. We have no issues with the handwriting program, but I see Zander Bloser everywhere and I’m intrigued! 😂 Do you like it? Any chance you have used HWT and could do a comparison between the two? 😊
Thanks! I've never used HWT because the cursive font is so ugly, imo. We really like Zaner-Bloser! I mostly chose it because I liked the look of its manuscript and cursive fonts the best. The newer editions have QR codes with videos for each letter, and the lower levels include cardstock letter construction pieces. I can film a flip-through of the K and 3rd grade levels if that would be helpful.
@@EclecticHomeschoolShelf That's great to know about the QR Codes! That type of video would be super helpful if you can add it to your list of videos to film! Thank you!
Our choices are still up in the air, but I plan on using: Logic of English - Foundations B/C Getty Dubay Handwriting Explode the Code book 3 Evan Moor Geography grade 2 KiwiCo science subscription boxes Then RU-vid videos and library books to supplement geography and science. Oh! And Math With Confidence grade 2
Well, I was actually looking for field guides on butterflies and moths, but I’m saving this for later because my niece would love those Audubon first field guides. Wish I had seen that Sibley guide for birds sooner. My Nana would have loved it. God bless.
It usually takes us 5-10 minutes, 4 days a week. We skip some of the things in the lessons, as well (I have a separate video on how we use AAS: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7Dyjzz_osdM.html)
I started with her at the beginning of 1st grade, but she was already reading most words at that point. All About Learning Press recommends starting AAS once you've completed AAR 1, so you could look at the placement test on their website to see what your kid should be able to read at that point. However, current research suggests that working on reading and spelling at the same time strengthens both, so I'm planning to start spelling earlier with my son.
Yeah, Kitten Math is adorable. I'm looking at Chocolate Shop Math and Nature Math for this summer, since my kid liked Kitten Math so much. I think my 5yo and 8yo could do Nature Math together, which would be really nice.
Thanks for mentioning my channel! I really like the looks of the FDIC Money Smart website. I was looking for some resources now that my kids are getting older and it looks perfect.
Thank you! This was very helpful, as always. I have a question: do you also do some of the other activities listed in the last section ("Questions/Discussion/Activities...")? I'm always confused how do these. Is the science journal entry enough as review? I'm still in Volume 1, if that matters.
We really just do the science notebook, and it's been enough so far. I'll occasionally do one of the other activities if my kids are really into the topic and it's easy to set up & clean up. A lot of the activities in that section seem like they'd be easiest to do in a classroom setting, imo. The lessons farther into Volume 1 and the lessons in the next 2 volumes continue to refer back to previous lessons, so the topics are reinforced that way as well.
