Homeschool Planning for 2024-2025 II Secular Homeschooling 

Planning the next year is one of my favorite things 😂. Re: independent reading, I currently have my 2nd grader read anything that's not a picture book on her own, then I'll ask her some questions when she's done to make sure she understood what she read (I do have her read the first few pages of a book out loud, so I can help her with names, etc, but she'll read most of the book on her own). It's been working well for us so far.

Love hearing your thoughts on planning for next year!! I actually found your channel from searching for BYL reviews- we recently started using Level 5 for my 10yo and Level 0 for my 5 and 7yo and we love it so much!! So I’m glad to hear you’re still loving it too! My 10yo is doing the BYL Level 5 readers on his own- it feels like the first year I’ve really trusted that he can read it carefully enough to do it on his own. I do read the chapter ahead of time so we can talk about it (I also love all of her picks!!) and it’s been working really well!! Maybe you could read the first few chapters together and then challenge him to try a chapter on his own? So build up to reading it on his own? Excited to see more updates from you!! 😍

Thanks for sharing, I appreciate your thoughts

I am sipping coffee ☕️ with you. Thanks for sharing!

We loved using build your library! Emily is amazing and her curriculum is just enough for us without being too much work. We use math U see for math and khan academy. My kids do well with video lessons and practices. I didn’t like Life of Fred, definitely not secular. ❤

We're using Word Roots, Editor in Chief, and Reading Detective this coming year from Critical Thinking Company. We're also moving away from TGTB to something else for language arts, my son has just outgrown it. For writing this year we used The Writing Revoulution and it is working amazingly well. My son is in third and I am waiting to outsource writing once he enters fifth grade. Thanks for sharing about Beowulf Grammar!

I will stand 10 toes down on Bookshark. A little pricey yes but is absolutely love that it's a secular all subject mine will be going into 4th grade too. And bookshark came with handwriting with out tears cursive as well ❤❤

Denison is the best!!!

Guest Hollow now schedules/suggests using Word Roots in place of English From The Roots Up for vocabulary in their LA program. I believe they are also considering replacing The Modern Speller with All About Spelling. We are using the LA schedule, with the above modifications plus Winning With Writing, and really enjoy it.

Please share your thoughts on IEW 1B thanks!!!!!

we’re leaving TGATB for 4th grade as well and going into Lightning literature, all about spelling, Singapore dimensions & history quest (audiobook) & leaving mystery science for Sassafras science! so excited for this upcoming year’s change!

Hi! I have 2 middle schoolers and we are also pandemic homeschoolers. We started in 4th grade as well and next year they will be in 8th grade. We did BYL Level 5 in 4th and 5th grade, then tried Masterbooks Worlds Story Ancient Times this year and next year we are going back to BYL LOL. For my son, also ADHD, in math we are going to try Denison PA next year and my daughter is going to continue with Christian Light Education. A lot of your picks are all things I am considering for us as well except for Science. We are going to try out Guest Hollow's Actions and Reactions. So excited for the upcoming year!

I have never heard of Sequential Spelling! Looks interesting- sounds Ike you only need the teachers book and not the student book (as it’s just lists as people/reviewers say). I’m curious what the inside of teacher spelling book looks like. We did EM spelling and it wasn’t as enjoyable for my son either. Looking at options for next year! :)

I’m lookout at word roots. We use Evan moor building spelling. We do explode the code as well. I have a second grader. I am looking at wining with writing or essentials in writing. Evan moor has paragraph editing until 8th grade

We will be starting Denison math next year also.l for our rising 7th grader

Is Denison secular? I'm looking for PA as well for next year. I've been seeing ads for Euclid Math so starting to play around with ideas. We are currently using TT but not sure if we are going to continue or not.

Write by number is great but I don't think it works well as a main writing curriculum. I would recommend doing the online version (I think it is 5/month) to avoid the big investment. My son has dysgraphia and it has greatly improved his writing but the mastery approach made it boring to him so I changed it up a bit to suit him. We probably won't use it next year but I might use it again when we start essay writing in earnest.

We enjoyed BYL level 7.

Secular but these 1st ones aren’t 🤦🏻‍♀️

Thanks for sharing! I am using BYL 3 with my 10 yr old twins this year (one is 4th grade level and one is more 5th grade level.) We have really enjoyed the subject matter, however we swapped Curiosity Chronicles for SOTW. We like the science as well. My girls are not terribly interested in science unless it’s animals, so this has been great-kind of light. The readers have been a bust though and many of the read alouds we just have not enjoyed. CC gives a lot more suggestions though so it’s worked out. I gave them the option and they want to stick with CC for next year. I can’t decide if it’s worth it yet to incorporate BYL 4. Beowulf Grammar is great. My 3rd grader is currently using it. We’ve skipped over some of the more complex topics because this is his first actual grammar program. It will be easy to use it again with him someday, and I’m thinking about using it next year with my girls basically as an independent workbook. My girls are using the writing portion and I actually like it-it really is a buffet and you can do it however you like. The Writer’s Workshop book is a great resource. One of my girls is a VERY reluctant writer and it’s been good-a gentler approach I think.