I loved that you mapped out the middle school segment as a whole rather than year by year (not that you can’t change year to year), but you’re looking at the big picture of things.
Aww thank you !!! I am trying to get my ducks in a row lol. It was actually easier planning the three year instead of one to see the big picture. Ugh middle school here we come lol 😆
Oh my goodness, Brittany. I just found this video while researching IEW and you are sweet as pie. My daughter is also entering 6th grade next year and you are speaking to me!!! I feel like I could have said the exact same things you are. I am so excited to follow your journey and I just wish we were neighbors!!!
When you started talking about considering doing some fun science themes for your little ones, the first resource I thought of was Gentle + Classical Nature. I have videos on both Volumes, by the way! We loved both, but probably especially loved Volume 2 just because my boys loooove sea creatures and are very interested in oceans. Loved hearing your thought process and I love how intentional you are being thinking about what curriculum for these middle school years for your oldest!
Thank you so much !!! I feel like it is getting serious over here with middle school 🫣. I am so excited to try out one of the nature volumes since the preschool program was so great. I think my kiddos would love volume 2 as well. They love the beach and ocean animals too. 🥰
Wonderful to hear the big picture ideas for your eldest’s middle school years! Would love to hear any resources you’ll be using for financial literacy ❤
Have you considered using five in a row for your littles? I loved using that for kindergarten! It would cover your science, social studies, geography, art, some literature….there is also a bible supplement available. You have some great ideas and I’m sure your year will be amazing!
I’m late to watching this, but as far as science for your younger two goes, I think just checking out science books from the library is perfect at that age. Whatever you choose, I hope y’all have a fantastic year! I’m also thinking through what next year will look like.
I have used Bookshark now for 3 years with my oldest (7th-9th) and 2 years with my daughters (currently in 3rd and 5th). I absolutely love the idea of using literature to teach history, but I found it very time intensive for me with my son using World History G+H- i would spend about an hour or more reading to him and then I would also pre-read all the readers to make sure he was understanding the material. My girls currently in World History C (year 2) I spend about an hour reading to them I also read the reader aloud since there are two children and I cannot afford to purchase two sets of the readers.
This is great to know! We are using Memoria Press with mh 4tg and kindergartener and some of simply Classical with my 2nd grader I have been looking at Sonlight and Bookshark for next year, especially since we will be adding preschool for my littlest guy but I was scared of the time commitment. I just can't sit and do 1 hour for each child on history. We have been sort of adding some things from Well trained mind press and I can do Story of the world and use the activity packs, coloring pages and then I ordered the history time line books from School Nest (on Amazon, I saw Brittany talk about them! Lol) and I want to use it all together with the kids at once for our morning "warm up". We love to do learning journals and interactive notebooks so that was my plan for now but I keep getting pulled towards Bookshark and Sonlight so who knows where we will end up.
I have done time4learning with my daughter and she got bored with it even though she was doing well...due to the repetition. They only have 4 classes at a time that you can choose from and you have to pay extra for any more classes. Ive also done accellus with her and she seems to like certain aspects of it and she has done well. You can get more bang for your buck with accellus. You can choose up to 7 classes instead of 4 with time4learning. Hope that helps in terms of the online aspect for you.
I love your approach for the upcoming year. I love that you are using big picture view. Curly girls know that doing your hair takes time management skills. I looked into Sonlight but I fear being overwhelmed.
If you like Saxon math, Shormann math is a good online math curriculum. Dr. Shormann does do science as well. All in a biblical worldview. With Algebra 1&2 they combine both with geometry to get 3 credits of math in a two year span. Possible college credits as well. Many blessings to you!
You have such amazing ideas for next year. ❤We have been using Bookshark reading through history level D for my 5th grader this year and personally, I didn’t find the reading to be too much. But with that said, I’ll have a 1 year old running around next school year and I’ll be utilizing audible for the read aloud portion. The literature selections are outstanding. I’ve also been eyeing Oak Meadow! I love the independence of their program. 😊
Thanks for sharing! I am in the thick of planning here, too :) I'm planning to use learning language arts through literature for my 11/12 year old next year but still debating history/social and science direction too! I love planning, so I'm in no rush 😅
I'm a Monarch graduate! I used it from 3rd to 12th grade back when it was Switched-on-School house. It's a really great independent option as long as you're there to answer questions or help if needed.
You're waaayyy ahead of me! 😂🤣😂I haven't even thought about next year. 🤦🏾♀️ (And by next year I mean in 14 days. I pulled my daughter in the middle of the school year so we're always in the middle of curriculum by summer) This could be the teacher in me but also look at her test scores from last year. They might help in your decision making. You always leave us with good curriculum resources! ❤️
I personally was not impressed with the Kiwi crates when we tried them out for 3 months. The materials were so cheaply made that they broke very easily. That was discouraging to have certain things break right after making the craft or sometimes even before we got it made.
I’m pretty much in the same direction for my kindergartener .. we have finished aar the yellow book but now we are going to start explode the code and do games based on some of the topics they didn’t quite grasp in aar .. I was thinking about trying to start back up Jady a elemental phonics again because my son wasn’t feeling it but now after aar and us practicing syllables and etc he’s showing more readiness I also thought about pulling out teach your child to read in 100 lessons again because I’ve read aar level 1 goes super fast and the kids need a good foundation Also do you think you will do gentle and classical primer ? I was thinking I want to focus heavily on reading writing and arithmetic but my kids just love the books and crafts with that curriculum I have downloaded the nature from gentle and classical and I did not use it because I need time to prep for it and get the corresponding activities prepped etc ! So I’m going to prep for fall 2023 I will also check out the Mel science boxes I’m going the same direction in math too since pmah ends for us next week with gentle and classical 😂 I may add a few more things but I wanted to brain dump back to you lol if I’m missing anything please let me know
@@robinwiafe4438 Yes I did went through this whole process for my younger ones. I did look into a Gentle and Classical Primer but I don’t think I could do both that and Nature. I love hearing your thoughts and brain dump. 😊
Beth: we have a girl going into 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th. For the current working well for us: math u see, Essentials In Writing (which has teaching videos like math u see) and is the best writing I've found in 10 years of various experiments. The literature is going to be a pile of books with various activities, bc that is my major and because we've used Apologia s Readers In Residence and it's so solid you can definitely just keep building on it. In the younger years we only used Explode The Code to learn to read and write letters. We used five In a row and added our own books covering things we wanted to add, and that covered everything but math and phonics. We also use Apologia for science for the kids who can write, but my mom teaches it. My other favorite thing to add is Gather Round bc I can teach all the kids one fun topic as a group. We do a couple units a year to all be together. We have done units with piles of books over the years and is a great system! After 5 in a row history we've used story of the world, notgrass, and guesthollow. Always adding in more amazing books. You are doing great. I love to watch your channel bc I have a Brielle as well :) and you are doing so great!
My son is in 5th too. We are currently doing IEW 1A. Are you doing 1 b next year or are you doing 2A I think when I talk to IEW they recommended 2A for 6th but I wasn't sure.
Yes we are going from 1A IEW SSS to IB IEW SSS for middle school. They do recommend you to go to 2A after 1A however, because writing is my daughters strong subject I want to provide her with a faster pace that the level B offers.
