Curriculum Revies

 We are finished for the year with homeschooling!  I have definitely enjoyed it and while Patrick is trilled to be finished there were things he enjoyed doing.  I'm going to record what I though of the stuff I used.  We didn't have  a full year since we started in October but it was pretty close.  We're planning on doing some stuff over the summer and then start again in the Fall.  He'll probably return to school in 7th grade.  

ELA

Patrick completed AAS3 and AAS4 this school year.  He has a few lessons left in AAS5 but we're taking a break for a little bit and have slowed down to one lesson a week.  He completed Write Shop level F.  I liked how it taught writing skills by working together.  He's going to redo it this year with a few extra projects thrown in that we'll model off their process.  He did novel studies for Johnny Termain, Refugee and Ghost Boys.  He also did a 5th Grade reading comprehension book that had him answering questions about short passages to practice nonfiction comprehension.  Grammar was a bit of a mess because he was a lot further behind then I realized.  We did some Mad Libs and the grammar with Write Shop.  I'm hoping to start Fix It over the summer.  We also used picture books to learn about figurative language.  

Math 

Teaching Textbooks worked well.  Patrick is needing less extra help than he was while in school.  His average score is 86% for Math 6.  The topics seems to match up well to 5th grade math..  I had him do the lesson and if he got over an 80 we moved onto the next one.  Below an 80 and he redid the ones he got wrong.  Almost everytime with the redo he pulled his grade up to above an 80.  

Science 

We started with Easy Peasy Chemistry.  I wasn't a big fan because the lessons are super short so I was combining a few into a single day.  Patrick hated Easy Peasy and we're not going to use it again for Science.  We added a Gather Round Homeschool unit on Space and that was a lot better.  I liked that all the information was easily presented.  There also weren't too many included experiments but plenty of ideas of ones to add.  We're going to be using them over the Summer and in the Fall.  

Social Studies 

I pieced together a American Revolution curriculum and we both really enjoyed learning about it.  We really utilized youtube videos and documentaries, which Patrick really enjoys.  We also used a lot of books this one was especially helpful.  It was definitely a lot of work gathering everything but besides a few things from teacherspayteachers.com it was mostly free.  

Our next unit was on the Constitution.  It was an easy transition.  I used What is the Constitution?  and  a pack from teacherspayteachers.com.  This was a pretty quick unit.  Our final area of study was the 50 States, which I have a separate post about.  Once again that was a lot of work to put together.  I definitely decided next year to buy a curriculum for Social Studies.  It makes it a lot easier when you're following along and not creating it.   

Health

This was another one that I put together.  We started the year with a quick nutrition lesson followed by learning about the brain.  Next we learned about Covid-19 and vaccines.  Finally we learned about puberty and sex.  I used the books Sex is a Funny Word and It's Perfectly Normal .  This was a lot easier to put together than Social Studies.  

Music 

Private trombone lessons have this one covered.  I did nothing with it!

Art

Patrick hates art!  I got a book about photography and he used that to do some stop action, self portraits and practice using the camera at different angles.  We added some art to our other topics like the 50 states.  And he did some art for scouts and fun with a gingerbread house.  

PE

This one became very loose.  He was definitely active and that's all they care about.  I'd love to get him into a homeschool PE class next year.  This is a favorite topic.