HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM HITS & MISSES | Reviewing the Year: What Worked & What Didn't 2021-2022

Рет қаралды 3,586

2 жыл бұрын

Join me for a retrospective look back on some of the biggest highlights and as well as the total fails from the past school year, as we are nearing the "end" (we don't tend to follow strict US school years, and simply start new curriculum when we finish what we're using).
This will be looking back on 10th grade, 5th grade, and 3 year old preschool.
You can purchase Purely Preschool at our shop, here: www.wheredyoulearnthat.com/shop
WELCOME //
I'm Rachel, a mom of two and the oldest in a family of 8 kids. I'm a second-generation homeschooler who is passionate about education. I'm originally from Michigan, but am living overseas. My two young boys and teaching homeschool lessons to my youngest sisters keep me busy, but I make time for writing and for making KZfaq videos, too! On this channel, you can expect videos featuring books and homeschool curriculum, homeschool tips for hard days, our journey raising bilingual kids, and vlogs about the intentional adventure that our homeschool lifestyle allows! Subscribe to join our family here:
/ @seveninall
Expect two videos a week, uploaded at 7:30 a.m. EST on Mondays and Thursdays.
THE CURRICULUM I WRITE//
Our family creates printable homeschool curriculum. Find those resources right here: www.wheredyoulearnthat.com
WATCH MORE //
Get to Know the Seven In All Family: • We're The Seven in All...
Limit Screen Time for Kids: • LIMIT SCREEN TIME FOR ...
Raising Bilingual Kids (Without OPOL!) • How We're Raising Bili...
Strategies for Homeschooling Gifted Learners • HELP! I'm Homeschoolin...
My DIY Preschool Learning Binder • Preschool Learning Bin...
Classroom Management for Homeschoolers (Series) • Homeschool for REAL - ...
HOMESCHOOL RESOURCES //
Need a Printing Service for all the awesome homeschool resources you download? Use our affiliate link for Family Nest Printing: lddy.no/t747
EQUIPMENT //
Sony RX100: amzn.to/2KzbdFy
Intro Music Credit: www.bensound.com
FOLLOW //
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For collabs and business inquiries, contact us at: seveninallfamily (at) gmail.com
DISCLOSURE //
Seven In All's videos are not intended for children. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If you purchase through any Amazon affiliate links in this description, our family earns a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Пікірлер: 68

@SummerMeyers 2 жыл бұрын

I love what you said about buying curriculum for your child, and not what your imaginary child "should" be doing. Usually something like that is unintentionally and fear based because you want your kid to be doing well, but ultimately it's a disservice to both of you.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

Yes! It's going to add frustration to both of your lives!

@HomeSweetHomeschoolLife 2 жыл бұрын

I loved when you said “Remember who your kid is when you are buying curriculum.” That is so true!

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

Yes! Sometimes we can get swept away by advertising, but we have to think about the real personalities that we are dealing with.

@HomeschoolwithJen 2 жыл бұрын

Love this video! You homeschool the kid you have, not the philosophy. Absolutely. We use testing definitely for the learning process of knowing what we know and knowing what we don't know. Also, we use testing for the practice of learning how to test and strategies behind testing.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

Yes! Many homeschoolers tend to just skip the tests and feel that they are unnecessary--but I think it's important to remember that tests can be useful learning tools, that they aren't purely for the purpose of "grades".

@lifewithginab 2 жыл бұрын

Love all your content 😁❤

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you, Gina!

@JRMVlogsChannel 2 жыл бұрын

Great share of your homeschool experience and opinions on curriculum.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

Glad it was helpful!

@mollytal7099 Жыл бұрын

Just found your channel. Thank you for the videos!

@SevenInAll Жыл бұрын

Oh, thank you so much for watching!

@brittanym58 2 жыл бұрын

So funny you mentioned Strawberry Girl. I was just given several Sonlight readers and pulled that title to reread myself. It was based on the city I grew up in, and I only remembered having read it in elementary for that reason. I can link the dialect and scenery because of my knowledge of the culture of my ancestors. My kids would be mind-boggled! I plan to read it aloud to them.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

Wow, that will really make it fun to share the story with your kids!

@thehudsonshub 2 жыл бұрын

We love LOF, we are still in Elementary Series and I am really curious about LOF higher levels. Thank you for sharing this. I love this video.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

We've loved the higher levels of LOF!

@patriciajackson346 2 жыл бұрын

We LOVE purely preschool! We've done fall, Transportation & insects. Starting Vehicles at Work next week and All About me after that.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

Oh, it makes me so happy to hear that! Thanks for sharing!

@brittanyolga 2 жыл бұрын

We have done the Purely Preschool Fall unit and soon we are going to be starting the Spring unit again. I just started Preschool math at home with my 3 year old we are on chapter 1 and she has learned so much so far. ☺️

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

Oh yes, it's almost Springtime again! I have been very impressed with Preschool Math at Home.

@StaceyYoder 2 жыл бұрын

This was fun to see. I like that binder you did with your 3yr old son. The dry erase pages is a good idea. Can use again easily. It was also interesting to hear about your 5th grader and 10 grader.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

Yes, I like that with the binder all set up, I can easily start using it with Glenn when he's ready!

@StaceyYoder 2 жыл бұрын

@@SevenInAll yea exactly. I am working on setting up one for Creed that Caiden then can use. Printing cost really add up.

@ssd9154 2 жыл бұрын

@@SevenInAll shopee has some 3 ring binders 😊

@amandab.6815 2 жыл бұрын

We bought Preschool Math at Home after your review. My husband and I are both quite "mathy", and agree that it definitely introduces advanced concepts. I am actually having my Kinder/1st grader work through it with my preschooler, and it is beneficial to her as well.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

I have definitely noticed the depth of mathematical reasoning required for and built through some of the activities--I am a fan, and have seen a lot of progress as we've worked through the book. He hasn't mastered everything--the finger activity I showed is one that will still take a little while for him to grasp, I think.

@samanthawoods615 2 жыл бұрын

That part about "background knowledge" 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 We love good books, but we intentionally don't use a literature based curriculum because I know my 8yr old is not ready for that.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

It's so important to realize the pre-requisites that allows a literature-based curriculum to work. When you are stopping on every page to draw pictures and explain what word mean--the background knowledge simply isn't there for enough learning to happen.

@aprilbarker1028 2 жыл бұрын

I think I’m going to have to try your Spanish program! I’m wanting to teach my kids Spanish (4 & 5) and I loved seeing the quick overview you did here! I also loved the binders you used for the preschool morning binder. It actually laid flat! I haven’t seen that before. What type of binder is it? I’ve been pulling each page weekly to work on but I like your idea better! Less work for me just having it all together.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

Here, they don't sell 3-ring binders, they either sell 2-ring binders (which I do NOT like, the pages tend to slide all over the place), or binders where the plastic pages are attached permanently into the binder itself--that's what I use. They are very nice for the lefties in my family. :) I do think you could probably find similar binders on Amazon--I got a 60-page one so that it can hold all the pages at once. I really like having all the pages in one binder because 1) I don't have to make sure I set up a new set of pages each week and 2) with all the pages there, because my son likes the binder so much, there are plenty of days when he will just pages through it after we've done the pages I planned on, and he'll ask to do more and more pages, getting extra review and practice. If I had only had the one number page out at a time, I wouldn't have even noticed how much he loves doing all the number activities. And, I do have a free sample lesson of Puramente Preescolar on my website: www.wheredyoulearnthat.com/freebies It is designed more for kids who have some background in Spanish (or for very young kids, because it's all comprehensible input) so there's no vocabulary words to learn/translation, it's just reading books, singing songs, and narrating activities in Spanish. For us, it works because the boys have been exposed to Spanish since birth, but my Spanish is a little weak, so I tend to revert to using English when narrating games/activities, unless I am able to read my lesson checklist there--it gives me the confidence and the vocab I need to be able to narrate our activities or explain little games we play in Spanish.

@Jcarp7607 2 жыл бұрын

Absolutely want to see your review and explanation about how Apologia works and compares!

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the feedback!

@BellosdemiAlma 2 жыл бұрын

Here (Argentina, spanish speakers) is pretty usual that kids develop his languaje at 2 or 3 years old, that same you describe. If a kid speak "mas clarito" or "as a adult" before that, is a sign of talent. I don't know if I already mentioned you but my kids love "Spanish fairy tales" and "el monosilabo" to help at learn to read (all in youtube)

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the recommendations! We have watched some mono silabo videos and they are fun! I hadn't heard of the other channel before.

@sarahmora5207 2 жыл бұрын

Those math concepts of seeing 8 fingers and having to think about how many are down is complex! I feel like that's kindergarten/1st grade math haha Thanks for sharing all your insight!

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

Yes, to me that's a very tough math concept, one that my son still hasn't mastered--we've gone through the Preschool Math at Home book once, but there were several tasks that I passed by the first time because he just wasn't ready, so I'm planning to go back through the book and tackle some tasks like that one now that he's grasping more math concepts.

@juliequates9529 2 жыл бұрын

What you're saying about that preschool is the same as what she teaches on her Kindergarten math with confidence that I'm doing with my 4.5 year old. Great reviews!

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

I'm happy to hear that! I purchased the Kindergarten level to do with my son next!

@PenniesAndSalt 2 жыл бұрын

I bought LOF early in our homeschool but never quite understood how it would work as a curriculum. It’s been years since I’ve looked at it now and I’m tempted to pick it back up and see if it might work as an enrichment math.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

We love the LOF elementary series as read-alouds. We've used it as a complete curriculum for middle/high school but it does seem to require more of a teacher--it's not as independent as a lot of high school options are. But my mom really enjoys teaching with it.

@LivingWithEve 2 жыл бұрын

I am looking forward to the new preschool curriculum.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

I am so excited about that release!

@ssd9154 2 жыл бұрын

I agree re the Math content. We covered those sorts of things in Kindergarten Math at Home by Kate Snow which we used when our children were a bit older and we really like it. Really easy to use, affordable teachers manual with it all laid out and workbook for us in South East Asia and any extra manipulative can either be DIYd (she tells you how or provides masters) or bought affordably on Shopee.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

That's what I am very strongly considering using for Cyrus in this next year.

@ssd9154 2 жыл бұрын

@@SevenInAll I got Kindergarten and First Grade through Book Depository. Mine are a bit older and like more worksheets so I supplement with some extra worksheets.

@RockSimmer-gal4God 2 жыл бұрын

We don’t do sonlight but learn though books a lot!!! We love TGTB Language Arts!!! I agree that we homeschool a kid not a plan!!! Schooling a planned a public school thing!!! Instead of testing we do discussions where we kinda test but are talking about what the kid is learning!!! The finger thing is early subtraction and I didn’t think that I could do that with a preschooler!!!

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

Yes--we make plans but we adjust as needed for each kid!

@JenniferGarcia-qr3ur 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for sharing. I'm looking for an English writing program for my middle schooler, and English isn't my first language. I've used IEW Themed-Based Writing for the last two years (we've been homeschooling for about three) and my daughter has learned from it . I'm not sure if we should try something else or to stick with IEW for another year. Recommendations are accepted.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

If IEW is working and is enjoyable, I'd probably stick with that! I haven't used IEW but I know that many people love the curriculum and that many kids really thrive with it.

@kirstengillespie994 2 жыл бұрын

Loved this video! Just found your channel :) I'm wondering if you have any recommendations for English language arts at the grade 1 or 2 level? We just finished level K with The Good and the Beautiful and I'm dreading picking up level 1 which isn't a good sign lol. My daughter will be 7 soon and I feel like it slowed down her phonics progress as it has a big focus on handwriting to reinforce concepts (which she hates). But her knowledge of grammar and spelling is good. And she loves to tell stories so I like how they started to include that kind of writing at the end. I'm debating if I should focus on phonics skills and come back to level 1 later or just ditch the curriculum and find different resources for reading, spelling and writing. *but* I have to say their math curriculum is really thorough and covers those difficult concepts you mentioned relating to number sense. We are also using SOTW for history which she loves. Narration has really helped with her comprehension and ability to put her thoughts into words.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

I definitely think you're on the right track as far as moving in the direction of separating phonics instructions from handwriting, spelling, and grammar. I would look for a phonics-specific program that she could start at the level she's at--I know a lot of people really like All About Reading BECAUSE it's just phonics/reading, it's not spelling or handwriting at all. It's focused on that one subject. I believe Logic of English has several of those disciplines intertwines, but it's not trying to do as many things as TGATB does. I have used First Language Lessons as first/second grade Language Arts lessons (these focus on grammar, poetry memorization, and narration/comprehension). I will have a spelling curriculum video releasing soon!

@emilylong9887 2 жыл бұрын

My kindergarteners curriculum never went over that, but now I’m thinking I need to teach that even tho he can already add. But he has trouble adding more that 5+5. Like if he needs 2 hands for the first number… idk I’m definitely going to look into this concept

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

It's incredible when you realize how many different smaller concepts and skills are built into the simple math skills we take for granted. Many pieces are working together in our brains when we make calculations.

@PenniesAndSalt 2 жыл бұрын

I loved strawberry girl but I think it’s even hard for American Children to understand. The dialect can be very difficult to follow. Some of my kids had a little trouble with the background knowledge as well.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

That's true, the dialect throughout the book adds an extra challenge.

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool 2 жыл бұрын

Can I ask which level of Sonlight you tried? I have kids who struggle with vocabulary as well. It’s a bit of a struggle, but working at a lower level, I think we are doing ok.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

I believe it was B+C. It's an older edition of Sonlight (originally purchased back when some of the now-adult kids were being homeschooled), so some of the book options are different.

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool 2 жыл бұрын

@@SevenInAll that’s what I’m using for all my kids right now, but my oldest is 13 and sometimes I wonder how much she’s getting. It’s not always easy to know what they are retaining. I think we are ok, but I’m not sure as we are getting into D/E. I know my younger ones are retaining as much as I would like… but, I guess as long as they are learning and improving, we are doing ok ;)

@heatherfink6507 2 жыл бұрын

I would love to know more about what you are doing to increase background knowledge. My son is currently in a private school but thinking of homeschooling him next year (already homeschooling my daughter). They are doing a lot of literature based learning but he isn't ready for it and is loosing ground. We are both frustrated this year. He is definitely weak in vocabulary so his comprehension is poor.

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

Increasing background knowledge tends to be one of those slow-and-steady journeys. We've scaled back to doing a lot of picture books or reading books 'below' her grade level, but we're also really trying to work on her gaining real life experience and understanding of her real life experiences through verbally processing and narrating those experiences. So, not just helping in the kitchen, but talking through the names of all the kitchen tools we're using and describing what they're for. Not just visiting a garden and running around, but talking through the words for different types of plants, parts of plants, how to take care of plants, etc. Applying this to every area of life. Many kids DO seem to pick up on vocabulary and background knowledge without so much intentionality, but others don't, and in these situations, you just have to be a lot more intentional. And curriculum that is solely literature-based doesn't work for her. She needs to be introduced to vocabulary words, and then read, and then talk about it, and then do some worksheets and activities, and then explain what she knows, and then take a test. The learning process has a few more steps in it for her, but she IS making progress, and gaining confidence when she realizes that she can make progress when she puts in the effort.

@lifewithginab 2 жыл бұрын

Curious does your boys speak Mandarin too? Do they use it a lot in their day to day?

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

They do not. I do want to introduce it to them as a foreign language that they learn during school time...but I just wasn't brave enough to try to tackle three languages at once, especially because I know our Spanish input/surroundings are so weak. I will probably start incorporating Mandarin into our routine..maybe around 1st grade. Just the other day, at the park, a little girl asked me in Chinese if they spoke Chinese, and I had to tell her that they couldn't.

@elorieboeh490 Жыл бұрын

How did you graduate high school? Meaning how did you prove that you had completed enough learning to go to college?

@SevenInAll Жыл бұрын

When applying to colleges, homeschooled high school students submit a transcript with grades just as high school students who went to traditional schools do. In the US, college applications usually require standardized test scores, like the SAT or ACT, as well as samples of work the student has completed. So...homeschooled high school students prove their level of education and academic preparation through the same means used by public or private schooled students--transcripts, portfolio work, standardized test scores, etc.

@danahall1282 2 жыл бұрын

What curriculum do you use with the child that doesn't use so light?

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

With her, we started using Story of the World, instead, for her history, and for her reading, she's just reading books from our collection that are at her level (some of them are Sonlight books, but we're pulling ones that are right for her level instead of following a certain schedule.

@LivingWithEve 2 жыл бұрын

We are so going to always agree to just disagree on IEW. lol

@SevenInAll 2 жыл бұрын

lol!! I totally see its value for a lot of kids.