Second Grade
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Curriculum Review: Brave Writer Arrow Guides
It’s curriculum review time again! I’ve been enjoying writing reviews about curriculums we have used, especially ones we’ve enjoyed. Today I’m talking about my all time favorite curriculum … Brave Writer! As we’ve found our footing in homeschooling, there has been a lot of changes we’ve made, particularly with curriculum. Brave Writer is the only thing that has remained the same. This is our third year using Brave Writer. It has worked so well for us and is something we look forward to in our homeschool day. There are many components to Brave Writer’s curriculum, but today I’m going to be reviewing the Arrow guides. I’m also writing a review on…
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Curriculum Review: Life of Fred Elementary Math
Today I wanted to take some time to review one of our favorite curriculums – Life of Fred! Math was my least favorite subject growing up. I was homeschooled from the middle of third grade all the way to the end of high school and our math curriculum was usually Saxon math. If you were homeschooled, you probably have some form of loathing to this day toward Saxon 😜 One of my biggest goals in homeschooling was to find some way to make math fun. While I haven’t been entirely successful with that (math doesn’t come as naturally to Claire as some of her other subjects), Life of Fred has…
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Charlotte Mason Style Exams
Would you be surprised to hear Claire gets so excited when I tell her it’s exam week? It’s true! Usually exam weeks are her favorite. What is a Charlotte Mason style exam? We do exams quite a bit differently than traditional schools in our home. There’s no multiple choice, fill in the blank or pages and pages of tests to complete. Our exams are intended to be a celebration of everything Claire has learned, rather than trying to figure out all the things she doesn’t know. This avoids the temptation of teaching to a test or Claire only memorizing/studying for a test, then forgetting everything after the test is over.…
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Homeschool Year in Review – Second Grade
Most of our read alouds from second grade It’s hard to believe another year has passed! Claire has completed 2nd grade and is moving on to 3rd. I love reflecting on our school year – what went well, what didn’t go so well, curriculum choices, growth that happened, etc. As in previous years, I’m taking you along for the ride (you can read kindergarten here, first grade here). (If you’re curious as to why we homeschool, you can check out that post here) Like first grade, we did do a bit of switching around with curriculum midyear. I like to reassess what’s working and what isn’t about halfway through the year. By…
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What We’ve Been Reading – April 2020 Edition
It’s been an interesting month. I’m sure the same is true for you. Almost nationwide, there was a shelter in place order and pretty much everything was closed (it’s still that way here). Though we were very thankful that we were used to staying home anyway (homeschool life), the difference was definitely still felt. No zoo trips, no going to the museum, all the state parks were closed and [HORROR OF HORRORS] the library was closed. Thankfully, we made one last huge library trip right before it shut down, so we’ve had a decent amount of reading material between that, the Libby app and Book Outlet. Book Outlet is a…
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Our 2nd Grade Curriculum Choices
It’s hard to believe I have a second grader! Well, I suppose it’s getting a little easier to grapple with, because we’ve been back to school for about a month now. Maybe that sounds crazy, but we were off school for half of April, all of May and all of June. We unintentionally took our summer break early 😜 I thought I would share our curriculum choices this year, as I have in previous years. I’m always curious to see what other homeschoolers use as curriculum, so maybe you are too. Either way, it’s fun documentation for me to look back on. If you’re interested in my first grade curriculum…