2024-2025 2ND GRADE HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM PICKS || CLASSICAL EDUCATION

[@captain7471]

We use Writing With Ease level one! Girl, I looked inside the “make your own” book and it looked complicated for me in this season (I’ve got two toddlers as well as my school age child) so I went with the workbook and we LOVE IT! It’s so easy to do, short and to the point, and we get exposed to new books I’ve never read or heard of, and we get to see how we like the book and if we do I’ll buy it or get it from the library. I make my child read some of the book and I’ll use the rest of the book as a read aloud. So you can make it more tied into your literature if you want. Sometimes we completely skip finding and reading the books and just do the weeks worth of lessons and it’s been fine doing both. I hope that makes sense 😂 anyway we really enjoy having it done for us and being able to just open the book and do the lessons, it’s definitely helped my child learn how to put her thoughts together much better and clearer and we haven’t even finished the first book

[@MaryBarfield]

It does make sense! Thank you for telling me your experience with the workbook! The workbooks look great and look so easy to implement, which is why I'm torn!

[@aimeeernest3038]

Evan Moor as a whole definitely has that monotonous, check a box feel. I loved The Well Trained Mind for Reading and another good option for Writing is EIW / Essentials in Writing. It's very open & go but NOT monotonous. It has been going well for my kids between 1st grade all the way up through 10th grade.

[@crystallopez9704]

I think you should give the workbook a try! I felt odd reading passages and not entire books but after a few months it became something both my son and I enjoy. Each week has a focus that mirrors the focus lists in the teacher strong fundamentals book. I am surprised at how much he's retained from copywork and discussions. Also-I have eliminated the comprehension questions and allowed my son to record his narrations since he goes so fast now. For some reason recording himself is fun for him and it gives me breaks with trying to write down all he tells back. On a few weeks I have pulled from our readers or read alouds for the work, but I find it much easier to follow the open and go workbook. We have also found many good books to read or good books to listen to by using this curriculum. Seems to work for us that we read the passages, read the whole book or listen to it, and remember when we copied a certain sentence. Makes for sweet moments. I am using level 1 for my daughter and level 2 for my son. The one thing I have omitted simply because my kids dislike is dictating back their narrations. That seems to not work for us. We stick to assigned copywork/diction sentences.

[@MaryBarfield]

Your explanation of how customizable the program was for your son, is one of the big reasons I was so drawn to it! I'm excited to start it next year with my oldest and then my youngest the following year. I think based on yours and others comments, I will most likely try out the workbook next year for my oldest! Thank you for your feedback, it was super helpful!

[@JoyForney]

I struggled with the copywork/dictation of the workbooks not lining up with what we were doing…. But in the end my kids LOVED the workbook and it did not matter at all to them that the passages were not from what we were actually reading. There are a couple of lessons that stick with each passage and that was enough for them to enjoy it immensely. And the headache and time it save me… priceless! I’d personally recommend giving the workbook a try. You might be pleasantly surprised!

[@MaryBarfield]

Thank you so much for your recommendation! I think based on yours and others comments, I am going to give the workbook a try for this upcoming year! My biggest concern is that it won't tie into our Literature, but it sounds like from you and other moms, that it made no difference at all to the kids. And I personally love the idea of not having to come up with new passages, copywork, dictation every week for my own sanity lol. How many pages is the workbook? I am contemplating purchasing the PDF or the physical workbook. The PDF is appealing because I can reprint it for my youngest, but is it a ton of printing where it wouldn't make sense financially?

[@JoyForney]

@@MaryBarfield It is around 300 pages, so it is hefty....so I guess that is up to how much you want to print. I have used both...living overseas I needed a PDF to start, but ended up purchasing the physical workbook eventually for cost and ease of use. Hope that is helpful!!

[@MaryBarfield]

That is super helpful! Thank you so much!

[@DMbuensalido0426]

Omg! I’m in luck to see your video! I’m planning to homeschool my incoming Kindergartner and 2nd grader this coming school year and have no idea where to start..

[@MaryBarfield]

I hope my video helped you and gave you a place to start for next year! 🥰

[@breannastone9471]

SAME lol

[@MrsPerdueArt]

Love seeing your choices- it sounds like it’ll be a wonderful year!!! You guys are using Build Your Library Level 0 right? Once you get to level 1, she includes copywork from the literature you’re reading… but if your daughter is ready for it, you could make it the dictation passage!! We’re using BYL0 and Level 5 and I have loved the copywork/dictation/narration that BYL provides!! Emily Cook’s book, A Literary Education is also a great resource! Excited to follow along and see how your year goes!! Sounds like so much fun!! ❤

[@MaryBarfield]

That's correct! We are using BYL Level 0 this year (I go more into depth about that in my group subjects video that is going live next Tuesday). That's actually a great idea - I forgot that Emily gives uas copywork/dictation passages + Narration cards in the curriculum starting with level 1, which we will use the following year! So I wouldn't even have to really create the Writing Program from scratch! I guess I would just need to figure out next year since she doesn't include them in level 0. I will have to check out A Literary Education! So glad to have you following along! :)

[@amandab.6815]

We used the WWE workbooks for level 1 and level 2, just parts of each. It got really redundant after a while. My daughter liked the copy work, but she did not like the comprehension question days. It's not true narration because it asks specific questions that are not open ended for the student. We got tired of it after a while and put it aside.

[@MaryBarfield]

After taking more time to think about it I think I’m going to give the textbook for WWE a try first (before buying the workbook) and pull passages and narration topics from our literature to help tie it into our history curriculum more and hopefully stave off any boredom with the repetition since it will be on topic versus a random passage!🤞As for the narration, I know that classical education operates under the premise that your child should focus on comprehension of the information read to them in the grammar stage (grade 1-4). Whereas Charlotte Mason likes to do more open ended questions with their narrations. So just different focused with the different style of narrations 😊. Our current curriculum is Charlotte mason so I’ll be interested to see how my daughter responds to this type of narration because she didn’t enjoy the open ended type as much 🥴

[@YasminB-u9d]

I really like the fill in the blank poems. I wish B&R sold just that piece of it.

[@MaryBarfield]

Omg yes! I've actually started to do some research to see if there is a book or curriculum that sells just the Blank Poems as an add on! My Daughter and I have really enjoyed them this year and it really makes her think, while still being fun!

[@jaimewolf9036]

What level of B&R is this?

[@MaryBarfield]

It’s from the Blossom and Root Grade 2 LA 🥰