Homeschool 4th Grade Midyear Curriculum Changes | What Is Working, What Isn't?

[@tarabelle6964]

I have watched so many homeschool curriculum videos and stumbled across this one last night. I love your personality! You had me laughing because I can identify so much with your fantasy self because it seems like my fantasy self is the one who orders the curriculum and my reality self doesn’t actually want to teach it when it’s time. I appreciate your humor and humility as you give us a glimpse at your life. It is refreshing! Keep making videos, please! 😊

[@PurposefulHomeschool]

Thank you so much!! This really made my day. :) It's so true how our fantasy selves war with our real selves! HA!

[@kariwahl7932]

This was our first year homeschooling. I started the year so excited about morning basket, but it definitely fell out of our priority early on. We still do group subjects (I had a 3rd, 2nd, 1st, kinder, and preschooler this year) and read books together, but making it happen at the same time every day felt like we took too much time away from the work we “had” to get done. However, since we finished our official school year, we’ve been doing many more of our “morning basket” type things: math games, more read aloud books I had wanted to squeeze into the school year… Maybe getting into a fun rhythm this summer will get the habit going and make it enjoyable for the school year. I will say that a mistake I made this year was trying to cram too much into a short amount of time. Ha!

[@PurposefulHomeschool]

This is my goal for the summer as well! After I published this video we started a morning basket routine and my son loves it! We had to abandon it for the last weeks of school but I plan to do it again this summer! I'm glad I made the effort earlier to test it out and it was a highlight of my son's school day. :) I hope you find it as rewarding! And for the record, even though we've been homeschooling for 8 years, I still struggle with trying to cram too much into our school day! The struggle is real!

[@HomeschoolMountainMama]

We are using BJU Spelling this year as well and I’ve decided to switch to IEW Spelling Zoo next year. I find my son memorizes the words just long enough to ace the test, then “garbage dumps” the following week. If there’s no retention, IMHO it’s just a waste of time. And I can’t agree more on your view on learning states. Who needs to know every state bird or tree?? We used BJU Heritage 4 for most of our school year, but I was really disappointed in their coverage of states. In lieu of that, I found the Notgrass 50 states curricula and we’re finishing our school year with that. We are moving through it much quicker than intended in the curriculum, but it has been lots of fun and he’s enjoying it immensely. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your curriculum choices! It’s really helpful to see what’s working/ not working for other homeschooling families. 🙏🏻

[@PurposefulHomeschool]

HAHA 'garbage dumps' - this was true with me all through school... study for the test, 'garbage dump' right after. So far this hasn't been the case for us with the BJU spelling, thank goodness... I don't even allow him to study for the spelling test. I see if he learns to spell the words organically through just doing the exercises. This is where I think Spelling You See works better - organically. But I think the BJU has worked well enough for us to keep using it since he is exposed to more words through it. He says he likes BJU better, too... so we'll stay the course for now. I hope the Phonetic Zoo works well for you! Because my son is not an auditory learner (it's his weakest learning style) I have a feeling he wouldn't do well with it. I bet it's a godsend for the auditory learner though! Notgrass 50 States came out after we purchased the Roadtrip USA. I might have to revisit that one next time we cover US History. :)

[@EducationalRoots]

We don’t do a morning basket but we do a bedtime basket. It works so much better for us.

[@PurposefulHomeschool]

I've thought about doing this but right now we are doing Bible Quiz at night before bed. But it might be worth a try anyway!

[@rrichards1210]

Because we have done a morning basket since the beginning, my daughter rebels if I try to skip it. But sometimes it is very brief. Sometimes we go on rabbit trails and morning basket lasts 2 hours. You could try using the basket in the afternoon to start off again after lunch, or mid morning while they have a break from seat work and a snack. I love our morning basket but what we incorporate in it can change a lot.

[@PurposefulHomeschool]

See, I like to go deep, too - and we get into some great discussions so morning basket can go on a long time for us as well. It's been working ok the last week or two - trying to tweak things because I love how rich it is! Thank you for sharing your experience!

[@ChurchMouse02]

We also didn't continue with our morning basket. Since this year most of our outside extra activities are virtual we have saved lots of travel time. So now we added fun Fridays and I read aloud most of the books I wanted at the beginning of the school year, and just scratched off the morning basket idea.

[@PurposefulHomeschool]

Glad to know I'm not alone! Thanks for sharing!!

[@franny5295]

I had no idea morning baskets were a thing. We start with reading downstairs because the magnets are on the fridge and then move upstairs to the homeschool room. I added a devotional today actually but we got right into our work for the day. He's 4 though.

[@PurposefulHomeschool]

I didn't know they were a 'thing' for a long time either! Since making this video I have been making a big effort to prioritize it and my youngest has mentioned numerous times how much he loves it. We get to it a few times a week and do just 3-4 things from it. It's been fun!

[@franny5295]

@@PurposefulHomeschool I'll definitely look into that.

[@robbiegleason4462]

@@franny5295 Your morning read-aloud and devotional is a comparable thing so you're pretty much doing it already, whereas I was just skipping it. Making it a priority has been rewarding... just hoping I can stick with it!

[@EducationalRoots]

We did co-op and a drop off program for the last 6 years. So we consistently had 3 days a week. I found it was enough. We do some things in summer too.

[@PurposefulHomeschool]

Good to hear because I don't think he's willing to give up either of them!!

[@kawaiikawaiianimegirl4144]

We tried morning basket last year it did not stick. We're going to try a short morning menu this year instead.

[@numbersandstars]

Look into Memoria Press US Geography! It is super straight to the point and short with exactly the things you said you care about US Geography. They have a two year and a one year pace 😉😊

[@PurposefulHomeschool]

Awesome, good to know - thank you!

[@annemenks7877]

I've been interested in Writeshop. I look forward to your review on it and how you prep it. We've needed a writing curriculum that gives some structure but not overly structured. My kids tend to struggle with creativity when writing is super structured. Where do you feel Writeshop fits with the amount of structure?

[@PurposefulHomeschool]

That's the great thing about Writeshop is that they will give suggestions for the writing prompt, but give alternate topics and/or allow kids to come up with their own. Before the student ever starts writing, there are exercises that lead up to the writing assignment that provide tools to make the writing easier, but aren't restrictive like IEW.

[@EducationalRoots]

My fantasy self wants to do all the things lol. Each day reality smacks me in the head. Bahaha

[@PurposefulHomeschool]

"..smacks me in the head...' HYSTERICAL!! Love it! And so true for me as well.