October Homeschool Update
This post is long over due! I have been working on some other projects and was tempted to just let this go, but ultimately decided to go through with it because so much has changed that if I don’ talk about it now - it’ll be too hard to catch up later.
The entire year of 2025 has changed me. I felt a big shift last spring, which I shared about here: A Season of Surrender. And, then the month of September, man, was heavy and I am still coming off some of that. But, the world just keeps turning, doesn’t it? When I recorded my video on the symbolism found in Kpop Demon Hunters, it took way more time than I usually spend on content, but I actually really enjoyed the deeper reflection so I wouldn’t be surprised if you see more of that content in the future…you’ll have to let me know what you think though.
Meanwhile, let’s chat about our current rhythm, curriculum, and some of the changes we’ve made.
Our Rhythm + Curriculum Changes
For reference here are our original curriculum picks for this school year: 7th Grade, 3rd Grade, and 1st Grade.
I am posting an older picture of our daily rhythm. (If you need some tips on establishing rhythms check out this post: Tips for Daily Rhythms) But, our days aren’t all going exactly like this right now. They’re somewhat close so I wanted to give you a visual reference. But, for privacy reasons, I’m sure you guys understand, I just don't want to share exactly where we are at and when. New to us this year, we have live online classes as well as a handful of classes outside our home so there are just all these random times when we have to break away from our rhythm. But when we are home and in the flow - this is close to what we’re doing.
As far as changes go, first, just a few weeks before school started, we learned of a local opportunity for my oldest son which turned out to be a huge answer to our prayers. Have you ever worried your child really needs something you can’t give them? But, you aren’t quite sure what or how without compromising in other areas? That’s where we were with him and when the opportunity popped up, I knew it was exactly what we’d been waiting for. God is just so good to deliver. I should have never worried we’d find what my son needed. If there is one thing homeschooling has taught me, is that then we humble ourselves and ask in sincere prayer - the Lord always shows up.
So, anyway, the class he is participating in is a once-weekly all boy class that is taught by male mentors and they focus on servant leadership and developing high character through Christ. Again, for privacy reasons, I’m not going to go into any more details, but it has been so good for him and we’re just so thankful this opportunity was delivered. It’s been exactly what we all needed.
Secondly, my girls decided to join a weekly class with another homeschool group that is just for youth. They’re studying digital art together right now. We’re actually pretty heavy on art this year so it wasn’t academically necessary, but it was a great social opportunity and something they wanted to do with a good group of similar aged kids. As we approach these youth years I am definitely looking for opportunities for them to have well-rounded social experiences.
In addition to this, again, at the last minute before school started, we enrolled the girls in an in-person agricultural class. This is a really high interest of theirs and it wasn’t on my list for them to do, but since they love it so much we decided to just make it work. It is a class with a lot of hands on experience, literally no book work, so we figured it would be good for them to see if this is something they really did love. So far, they have loved it and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they keep going down this track as they get older. Something about the natural sciences really calls to both of them. It’s a little crazy though because they’re also still taking a middle-grade science class with our neighbor. I don’t think any or all of this is necessary by any means, but it’s just the way it ended up working out this year.
Last of all, as a family we decided to join in with another existing homeschool group who does weekly field trips. It isn’t really a co-op, but we do try to plan some community and real-life experiences. In this group, I am also teaching a class on symbolic literature once a month.
So, with these changes, I’ve had to simplify and slow down in some other areas. Usually we homeschool 4x a week and have a flex day to catch up on the house, I work more, or we do extra school work we didn’t get to, but this year I don’t have much of a flex day. It’s also been football season and between both of my boys they have been playing nearly every night of the week. So, overall this has just been a really busy season of life.
Usually we study either science or history for about 4-6 weeks and then switch, but we’re moving so slowly through our first unit, ancient history, that I will likely have to adjust these plans as the year moves on. I am just going to get through our first history unit and then I’ll decide if we want to keep going with history or switch over to science -or, depending on the timing, maybe switch over to some holiday studies, we’ll see.
Math
All my kids main core work is the same except I did switch both of my youngest boys math to Math With Confidence. I like it, probably don’t LOVE it (it’s not quite as open & go as TGTB), but I do think it’ll be a good fit for both of them. Switching maths was a huge pain so I hope they do well enough with it this year that we can continue with it for a few more years.
For my older girls - many of you have followed and have been curious about our transition from The Good & The Beautiful Simply Math to Saxon. We finished up L6 last spring and transitioned to Saxon 8/7 this school year. We love TGTB and a lot of people have asked why we switched with them and that’s because TGTB maxes out at L8. L7 is considered kind of like a review year and since my girls are both pretty solid in math I decided it just made the most sense for them to transition to Saxon and do a pre-algebra course to which would feed into Algebra 1 (which TGTB doesn't have). If you want to read more about middle & high school math tracks, I’d highly recommend this blog post from TGTB: Is TGTB Math Rigorous?
The transition has been a bit bumpy, which I expected. The beginning of 8/7 was too easy for the girls, so I had them just take the tests until they started to slow down and struggle with the test problems. They were able to skip about 6 weeks of lessons and hopefully it’ll be smooth sailing from here on out. They’re definitely still in a place where I feel like what they’re learning is really needed. But, we’re also reaching a point where it’s getting more challenging for me to teach the math without studying it (which I really have little desire to do). The girls don’t like video lessons and have self-taught themselves math for the last year or so but I wouldn’t be surprised that if in the near future we start utilizing My Math Assistant, but we’re not quite there yet.
And, on this note, over the summer I took quite a few classes on preparing for middle/high school and ultimately decided that at this age - I cared less about the girls getting through an entire year’s math course and more about just making sure we’re consistent and working on math every day. So, I cap the girls at an hour of math study (4x a week) and if they get through the lesson, great. And, if they don’t, I’m not too worried about it. Some of the things they’re doing in these courses I remember doing in my college math courses and so I figure as long as they’re continuing to practice math so these problems are recognizable and they’re not loosing what they have learned, then I feel good about that.
Other Curriculum of Interest
For my older girls we’re all loving their english class through the Independent Education Program. And, I am really hoping they like it well enough to continue this track through high school. I’m also listening to the courses they’re taking from the House of Humane Letters and those are also really great. There are no assignments or anything so it’s just really good content we all consume and talk about together and we aren’t really doing anything extra with this. It’s just something I really enjoy connecting with them on.
For my 3rd grader & 1st grader we’re still doing Savvy Reading and not teaching reading has been a huge weight taken off my shoulders these last few months. I still read with both of my boys every day, but it’s felt much more manageable and I am happy with their progress in Savvy. I do have a referral code for Savvy: 1UA8WO. It’ll give you a $25 off a month discount when you enroll.
Keeping up with the Bravewriter curriculum was just too much in addition to our other changes so when I was looking at ways we could simplify I decided to put those on the back burner. I really struggle with the organization of their literature guides so I don’t think we’ll do any more of those (we only got through about half the first one). I do love the writing project suggestions in Partnership Writing and Jot It Down though. We did one full writing project at the beginning of the year which was fun and I wanted to do more, but I suspect we may only get through 1-2 more throughout the entire school year.
Since both of my boys still need that writing practice I decided to move back to note booking with history and that is going really well and was a wise switch for us. We used to notebook a lot more, but this last year or so we just kind of took some time off. If you need some suggestions on note booking Jodi Mockibee’s Notebook Guide got me started on it years ago. (I just recommend using these 7x10 notebooks and we like these fine tip Sharpies.) So we started our history notebooks back up and those really have been fantastic. I also shared about this in my History 1 highlight on IG.
Now, I am using The Good & The Beautiful History 1 for our spine this year. I started with the student journals as well, but since we’re doing notebooking I probably won’t use those as much anymore. Though, I am still pulling things out of them to put into our notebooks if that makes sense. If you follow my stories on IG you’re going to know I’m pretty eclectic though and pull from all over the place. I am also using Little School of Smith’s Ancient Egypt History study right now and her video links and note booking ideas have been super helpful. If you know me, you’ll also know I have devoured the Ancient Tradition podcast - this is a pretty symbolically rich and religious podcast and so I am definitely pulling some things out of here while we’re in ancient history as well.
For our family read alouds we’ve read Wilderlore, The Shining Sword, and are working our way through the unabridged version of Peter Pan in preparation for an upcoming ballet performance we’re going to. We all loved Wilderlore, but there was some content in it that unfortunately I didn’t realize was in it. (Sigh) So we won’t be continuing on with that series. The Shining Sword was FANTASTIC and one of my absolute favorites though.
Peter Pan, oh, Peter Pan. I wondered, but I wasn’t sure until I got into it… but the unabridged version of Peter Pan is another highly symbolic story. I am really enjoying it, but there are a few swear words and a few words that when read with our modern day eyes are likely going to make people cringe. So, if you read this, just remember, it was written in 1911 and some of the meaning of the words have changed. Historically context really matters. But, just for fun, think of Neverland as the Garden of Eden and ask yourself - is this a story about Peter?…or is this really a story about Wendy?
This time of year we also love our seasonal picture books. We come back to these year after year and so many have become traditional and nostalgic for us.
Last, but not least, we’re also really enjoying our Music Appreciation Study & our Elements of Art Study. I don’t share as much about out art study because it’s a locked subscription right now, but if you see it pop up (it’ll probably be available again in January) then just know we’re really loving the EPIC curriculum inside that subscription. All of my kids love this, but I’m especially doing it for my 1st grader and it’s just definitely something he really looks forward to.
There is so much more I could share, but I think that’s good for now. I hope you guys are having a great school year. We’re moving into the holiday season and to be honest, I have no idea what we’ll be doing for our holiday studies this year so I better get to planning…
Happy homeschooling!
