Monday, April 26, 2010

Hits and Misses (Updated)

It's only been 3 posts since I gave a 9-week review of our hits and misses. However, much time has passed, and, as the year is drawing to a close, I have a much bigger picture of what has worked and what hasn't.

Tapestry of Grace - This is a wonderful program. Having said that, over time I've found that it's just not a good fit for us. I don't feel that I, as the parent, am taking full advantage of all the wonderful things in the program. This has led to my decision to use something else next year (more on that later). I think if we were part of a co-op, it would be completely different. There is a co-op in our area, but we tried to get in this year and they turned us down because nobody in the group knew us. Really. A friend compared it to getting into a country club and I had to laugh. She's right!

I dropped TOG's literature and added CLE Reading after Christmas. This is a good, solid program, and the kids like it for the most part. (no complaints, at least, and they are getting good grades)

Math - Ruth completed Life of Fred Fractions, then Decimals and Percents. She's finishing up the year with BJU Math 6, reviewing and filling any gaps. I did find that LOF was not a good fit for Robert. He loved reading the lessons, but had difficulty seeing past the story to the math. I moved him back to CLE Math and that's gone well.

Science - Ugh. Ruth finished Apologia Elementary Zoology I, then has done some of A Beka Science 6 to finish out the year. I switched Robert to A Beka Science 7 after our struggles with Apologia. We've kind of limped through it this year. I've come to the conclusion that teaching science is a weakness of mine, and something that needs to be outsourced.

Our other hits of the year (IEW, Rod and Staff Grammar, Meet the Masters art program, workboxes, and History Scribe notebook pages) have continued to work well.

Up next... our plans for next year!

1 comment:

Megan said...

Can I just say that I'm so sorry you were excluded on that basis? Ugg. Clicks abound just about everywhere and they never seem to get easier to manage.

I'm so sorry.