Spero Academy Year-in-Review
It's time for my year-in-review. These post have come to mark a sense of accomplishment for me. They're milestones in our school-as-life journey. I can easily see my own growth and change as I look back on this set of posts from the past six, seven, eight years. My 2019-20 plans post goes over how and why I chose these things.
So this year went almost to plan. I tried a few new things, and had some hits and misses. Here's how it shaped up.
Meryn: 3rd grade:
We completed most of this! I ended up swapping out The Story for The Children's Story Bible, which is my go-to anyway. The Story wasn't quite as thorough and engaging as I wanted it to be, so went back to Catherine Vos. We read the entire Story Bible, and all four volumes of A Picturesque Tale of Progress with some exceptions for summaries of biblical stories we read from Vos, as well as a good stack of historical picture books. Levi really got lit up on history this year. They both enjoyed making lap books too, which surprised me. We made a couple of lap books using Tapestry of Grace printables and that was fun!
Literature Book List:
Luke and Kiryn: 8th and 7th
Language:
We did accomplish all of this except Poetry and Humanity.
Latin Alive: I loved this. I thought the work load was perfect. It was flexible and could be tailored to individual students needs. The translation work was challenging and engaging and stretched our reading ability significantly. The video lectures were a little long and felt unnecessary at times, so we skipped a lot of them in favor of just reading the text. But, much of this book was review for us, having completed fully all three Latin for Children primers. We may not be able to get away with skipping videos next year for Latin Alive 2.
The Argument Builder: I traded this off with another mom. I taught Latin, she taught this pre-Rhetoric class. She did an AMAZING job and brought in loads of extra content, a wonderful debate topic that she wove through all the lessons, taught them internet research skills, just wonderful. My only regret with this is that I didn't take the class or keep up with reading the book, and now I'm playing catchup this summer to keep stretching the skills they gained next year. The Argument Builder is all about the five common topics of invention and they will continue to work on deepening their understanding, use, and application of these skills for the next four years. So I need to know it! Summer homework for me.
Writing & Rhetoric Book 9: This book seems slightly out of place or like a bit of an out-lier from the rest of the Writing & Rhetoric series. These were not persuasive essays by nature at all. So in some ways, it was a nice breather from more serious writing. My kids enjoyed and excelled with the descriptive writing; they could really flex their creative muscles here and enjoyed the narrative story writing with descriptive details. They struggled with the impersonation essays. It was difficult to be using a specific author's "voice" to recount a memory or life experience that was either their (the student's) own, or NOT their own. One essay asked them to recount the memory of a favorite holiday. My daughter wanted to write about Thanksgiving, but struggled because the author she was impersonating was British. I took a look at Memoria Press's Characterization book, and they took a slightly different approach to this writing style, and I think I'd have preferred it to the four essays in Writing & Rhetoric. It was more imaginative: like what Leonidas would say as he was surrounded, what a Great Book would say on being abandoned by a reader, what a pencil would say after just being sharpened. Those exercises seem like they would have been a lot more fun and instructive than what we did in Writing & Rhetoric! It's hard for me to say this because I have thoroughly loved every other book in this series. But this one, I may skip in favor of Classical Compositions Impersonation next time around....
Magic Lens was excellent and challenging. I assigned the readings and had the kids work through sentences on their own, and during a writing "class" time each week, we'd talk through their sentence analysis and pick apart any misunderstanding.
I have struggled with crafting our math sequence for middle and high school. I've really wanted to do Algebra all together, back to back, but I could not find a good program that did this without inserting geometry in the middle. So we went on with Geometry this year for Luke. About November, I recognized that both of the older kids just really were not getting the proper mathematical reasoning and learning to ask the right questions for deep understanding and problem solving. After their CLT8 scores came back in March, my suspicions were confirmed. This was despite faithfully working these two curricula, no red flags on exams, regular grading, etc. So I decided *not* to finish either of these math programs and start from scratch. We began VideoText Complete Algebra, both kids together in April. After the first few lessons, both kids said, "I can see why we needed to do this." They also enjoy it more than what they were doing, and it takes less time each day than their previous math texts. So this is a major win. We finished the first unit of 10.
So we quickly realized that Geography III was just not going to happen. They were pretty bored with it and found it to be busy work. They had a pretty heavy reading load for history, literature, science, and writing and logic, so this was one thing that had to give.
Novare Physical Science: I really liked this book. This was our second year with Novare, and now having been through two books, I see how their layout is consistent and how it works towards mastery in a more big-picture way. I also see what's expected of me as a teacher. Here's some things I really like about Novare Sciences:
-The text: it's small. The text on the pages is not overwhelming, because the pages are small, like half the size of an Apologia book. There are a good number of pictures of nature so that most pages have something in addition to text, but not overwhelmingly so. It is written at a great readable and understandable but challenging level.
-The content: it's measured and reasonable. They are not trying to expose a student to every concept in physical science. They're trying to lay foundations of mastery in skills needed to study higher sciences. The selections and scope and sequence are excellent.
-The method: it's mastery focused. Each section of reading is closed with a Learning Check. Learning Checks require writing. They're not short answer or matching. They're paragraph length answers required. There are regular quizzes. Same thing. All paragraph length answers. There are semester exams. Same thing. The kids have to answer all questions in multiple sentence or paragraph length answers. This is great for the student. It's challenging for me as a teacher, because I have to have a pretty good handle on the material in order to assess/grade their papers, have a discussion over the learning checks, and more.
Overall, as long as I can keep up with reading the book with them and grading their quizzes, I'd love to keep using Novare. Their books glorify God while being very responsible with scientific theories.
Again, this was an area I struggled with making choices in for this year. We typically use living history books, but I wanted something more analytical for this sweep of history for middle school and high school. I looked at a lot of things, and ended up deciding to continue with Tapestry of Grace's dialectic history, but using Streams of Civilization as a spine since it's written into to the TOG week plans, and then two other books on Greece and Rome and keeping it simple. TOG has some Dialectic Accountability and Thinking questions so I had the kids do the assigned reading and answer the questions. Some they answered in writing and others we used for discussion. This lasted about half to two thirds of the school year. There were too many questions, and I had a hard time narrowing them down each week. I also felt like they weren't quite getting at the meat of what I was looking for. So I was pretty disappointed with this track this year. Selling all three of these books.
I loved this track this year. The Bible Project videos were fantastic and we watched pretty much the whole Old Testament. The kids read sections of the Old Testament, some whole books, and read a good bit of A House for My Name, which is an excellent resource. We had some good discussions and picked up on some wonderful themes and literary elements in the Old Testament. I was pleased with how this went!
-Close Reads: Antiquity
Our Close Reads class was a lot of fun again this year. This was a great selection of books and was just about right for the class, which ranged from 6-8th graders. If I'd had just 7-8th graders, I'd probably have used Edith Hamilton's Mythology instead of Bulfinch, and read the full Aeneid instead of a re-telling. The Church re-telling was just a little okay, not great. But Black Ships and Gilgamesh were great, and we all really enjoyed Lawrence's translation of The Odyssey. Highlight of the year.
So this year went almost to plan. I tried a few new things, and had some hits and misses. Here's how it shaped up.
Language:
-All About Spelling Level 3
-McGuffey Reader Book 1 & 2
-Writing Through Ancient History by Brookdale House
-Song School Latin 2
Math:
-Math-U-see Gamma
We accomplished all of this. I saw Meryn take big strides this year in her reading, reading comprehension, math skills, and slower, but steady gains in spelling. I've learned to adapt the spelling for her. She needs smaller bits and more hands on, less dictation. So we've moved more to dictating individual sounds and studied dictation for words and sentences, copy work for longer sentences. I make copy work packets for her based on her All About Spelling lessons and this is much better for her. She rocked her multiplication this year! So proud of her.
We accomplished all of this. I saw Meryn take big strides this year in her reading, reading comprehension, math skills, and slower, but steady gains in spelling. I've learned to adapt the spelling for her. She needs smaller bits and more hands on, less dictation. So we've moved more to dictating individual sounds and studied dictation for words and sentences, copy work for longer sentences. I make copy work packets for her based on her All About Spelling lessons and this is much better for her. She rocked her multiplication this year! So proud of her.
Levi: 4th grade
Language:
-All About Spelling Level 4
-Writing & Rhetoric Books 1-2: Fable and Narrative 1
-McGuffey Readers 2 &3
-Writing Through Ancient History for cursive copy work/practice
Math:
-Math-U-see Delta
Levi also accomplished all of this. I saw him really excel in writing and Latin this year, which was very satisfying for me. :) He also really got into history and I enjoyed seeing his interest get piqued by Egyptian and Greek mythology.
Levi also accomplished all of this. I saw him really excel in writing and Latin this year, which was very satisfying for me. :) He also really got into history and I enjoyed seeing his interest get piqued by Egyptian and Greek mythology.
Combined Subjects for Levi and Meryn together:
Science:
-Berean Builders Science in the Ancient World (last year we did a lot of nature study on animals, ecosystems, habitats, plants and trees. They want some active experiments this year!)
We did about 8 lessons in this book, and that's it. We read about Aristotle's life and did a few experiments. But I didn't really meet my goals here with this one this year. It was mainly a timing issue. As in, there wasn't enough time, and of their course work, this was (and has always been) the thing to give....
We did about 8 lessons in this book, and that's it. We read about Aristotle's life and did a few experiments. But I didn't really meet my goals here with this one this year. It was mainly a timing issue. As in, there wasn't enough time, and of their course work, this was (and has always been) the thing to give....
Humanities:
-History: A Picturesque Tale of Progress vol. 1-4
Various projects with books like: Ancient Israelites and Their Neighbors, Tools of the Ancient Greeks, Explore Ancient Rome
-The Story: a narrative version of the Bible. This will be a family Read-Aloud.
We completed most of this! I ended up swapping out The Story for The Children's Story Bible, which is my go-to anyway. The Story wasn't quite as thorough and engaging as I wanted it to be, so went back to Catherine Vos. We read the entire Story Bible, and all four volumes of A Picturesque Tale of Progress with some exceptions for summaries of biblical stories we read from Vos, as well as a good stack of historical picture books. Levi really got lit up on history this year. They both enjoyed making lap books too, which surprised me. We made a couple of lap books using Tapestry of Grace printables and that was fun!
Literature Book List:
-Famous Men of Greece
-Exodus
-Cleopatra
-Gilgamesh Trilogy by Zeman
-The Golden Goblet
-Joseph
-The Children's Homer by Padraic Colum
-D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths
-God King
-City by David Macaulay
-Mystery of the Roman Ransom
-Galen: My Life in Imperial Rome
-Cautionary Tales by Hillaire Belloc
-The Phoenix and the Carpet by Nesbit
-My Bookhouse vol. 6 & 7
All these titles were read and enjoyed! This was a good list for us that covered some good historical fiction, biography, as well as some poetry and more modern reads. Cautionary Tales was a hoot!
All these titles were read and enjoyed! This was a good list for us that covered some good historical fiction, biography, as well as some poetry and more modern reads. Cautionary Tales was a hoot!
Luke and Kiryn: 8th and 7th
-Latin Alive! 1: I will be teaching an online class with one other family.
-The Argument Builder by CAP: The other mom is teaching this. It's a good trade-off. :)
-Writing & Rhetoric Book 9: Description and Impersonation
-Magic Lens 1 and Poetry and Humanity by Royal Fireworks Press.
We did accomplish all of this except Poetry and Humanity.
Latin Alive: I loved this. I thought the work load was perfect. It was flexible and could be tailored to individual students needs. The translation work was challenging and engaging and stretched our reading ability significantly. The video lectures were a little long and felt unnecessary at times, so we skipped a lot of them in favor of just reading the text. But, much of this book was review for us, having completed fully all three Latin for Children primers. We may not be able to get away with skipping videos next year for Latin Alive 2.
The Argument Builder: I traded this off with another mom. I taught Latin, she taught this pre-Rhetoric class. She did an AMAZING job and brought in loads of extra content, a wonderful debate topic that she wove through all the lessons, taught them internet research skills, just wonderful. My only regret with this is that I didn't take the class or keep up with reading the book, and now I'm playing catchup this summer to keep stretching the skills they gained next year. The Argument Builder is all about the five common topics of invention and they will continue to work on deepening their understanding, use, and application of these skills for the next four years. So I need to know it! Summer homework for me.
Writing & Rhetoric Book 9: This book seems slightly out of place or like a bit of an out-lier from the rest of the Writing & Rhetoric series. These were not persuasive essays by nature at all. So in some ways, it was a nice breather from more serious writing. My kids enjoyed and excelled with the descriptive writing; they could really flex their creative muscles here and enjoyed the narrative story writing with descriptive details. They struggled with the impersonation essays. It was difficult to be using a specific author's "voice" to recount a memory or life experience that was either their (the student's) own, or NOT their own. One essay asked them to recount the memory of a favorite holiday. My daughter wanted to write about Thanksgiving, but struggled because the author she was impersonating was British. I took a look at Memoria Press's Characterization book, and they took a slightly different approach to this writing style, and I think I'd have preferred it to the four essays in Writing & Rhetoric. It was more imaginative: like what Leonidas would say as he was surrounded, what a Great Book would say on being abandoned by a reader, what a pencil would say after just being sharpened. Those exercises seem like they would have been a lot more fun and instructive than what we did in Writing & Rhetoric! It's hard for me to say this because I have thoroughly loved every other book in this series. But this one, I may skip in favor of Classical Compositions Impersonation next time around....
Magic Lens was excellent and challenging. I assigned the readings and had the kids work through sentences on their own, and during a writing "class" time each week, we'd talk through their sentence analysis and pick apart any misunderstanding.
Math:
-Jacob's Geometry with Dr. Callahan's videos
-MUS Algebra 1 with Honors lessons
I have struggled with crafting our math sequence for middle and high school. I've really wanted to do Algebra all together, back to back, but I could not find a good program that did this without inserting geometry in the middle. So we went on with Geometry this year for Luke. About November, I recognized that both of the older kids just really were not getting the proper mathematical reasoning and learning to ask the right questions for deep understanding and problem solving. After their CLT8 scores came back in March, my suspicions were confirmed. This was despite faithfully working these two curricula, no red flags on exams, regular grading, etc. So I decided *not* to finish either of these math programs and start from scratch. We began VideoText Complete Algebra, both kids together in April. After the first few lessons, both kids said, "I can see why we needed to do this." They also enjoy it more than what they were doing, and it takes less time each day than their previous math texts. So this is a major win. We finished the first unit of 10.
Science:
-Geography III by Memoria Press
So we quickly realized that Geography III was just not going to happen. They were pretty bored with it and found it to be busy work. They had a pretty heavy reading load for history, literature, science, and writing and logic, so this was one thing that had to give.
Novare Physical Science: I really liked this book. This was our second year with Novare, and now having been through two books, I see how their layout is consistent and how it works towards mastery in a more big-picture way. I also see what's expected of me as a teacher. Here's some things I really like about Novare Sciences:
-The text: it's small. The text on the pages is not overwhelming, because the pages are small, like half the size of an Apologia book. There are a good number of pictures of nature so that most pages have something in addition to text, but not overwhelmingly so. It is written at a great readable and understandable but challenging level.
-The content: it's measured and reasonable. They are not trying to expose a student to every concept in physical science. They're trying to lay foundations of mastery in skills needed to study higher sciences. The selections and scope and sequence are excellent.
-The method: it's mastery focused. Each section of reading is closed with a Learning Check. Learning Checks require writing. They're not short answer or matching. They're paragraph length answers required. There are regular quizzes. Same thing. All paragraph length answers. There are semester exams. Same thing. The kids have to answer all questions in multiple sentence or paragraph length answers. This is great for the student. It's challenging for me as a teacher, because I have to have a pretty good handle on the material in order to assess/grade their papers, have a discussion over the learning checks, and more.
Overall, as long as I can keep up with reading the book with them and grading their quizzes, I'd love to keep using Novare. Their books glorify God while being very responsible with scientific theories.
Humanities:
-Ancient History: Streams of Civilization and The Story of Ancient Greece, The Story of Ancient Rome by Suzanne Strauss Art, covering pre-history through the Roman Republic.
Again, this was an area I struggled with making choices in for this year. We typically use living history books, but I wanted something more analytical for this sweep of history for middle school and high school. I looked at a lot of things, and ended up deciding to continue with Tapestry of Grace's dialectic history, but using Streams of Civilization as a spine since it's written into to the TOG week plans, and then two other books on Greece and Rome and keeping it simple. TOG has some Dialectic Accountability and Thinking questions so I had the kids do the assigned reading and answer the questions. Some they answered in writing and others we used for discussion. This lasted about half to two thirds of the school year. There were too many questions, and I had a hard time narrowing them down each week. I also felt like they weren't quite getting at the meat of what I was looking for. So I was pretty disappointed with this track this year. Selling all three of these books.
-The Bible as Literature: A House for My Name by Peter Leithart, and The Bible Project videos as aids to reading through a good portion of the Old and New Testament over the year
I loved this track this year. The Bible Project videos were fantastic and we watched pretty much the whole Old Testament. The kids read sections of the Old Testament, some whole books, and read a good bit of A House for My Name, which is an excellent resource. We had some good discussions and picked up on some wonderful themes and literary elements in the Old Testament. I was pleased with how this went!
This will be a class at co-op in which we will read:
-Tales of Ancient Egypt by Roger Lancelyn Greene
-Gilgamesh the Hero by Geraldine McCaughreon
-Bulfinch's Age of Fable
-Black Ships Before Troy by Rosemary Sutcliffe
-The Odyssey, translated by T.E. Lawrence
-The Aeneid for Boys and Girls by Alfred Church
-Julius Caesar by Shakespeare
Our Close Reads class was a lot of fun again this year. This was a great selection of books and was just about right for the class, which ranged from 6-8th graders. If I'd had just 7-8th graders, I'd probably have used Edith Hamilton's Mythology instead of Bulfinch, and read the full Aeneid instead of a re-telling. The Church re-telling was just a little okay, not great. But Black Ships and Gilgamesh were great, and we all really enjoyed Lawrence's translation of The Odyssey. Highlight of the year.
I also would like for Kiryn and Luke to read with Paul and me:
-Classical Me, Classical Thee by Rebekah Merkle
-How to Be Your Own Selfish Pig by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
-The Screwtape Letters by C.s. Lewis
So I read through Classical Me, Classical Thee in August and decided I wasn't sure I wanted them to read it. What I loved in it, I loved, but what I disagreed with was so distasteful it gave me pause. So, I shelved that. They were pretty busy with reading and life as it was so I decided not to assign the other books either. But I'm definitely going to strongly encourage (a.k.a. bribe) them to read them this summer. :)
Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how this year went. Aside from a few changes, when Levi and Meryn get to middle school, we'll repeat a lot of this, I think!
So I read through Classical Me, Classical Thee in August and decided I wasn't sure I wanted them to read it. What I loved in it, I loved, but what I disagreed with was so distasteful it gave me pause. So, I shelved that. They were pretty busy with reading and life as it was so I decided not to assign the other books either. But I'm definitely going to strongly encourage (a.k.a. bribe) them to read them this summer. :)
Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how this year went. Aside from a few changes, when Levi and Meryn get to middle school, we'll repeat a lot of this, I think!
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