Second Grade Homeschool Review

Now this is a small miracle, I am blogging two days in a row! Unfortunately I have not touched my sewing machine, but that is a different story.

Anyway, today I have my review of what we did for second grader this past year.

Math: Saxon math - love it, will never change my mind. They do such a great job in my mind. My second grader was kind of like my kindergartener, he started out highly motivated and breezed through extra pages and so we made it into the third grade book. The only thing I fell behind on was the flash cards - they were supposed to do them everyday, and I was more like every week. But we learned almost all of the multiplication tables!

English: First Language Lessons level 1 & 2. When we started the school year I tried starting him at level 2, but he knew nothing! It was bad. So we just started at level one and did two lessons a day. It wasn't too bad because they are short. If they were long we did just one. I like this, there is enough review that he really grasped the concepts. I would use it again, one of the reasons why is because it tells me what I need to say and English is not my strong point, so I really like that! But it taught my boy what he needed to know, and I feel that he is not behind like when we started the year.

Writing: We used writing with ease from The Well Trained Mind. It was pretty easy for him, but it was not very exciting. He is not a big writer and so when we would read a section of a story and then he was supposed to write his favorite part he would write a 3-4 word sentence. I have mixed feelings if I would use this again - it was one of those things that I had to remind him over and over again to do.

History: We did Story of the World vol 2 - the Middle Ages. He loved this, we read the story, did the map work, tests and then some of the activities. I like these books, and love how you can tailor them to what you are capable of. There were some weeks that we just read the story and called it good. Then there were other weeks where we had more time and got into them and did some of the extra activities. Now that we are even done with school my kids ask if I can just read them the stories every now and them - um, yes!!

Science: I used the same science book from Barnes and Noble that I used for my Kindergartener. He understood most of the concepts and would help my other boy complete the projects. Like I said before I could have done more, but you just have to draw the line somewhere.

Spelling: I started him in Spelling Power, but that was just too much for him. He needed something different. So we tried something that I had already and had never used - Abekas spelling and poetry. We did each list for a week. I had him do the activities in the book and then on other days of the week had him do different things that would help him with spelling. But man we struggled. He did not like the words and I was not completely sold on their process. I think if I had to do it over again I would look for something different. I am afraid that we might be a little behind in spelling coming next year.

Music: He takes piano lessons - from me - and we really made some progress this year. We are now in the second books level 1B, and he likes is sometimes and not so much other times - just like any boy. But I am a firm believer in piano lessons and the various ways that they help kids out and so we grit our teeth through those times and live it up on the good times!

Art: My husband is an artist and he would have them draw different things every now and then and then we would also use Usborne Art Treasury book. He really liked this, and I liked the book because it taught them about different artists and then we got to create some art similar to their famous pieces.

I think that is all we did - I could be forgetting something, my brain my not be back to its normal state of functioning! This kid is smart and would do a lot of his work on his own, which is fabulous especially when homeschooling multiple children! 

If I keep up with this tomorrow we will review 4th grade! But we might be going to the pool, so if it is not here understand - k. We have a storm coming in right now and so it is cooling off outside so I am headed out to enjoy some fun with the kids before bedtime!