What a glorious day it is today! Today we had the oppurtunity to sit outside on the deck and do our daily school work. This is definetly a perk of homeschooling. Wouldn’t you take advantage if this is what your classroom could look like? Next task to tackle is cleaning up the deck and the yard after a harsh, long, winter. Soon the trees will come back to full life and this picture will look drastically different.

In my previous posts, I talked a little about what programs I used for my children this year. Check these posts specifically, here, and here. I am still in the process of picking out what I want to use for next year, 6th and 8th grades. I really like what MasterBooks has to offer in math and science. Before the start of this school year, I almost ordered whole cirriculum kits from Christian Liberty. If you are still looking around, be sure to check them out. After that, I had thought of whole subject sets through Alpha Omega Lifepac. A whole kit sounds easier to choose, and likely is, but in the end I decided I wanted to mix things up, however I ended up using mostly Alpha Omega Lifepac and overall been mostly happy with it.

I know that you can look at all these choices online but I like paper catalogs. Therefore, whenever a company offers one, I request it. This allows me to look side by side at all the options all laid out in front of me. It also allows me to look at them when I need a break from digital screens or when my internet isn’t working. Rural living has upsides and downsides. Fast, reliable internet is not something we get here. Along with poor choice of TV services and one choice for phone service, cell service is also extremely poor here but that is one thing that I don’t care much about as I don’t use a cell phone, except occassionally. The trade off is seeing the stars, living among nature and for the most part, it’s quiet. Town isn’t too far away, not that there is much in town but it’s not too far to travel to even more variety.

If you are interesed in who sends out a catalog, here are the ones that I have received : Christian Liberty, Christian Light Education, Memoria Press, Veritas Press, Sonlight, My Father’s World, Timberdoodle, Rainbow Resource (HUGE catalog) and if you shop at Christianbook.com they will send catalogs out. There very well may be others, but these are the publishers/companies that I was most interested in. Links to some of these companies are on my resources page. Many companies also offer free dowloadable catlalogs and also scope and sequence which can help you to know what is going to be taught.

Now let’s talk about language arts for a moment. Do you call it language arts, reading, writing, or English? Whatever it is, it can be combined. The Lifepac workbooks contain a lot of good solid information about the parts of speech, sentence structure and knowing how to be a better writer. Because Lifepac is more independent study (but supervisors are intended to be involved and there are additional activities in the teacher guide to expand the learning) there is a significant amount of reading. Both of my children somewhat enjoy reading and pretty good at it. It wasn’t always this way for my daughter however. It wasn’t until her 2nd grade year in public school, when she had a teacher who really helped improve her reading skills that she started to enjoy it and testing showed her getting up to her reading level. Prior to that, her teachers were always “concerned” about her reading ability. We worked on it at home too, of course. She completed her 5th grade, PA homeschool law required, assessment test this year and the numbers prove she’s improved greatly (not that I focus on those test scores, I don’t). She also enjoys reading for fun now. My son has always been grade levels ahead, so reading was never an issue for him. He liked reading for fun a lot more before his “tween” years. At 13, now it’s harder to get him to want to read instead of video games.

The Lifepac language arts course downside for me is the lack of literature reading. There are quite a few passages in my daughter’s 5th grade workbooks and at that grade level it also teaches poetry and continues cursive handwriting. Had my daughter not been introduced, however, to cursive in public school in 4th grade, she’d not know how to do it. My son was never shown cursive in public school and still I struggle to get him to practice using it. It’s not a requirement in our school district, so it’s a teacher’s choice to teach or not if they find time. My daughter’s 4th grade teacher didn’t teach it, and did not grade it, or make them use it, but she did have them do several practice packets as homework. Overall I was happy with the material in the 5th grade Lifepac. My daughter found some of the literature boring, but what child doesn’t?

Now for my son’s 7th grade language arts Lifepac set there was not nearly enough literature. Keep in mind that this curriculum is Christian based and there are many references, memory work, copywork, and reading from the Bible. That part is excellent. I went to a Christian school, 2nd-12th grades, and I remember having a lot more literature than my son had this year. He did have one novel to read for the course and one entire workbook dedicated to that novel. I wished there was more than one. I wasn’t letting either child off of reading. They both had requirements for books to read throughout the year and do a variety of book reports on what they read. Next year I feel I will ask them to do more reading of literature than this year but it will depend on what curriculum is chosen and the requirements for that. I allowed more modern fiction reading but also made them choose classic literature and non-fiction. As I’ve said, they’ve had an enormous amount of reading practice by reading their lessons but they needed more literature. Alpha Omega advertises the courses as complete, and they are for the most part, but do keep in mind that you’ll likely want to add literature reading to their language arts courses.

Course kits by Christian Liberty, Memoria Press and certainly, Learning Language Arts through Literature all contain a great deal of reading and some will have a grammar course separately for a complete Language Arts course. There are so many choices and it will depend on your budget, space (books take up a lot of room!), your children’s learning style and ability, and what you as the homeschool supervisor feel is important for your child’s education. As a homeschool supervisor, you are in control, not some public school which in many aspects has things dictated to them by politicians.

If I were to rate Alpha Omega Lifepac; Language Arts, for the 5th grade, I think I would give it a 4.5 out of 5. For the 7th grade course, maybe 3.5 – 4 out of 5. Your experience may well differ. My son is not at all interested in writing reports or opinions or doing any sort of research. If the course was all creative writing I think we wouldn’t have struggled so much. Don’t get me wrong, this course is invaluable in what they teach grammar wise and to be fair, he hasn’t had a solid foundation from public school in HOW to write or even HOW to take notes. He was never even taught how to outline. The curriculum assumes you already know how to do this. At the 5th grade level they go over outlining and the process of choosing a topic and writing rough drafts. These things were not discussed in the 7th grade course (that I recall). With that said, there may be no course to get my son interested in writing though I’ve heard positive feedback about IEW : Institute for Excellence in Writing. It wasn’t just his Language Arts course where it became a chore to get him to do the writing. There is a significant amount in the daily activity work in the History and Geography course, but more on that subject at a later date.

I want to point to a website where you can get FREE ebooks. “Project Gutenberg offers over 56,000 free eBooks: Choose among free epub books, free kindle books, download them or read them online. You will find the world’s great literature here, especially older works for which copyright has expired. We digitized and diligently proofread them with the help of thousands of volunteers. ” Also when shopping for books many locations may offer teacher discounts, don’t be shy to tell them you’re a homeschool teacher and ask if you can get one. Used books stores are a wonderful resource for us as well as thrift stores and of course your local library.

In closing I just want to make a comment about the homeschool law, specifically here in Pennsylvania. I see an increasing number of school districts “requiring” things from parents that are not law. This could be credentials to documentation. Many parents post these issues in the groups I am in. Our government leaders play an huge role in our freedoms and our choices and that includes homeschooling. The HSLDA is an organization made up of lawyers and other homeschool advocates working for you the homeschooling parent to prevent government interference and give you the rights to educate your child. When these issues arise, where your district is giving you a hard time, or demanding things that are not required by the current law, the HSLDA can be contacted if you are a paid member and they will help resolve it. I hope to never need them, but I am a member. They are not just for Pennsylvanians.

My final comment is this, don’t allow the districts to bully you into compliance with something that is not required of you by the homeschool law. When you give in to them that only hurts the future of our homeschooling freedoms. You may think it’s easier than the “fight”, however, it isn’t. When lawmakers want to change what’s currently written and they examine what people are willing to give up, they will re-write the laws and not in our favor. Please know the law and follow the law and make your district accountable to the law as well. (disclaimer : I am just a homeschooling mom and this is my opinion)