Latest / Homeschooling and Life Unfiltered with Court & Jess / Episode 25 Language Arts Curriculum: Our Real-Life Favorites and Fails

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Episode 25 Language Arts Curriculum: Our Real-Life Favorites and Fails · Homeschooling and Life Unfiltered with Court & Jess

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to homeschooling and life unfiltered with Court and Jess, where real talk meets real life.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Court and Jess are two friends, fellow moms, and business partners who live in different time zones and juggle homeschooling alongside motherhood and entrepreneurship.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Jess is a mom of eight and Court is a mom of seven, and together they're raising 15 kids and navigating the wild, wonderful world of homeschooling, each in completely different ways.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Every week we invite you to pull up a chair for honest conversations, practical tips, and uplifting encouragement.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: You'll hear from moms across the country who are homeschooling in a way that works best for their families.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're a veteran homeschool mom just getting started or somewhere in between, this is your space to feel seen, supported, and inspired.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because no matter how different our past may look, we are all in this together.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do math next week, then we're gonna do science, and then we're gonna do social studies.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So um it's been kind of fun to go back and like look back because I've changed over the years, right?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: As your kids grow, your curriculum change.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: You don't use I don't use the same thing from year to year always.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: I get a little bored, shocking.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it's kind of fun to like go back and look, and I had to like go through the cupboards to like look back through the resources sometimes to kind of jar my memory.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: But um, all right, so language arts.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: What you want to start?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, yeah.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Ours is um language arts is probably the one for me that is the most predictable.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's not my favorite, therefore, you know, I don't get like the squirrel syndrome, right?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Where you're like doing something like, ooh, squirrel or a new shiny object.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like I just don't get roped in that way because I'm just not as passionate about language arts.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we've done where for like history, where we love history, I'll you know, I'll change it up every year just because I I find something new and amazing that I love that I want to add.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: But for ELA, it's super boring.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: We've been doing the same thing literally since our first since our oldest daughter.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing has changed, you guys.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's so boring.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we I am a huge, huge, huge believer in not forcing kids to read at a young age.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if they take that path on their own, I did have one daughter who took that path on her own, and she um never actually had to teach her to read, she taught herself.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um, all of the rest of my kids, we don't start until they're about eight or nine.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so um we don't do any early phonics or anything like that, um, or minimal.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my kids, a couple of my kids um were young enough when venture upwards started that they did some venture upward work, and there's a little bit, there's some there.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um more now with new legislation changes, but um other than that, we just we don't teach reading or really any structured reading until uh eight or nine.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, we're reading to them since you know from basically the week that they're born.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: We're starting to read to them and we read to them every day, multiple times a day.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: So um there is that.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: But uh so, anyways, the very first kind of exposure that they have.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um I guess I so I I have to eat my words a little bit because we did briefly get uh caught with a a new curriculum that we tried for a couple of years that I didn't love.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: I actually can't remember the name of it, but have you heard of Rod and Staff?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that's I actually am missing my favorite book because I borrowed, I just remembered when I was pulling these things off my shelf.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: I remembered that I borrowed out my year three.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I know exactly who I borrowed it to, so I'm gonna go chase it down actually after this.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we use these Rod and Staff books and we start them in.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: I have a second grade one.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: If I have a teacher, this is the teacher's manual, actually.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then this one is the um the actual book, the student book.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: But we use these maybe we dabble a little bit in second grade if I feel like they're ready and they have the attention span, uh, but not always, and but we always do year three, and so we do that in preparation for their work in classical conversations essentials, which is a fourth grade curriculum.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: It goes fourth, fifth, and sixth grade.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I don't usually use book number four, but if they speed through their year three by the end of the year, then we'll we'll start to dabble into year four.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um it is, I will just be super transparent that my kids hate this curriculum.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And they tried it for year.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's so boring, it really is, but I always highly recommend it and borrow it to people whose kiddos are about to do uh classical conversations essentials for the first time because it gives them such a good foundation.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so you're diagramming sentences and doing all those sorts of things, and so um uh I'm I'm I don't have the third grade book to show you, but it's it looks just almost just like this, um, except for a different color.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um, there's a teacher's guide and a student guide, and you work through that.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that is what we do for those grades.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And while we're in those two grades, so second and third grade, and sometimes fourth grade, have you guys done these fix it grammar books?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Love these two.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Town Mouse Country Mouse is the one that is my favorite, and really what you're doing, and why I love it so much, is that you are reading through this book, right?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, whatever book it is, and it's taking little sections and it's broken it down into days.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing is you're learning a concept.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you learn a concept, um, like how to use an apostrophe is the example this one is, and then you're gonna read the sentence and their sentences right out of the book, like they're telling the whole story.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you're basically they've taken a great story and they put a ton of grammatical errors in it, and your kids are gonna go and correct the errors.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just it's fun, it's a good book.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I use it where there's a need when I have a kiddo who's struggling with some of those things.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then when my kids are in fourth grade, they're doing the classical conversations essentials program, and we use um uh already.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was thinking of his name, Andrew Poudoir's um IEW and um IEW Excellence in Writing.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's in my personal humble opinion, one of the best writing curriculums that exists on the market.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I love it because it has a lot of intensive uh parent training.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you go through some uh hours and hours of videos to learn how to um how to properly administer the curriculum.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we do it in a co-op, but we still have to be trained as parents at home to help the kiddos.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: And there's spelling in there, there's grammar work, there's writing work, there's all kinds of things.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they learn how to write well.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, when I started homeschooling my kiddos, I actually became a much better writer.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and now I would consider myself an excellent writer.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: And part of it has to do with going through this curriculum so many times with my kids over the years.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't ever recommend that a parent uses it without doing the parent training or or doing it in a co-op style.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so really, really love that.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then um for high school, my kids are doing the challenge program, and so they're doing all kinds of different um, and I didn't pull all of that, I mostly just did the K28.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they're doing all kinds of literature um and uh ELA stuff in those older years with the challenge in classical conversations.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Does the high school program use IEW too with classical conversations?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: No, they use um let me pull it up here.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't, I'm not familiar enough with it to know, I just curious.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um they use there we go.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why I can't think of the name of it.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, it's been a really long day already.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um there we go.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: To be fair, we're recording on Friday, and by Friday my brain is just mushed.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we don't normally we don't normally record on a Friday.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: No, we don't.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's a reason for that.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you talk about your K8 stuff and then I'll get my list pulled up for for high school and then we can bounce to high school.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So again, like we could not be more different, right?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like we can be so similar in some ways and so different in the other.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: So my background is actually early childhood, my degree.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one of my degrees is in early childhood, and so um, and I used to be a kindergarten teacher, so very long time ago.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: So um I do typically teach um reading a little bit younger.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: I had one kiddo that just wanted to do whatever her sister did.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: So my second kid just like taught herself to read, but it's it's super interesting.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I teach spaulding, like phonics, um, like to my kids.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so she learned, she just memorized everything.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: So she was more of a sight reader than like a phonics reader.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: So she is like the world's worst speller still, like as an adult, like she never like she never really went back and like grasped all the spalding because she was like, I don't need it.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: She was like, I don't know how to read, you know.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, it's just so funny that the difference.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I only had one kid like that, but um, we use spalding.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've dabbled with the how to teach your kid to read in 100 easy lessons, like the year that I had like six tiny little kids and I was needed to teach a kid to read.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Well, let's just try this, and they hated it.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't it wasn't really the best.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't love it.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've used it and it was nice review.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um but like we got stuck in the first 10 lessons for it because I had so like my tail end kids, so my first set of kids, super easy readers, like didn't really have a problem, like didn't really read like love, love to read until they were probably in that nine, but they could, you know, dabble.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: They read like the Dick and Jane books and things like that.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: My last couple of I've struggled, they've had some learning things, and so it's been a totally different ballgame.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: I remember coming to you and being like, what am I doing wrong?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: She's nine and doesn't read, and you're like, chill out, it's okay.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so, anyways, like it just not every kid is the same, right?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so my last two have humbled me in um in that aspect of reading, but um we have used so when my kids are in their younger years, so like early elementary, I really like writing with ease.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the Susan Weissbauer one where it's um reading passages of literature, and then they're they're dictating back, and then they're doing copy work from the passages, so they're learning from good literature.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And my tip for this one, because I have a million kids, and it also makes language arts just a little more fun, is that books are consumable, right?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, like you have the two, I would separate the books out.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: So there's like the teacher portion that you're reading, and then there's like the worksheets that have like the copywork on them.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I put them in projectors and they got to use a B-C marker to do their language arts.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know why, but BCV markers or anything that's not under a regular number two pencil is just magical and more exciting to do for language arts.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: So B City markers, are that are they these just like no?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's just a pen.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: So VCB markers are what?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember um like the old projectors that teachers used to have on their room?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So there's like the skinny, they kind of look like a pen, but they're like come in fun colors and they're like skinny.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like an expo marker, but it's not an ex marker.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean I have some up there, but anyways, and then it wipes off, like you have to use a wet thing that doesn't come like you can't smear it, like it stays, but you have to like at the end of every year, we'd have to go through and like wipe down all the sheet protectors.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: But um, so that that was something the night.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: So with all my early elementary kids, we did that, and then we did the um the what is the oh first language lesson.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like the grammar book, but it's like odd, like you're reading it to them and they're like learning, and we're just like talking about it and like doing activities.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just it's very kind of like a hands-on way to kind of learn grammar.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: So nice.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: My younger kids, we did or my younger elementary age kids, we do that sprinkled with like handwriting without tears, um, or reading for handwriting.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we did we we started with a reason for handwriting, which is the one that has the letters that has like the Bible verse that they did at the end.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a reason for handwriting.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then we did I switched to um handwriting without tears, which is fantastic.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like really good.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, I still have my kids do it, that one.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're still doing that one.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, explode the code is another really good resource for all kids, younger and older, right?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: I love those.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's that.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then as they've those younger kids transitioned into older kids, we did IEW with groups.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like I never ever taught it by itself.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: We always taught it like in a co-op fashion.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was actually the one that had taken the class and like learned it.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we taught it in co-op for it's just more fun with friends.
• 13:10
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: You do the lesson one day and then they have their homework for the week.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I honestly haven't done it with my second set of kids.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: None of them have taken IEW because we haven't done it in a co-op setting and I just can't pull it together to do it for one kid.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just I'm the worst.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we did IW and Fix It Grammar.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: So when the kids were little, um, we also would did we had a couple of years because I needed an easy button when I had a million little kids.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: We did that rod and staff where it has like the it has the books, like kind of the easy readers, the like leveled readers, and then it has like the workbook that went with it.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like the comprehension and the grammar and the spell.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was kind of like a you read a chapter and then there was like some pages.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, nice.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: We did that, and I hadn't remembered until you showed me that, and I was like, Oh yeah.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then I tried the Rod and Staff level three, and Sydney just about killed me.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was torture.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: I bet it is.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is so dry.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it is it's boring.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, boring, yeah.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, grammarland's another one that we've kind of incorporated for family school.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever read Grammarland.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's oh, you should do it with your girls.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it's a grammar story about a judge who is is the judge of Grammarland, and they're bringing all of the the errors, like or the issues with grammar.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like somebody's um, I'm trying to remember, like, but there's one where it's all about articles and like somebody's stealing all of their their things, or like it's about prep, it's a whole chapter about prepositions, but it's like people fighting over the prepositions, like no, these are my words and these are my words and and where they go and how they divide.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm giving a very terrible explanation.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's super ancient.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like it's old, old, old.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's called Grammarland.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's like we just read a chapter, and then at the end, like you're you get to be the you're the jury, and you have to like decide.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Anyways, it's it's kind of a fun, it's fun.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: We've done that a few times.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we would always do it.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: We would read a chapter of grammarland and then we would do um what do you call the little things, the grammar things.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: The story with the silly words.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or you say, like, give me an article or give me a noun, and then you read a story with the silly words in it.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: What's it called?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh what are those called?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: The little mad libs.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we do have mad lives with it.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um which is, I mean, that's like a fun way to do some language arts, right?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I say that quotation.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that is part of family school.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then for like spelling, I've used spelling power.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I used that for a very long time.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then I tried spelling UC one year, which is more kind of like the dictation where they like go through and they like highlight the, you know, the I don't even know.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: I can't even remember.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a long time I only used that one year.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: My kids didn't love it.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then now we're using um good and beautiful, which kind of encompasses all of those things, right?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: So the good and beautiful, I love good and beautiful, and I had tried it like a long time ago because it's very teacher intensive, like it needs a person to like sit with them.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: So there's not very much independent work and it's like an everyday thing.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I it depends upon my season for like if we can do that, right?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what my younger two are using this year.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: We've tried it with high school, but my high school fail, I think I might have said this before, was we tried the good and the beautiful.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the good and beautiful is broken up in high school in like units, right?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: So there's you know, like each unit is supposed to take two weeks.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: I say that in quotation, it's supposed to take two weeks.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my fail is when you hand the kid the thing and like here you go, just like work your way through it.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it was like six weeks later, and they were still working on the first book because there isn't like a set, like, hey, you have to do this, there's no due dates, like unless you're giving it to them.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, that was a little bit of a rough, a rough, like, oh wait, oops, on mom, right?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then so my older kids this year, though, are doing um a celus, like power homeschool, like um computer.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it just worked really well.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: I have my freshman, it's worked really well for her to kind of be a little bit more autonomous, like being able to do her own thing, but with very clear guidelines, like this is what you have to do today.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is what you have to do today.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh-huh.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so this is my first time we've ever done online school, like on like a purely online program, right?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: For my high schoolers with my last two.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and Audrey just switched to it this year.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: She previously was kind of like using a bunch of different things, and she's she's like, Life is crazy, and I just need one place to go.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, can I just do so?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Should she tried it this year and she's really enjoyed it, and she's taken a lot of great classes.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that this is our first time ever doing that, but it's been a good transition for Rory, and it and it's like an easy button for me, honestly.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: You just go in, you check, you see.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that's kind of our language arts journey.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it changes year to year, kid to kid.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a there's a gamut, right?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I and you said a lot of good ones.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's been such a long time, right, since that my my yeah, besides the baby, my youngest is in in sixth grade, uh, going into sixth grade.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so I forgot about some of those.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Explode the code.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we definitely have used explode the code, it is and we use that right around eight or nine.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Such a good book.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it and and I think parents initially are not drawn to it because it it kind of looks like a rod and staff in that it's just dry, it looks dry because it's black and white.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: But the kids love it because it's like a puzzle to like they're unlocking a puzzle, it feels fun.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, my kids have really loved that too.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I forgot to mention we do when starting when our kids are four, we start memory work for classical conversations, and every week they're memorizing um a sentence for every a bunch of subjects, but one of them is ELA.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: So they'll memorize like what is a pronoun, the definition of a pronoun, the definition of a noun.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of that stuff.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: So here I say we don't do anything really until fourth or fifth, but we're setting those pigs, right?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like we are so by the time they get to uh eight or nine years old, they know what a noun is because they've memorized that since they were four.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and there's a different role um that they're memorizing.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then um uh the other thing, and we do some mad libs too, although you know, I always forget to count that as school because it just feels so fun, but it really is, it really is school.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: It is school.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: I need to remind myself of that.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so for the high school, the word that I could not think of before is um uh the lost tools of writing is what we use sixth and seventh grade.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh or not sixth and seventh, sorry, seventh and eighth grade, they use the lost tools of writing.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's it's it's pretty good.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um we use it for, I guess, sixth, sorry, seventh, challenge A, B, and one.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: So seventh, eighth, and ninth grade.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then we do they do a lot of like literature-based stuff too.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we're um doing a lot of the like they do Newberry Award books and short stories, um, and then American literature, and then they use a lot of the um oh what are they called?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: But use um they use some books that help explore short stories and things like that as well.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then this is really interesting, something that Classical Conversations does.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: I can take no credit for it, but they also start learning Latin from a really young age.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: And in the older grades, they use Latin as their grammar, so they're learning grammar concepts through Latin.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that's worked really well for us.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, by the time my kids are in, in not just my kids, like classical conversations in general, by the time that they're going in as a freshman, most of them have all of the ELA concepts through high school already completed and you know put to memory and practice.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, yeah, and then I forgot all about handwriting.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: We do do cursive still.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I'm really behind with my next set of littles on cursive.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: We need to get we need to get Kraken because they're already, like I said, Hannah is going into sixth grade and um Corey's going into it to well, technically she's going into eighth grade, but she's doing some ninth grade program.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Mia, and so I need to get them going on cursive writing because it is important to me that they know how to write cursive before they graduate.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's actually been interesting for us.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you teach cursive or not, but that that's where I usually see that flip in handwriting, like messy handwriting, and then once they kind of see it more of as an art, like, oh, it's you can do cursive writing, it's very beautiful, then I see an improvement on handwriting.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm hoping I'm hoping that's still true.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: uh for my littles as it was for my older kiddos.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: But it's funny.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Grady's cursive is beautiful.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: His handwriting is atrocious.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like his regular handwriting.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's so funny.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, why can't you just do that all the time?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, it's too much work.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm cursive.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: My two of my girls, Corey and Hannah, they they do have pretty decent handwriting.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Corey has actually pretty pretty good handwriting, but um I forgot all about handwriting with tears without tears.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's like those memories.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: I have them, yeah.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: I already have them.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: So what?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: What you already have the workbooks?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: The handwriting without tears?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: I have all that.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah we use it all the time.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know but they're consumable so don't you have to buy a new one?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: So those ones I think I made copies of or I put in I did a lot of because I have I have this ink allergy right like it's so weird.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of our books I've cut the binding off of and then put um shoe protectors.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then we had the little chalkboards do you remember for handwritten without tears so we use those a lot too I'll have to look and see if I would need to buy new ones for our baby which is you know she's not going to need it for many years.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: You could totally do the visa V thing though with those V-a V that's the markers that you're gonna on the sheet protectors.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah that's a good idea but yeah that's what we always did was put them in sheet protectors and marker them or I made copies because there's and but I can't remember for sure there's several this is part of what I love about homeschool curriculum authors there's so many curriculums that say if you are using this for your own personal family you can make copies which I so appreciate when they put that in there because they just that just tells you they understand what it means to be a homeschooling family.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And they don't have to buy 50 million copies.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things about those because they're not very expensive like 10 bucks right the kids liked like that was the one thing they got that was new right was their handwriting book.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I've never done that one as a as a like whatever you know like having them make copies.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was I mean that was just one it's easier to not make copies.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean there were times that I have but that was like the one thing that they always got that was like the new thing I think that's important too like is the back to school vibe right like all the kids are going and getting new book bags and all and we do that we participate in that too like we go and we get the back to school supplies and it is nice I agree to let them have like this is your new book and not you know like my poor youngest Hannah by the time she's in challenge which starts in a few years for classical conversations she's like her books are well they're so warm they're well loved there you go they're well loved but yeah well it's so funny how different we are but we had some we had some overlap so that was fun too yeah all right this was awesome okay so next week come back and we'll be talking all about math all right everybody have a great week bye