Finishing Our School Year 2026

 We're at the end of our school year for 2026.  We have one more week to wrap up Bible, Story of the World 2 and one of our literature selections.  My son and I have discussed taking the rest of the year off for a break or just continuing with our 2027 plans.  We decided to try to continue with 2027's plans, but it really would be ok if we took a break.

This is an 11 year-old boy who would've been in 5th grade the first half of 2026 and in 6th grade for the second half of 2026 (if he went to public school).

Here are some of the things we've accomplished in 2026:

California Achievement Test - this was a good experience

Bible

• The Action Bible
• The Action Bible Anytime Devotions
• My First Hymnal (Concordia) 

English

• Voyages in English 6 (January to May)
• Grammar Island (summer)
• Building Language (summer)
• Practice Island (summer)
• Spelling Workout D and F
• The Good and the Beautiful LA 6 (fall)

Literature

• My Side of the Mountain
• Dungeon Runners 3: Ocean Chase
• Bridge to Terabithia
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
• The Wild Robot
• Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
• Where the Red Fern Grows
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Stories of Beowulf Told to Children
• The Usborne Illustrated Tales of King Arthur
• Saint George and the Dragon
• The Whipping Boy
• The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn

History

• Story of the World 2
• Famous Figures from the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Math

• BJU Math 5 (1st half of the year)
• Saxon Math 6/5
• Life of Fred Fractions

Science

• Apologia Exploring Creation with Astronomy
• Apologia Exploring Creation with Earth Science
• Planet Earth III series
• Co-op Science for January-May semester was Physics and Technology w/ Labs
• Co-op Science for August-December is BJU Life Science w/ Labs

Health

• Guy Stuff: The Body Book for Boys
• Are You What You Eat
• Co-op Physical Fitness class for August-December

Foreign Language 

• DuoLingo German
• Minimus Latin I

Art & Music

• Composer Studies
• John Dunstable
• Guillaume Dufay
• Thomas Tallis
• de Palestrina
• Private violin lessons
• Artist Studies
• Cimabue
• Bosch
• Duerer
• Michelangelo
• The Stone Giant: Michelangelo's David and How It Came to Be
• The One Hundred Greatest Paintings
• The Good and the Beautiful Drawing I

Field Trips Included:

• Multiple camping trips with Boy Scouts
• Engineering merit badge at a local university
• Attended a professional ballet production
• Art museum
• Aviation museum
• Aquarium
• Zoo
• Island historical tour
• Beachcombing on an island
• Dolphin tour
• Airport observation area
• Botanical gardens
• Nature center
• Plumbing merit badge workshop at a local trade school

Homeschool Day 9/24 + Making Some Adjustments

 After looking at some of his scores on the standardized test, I'm going to make some adjustments.  

Language Arts

• I think it would be ok if we took a break from spelling or worked on spelling during his writing
• I would like to add copywork, dictation and narration to his writing.  I don't feel like he's getting enough writing with The Good and the Beautiful
• I feel like we are doing too much language arts in general

Math

• Because of his math scores, I told him we can either bump him up into Saxon 7/6 or we could do Life of Fred Fractions, Decimals and Percents and then jump into Saxon 8/7 or Life of Fred Prealgebra.  He chose Life of Fred Fractions.  

What we finished today:

Reading

• Where the Red Fern Grows
• The Wild Robot

Language Arts

• The Good and the Beautiful LA 6
• The Good and the Beautiful Cursive 6 - this counts as copywork in my opinion

Math

• Life of Fred Fractions - we did the first lesson, which he says was too easy

Science

• Apologia Earth Science
• How tides work
• How the major five ocean currents work

We finished the California Achievement Test Grade 6

 We finished the California Achievement Test Grade 6...which is the grade he would have just started if he went to public school.  I try to do standardized testing once in middle school, just to give my kids some exposure and experience with testing.  Then, about sophomore year of high school, we dive into SAT test prep.  Eventually, my kids take either the SAT or TSI (we prefer the TSI).

Results

Let me just say that the results were a bit unexpected.  

Overal Composite = 99th percentile

Reading Composite = 94th percentile

Language Composite = 99th percentile

Math Composite = 97th percentile

Things that make you go hmmmm....

Lack of a complete understanding of fractions lowered his math score.  This has been an issue for about a year now.  I think he's just little and struggles with fractions because they take a bit of a conceptual leap to understand.

Saxon Math is definitely doing him good.  Before this, Life of Fred was probably giving him a great foundation also.  I'm totally ok if he would like to jump between Saxon and Life of Fred.  Both are apparently super solid math programs.

The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts is excellent and so was Grammar Island, the book we used over the summer which taught him the eight parts of speech.  Spelling Workout is apparently...um...working out.  I think his spelling was in the 96th percentile.  

I expected his reading/language arts scores to be much higher than his math, but I guess I'm wrong.  He may end up being a really good test taker, which will help him with the SAT or TSI.

This was a huge morale booster for him.  It really helped his self-esteem, especially since he has been through so much with his dyslexia.  I'm glad we took the time to do this. 

Homeschool Day 8/17 - Added some new things

 After the break, we changed our schedule a little and added private violin lessons with a teacher.  We will also start our little co-op on September 18th.  I will be teaching from BJU Press' 7th Grade Life Science (with lab manual) and the other mom will be teaching Health.

Here's what we finished today:

Reading

• The Wild Robot
• Where the Red Fern Grows

Language Arts

• Spelling Workout F
• The Good and the Beautiful LA 6
• The Good and the Beautiful Cursive 6

Math

• Saxon 6/5 - boy, we did not do well with this today.  He couldn't concentrate.

History

• Story of the World 2 - The Rus
• The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn

Art/Music

• The Good and the Beautiful Drawing I
• Violin lessons

Nuclear Meltdown and Change of Plans for English/Language Arts

Week One and I'm changing our English curriculum after The Meltdown Heard Around the World. 

I switched our line-up to Michael Clay Thompson's Language Arts along with Writing with Ease 3 and Spelling Workout F.  

Here's the link to Michael Clay Thompson's Language Arts at Royal Fireworks Press.

This is literally the world's most expensive language arts curriculum, but I already own several levels, so I was able to dig it out of the bookcase and show him the books.  He apparently liked the idea of fish and pelicans teaching him the parts of speech, because hey, filling out a grammar workbook page is too simple.  We tried the program out this week and he really likes it.  I had to shelf Daily Grams 6 and Wordly Wise 3000.  Apparently, traditional workbooks are not for him, so for everyone's safety and mental health, the workbooks have magically vanished.

 I also had to buy a higher level of Spelling Workout to match his spelling level.  So, we are going to start Spelling Workout F, which is 6th grade spelling.  

We have completed the first week of Writing with Ease 3 and he seems to tolerate it.  He is having a hard time summarizing and condensing his narrations into 2-3 sentences, so I'm glad WWE3 is covering that skill.  He basically retells the entire story when he does a narration.  I will probably continue with Writing with Skill 1 next year.

All of our other subjects are going well.  Saxon Math is shockingly going well (I never would've guessed that one).

Summer/Fall 2026 Curriculum Choices (6th Grade)

 We are almost finished with our big break - we always take April off from school.  We're getting ready to start back up again with our 6th grade curriculum.  Most of these things we have already started, since he was working on a 6th grade level in January.

We are continuing with the curriculum plan outlined in The Well-Trained Mind.  

Bible

• The Action Bible

English

• Spelling Workout F
• Michael Clay Thompson's Language Arts (Royal Fireworks Press)
• Writing with Ease 3

Math

• Saxon 6/5

History

• Story of the World 2
• Story of the World 2 Activity Guide
• Famous Figure of the Middle Ages
• Selections from The Well-Trained Mind history reading list, including:
• The Usborne Illustrated Tales of King Arthur
• The Adventures of Robin Hood
• St. George and the Dragon
• The Whipping Boy
• The Great and Terrible Quest
• Cathedral
• Castle 

Science

• Apologia Astronomy
• Apologia Earth Science with Notebooking Journal

Reading

• Continue reading literature that he chooses
• Read-Alouds including
• Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
• The Incredible Journey
• In the Moonlight Mist, A Korean Tale
• The Ghost of the Tokaido Inn

Artist and Composer Study

• Artist Studies
• Michelangelo
• Titian
• Raphael
• Giorgio Vasari
• Tintoretto
• Peter Brueghel
• Peter Paul Rubens
• Composer Studies
• Thomas Tallis
• de Palestrina
• Michael Praetorius
• Henry Purcell
• Antonio Vivaldi

Foreign Language

• He's been working on DuoLingo German

Our First Day Back + New Scheduling Strategy 1/5

 Our first day back was a big success.  The 10 year-old said his favorite subjects were "Latin and Beowulf" (history).  I'm using a new scheduling strategy that I used with one of my high schoolers.  Instead of using a daily schedule, I bought book bins for each subject, labeled the book bins and placed our schoolbooks for each subject in the book bins.  Today, I just let him choose which book bin to work from first, which one to work from next, etc, and we worked through all of them.

The book bins look like this.

Here's what we accomplished today:

Bible

• The Action Bible

Math

• BJU Math 5

English

• Voyages in English 6
• Spelling Workout D

Reading

• Independent reading
• My Side of the Mountain (read-aloud)

Latin

• We started Minimus 1, which he really liked

Medieval History

• Story of the World 2
• Mapwork from the Activity Guide
• Stories of Beowulf Told to Children

Science

• Exploring Creation with Astronomy

This was a hugely productive day.  Yay!  Book Bins!

New Semester's Curriculum (January 2026)

 He's 10 years old, but starting to operate on more of a 6th grade level, so these curriculum choices will reflect that.

Here's the plan for January.  My plans are loosely based on The Well-Trained Mind.

Bible

• continue The Action Bible
• continue The Action Bible Anytime Devotions
• finish My First Hymnal (CPH) on Easter Sunday

Reader/Read-Aloud

• Independent reading
• Wonders Literature Anthology 6 (McGraw Hill)
• Read-alouds

English

• Voyages in English 6
• Spelling Workout D

Math

• continue BJU Math 5

Medieval History/Geography

• Story of the World 2 
• Story of the World 2 Activity Guide
• History/literature selections from The Well-Trained Mind
• Famous Figures of the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Science

• Exploring Creation with Astronomy (Apologia)
• Exploring Creation with Earth Science (Apologia)

Latin

• Minimus 1

Art and Music

• Artist Study
• Giovanni Cimabue
• Hieronymus Bosch
• Albrecht Duerer
• Michelangelo Buonarroti
• Titian
• Raphael
• Giorgio Vasari
• Tintoretto
• Peter Brueghel
• Peter Paul Rubens
• Composer Study
• John Dunstable
• Guillaume Dufay
• Thomas Tallis
• Giovanni Pierluiga da Palestrina
• Michael Praetorius
• Henry Purcell
• Antonio Vivaldi

Logic

• The Great Chocolate Caper

Friday Co-op Classes

• Art
• Physics and Technology

Extracurriculars

• Intermediate Ballet
• Boy Scouts
• Karate
• Youth Group at church