Though we have not officially ended this school year, I am already looking back and evaluating what did and did not work for us. We do usually school year-round, but desperately need a break from formal lessons for this Summer. We will continue to do simple math in the mornings at breakfast, so my son does not forget everything he has learned, and we will continue to read books. But in a couple weeks, after we wrap up our Vikings unit, we are taking a nice long break. In this post I am going to share our 2024/2025 Homeschool Year End Review for 6th grade – ups and downs, the curriculum we used for grade 6, and what our school year may look like next year.
This post contains affiliate links at no extra cost to you. To read my full disclosure, click here.
This homeschool year has been another difficult one, I have to be honest. It has dragged on, yet flown by, at the same time. I have three boys- a 12 year old, a 3 year old, and a 22 month old. For several years it was just me and my oldest, loving homeschool and thriving. Then I had the two littles almost exactly two years apart, and it seems like the last 3 years have been an absolute whirlwind. Throw in moving THREE times, once completely across the country, losing a close family member, two car accidents which resulted in my lingering neck and back pain, weddings to attend out of state, major home repairs, visitors ,and now we are trying to sell our house and move across the country again!…. it has been such a struggle to balance it all. As soon as I think we have a good rhythm going, something changes, as life does, and I am left scrambling trying to figure it out. I know I am not alone in this! But sometimes people on the internet seem to have it all together, which can make us feel less-than. Every year us homeschool moms start the year fresh with so many hopes and dreams and ideas and plans, don’t we? We sharpen our pencils, buy new notebooks, stock up on computer paper, order our curriculum, and have a vision of what we think our homeschool will be like- what it should be like.
But what happens when the school year does not go as planned? What happens when two years in a row you have been struggling to keep your head above water, and start to question why you are even doing this? I don’t have the answer for you, mama. But this is how I have been feeling, and I have had to be very intentional about some things. Staying encouraged and inspired has been imperative to me not having a complete break down and throwing in the towel. I listen to good life-giving podcasts- about homeschooling and faith and motherhood. We have to be growing and learning right alongside our children, and listening to a positive podcast while doing the dishes can sometimes change the course of my entire day. I also have to limit my social media time, because I am a perfectionist, and I will always compare myself, my home, my homeschool and life to others online. I start to think I am not doing enough. I start to have fears that my son is “behind” and that maybe I am just not cut out for this. I have to open Instagram with the right state of mind. If I am having a hard day, I just stay off it all together. Or try to! I tend to fall into these negative emotions when I am already having a hard day. Staying rooted in the Word is also a necessity. I cannot do anything well without Jesus, so I have to fill my time with Him as much as I can. For me that looks like reading my Bible, writing in a prayer journal, listening to a Christian podcast, working through a devotional, listening to Christian music etc. I need these things to keep going. I fall into a dark place when I turn away from Him, and I am not a good homeschool mom.
What are some things that you NEED to keep going on this journey? Is it physical fitness? Time in nature? Date nights with your husband? Homeschooling is draining work, and it can be so easy to feel overwhelmed and want to throw the towel in.
Another thing that helps is to continue focusing on my WHY to homeschool. Those that are called to homeschool should have a reason, if not multiple reasons. Keeping those reasons in focus throughout the year can help you stay motivated.
So now that you know we have our major ups and downs because we are a REAL and imperfect homeschool family, I can share you with full honesty what has worked and what has not this school year.
Language Arts & History
Most years we have homeschooled, we used The Good and The Beautiful language arts curriculum. This year we started using Gather Round for history, which is also language arts. We spent most of our year slowly working our way through Ancient Civilizations, and we are still going through Vikings right now. In addition to Gather Round, for about half the school year we worked our way through a Grammar workbook from Amazon. We do spelling words every week (well, when I remember!) We also have been doing a narration notebook this year and really love it! He has focused more on the writing aspect second semester, but still does really enjoy the drawing part.
My thoughts on Gather Round- this has been a very thorough in-depth way to do history while also incorporating language arts and geography. Previous years we have used the Evan Moor History Pockets to learn history. We loved those, but wanted to try something new this year. And I am really glad we did! However, the Ancient Civilizations student notebook was a bit much for my son. I went with the middle school level, and it was a little too advanced for him. It took us a long time to get through it. So for Vikings, I went with the Upper Elementary level student notebook, and it is perfect for him! My son has really enjoyed learning about Vikings. And I like that we can combine multiple subjects because my son struggles to get his work done in an appropriate amount of time every day. I think there is a good mix of art, language arts, history, geography and bible study.
I also require him to read for at least 25 minutes independently every day, and we usually read a chapter from our current read-aloud. Right now he is almost done with Guts and Glory: The Vikings, and it is one of his favorite books.
Science
Science this year has been way more lax than previous years. In the past, we have used The Good and the Beautiful and Harbor and Sprout for Science. This year, we used Mia Academy for General Science one day a week. But we ended up taking that off our weekly schedule because he already knew everything that was being taught week after week. He was very bored. So this year we really just focused on nature science. For this we have been using A Year Of Learning Slow Down Collection. I share about this curriculum a lot on my Instagram, because I love it so much. We don’t do it every week, but when we do, both my son and myself really enjoy it. It follows the book Slow Down 50 Mindful Moments in Nature, where each week you can pick and choose which papers you want to print that go along with the study. So for example, last week we were studying sunsets, and we learned the science behind the colors of a sunset, we learned about Thomas Edison for our biography, studied Psalm 113:3 for our devotion, talked about the character trait of the week (Constant), did some copy work, drawing, painting, and poetry. The coloring pages are always fun for my three year old who wants to “do school” with us every day. So this is more than just science for us. We watch educational videos on what we are leaning about, borrow books from the library, and spend our mornings doing these “slow moments” together as a family. It has been my favorite part of homeschool this year. It’s really great for multiple ages because there are sheets good for pre-k and kindergarten, and also for older children in upper elementary. And then whatever we are learning about that week, he will also write and sketch it in his narration notebook.
Here is the list of what we learned this school year for our nature study:
A Flock of Geese Take Flight
A Spider Weaves a Web
Oak Trees
Proboscis Monkey
California Quail
Mallards
Venus Fly Trap
A Harvest Mouse Searches For Supper
A Butterfly Emerges From a Chrysalis
A Sunflower Tracks the Sun
Moss & the forest floor
A Barn Owl Wakes Up
How Mushrooms Grow In a Forest
Wolf Moon
Kingfishers
Woodpeckers
A Duck Teaches Her Ducklings To Swim
Sunsets
Moles
Math
Oh, math. The part of homeschooling that is the thorn in my side. It has always been a struggle for my son, but this year in particular has been a very very hard year. We were using Mia Academy for math for several months, and it was going really well. Or so I thought. I was very excited that we had finally figured it out. Math brought out every ounce of impatience in me in the past. I really was not my best self, and knew what we had done last year did not work and we needed something new. Mia Academy was a great solution because he could learn and work independently. Then Mia was not working for us anymore. My son was guessing, googling answers, distracted by the screen, and feeling less and less confident when he would get bad grades on tests. At first, seeing a grade on Mia Academy was really beneficial for him. He worked to bring his grade up. But then after awhile he just seemed to lose interest and had the hardest time staying focused with a screen. He was falling behind and not comprehending the lessons. He started guessing on every question. I quickly realized that he never mastered some basic math concepts, so he couldn’t move forward. So we brought out some old workbooks and I started printing off free worksheets online to master these concepts. Once I felt like we could continue on, I decided to start printing pages from The Good and The Beautiful Math (which is free!) instead of going back to Mia Academy. Going back to The Good and The Beautiful has been working for us so far! This is what we had used in past years. The videos for each lesson are really good and clear and easy to follow. I still have to sit down with him and do each lesson one-on-one, but it’s been getting better. The lessons are also shorter than Mia Academy, keeping his attention a little better. I think we will purchase the next level of TGATB Math for next year.
Other Subjects
My son took a Jewish Holidays, PE, and Geography with Mia Academy. He also finished a cursive workbook from Amazon and has continued to master his cursive through weekly copy work and narration journal entries.
My son has a real talent for art, so naturally his favorite subject is Art! We’ve used Outschool for many years so my son can take a weekly art class. This year he did a Painting With Acrylics class for 7 weeks, Middle School Art for 28 weeks, and 3 weeks of Art For Homeschoolers. We are taking a little break with classes right now, but have a few “favorited” for this Summer. We also really enjoy following along with YouTube art tutorials, especially when we can incorporate history or science into it.
Field Trips
This year we had several really fun educational field trips! We went to Washington D.C. and visited national monuments and some museums. We visited Colonial Williamsburg where we got to see several demonstrations in a historical colonial town. We back home (northern Illinois) and spent a day at the Sandwich Fair (we enjoy the livestock, simple machines, demos and food!). We visited a couple local farms and went to some museums in Gatlinburg, Tennessee while we were there visiting family. And we had lots of park days, nature walks, playing in our forest with friends, and our WILD+FREE co-op on Friday’s.
Our Ups
At the beginning of every school year, I ask him to write down what he wants to learn about and what his goals are. Then at the end of the year, we look at that list and compare. In the beginning of the school year he said he wanted to learn about Greek Mythology and Vikings, which we did. And he said he wanted to get better at math, which he did!
I also like to sit down and talk about what we liked and didn’t like as we review our school year. Our favorite lessons and projects were all the same. We both really enjoyed learning about Ancient Egypt and Ancient China (which we spent several weeks on each, and had a lot of hands-on activities and art projects).
Christmas schooling for us lasts all of December, and though we really enjoyed it, we both agreed that we didn’t do many crafts and activities as we usually do. That month was kind of a crazy month and we did not do as many fun lessons as we usually do, but we still had a nice slow and intentional December, keeping the focus on Jesus. We also did a sweet Nutcracker Study with A Year Of Learning that we really liked.
Book Club with our local Wild+Free group has been our favorite thing! Every month we read a new book together, and the last Friday of the month we get together to celebrate the book with themed food and activities and costumes. It is SO fun! This school year we read: Swiss Family Robinson, Farmer Boy, Charlotte’s Web, Robin Hood, Misty of Chincoteague, Heidi, King Arthur, and we are almost done with The Wind In The Willows which we will celebrate at the end of this month. We also read The Golden Goblet ourselves during our Egypt study. I had a long list of book goals for us that we did not accomplish, but that’s ok. I wrote a whole blog post about How To Start A Kids Homeschool Book Club and have shared several of our book clubs on the blog. Just search “book club” in the search bar!
Our Downs
As I stated earlier, math has been a struggle for us since the beginning. Like myself, my son just does not think in numbers. We both felt that he regressed quite a bit with math this year, and we are not sure why. It is discouraging, I am not going to lie. But he is growing and learning. I just get frustrated when he gives up before he even tries. He decided he was not good at math years ago, and doesn’t seem to want to even try. So I try to stay encouraging and positive and focus on what he is doing right when grading his papers. But we cannot be good at every single thing! While he struggles with Math, he is a proficient reader, and is insanely creative. I try to keep the focus on those things.
Yes, it can take him 4 hours to do one math worksheet, and it often does. We have to take a LOT of breaks throughout the day because he has an incredibly difficult time focusing on anything. Would it be easier to send him to school and have someone else help him with his learning disabilities? Probably. Have we thought about it ? YUP! And I am not saying that sending a child to school is a bad choice. We have struggled so much homeschooling the past two years, my husband and I have often sat down and talked through whether we need to send our son to school or not. But then I witness him running around playing with his two little brothers who get to see him all day. I see him able to play in the forest with friends in the middle of the week. We get to go on field trips and travel as a family and learn on the road! I get to be part of his oh-so-short childhood every day. We enjoy slow mornings and home cooked meals together. We get to snuggle up with a good book together or go on a nature walk any time of the day. These are the things I don’t want to give up. And my son is very firm in that he does not want to go to school and wants to continue homeschooling. So, as for now, on we go, moving forward, and trying to give grace and love and connect with each other.
I am a perfectionist that expects a lot from others as well as myself, which is something I am trying to work on and move past. I know I have high expectations for my son with his school work, but I am consistently trying to tell myself that it’s not about the worksheets that go unfinished or the math struggles or the books we didn’t read. I know what it is all about, but I often forget.
My prayer is that when my son looks back on his homeschool journey, he does not focus on the two years that were hard. My hope is that he remembers the good things and that we overcame those difficulties together. I pray that next school year, which will most likely be in a different state again as we are selling our house, will be better than this year. I pray I have more patience and understanding, can better manage the littles, housework, and lessons. That we find a good support group in our new home town, and that we can get back to doing homeschool the way it should be done. With less fights, no yelling, less complaining, and more love. And I pray that you have more good things in your own homeschool, too. I pray that whatever subjects are difficult for your children are easier next year, and you create beautiful lifelong memories.
The call to homeschool is not for the weak. It can be so challenging, but I truly believe it is so worth it. When we decided to homeschool when my son was in first grade, I had NO idea it would become such a big part of our lives. It really is a lifestyle and a real blessing.
Next school year
I usually am in full planning and ordering curriculum mode by June! But this year, I am taking things slow and just waiting to see how we feel at the end of this Summer. I will share here when we do pick curriculum. I know we will be doing The Good and the Beautiful for math, but I am unsure about every other subject.
Leave a Reply