8th Grade Homeschool Year-end Review

The homeschool curriculum choices blog posts are great, but what I really want to know is what families thought AFTER they used the curriculum they chose! Today I am sharing our 8th Grade Homeschool Year-End Review!

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Here’s a link to the original 8th Grade Curriculum Choices post.

Math ~ Teaching Textbooks Pre Algebra (finishing, then Algebra 1)
Writing ~ IEW Structure & Style Level B Year 1 (finishing from last year)
Grammar ~ IEW Fix It! Grammar
Vocabulary ~ Word Up!
History ~ Compass Classroom American History
Science ~ Compass Classroom General Science
Logic ~ The Fallacy Detective
Government ~ For Which We Stand
Elective ~ The Animation Course

Math

Once again, Teaching Textbooks does the job for us! She finished Pre Algebra and completed the first half of Algebra 1. We slowed down math during 7th grade and have kept it slower for her. She is doing SO much better and understanding the math better. She does not like math, but when she moves slower, with less pressure, she learns better. That’s what matters to me, rather than cramming it all in quickly.

Independent Reading

Below is a list of the books she read independently this year and her rating from 1-10 in parenthesis. It is possible she read more than this, I did my best to keep track!

We discuss many of the books, especially the historical fiction. I have read almost all of these,

Click here to see all books on Amazon!

Someplace to Call Home (6)
Tornado Brain (8)
Starfish (7)
Born Behind Bars (5)
The Giver (8)
Genesis Begins Again (4)
The Blackbird Girls (7)
Stella By Starlight (3)
Projekt 1065 (7)
Ground Zero (9)
The Boy on the Wooden Box (8)
Allies (5)
A Place to Hang the Moon (10)
The Shape of Thunder (10)
One for the Murphys (9 for all but ending/5 – she hated the ending)
Hope in the Holler (8)

Writing

This one makes me giggle. I moved to a different writing plan early this year and after a few weeks, she begged to go back to IEW. We took our time and finished up S&S Level B, Year 1. I have no idea what we will use next year for 9th grade.

Grammar

We used Fix It Grammar and completed Level 2 and the first half of Level 3. See our full review here. We will continue with this next year.

VOCABULARY/SPELLING

She used Compass Classroom’s Word Up! Level 1 & 2 and she really liked it (I do too)! I decided to change things a bit for second semester and decided to have her use a workbook I found. It says it is a 6th-grade level, but it was good for her to have a solid review as well as learn new words. 180 Days of Spelling & Word Study is a “spelling” book with more of a word study focus. We both really liked this. We did an oral pretest each week and reviewed words she didn’t know. She did the worksheets independently.

HISTORY

I LOVE the history we chose! She doesn’t really like history in general, but said this one wasn’t bad! We are using Compass Classroom’s American History (it’s high school level) and the video lessons are superb. Since she began the high school level in 8th grade, I only had her finish half of the course. She will complete the course in 9th grade. She does not do the exams, but she does make a portfolio entry for each unit. I created cards for her to use, you can download and use them too!

SCIENCE

We already had the Apologia General Science books from my oldest when he used them, so I added the Compass Classroom General Science course so she could watch videos also. She did NOT like this and ended up switching to just reading the book and doing assignments. The videos were disappointing because they are just a recorded class of students and not specifically recorded for Compass Classroom. I love other CC courses, but definitely not this one.

LOGIC

I added logic for her this year and chose The Fallacy Detective but as a very low-key, read-together subject. She didn’t do any of the written work, we just read the book together and discussed. She learned a lot and I enjoyed this book.

GOVERNMENT

She had some questions about government at the beginning of the year so I bought the book For Which We Stand. We read this together and discussed the things she was most interested in. She will do a full government curriculum in high school, but this was a wonderful book to use as a discussion tool.

The Animation Course

She took level 3 this year and has loved the other 2 levels but this wasn’t her favorite. She doesn’t like the storytelling aspect of animation, which was the topic of level 3. Overall, we continue to love The Animation Course and she will most likely take another course with them next year. You can see our review here.

The posts below are color-coded for each of my kids. My oldest son Pax is the navy/tan, my middle son Ky is the orange/blue, and my daughter is the yellow/blue.