Spelling ..... Noooooooo!

Our first week of school was really good!  We started into all of our subjects except spelling.  We use the curriculum Spelling Power for spelling.  My kids are using Learning Language Arts through Literature (LLATL) which has a good spelling approach, but I like Spelling Power even better than that.
When my kids started school at an excellent Christian school, they used a certain curriculum and it was decent enough that I continued using it for a while in our homeschool.  The more we worked with it, I discovered what I liked and what I definitely did NOT like.  I would say that by far, spelling was the worst portion of it (OK I disliked the math almost equally).  It reminded me of the spelling that I did in grade school and while it has been in effect for years and years, it doesn't help you understand spelling.  It makes you memorize a list of words and how to spell them.  If you are good at that, you're good at spelling, if not you have to rely on spell check.  Judging by Facebook and Twitter and other online resources, spell check doesn't even work for some people. 
The approach through LLATL is having the child write a sentence or paragraph that you read and whatever misspelled words are on their papers becomes the beginning of the spelling list.  I am not going into the details of their method, but it is a good plan.  We even tried it for a little while and I felt like it was more beneficial than a random list.  Then I came across Spelling Power through www.paperbackswap.com.
Here is this HUGE book that covers spelling from early grades through high school.  I opened the cover and after the table of contents and introduction there is 100 pages of teacher instructions!  They recommend that you read it before beginning the program and it is very important.  Part of the reason I didn't start it right away is because of that 100-page non-entertaining reading that I needed to do.  I think they have a video now to explain everything. 
I started my kids out on the placement test provided.  It was very accurate in placing the kids where they needed to be.  The next year I did the pre-test and it placed the kids nearly where they left off the year before.  This is our third year, so I opted to just start out with the lists that we left off on last year.  It is working out well and though my kids complained on Monday when we began spelling again, they really didn't have any complaints in doing it.  They are quick to go through the proper steps and it is like this is just part of their expectations now.
Spelling Power takes 15 minutes a day for the kids and just over 5 minutes of my time per child per day.  They are placed in a level by letter and not by grade.  They get groups of words that all follow the same rule.  Every few groups they get a review test without hearing the rules.  There is a midlevel test and end of level tests.  During the daily portions, I set the timer on my phone for 5 minutes.  I read a word, give a sentence and they write it down.  Once they've written it, we grade it right then.  If they missed the word, they cross it out and write the correct spelling in the space provided.  If they get it right or they've finished writing the correctly spelled word, we repeat the process with the next word on the list.  This continues until the timer goes off.  I mark in my book where we left off and they move on.  There is a 10-step method for the child to learn his or her missed words and then he or she has to make up a sentence using the missed word(s).  This takes about 5 minutes and then they do an activity to help them remember the rule which takes another 5 minutes.  I purchased the activity task cards that are optional.
When we're doing other writing projects, I can use the rules to help them with a difficult word because I know the rules now.  It has been quite beneficial.  I've always been a fairly good speller, so I desire to pass that down to my children as well.  I know that the curriculum gives strict instructions, but I do modify them as I do with most of what I teach.  I feel that if I use my own words that I can explain things better. 
Cost seems an issue, but really is not.  The initial might seem a little steep, especially if you want to buy the deluxe pack for $175 from their website.  The book alone is $65 and activity cards are $30 and student books are $8 each.  The deluxe pack includes a lot of cool things that I don't have and can't speak for.  The thing is, once you've made the initial investment, all you have left yearly is the Student Record Book to purchase for each child.  We generally have been using 2 per child per year and I get them from Amazon.com with my Amazon Prime subscription so that I can get free shipping.
I'm not compensated in any way for writing what I did.  This is just a product I believe in and will use until I'm done homeschooling.

Changes

This school year began with changes in our curriculum.  We decided certainly that we wanted to continue with Story of the World, Spelling Power, and Apologia Science.  We struggled with liking the other subjects, and I had been exploring Easy Peasy All-In-One Homeschool since last school year and decided to go with it.  It is a great program and it is free!  We used it for every subject except the 3 I first mentioned.  It was the perfect choice for us to begin with.  The kids learned about self-motivation and I got a break from planning.

The longer we did Easy Peasy, the more disconnected I began to feel as a parent-teacher.  My passion for homeschool is partly a passion to teach my kids.  It was turning into the computer teaching my kids.  Let me clarify.  I think Easy Peasy is awesome and the work that Lee put into it is incredible.  I do believe that if you are not called to be a teacher, but called to homeschool, this might be a great option of curriculum for you.
The literature choices that my kids were reading are great pieces, but I did not grow up with literature because our small town didn't have a library.  If you have a local library, you are blessed!  I had never read Gulliver's Travels or Swiss Family Robinson and the further my kids got into the books, the more disconnected I felt from their work.  We were headed into Penrod and The Peterkin Papers which not only had I not read, but I had never heard of these books.  At the conclusion of one child's book and in the middle of another, I made the decision to drop Easy Peasy from our curriculum.  I still use it as a guide for our daily Bible reading and it helped me organize my education planning.  I just purchased a grammar program and a writing program that I can use with both of my children at the same time and I have chosen 4 books at each of their levels to read for the rest of the school year.  I'm going to have us read the books and have discussion with them, but we are going to enjoy reading for school.
Well that's just language arts, what about other important subjects?  Because this is my children's 3rd math program, they quickly got overwhelmed by math.  They started in Everyday Mathematics and as I went to homeschooling from Private school, I chose not to continue it because the teacher's manuals were too expensive.  I didn't care for the fact that they don't teach long division at all and really lack in math facts.  I just about went into a rant about Common Core, but I will stop with that.  I took my kids to Horizons Math with a false presumption that they were advanced in math because of the previous curriculum and didn't want to dumb it down.  Horizons may have been perfect if we had started with it, but it assumes that you've had a foundation in that style of math so there were areas that my children felt lost in.  Easy Peasy math came with many games which they liked, but there were concepts that frustrated or confused them.  BUT she, the author of Easy Peasy, recommends Xtramath to those struggling with math facts.  WE DO THIS every day.  I've seen so much growth and we haven't even gotten past addition facts yet.  For middle school, she recommends a few programs including Khan Academy.  I had heard of this before, and played with it a bit last school year as well.  I completely put my 6th grader on Khan academy about a month ago and assigned 6th grade math to him.  He works on it for 30 minutes a day and at the end of the year, he should have complete mastery of 6th grade concepts.  Currently he's mastered about 40%.  Last week I did the same for my 4th grader and she is already flying through mastering 4th grade concepts.  This is at their pace and if they cannot understand something, there are a series of videos to help.  When they are really stuck, I go through things with them.  Another fun thing with Khan is that I am doing it too so that I can know what they are working with.  I have currently mastered 100% of Early Math and about 80% of 3rd grade math.  I have chosen to start at the beginning so that there will be nothing that I can't help my kids with when they're stuck.  Yes, I love to learn as much as I love to teach.
Computer skills.  I know that these are imperative to teach and I know enough about computers to be dangerous.  I have computer common sense, and a little more, but I want my kids to know more.  It just so happens that Khan Academy has a computer programing tract as well, so I have them do a lesson and practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Easy Peasy also recommended a free typing program called Good Typing that we began to use early on.  They have to practice typing every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  How are they going to be good at computers if they can't type?
Finally, because of the author of Easy Peasy's fantastic organization, I have decided to do music on Mondays, PE/Health on Wednesdays and Art on Fridays.  We get a little of those things mixed in with other curricula, but I wanted to have a specific pattern of these things with intentional time dedicated to these subjects.  I am teaching my daughter to play the piano with some books I got on Amazon.com and my son is learning guitar through tutorials and I am learning it with him because I was hoping to do so anyhow. 
It was recommended to me not to keep changing things, but I am seeing my children thrive with each step of change that we do.  I appreciate the perspective of other seasoned homeschool moms, too, so I'm praying about each step.  This week as I wait for my new language curriculum to arrive, I've cut out Language arts except that I'm doing a read-aloud every day for them and we read the Bible together every day now.  Our classroom schooling has been done in record time this week.  My kids are happier and I'm happier.  They are excited as they are going to start A Wrinkle In Time and Meet Addy this weekend to prepare for next week's lessons.  And I'm excited because I have a great excuse to use Pinterest now!