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Homeschool Novel Study – DIY Language Arts

Novel study has been the most fun and engaging way for us to learn language arts in our homeschool, and adding in a DIY outlook has been so freeing. Two and a half years ago we actually eliminated an all-in-one language arts curriculum workbook to solely focus on novel study, and it’s been the best decision for us.

We like to call this method DIY Language Arts because we are able to take any novel of our choosing and use it to learn all the parts of language arts including spelling, vocabulary, grammar, narration, handwriting, and more.

After a couple years of adjusting and finding good rhythms for this, I am now able to share these novel studies with you. Multiple studies are available, but sometimes it’s nice to see inside one, and that’s exactly what I want this blog post to be for you.

Included in this post is a download to receive an entire week free for one of the novel guides. In the text below, I’ll walk you through how it works, so you know exactly how to incorporate it into your homeschool. I can’t wait for you to try this!

This post contains affiliate links. If you follow one of my links I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog

Look-Through a Novel Study

If you would like to see a video of this particular novel study sample for “The Sign of the Beaver”, you can check out this link where I share more details. You can also see a complete look-through of one of the first studies I published. This will give you a better idea of all of the information and resources that come with the novel study. The novel studies have been updated since then and look much nicer now, but the content is still the same.

Language Arts Overview

Included in this sample is the “Language Arts Overview” page where I break down the subject explaining exactly what it is and how this novel guide meets the criteria for the subject. A clear and simple chart will show you this evidence.

Language arts can be so overcomplicated in our minds, but by breaking it down and understanding what it is, we can get a better idea of how a novel can truly allow us to study the subject in its entirety.

What age is this novel study for?

These novel studies were created to be for the whole family. I’ve used them in my own home with one of my six year olds all the way up to my eleven year old. All of your kids will enjoy these novels, and the activities and work that are included are made to be able to adjust for different levels. If you purchase a novel study, I include the steps to walk you through this entire process in detail.

Weekly Pattern

Each week follows a pattern. Your daily tasks will look very similar (reading, discussion, narrating, copy work), but we will rotate an additional activity each day. This makes scheduling easy, and it allows you to loop different language arts skills for better focus instead of cramming everything in to an all-in-one lesson. The looping looks something like this:

  • Day 1: Spelling and Vocabulary
  • Day 2: Grammar
  • Day 3: Enriching Literature and Writing
  • Day 4: Dictation and Bonus Activity

Let’s take a look at each day. As I describe each of these activities, you will have a better idea of how to use the free sample provided in this blog post.

Spelling

On the page labeled, “Spelling and Vocabulary Samples”, I have provided a couple of pre-made spelling lists. Multiple options are provided to help differentiate the words for the level of spellers you have. This is just an example to help you get started. You are encouraged to pick whatever words best suit your children. The words/list you choose can be recorded in the chart on the daily task sheet.

On the day one task sheet you’ll notice “Spelling Activity” is listed. I’ve got you covered with options for this. Practicing the words can be as simple or as hands-on as you’d like. In this sample, I have provided you with multiple spelling activities to try with your family. Some are extremely simple. Others are a little more involved. The great thing about this is you can do what feels right for your week.

As you practice the words, make a note of the ones your kids know well and the ones they don’t quite have memorized yet. This could be a simple checkmark next to the word in your spelling chart. Then, each day after that, remind them of these words. Have your child practice the missed words throughout the week. Spend about a minute or two each day reviewing the words that are needed. The final spelling assessment will be in their dictation.

Vocabulary

Optional vocabulary words are chosen for you in the “Spelling and Vocabulary Samples” list. Once again, you have the option to choose the best words for your family. We aren’t doing matching worksheets or flash cards. Instead we will focus on meaningful discussion the whole family can participate in. When you read the weekly passage aloud to your children, this discussion will come pretty naturally. A discussion might look something like this:

  1. Ask your child, “What do you think ____ means?” It doesn’t have to be a formal definition. Sometimes my child will describe to me with motions or sounds and then try to explain herself. Let this be casual. If she knows it well enough, move on to the next word. If not, move to step two.
  2. Next say, “Let’s look at the sentence and see if it can give us some clues to make a guess on what ____ means.” Read the sentence again that includes the vocabulary word. Then, encourage your child to make a guess.
  3. If the child is still not able to come up with a definition that is close to the real thing, look it up in the dictionary. This is a great way to practice dictionary skills. Sometimes you can even practice the process of looking it up on a phone or computer.

Grammar

There are many, many grammar lessons that can be taken from a passage. Throughout the guide I will provide you with one grammar focus on day two of each week. You have the option and are encouraged to practice more grammar, if you desire. In the full novel guide, I provide you with detailed information about grammar studies and how to engage in meaningful grammar lessons while practicing passage study.

In my home, we also enjoy using a grammar review workbook alongside these novel guides. We have used Fix it Grammar in the past and now we use Easy Grammar. (See this video for details) The novel passages give us more opportunity to review what we have learned in those workbooks and see it in a more meaningful way.

Enriching Literature and Writing

On day three of the week, a picture book is chosen for you to read aloud to your children. This particular book will teach a little science as we learn about the life cycle of bees.

I encourage you to check your library for this, but I will mention that it’s also read aloud on YouTube HERE. This picture book is an enriching option that provides your children with an exciting story related to the novel, and it will allow you to stretch your novel study across multiple subjects.

I also use these picture books to practice written narration with my older children. Written narration has been such a beneficial practice in our homeschool (watch this video to hear more). Once I read the story, my oldest child will write a narration about the book.

Dictation

Dictation happens on the fourth day of the week, and I have provided you an option to help your younger writers in this process. Not all of your children will be ready for dictation yet, but those that are can complete dictation in two different ways.

The first option is for your beginning writers. I have provided you with a fill-in-the blank dictation option that uses a shortened passage and contains the spelling words from one of the spelling lists.

The other option is a full dictation where your child will write down the passage as you read it out loud. Feel free to dictate just one or two sentences, especially if you’ve never practiced dictation before. If you have a strong writer, you could try dictating the entire passage.

For more information about dictation and how to do it, check out this article.

Copy Work

The copy work will match the weekly passage. You have multiple options when assigning copy work in order to best meet the needs of each of your children. In this sample, I have included the shortened copy work as well as the full passage.

The goal of the copy work is to finish it by the end of the week. It may not take that long, but I challenge you to encourage your child to go slower with their best effort. I like to give short and sweet daily copy work assignments with the reminder that it has to be their best writing. In my experience, these short bits of copy work assigned over the week turn out much better than long, daily assignments.

Download the Novel Study

You can access the free sample to this novel study at the end of this post.

If you enjoy this first week and you’d like to complete the novel study as a whole, you can find the entire guide here. This guide will include much more information about the DIY method and will even teach you how to take any novel that you choose and use these same patterns! The how-to guide is GOLD! You’ll learn so much about language arts and the simplicity of a good novel study.

There are multiple novel studies available and more coming soon. To see more novel options, click here.

Picture Book Studies for Grades K-2

If you like the idea of book studies in your homeschool, check out my new picture book studies for your younger ones. These one-week units focus on one beautiful picture book and provide you with a passage for the week. This passage will allow you to practice copy work, spelling, vocabulary, and grammar.

Each week also includes an outdoor activity as well as an optional bonus activity at the end of the week. These book studies are so much fun! Use them for one week or grab a themed bundle for the month!

See all of the picture book studies available HERE.

Download Free Sample

Join my email list and receive a free one-week sample of the novel study for “The Sign of the Beaver”. This is such a great way to get an up-close look at what this DIY Language Arts learning style is all about.

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    Homeschool Language Arts WITHOUT a workbook

    Have you been wondering if you could teach language arts without a workbook in your homeschool? It seems do-able and much more inviting than opening a workbook each day. Well, I’m here to tell you – you CAN! And it’s so freeing and fun! It can completely change the attitudes of this subject in your home, in the best way!

    A few years ago we did just that. I was having the hardest time teaching language arts, mostly because it was boring and the workbooks really felt like a chore to get through. Add the fact that I have multiple students to teach, and it really just wasn’t great for any of us!

    This is when I began to research passage study and novel-based language arts. There are multiple curricula options available to walk you through something like this, but I still was looking for even more freedom. That’s when I started practicing and using the term “DIY Language Arts”

    This post contains affiliate links. If you follow one of my links I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog!

    DiY Language Arts Template

    What is DIY Language Arts?

    As I mentioned in the introduction, over the past few years I have been passionate about letting go of an all-in-one language arts curriculum. They are great for pacing and consistency, but most of the time we found them to be boring and repetitive in our home. I want my children to love literature and since it is such a huge part of language arts, it’s important to me that we all find enjoyment in learning about it. Otherwise, in my experience, reading becomes more like a chore. 

    Using this DIY (Do-It-Yourself) method of language arts, we have been able to have so much more freedom, letting go of the workbooks and instead choosing what we learn based on passages from great novels.

    Choose A Novel

    First, we choose a novel we want to read and all of our studies come from passages in that novel. One passage per week is how we started. The novel works around our schedule, making it so much more enjoyable than trying to fit a novel and chapters into certain time frames. Since all of the passage studies revolve around the novel, it becomes simple to plan and inexpensive to purchase. We can almost always use the library to collect books.

    Passage Study

    As we read, I choose a passage from the upcoming chapters each week and that becomes our focus. What’s going on? Who’s involved? What are the emotions? Next, that passage provides us with new vocabulary to discuss as well as spelling words to practice for the week. Each day, my children write portions of the passage practicing their handwriting skills and getting accustomed to reading and writing well-written sentences. 

    Narration + Meaningful Discussions + Enriching Literature

    As we read the novel together, we practice narration and have meaningful discussions. This has allowed us to eliminate the need for busy-work worksheets and instead encourage connection and conversation about what we are reading. Through the addition of children’s literature, we can expand our language arts across multiple subjects as we relate our story to something in history or science or the arts. My older children use these engaging stories to practice writing skills. 

    Dictation/Assessment

    Finally, through the use of dictation, I am able to assess my children and their progress from the week. I can check spelling skills and punctuation use as I dictate the weekly passage. This pattern of passage study has been educational, flexible, and honestly just much easier and enjoyable than completing a workbook every day.   

    Family-Style

    This method of language arts works for my whole family! Currently my school-aged kids are 6, 9, and 11. We love that we can do language arts all together. With simple adjustments to copy work and spelling lists, each of my kids can participate in this study, making planning and time management so much easier in our homeschool!

    novel guide

    New Guides Available

    After doing this for a few years and forming rhythms, I’m so excited to share what I have learned with you all. Recently I created DIY Language Arts novel guides where I walk you through a complete novel PLUS I share with you the research and strategies I use to put something like this together. My goal is to help you be able to DIY your own language arts in your home whenever you choose. It’s freeing and FUN! The newest guides are linked below:

    The Secret Garden

    James and the Giant Peach

    Passage Study Chart

    If you are familiar with passage study or if you do something like this style in your own home, then you may enjoy the new Passage Study Charts. These charts break it down so simply providing a passage, sample spelling and vocabulary lists, chapters to read for the week, and weekly enriching children’s literature. This simple chart is perfect for someone who loves a little more freedom but wants decisions made already!

    Passage Study Chart – The Secret Garden

    DIY – Blank Planning Template

    Ready to plan your own? Before I made the guides, I used a simple template (pictured above) to help me organize and plan our passage study. By making quick notes at the beginning of the week, decisions were made and the process of studying the passage became easier. Plus, it doubles as a great record for our novels and how we have used them throughout our school year. This is a FREE template! Get yours below.

    Passage Study Template

    Final Thoughts

    I’ve done a lot of research on the different pieces of language arts and what it ACTUALLY is. I honestly think the subject gets over-complicated and as a result we end up with endless worksheets and exercises that feel more like busy work than meaningful education.

    Imagine if your language arts could suddenly feel like a little book-club in your home. Book after book you can make connections, expand your learning across multiple subjects, learn from character experiences, and MORE and you study language arts as a family. This method simplifies the process, makes learning meaningful, and truly creates much better connection than a workbook.

    I hope you’ll give it a try! If you do, share it with me here or on social media (@simply.learning.together). I love chatting about this so if you have questions, let me know. I also have multiple videos on YouTube sharing our experiences with this over the years:

    Language Arts Without a Workbook – You Can Do IT!

    DIY Language Arts Playlist

    More Literature Based Studies

    I absolutely LOVE adding literature to our homeschool studies. Recently we completed our study of American History using nothing but picture books! It was amazing! And so much fun! Check it out here:

    Learning American History Through Picture Books (FINAL Part)

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    Logic of English Foundations A Review

    logic of english

    This is my second child I’ve taught to read, but my approach has been completely different from my first. This year we used Logic of English Foundations A to teach reading, and I’ll be sharing how it worked for us.

    This is not a sponsored post. I chose Logic of English on my own and plan to share my honest opinion about it with you.

    This post contains affiliate links. If you follow one of my links I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog!

    Why Logic of English?

    I was actually pretty stubborn about teaching reading. I did not use a reading curriculum with my first daughter, and I was certain I could follow the same path with my second daughter. Alas, I have learned that each of my children is unique and their gifts of learning vary greatly! What works for one does not always work for the other.

    The summer before my daughter’s first grade year, I decided to purchase an inexpensive reading workbook to complete casually throughout the summer. As we did it together, the thought came to my mind that it was so nice to have directions to follow each time we worked instead of coming up with my own activity like I was used to.

    This was my realization that a reading program would be helpful for the both of us, and I had to let go of my stubbornness. Unfortunately, these programs can get pretty costly!

    Years ago, I heard great things about 100 Easy Lessons, purchased it, and didn’t really like it. I wish I would have because it costs a lot less! So, I wanted to choose between the two price-y ones I heard the most about – Logic of English and All About Reading.

    Here’s Some of the Reasons I chose Logic of English:

    • Low prep for each lesson
    • Handwriting included (manuscript/cursive)
    • I can easily re-use it with other children (minus the student workbook)
    • Doodling Dragons Picture Book (my daughter would love this)
    • Not grade-level focused, moves at the pace of my child
    • Activities included are simple and follow my style of teaching
    • Tactile Handwriting Cards and activities for multi-sensory learning

    Items Included

    The Foundations A set comes with a handful of items that I will discuss in this post. To see my unboxing of this set, check out my YouTube video for a detailed look at each item.

    Lessons and Assessments

    Foundations A includes 40 lessons and 8 Assessments (A-H). Each lesson and assessment comes with a script for the parent to follow. With each lesson there is anywhere between 1-4 workbook pages for the student to complete. Each workbook page is very short and can be a simple as pointing at a picture.

    One of the things I love about each lesson is that there are so may activities to pick from. I feel like at first this was a little overwhelming. As I get with every new curriculum, I felt like I had to do everything. After a while, I got used to the set up and was able to pick and choose things based on our own needs and schedule.

    The assessments were actually the most fun! Isn’t that interesting? You assess your child using games and hands on activities, and we looked forward to each one. The assessments also made it easy for me to see what she understood and what needed more work.

    Handwriting

    Every lesson includes handwriting practice. Strokes and lowercase letters are introduced and there is space to practice in the student workbook. My child is not a fan of writing, and the amount of handwriting practice was perfect for her. It’s very minimal. For example, the workbook may say to write the letter a few times on your favorite line. So it’s not rigorous by any means.

    The Tactile Cards that go along with the handwriting lesson are so fun. We didn’t use them every time, but my daughter loved them! It’s almost like a sandpaper feeling and it really helps learn the letters using multiple senses.

    We chose to use the manuscript version. (You have the option to choose manuscript or cursive) I was happy with this choice, but I will say that the handwriting that is taught is very unique. It’s slanted and curvy, which is excellent in preparation for cursive, but it matches nothing else that we have. This would be my only negative thought about the handwriting (more on this later).

    I’ve heard of many parents that skip the handwriting all together, but learning the strokes and using the tactile cards was so helpful to my daughter that I decided to stick with it. They do offer a handwriting book separately, and now that she is more confident in writing, I may add that in as practice.

    Spelling

    Spelling is introduced in lesson 21 and continues with each lesson after that. The lesson comes with 3-5 words that follow what you’ve been practicing, so it really sets the student up for success. I will say that once spelling was introduced the lessons felt really long. We ended up splitting them up into two sometimes three days.

    doodling dragons

    Games and Activities

    I love the variety of games so much. It matches my teaching style, and I think that’s why we enjoyed it. Every game option they give you uses the cards that comes with the set. So you’re never having to cut a bunch of things or laminate or find a list of supplies.

    To give you an example you might practice your phonograms by hiding the cards around the room and having a scavenger hunt. Or you might lay the cards on the table and slap the correct one. They’re all just really fun and easy to do.

    And there are so many!! The Teacher’s Manual provides you with a variety of games to pick from for each lesson. When you finish an assessment, there’s a whole page of ideas on how to practice different skills using the games. It’s so helpful!

    make your own reader

    Readers

    The readers are created by the students! This is the cutest thing to me. I believe there are 6 total and each one comes with a set of pictures and then a group of blank pages with the words to read. Your child reads the words and matches the pictures to each page.

    There’s cutting and pasting and matching. This makes the reading so fun! Not only is the process of putting it together unique, but the pictures are so silly. We really got a kick out of these!

    Doodling Dragons

    This picture book has a page for each phonogram. There are silly pictures and rhymes that use all the sounds of the phonograms. It’s very cute, and my daughter loved looking at each page. On YouTube, there are songs that go along with each page as well. These were wonderful, but we usually forgot to listen to them. I believe you can purchase a CD, so if you have a CD player or like listening to things like that in the car, it may be worth the purchase.

    Sometimes I think that if we would listen to them in the car, my younger kids would catch on and begin learning them as well.

    The Not-So-Great Things

    Can you tell we loved this? I could go on and on about how easy it was to use and how much my daughter enjoyed lessons. My complaints are so minimal, but I’ll share in order to give a thorough review.

    LONG LESSONS – This was an easy fix, but it also could vary with the child. We simply split the lessons up into a couple days. The book encourages you to do this as well, but if you feel bound to a lesson number and completing one a day, that will get tougher as you work further into the book.

    LOTS OF PIECES – When I received the box for the set, I was immediately overwhelmed by all of the cards and pieces that come with it. There’s a lot! So, finding a way to organize it all was key. I went with a plastic container that allowed me to keep the cards in their own box but still altogether. It’s been great!

    HANDWRITING – I mentioned this earlier, but the handwriting is unique. It really doesn’t match any other writing in other books we do. So, it’s something you’ll have to decide if you want to do or not. We stuck with it, and I just plan to get their handwriting book at some point to practice.

    SO MUCH TO DO – This really isn’t a bad thing, but I will say that there are so many options of things to do, and it would be very difficult to do it all. So, it’s important to look through and pick what’s best. For example, with every letter the child learns, the book provides ways to “celebrate” the letter. We never did this. The ideas were so cute, but ultimately it didn’t fit in the schedule of our family.

    COST – A program like this doesn’t come cheap. It’s one of the reasons I hesitated to get it in the first place. It’s also tough because set A is only 40 lessons, and although it took us until Thanksgiving to finish (we started in July), it’s kind of a bummer to already have to spend another $100 to keep going. My hope is that the cost will eventually even out when I am able to use it for my next two kids, as well. All I will have to purchase in the future is the student workbook.

    Other Random Things I Love

    WHITEBOARD: The miniature whiteboard that comes with the set got used every day. It was so helpful and I love that it had a giant set of handwriting lines and then smaller ones on the opposite side.

    MOMMY IS LEARNING: I’ve learned so much with this program. I never knew every sound of every letter. I learned about voiced and unvoiced sounds. We’ve learned things about consonants and vowels that I had no idea about. I love learning alongside my kids!

    TEACHER’S MANUAL: The Teacher’s Manual is bound in a hardcover. Almost every spiral book I have ends up coming apart in some way, and this one has no spiral. It makes me happy knowing it will last through the years!

    Final Thoughts

    My daughter’s attitude about reading has changed so much since we started this. Her and I were both frustrated the year before this, and using Logic of English has given us so much joy. I can specifically remember a lesson where we giggled and had fun, and when I told her she could get up to leave she ran up and hugged me! I just melted – so thankful for the progress we were making and continue to make to this day.

    It took me a while to finally bite the bullet and pick a reading program, but once I did I felt so much less pressure when it came to teaching reading. It gave me confidence each day knowing a plan was in place, and it built up my daughter’s confidence each step of the way.

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    Christian Light Education Language Arts Review

    christian light education

    Christian Light Education really improved our second year of homeschooling for a variety of reasons. I picked it because it was inexpensive to try it out and it gave us the flexibility we needed.

    We finished our first grade year with CLE and continued using it for second grade. The second grade level added quite a bit more that made the program even more thorough than I thought it was. In this post I hope to give you a very thorough description and honest review of the second grade program so that you can get a better idea of what it is.

    If you’d rather watch the video version of this post, check it out on my YouTube channel HERE.

    This post contains affiliate links. If you follow one of my links I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog!

    Christian Light Education is published by Christian Light Publications

    They are a Christian Mennonite company, and you can read all about their beliefs and practices here. I am a Christian, and although I do not practice some of the same things listed in the “what we believe” section for Christian Light Publications, I have never felt turned off by the curriculum because of this.

    I actually didn’t even realize the difference in beliefs until I heard someone else tell me about it. Then certain things clicked – like the images in the workbook. It was hard for us to figure out what a few of the images were because we couldn’t relate to them. This happened two or three times and we moved right along.

    The program does talk about God often and believing in Him and making good choices that please Him. It teaches good character and provides short readings for the kids, teaching about manners, kindness, and good study habits.

    The Language Arts curriculum is broken up into 10 units.

    This is one of the reasons I chose this curriculum to replace an old one in the middle of the year. You can buy individual units for less than $5. I loved this because I could buy a unit and test it out with my daughter without really breaking the bank or feeling like I wasted a workbook.

    That’s exactly what we did. I started with one unit, and we kept going from there. There are also optional materials you can purchase, and you can check those out here. We have not used the optional items in our homeschool.

    The lesson content is set up as a spiral review.

    This means that a topic is introduced and practiced again and again throughout the year. You do not master a skill and move on. Instead you are working on a variety of skills every day and repeating them here and there throughout the program.

    I personally love this set up, because it makes it harder to forget things. For example, we can learn and practice alphabetical order and 2 months later we end up practicing it again.

    I also like this because every section in a lesson is just a few practice problems for each skill.

    Beginning in Level 2, the Language Arts program includes handwriting, spelling, AND writing.

    How nice to be able to have that all in one! This is not the case in their level one, so I was happily surprised when we figured this out.

    The handwriting sections start off with manuscript writing. It is a very short section in the lesson (see the image above). Next, it moves into curves and lines to get ready for cursive writing. When you get to unit 3, cursive letters and words are introduced.

    The writing program becomes part of the lessons beginning in unit 3, as well. (See image below.) It’s so nice that I do not have to rearrange days or routines in order to incorporate writing practice. The process is broken down in the unit and easy to follow.

    Each student book is called a LightUnit.

    A LightUnit comes with the lessons, 2 quizzes, a self-check, and a test. One lesson usually begins with a new language skill followed by phonics and grammar review. Next, there is a short penmanship section to practice handwriting and, lastly, spelling practice.

    There are also a few enrichment activities included in each LightUnit. (I’ve never actually even looked at these.)

    The lessons are very to-the-point without extra things.

    If you are looking for a variety of art and nature and song and poetry throughout your lessons…well, this isn’t for you.

    A lesson is 4-5 pages long. Although it sounds like a lot, every section averages 2-6 practice problems.

    If you sit and complete a lesson exactly as it is in the workbook every day, week after week, you are going to get bored.

    Wow…that came off really strong, but hear me out. You can make it what you want! Honestly, that statement stands for almost anything! Homeschool is about making adjustments for your family.

    The set-up of the lessons provide a flexibility when you plan!

    For example, let’s say the review section is something that really doesn’t need practice. Your child has mastered it and is confident…so skip it!

    Or maybe you’re feeling crazy and want to add some movement. Come up with a scavenger hunt or an activity to help get through some of the questions. Change up your routine and have fun with it!

    Or MAYBE your infant won’t stop crying and your 3 year old is having a melt down and it’s raining outside and you haven’t even cleaned up breakfast yet…let your child work on it independently! I LOVE love LOVE that there are days that she can just practice on her own. As a mom of four, it’s so important to have this flexibility!

    However, with the lack of variety in the lessons, it does tend to bore us after a while. Every couple months, I step away from it for a week or two and dive into something different. I might read a book with my daughter or complete a mini-unit together. This helps us go back to it fresh and ready to continue.

    I do NOT follow the lessons exactly as they are written.

    On the topic of spelling, I started the year by skipping the spelling section in the workbook completely and just having her write the words each day. We made this fun, and I can share more about how we did it soon. Even with fun spelling practice, we eventually tired of it after a few months and started only doing the spelling practice section in the workbook. We do not do daily list writing anymore.

    After Christmas, I quit giving the quizzes and self-checks. It was a wasted day of lessons! My daughter was completing lessons well and was not struggling through the skills. (If she were, I may have kept doing them for practice).

    One day, I just completely forgot about giving the quiz, and it affected us in zero ways. So, I stopped! We work through the lessons, and I give the test at the end of the LightUnit, if I feel she’s ready.

    We also skip the penmanship sections most days. I do this because we already have a handwriting curriculum that I love (A Reason For, Level T). Completing the penmanship was overkill to me, so we only do it if we want a super short handwriting day and skip our handwriting book.

    My point in telling you all of this is don’t ever feel like you have to do EVERYTHING!! You have the freedom to choose in your homeschool. If it feels like too much, cut it out. If it’s not enough, add to it. Do what’s best for your kiddo. Because of the way these lessons are set up, this is easy for me to do.

    Let’s focus on the Teacher Guide for a second.

    The guide is very thorough. The answer keys are actually on the same page as the lesson guide, and I really like that. You don’t have to flip back and forth to check answers.

    Each lesson in the guide starts with scripted review questions. Next, it moves into a script for teaching the new skill. It provides questions for discussion as well as an explanation for each section in the lesson.

    If there is any prep, it explains it at the beginning of the lesson guide. It also gives you optional activities to do during a lesson.

    When it is time for a spelling test, the list of words and sentences are provided.

    When I first received the guide, I was extremely overwhelmed. It’s a lot. However, once I read through the explanations and figured out how it worked with the lesson, I felt much better. It’s one of those things where you kind of just need to jump in and try it out to see how it would work best for you.

    The guide is very helpful, but once we got in a groove, I didn’t feel like we needed it as much. It would be hard to have the program without it though. I’m glad I have it to refer to, as needed.

    I’m really happy with CLE, but I’m not 100% sure yet if we will continue for 3rd grade.

    The truth is…I’m somewhat bored. I want to read more books! I want to dive into novels with my kids and explore new characters and places and events. We do read chapter books together, but I feel like I want more. I’m starting to look for something more literature based.

    My decision is not final. I really do love the flexibility I have with this. It’s almost like I would love to do CLE for 6 weeks and a novel for 6 weeks and than back to CLE…and so on. And I could…

    I just have a couple more things I want to research, so I’ll keep you posted.

    Let’s look at the pros and cons here.

    PROS:

    • Inexpensive to try
    • easy to follow
    • includes spelling, handwriting, and writing beginning in 2nd level
    • flexible
    • can be completed independently (depending on child)
    • Christian values

    CONS:

    • cut and dry
    • not hands-on
    • difference in beliefs
    • can feel boring at times
    • not much classic literature or fine arts (at least not in level 2)

    I think this is all just proof that no ONE curriculum is going to be the perfect fit.

    We get to make it what we want and add or take away as we please. Even when I was a classroom teacher, I was doing this with our textbooks for my students. The reason I bring that up is to point out that learning is not a one-size-fits-all matter.

    My suggestion to you if you are considering trying Christian Light Education is to do what we did. Purchase one LightUnit. Look at the samples to get an idea of which one you should buy, based on your child’s abilities.

    Then, try it out in your home! It’s the perfect way to figure out if it’s what you need for your language arts program.