Top Homeschool Picks for Middle School | Denison Pre-Algebra & Fix It Grammar

Hey everybody, welcome to the Waldock Way. I'm Jessica, and today's video is going to be curriculum hits from Emily's seventh grade homeschool year. Now, before I start, I want to preface this video by saying that we are not huge curriculum users, and by that I mean we don't typically use most curriculums, like from start to finish in its entirety. However, this is probably one of the first years that we did that with not only one, but two different curriculums. And not only did we use them in their entirety, we love them so much, I've already ordered them again for next year, and that is very, very out of character for me. So I thought that that meant they deserved a video of their own. So today I'm going to be sharing our two top two curriculum hits from middle school. The first one that was a huge hit was Fix It Grammar. The specific level that Emily did was Robin Hood. This is the first year that we've ever used it, and we just jumped right in. I'm going to be honest, I didn't pick a level based off of her ability. We picked a level based off of her interest. Robin Hood was something that she wanted to do because she really loved archery, and so we just grabbed Robin Hood. And it ended up being kind of the perfect fit for her for this homeschool year, and I've already purchased the next level, which is Mowgli. The Fix It Grammar comes with, or when you purchase it, it comes with a teacher's manual and a student book. You don't have to get both. You can buy them individually, but I did buy both, and I personally feel like you need the teacher's manual. The student book is pretty easy. It takes Emily, I'm going to say, maybe 15 minutes a day to do it. It's basically just one sentence, and they mark it, they fix it, and then they rewrite the correct sentence, and that's it. That's what they do each day. So what a week would look like is we would sit down together, and I would teach her whatever was going to be taught that week on Monday, and then subsequent days, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, or four days that week, or the next four days, even if that took multiple weeks because, you know, life, she would do the sentence, she would mark it, correct it, and then rewrite it. And like I said, it took less than 15 minutes, and I feel like she learned a lot. Like she learned a lot of grammar and punctuation and things that I maybe wouldn't have introduced her to otherwise, and she also really enjoyed the Robin Hood story. In fact, we have since read it and watched it because of Fix It Grammar. The other one is Denison Pre-Algebra. You guys had a lot of questions, so I'm also going to be answering questions about this, but this has been hands down the best math choice we have ever made. And that's saying a lot because I am a mathy person, Emily is not a mathy person, math has been where we clashed. Like seriously, the best homeschool money I've ever spent, I think, was buying Denison. When you purchase Denison, it comes with video lessons. I think they're good for an entire year. There may even be the ability to add three months on either side of that. If you message them, I remember reading something along those lines. You get the student textbook, which is kind of lofty. This is pre-algebra, algebra is even larger. You get a solutions manual, which is actually for the student and not you as the teacher. And then you also get, I have it in a three ring binder, but you also get the test. So this is the parent guide and a test booklet. So there's a test for every chapter and there's actually technically two tests for every chapter because you have form A and form B. So if they didn't do well on the first one, they can take a second one and the answers are included in that as well. So what a lesson or a day with Denison math looks like is the child watches the lesson with Mr. Denison on video. You guys, he's very funny. He's like your typical dad joke, kind of corny. Emily was always laughing with him. She thought he was very relatable, very down to earth. She liked watching the lessons. And while you're watching the lessons, you do guided notes. So it'll be like maybe three or four problems that you sit down and you do with him. And that is all part of the book that your child has. So for example, they call them notes. This is the notes page. And then after you watch the video with him, you do your assignment. Your assignments vary. Sometimes they're one pages, sometimes they're three. It just depends. After your student does the assignment, they then go to the solutions manual and they check their answers themselves. Because in the solutions manual, he's worked the problems out. That way they can see if they made any mistakes. There are also solution videos available as well if they need more explanation. It typically takes Emily anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes to do a lesson. 30 minutes if she's like sitting down, not distracted, applying herself. 45 minutes if it's something she needs help with or if she's distracted, which, you know, again, life. The only things that she needed for Dennison Algebra were the calculator he suggests, which I think is the Texas Instruments 30. I have it right here. It is the TI-30XS is what we have. And then she did use a ruler for some of the graphings. She just liked, you know, to be able to make her lines straight, but that's it. She didn't need anything in addition other than the calculator that we purchased. And you don't have to have that, but I would definitely suggest it. And then she used a ruler, but that was her personal preference. We personally used teaching textbooks for, we did their math three, their math four, their math five, and their math six. At the end of math six, I moved her to Denison Pre-Algebra. Honestly, I did that in seventh grade because my original thoughts were that I would give her grace and give her all of seventh and all of eighth to complete Denison Pre-Algebra. That is the only reason I went ahead and moved her into it in seventh, but she ended up finishing the entire thing in seventh grade. So we're gonna go ahead and just keep moving on, giving ourselves that little bit of flexibility in case there is a time when she hits a snag, we can slow down and I don't have to worry about that, even though I don't believe in being behind anyway. The reason we went with Denison when we started getting to the higher math is because while I love teaching textbooks and it was working okay, I noticed that Emily needed to have a little bit more repetition. She also needed the visual video component and the written component. And while teaching textbooks does have the ability for that, it's not quite as built into the lessons as it is with Denison. Like Denison requires that you have the video and the written. You can't opt out of one with teaching textbooks you can. So it forced her to have to do all of the different things, which really helped math sink in for her. And I had heard really great things about it from other people. It is advertised as being a math that is not for mathy kids. And that is true. Emily is not a mathy kid and it works great for her. That being said, I am a very mathy person. And while I'm not gonna use the word rigorous, I do think it is a well-rounded, very robust math curriculum for a non-mathy kid and a mathy kid. Like I think it would work well for either of those. I don't think, you know, if your kid really likes math, you should skip out on it. I think it would work well for both. And I think that is pretty much most of the questions that you guys asked about it when we talked about it on social media. If you have any more questions, let me know down in the comments. I'm happy to answer them. But those were our two big curriculum hits. And honestly, they kind of surprised me too, because I did not expect us to love either of them as much as we did. And when I asked Emily, is there anything you want me to order for next year? She was just as quick to answer as I was. And I immediately bought Fix It Grammar and Denison Algebra for her eighth grade year. Now I would love it before I go, if you would let me know down in the comments, if you have any questions and also what curriculum were hits for you this homeschool year. Thank you.