I use very little boxed/prepared curriculum at this time. Our hits/successes this year:
5th grader:
Spelling. After a year or two of trying one thing and another, including AAS, which we hated, I am using the 1000 most common words list. Next year I’ll put the lists into Spelling City so that he can do it independently.
Reading: letting him choose his own books may be a hit; I’m not sure
History: using living books for US History. While I have them listed in chronological order, I’m letting him choose the books as we go. For example, which book on Lincoln do you want? This book is optional; do you want this or move on to the next topic?
Geography: once a week we study state abbreviations
Language Arts. Story Steps from Write Bonnie Rose. The only thing is, he has difficulty getting his thoughts on paper. I was his scribe. All he had to write were the daily keywords. The only miss here is that we’ve used all of them. Maybe after we’ve finished his 4H work (which involves some writing), we’ll go back to the Lego prompts we used last year or re-use the Story Steps.
2nd grade:
Starfall, hands down. My daughter is VERY independent. Except for book time, this was the only way we could “do school” for most of the year. And she has learned a lot.
Giving her free reign with basic art supplies could be a hit or a miss, but mostly a hit. (I’ve had to hide the markers a few times b/c she forgets and writes on the walls). Her creativity has really flowed. She has taught herself to write and makes her own books. (Her spelling could use a lot of work, though). She draws a lot. With this in mind, I’m considering lapbooks for next year. I just don’t know which ones to do if she’s not interested in history or science.
File folder games. She is finally showing an interest in seatwork, so these are our math right now. I find most of them at filefolderfun.
Misses:
5th grade:
AiG Human Body for Science. I let him choose what he wanted to study, but I chose the book. It wasn’t a good fit and we abandoned science for a few months. At the moment our science is preparing for a 4H contest. After this week, I don’t know what we’ll do. I bought some secondhand ABEKA (4th-6th), which I intend to use next year if we don’t spend the whole year on 4H Science. I may start that anyway, letting him pick and choose the chapters/topics.
Language Arts. We just couldn’t get into a groove this year. Started Writing 8s (Dianne Craft technique), but abandoned it. Started reading the World of Language series by Ruth Heller and circling the part of speech from a lit excerpt or his copywork, but he struggled with recognizing pronouns, so we abandoned that.
Art Study. We did that for awhile, but dropped it at my son’s request. There were weeks that I’d forget to do it, anyway.
2nd grade:
History and Science read alouds. I’m continuing them in the rotation, but I’m not sure she’s getting anything out of them. I had already put them off a year due to her delays.
Prepared copywork. She would rather do her own writing.
Language and Social Skills. Had all these ideas, none of which I implemented. Hope to try again next year.
There was just no saving that curriculum. It was in no way geared for homeschoolers, was dry, dull, impractical and we were just not going to make it through the year. So we threw in the towel and started fresh this year with Elemental Science Biology for the Grammar Stage for a Big Hit this year! 
