Thanks so much Lori. I think I do have beyond the book report. I'll look at that. Also it's not like my son doesn't like to write stories. I just know the promps and examples and paragraphs to finish in treasured conversations would not appeal to him. These are in the paragraph section. We don't really read much fantasy here and that is what many of the examples are.... perhaps I could come up with new ones.... We read some older literature here. We just finished Laddie by Gene Stratton Porter which those two kids really liked. We've also recently enjoyed Carry on Mr Bowditch and some Patricia St John. Currently we're reading Mrs Piggy Wiggle just to switch it up;) DS is currently reading The Man Who Never Was (true WW2 story), 3 Stuffed Owls by Keith Robertson (silly kids mystery from the 50s) and the 4 Story Mistake.

Write with the best is honestly where I'm leaning at the moment;) The format is read a passage from a classic (Dickins, Melville, Defoe...), analyze the descriptive nouns adverbs....or the way dialogue is written extra then write your own and then edit and rewrite it. It is mostly paragraph lengths. I think my creative girl would benefit from the instruction and my son would appreciate the direction and non cutesy aspect of it.....still thinking though. I was all set to do Writeshop E, but somehow it seems to directionless creative (modern??) maybe? I always seem to do well with mostly classical and Charlotte Masonish philosophies....

Thanks for the ideas. I'm storing them for next year at least I asked about those 2 curriculums because I have them and don't have more homeschooling budget right now. I also have Treasured conversations but none of us are fantasy fans so the creative writing in the end of the book probably would not appeal. The rest looks good though.

I will add more complicated info later but I have Writeshop E and well as Write with the best 1. Which would you-all pict for a writing adverse 7th grade boy and story telling 5th grade girl? We kind of have to combine due to time restraints. We're doing old Analytical Grammar and Writing skills 1 together now and it's going well.

I read and sometimes summertime if the book gets wordy. It's short so we're doing fine. He's remembering it.

I 3rd Berean Builders science in the beginning has an experiment for each lesson. I'm enjoying it this year. Good science too. Best for 2nd grade + though. It's a bit dense younger than that.

What consistently is getting done 2nd grade Math With Confidence 2 as written sometimes a game gets skipped, moved to another day or played with a sibling ....otherwise working through with success skipping enrichment lessons Language Arts AAR review level 1 while we work on fluency (15 min) Flyleaf readers or American language series readers later in the day.... more fluency (10-15 min) AAS 1 plus some words from the day's stories (15 min) FLL (10 min) Italic C (10 min) Science Berean Builders in the Beginning 3 days a week Social Studies Just the history and geography boxes of HOD Bigger Hearts Plus 1 read aloud. We read bible at night, but I want to do something more with littles.... we'll see. K4 Foundational Phonics letter mastery Math with Confidence K I want to add in more from A year of Playing Skillfully.....

@Nm. I love using a resource I already had;) I am really enjoying the history and geography. Like I said we do poetry if we have time....I do Berean Builders science because this is my science guy who asked for more experiments when I asked him what he wanted this year,;) Otherwise I'd just do the science in Beyond...it's easier... This child was not ready to copy poetry or we'd do that too. So I have other handwriting and FLL 1 to fill those boxes.....now repeat with me "I will not unnecessarily double up😁" It can save a day or year....

Yep we do the reading about history box only. We also skip the days that history is a Bible verse. I want to finish by mid May... Mostly I'm using it to correlate the books. Like I said we so geography some weeks.

Yes we're just reading the history books as scheduled. Then I'm asking for oral narration or we discuss the reading. We do the "storytime" part to again mostly just reading. I often read a book outloud at night but this D's usually falls asleep and does not listen. Sometimes we do the geography or poetry but FLL has poetry so that often gets skipped.

We started the 2nd week of September....then changed alot about 2 days in....I needed stuff with some independent components for all my kids with 3 in school a preschooler and 2 littles. So for 2nd grade (and preK) we are back to the original plan of Math With Confidence 2 and K (4yr old always has liked math...I am ready to slow down whenever though). 2nd grade ds was finding AAR 2 really hard. We worked part of the summer and we're on like lesson 9 or so. He could sound it all out but no fluency. We are re-read the level 1 readers and some other short vowel readers I have-2 sessions a day of about 10-15 min each. So far these are fluent. Once they get hard well read fluency sheets and play with the cards....till we build fluency up to where we were. This isn't the 1st time I've done this;) Older brother had to work hard to read then dd was doing level 4 in 2nd grade and flying;) Also I picked up First Language lessons for a well trained mind level 1 and love it! Not sure why I hadn't looked at it before;) Handwriting is Getty Dubay and science is Berean Builders creation book. History is mostly just the books from HOD Beyond little hearts. It's going well.

Both math mammoth and horizons have placement tests. Horizons is spiral math mammoth is mastery.....

It has alot on each page but she says to default to assigning 1/2 or so. Then skip rest or use if your child needs more practice or teaching or review later. I can send you a few pictures of my dd 5th grade pages that she's done...I may be able to find her grade 4 books from last year too. My kids like not doing all the problems it's somehow motivating, but the extra problems are there if we need them, which we sometimes do. I usually decide which pages I plan to do in a day then teach those pages all at once using the teaching boxes and a white board. The author also has videos of her teaching many of them the topics listed by grade on her website. I use those if the kids need another explanation. The color books are a little less busy looking if you want to pay extra. You can always try one semester book in black and white for about $11. Or you could just buy one to look at. I really like how the grades build on each other by reviewing and then going deeper. Both my big kids are doing fraction units and it's neat to see. I have not used K-3 I've used RightStart or Math with Confidence for those.

I've liked math mammoth mostly for upper ages. Do the placement test it's a bit pushey/ accelerated. My son is 1 semester behind in 6B and dd is on level in 5A. It builds nicely on itself and is mastery. All workbooks through 7th grade. I guess 1/2 of algebra 1 grade 8 is out.

He CAN write a paragraph. He is slow and would probably rather do anything else. So I think some is speed and stamina some is mental block (this is hard) some is motivation, some may be dyslexia or or..... He's my oldest boy. His 10 yr old sis writes letters for fun....like I said he'd rather do anything else...

It is partly just writing anything. He does not write fast. He can do about 4-5 dictated sentences from All About Spelling level 4 in about 5-7 min thinking hard about spelling.

What did you use with your students who struggle to get thoughts on paper? Did it help? Any other thoughts? Student is 12 and has good thoughts he likely has mild dyslexia and is starting to spell a tiny bit better. He reads well and for fun. He hates anything cute or funny or that's trying to make school "fun". He likes school work to look lol me work and be efficient.

It covers spelling and dictation. It has you write sentences both dictated and original. So sentence level composition is included. It doesn't cover copywork or how to address an envelope extra.

I'd pick AAR also unless your child is really ready to write alot and you want to do MP for 1st...AAR got my mildly dyslexic child reading and all my kids have liked the readers. MP is fine for many kids but it's alot of writing and not as in depth. I don't somehow like LOE it looked more complicated somehow. Get the AAR app if tiles bother you.

THE DESIGN OF LIFE COLLECTION from Illustra media is great. It is creation based.

I would so this too... But they just got redone so check out the new ones or see if rainbow resource still has any old student books?

We used apologia botany and flying creatures last year for different children. I did but the notebooking journals. They gave a schedule in them and have lots of cut and paste lapebook style notebook pages. There are questions in the books themselves though that you could just answer on paper or make your own diagram for. Check your textbook to see. I did get the notebook journal again for 1 child and the other child is doing something different this year but I would not have gotten it again for him. Both of these books were 2X a week all year and took like 15-45 min a time depending on whether there was an experiment or detailed notebook page that they did or if they just read the text. Also I didn't buy lab kits ...just a few harder to find items from home science tools. I looked at the list of what the lab kit included and bought what Walmart and I didn't likely have. The kids both enjoyed their chosen books. You can totally make your own schedule for the book if you want or buy just 1 notebook for just the schedule and have the boys do different pages for each chapter. There are lots of pages per chapter and even my daughter didn't use them all.

We haven't started yet not till after Labor Day;) I am elbow deep in freezing and canning...I am sort of excited to start and sort of dreading it;) it seems rather daunting to have 3 in school a preschooler, toddler and baby.....I not sure how much past the 3Rs we will get to....also no one is very independent yet....we're working toward that in some things though.

Currently The Man Who Never Was Earlier The Wright Brothers by Russell Freeman, We Were there at at the Opening of the Erie Canel by Meadowcroft, Childhood of Famous Americans Robert Fulton, By the Great Horn Spoon, The Pony Express by Ralph Moody....I think he reread Charlotte's Web when it was lying in the living room.... Aloud, I'm reading Laddie by Gene Stratton Porter

Notgrass from Adam to Us if you want a Christian perspective. It is a textbook with an optional workbook but has literature suggestions, map work and a book of original source documents. The textbook has lots of pictures. https://www.rainbowresource.com/product/022285/From-Adam-to-Us-Curriculum-Package.html