I was thinking about the flip side of this today before I saw your post. When I got dressed this morning, I pulled out an old T-shirt that happened to be from a college handbell choir that I played in. My roommates had invited me to join them, and I had replied that I wasn't Baptist (I was another flavor of protestant) and I didn't play bells. They insisted that if I could be in the marching band, I could play bells. I went to school 8 hours from home and didn't know anybody, so I had decided that my freshman year I would say yes to any invitation that wasn't illegal or immoral. By the end of the year, I had tried camping (hated it), canoeing (loved it), handbells (still ringing 20 years later), tried new genres of movies and food (some are now favorites, others were a big NO!). And, in doing bells, I met a friend who was my roommate the last 2 years of college. I was fortunate to have gone to a very friendly college, but I also did a lot of things that I wouldn't have chosen - I'd walk to eat with folks from my lab class, even if I would have preferred to eat later or somewhere else, for instance. Some people wound up being acquaintances that I had a not-so-yummy dining hall meal with, and others are friends that I'm still in touch with many years later. You can't really predict where you'll meet 'your people' sometimes, unfortunately.

Lab tech jobs are very hands on and require algebra-level skills. If he's interested in chemistry, could you get a physical science or even a chemistry textbook (get old used versions) and have him look at problems - titrations, chemical equations, etc? In my not-so-great high school, chemistry was answering questions about chemistry, but I got a shock when I got to college and chemistry (and physics) were basically math classes. Cancelling units, figuring out how much of something you need to do a chemical reaction, avagradro's number and conversions to moles, etc, might be ways to get him to try to use math and see what he knows and what he needs to learn. Physical science is often an 8th or 9th grade class, so it you could maybe try using his science curriculum as incentive for math? I don't know if any of this would work for you, but maybe coming at it from the other direction (look at this cool science - let's learn the math to do it!) might help.

We follow the Core Knowledge sequence, so we do the topics that it discusses each year. We read an assortment of books, watch videos, etc based on the history that is taught each year. We have usually done world history in the fall and US history in the spring.

We follow the Core Knowledge sequence, so we do the topics that it discusses each year. We read an assortment of books, watch videos, etc based on the history that is taught each year. We have usually done world history in the fall and US history in the spring.

Once you get through the grades of HWoT, they have a printing power and a cursive book that don't go with a specific grade. Could you use whichever of those you think would help - whichever type of writing she prefers? We did their regular books for K-4, and then I let my 5th grader pick which to use.

We love our co-op. It's big, K-12, and offers enrichment classes and also credit classes for the older kids. We started because we were new to the area and beginning to homeschool with my older kid in K. After the first year, I started teaching (we have paid teachers, and I had experience teaching at a community college, so high school was a good fit). It's become part of our community, and the whole family anxiously awaits the day each spring when the fall schedule comes out. I've used it mostly for enrichment for my kids, although as they get older I add in reinforcement of subjects outside my expertise (I'm a science teacher, and I have them take literature, composition, and/or foreign language classes). They also get to take some cool classes that would be hard to do for just 1-2 kids, such as the class where they divided into countries and 'fought' WWI, and choir or PE classes. I'm not a crafty person, so for my kids it's a change of pace to do classes that involve lapbooking or other elementary-style crafts. That being said, because we choose to commit most of a day to co-op (some choose to take 1-2 classes instead), I have to manage our schedule to be done in 4 days. But, my kids love it and get to do things that I wouldn't do at home. It's a 20 minute drive home, and most weeks they take turns telling me about their day the entire drive...although they've both commented that they love co-op and are also glad that it's just 1 day each week!

We use AoPS and alternate between liking the challenge and getting frustrated that it can move on to trickier versions of a problem type before my kid understands exactly what's going on. We've started doing sections from Jousting Armadillos, Crocodiles to Coconuts, and Chuckles the Rocket Dog to reinforce the concepts. If this kid weren't good at math and needing to learn that sometimes you can't just look at a problem and see the answer, we would probably switch to that series as our main math plan for algebra. I've got several years, but I'm planning to use it as the main curriculum with my younger child. It talks you through the problem types, has plenty of practice, and often offers a few challenge or puzzle problems. You don't have to use the whole series if there are parts that you think that you know - one is mostly about quadratic equations, one has a lot of basic concepts, etc - check the titles to see which to start with.

We love MCT,but Brian Cleary books might be fun to read at a co-open, too.

Are there any expensive reference books that the whole family could use? Story of Us set? Usborne, DK, or other illustrated books that can be used for years? We also like the one small square books for ecosystems and basher books for all sorts of things. Math manipulatives? I found a set that you can use to build 3-D shapes. Pin-it maps and snap circuits sets are also good hands-on extras. Also, the magic treehouse set or the cat in the hat knows a lot about that are fun books for younger kids that introduce a lot of topics.

There is chemistry in biology, but it doesn't cover everything that you get in a chemistry class. Although a biology class talks about organic molecules, chemical bonds, and an introduction to basic chemistry ideas, it typically won't spend a lot of time on things like balancing chemical equations, electron shells or acid-base titrations that you might get in a chemistry class. But, if you don't need chemistry later, it might not be an issue for you.

I would do the singapore placement test - it's on their website. We started my K kid with 2nd grade and moved quickly. I'd do the test and not push where you start (if you're on the border, start with the lower option). You can always move more quickly and skip problems, but it can be frustrating if you don't know their method of doing something and have to figure it out.

Vocab with classical roots isn't very time consuming. We use it for spelling and vocab, so my student does a pretest of the words on M, then does the exercises T and W (and sometimes all in one day). We have co-op on Thursday and don't do regular work, but we follow up with the post-test on Friday if any words were missed on Monday. We skip some of the 'Write a story' things that show up in the reviews. There are fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice questions, and often some good synonym/antonym/analogy questions, so it's kind of multitasking as test prep. 10ish minutes a day should be plenty, especially if you're not doing spelling tests from it, too.

One of mine would work fairly independently in K as long as there wasn't too much writing. That kid was completely overwhelmed by the reviews in Singapore and also by any question where you had to write out a number in words (one hundred forty seven for 147). On those days, I'd do the writing. There were also situations where the math skills were ahead of the writing skills, so, for example, keeping numbers in columns to do long division was a problem. I wound up printing out gridline paper with big squares. The spaces in the workbooks are also often small for kids who are working above grade level - they're still using widely spaced lines in their handwriting and have small spaces in the more advanced math workbook. I still usually needed to be in the room most of the time for answering questions - when I say 'worked independently' it was usually not for more than 10 minutes at a time. My other child would do almost nothing independently at that age. I didn't have to coach how to do the problems, so much as talking as we did them (while kid wrote the answers) and then I'd say 'now can you do the next 2' and then I'd check those, and then I'd have them do a few more, and then check those. Now, in 2nd grade, I can sometimes check my chair and find several assignments waiting to be graded when I get to the school room in the morning, but it wasn't the case until this year that there was that much independent work. And, just as my younger child is hitting the 'can work independently' stage, my previously independent student is hitting the tween 'stare into space' stage, coupled with 'my work is now hard enough that I actually need help and can't just figure it out on my own'. Figuring out how much help is needed is an always-moving target. :-)

HWT continues to show letter formation, so you could go on to first grade if you wanted.

I agree that it's a pricy set of books. We found the poetry book to be pretty good - I'm sure that it depends on what you already know, though. We've got a STEM background, so without some sort of guide I probably wouldn't have done a very good job of teaching how different types of meter work, how different phonemes impart different moods to the poetry, etc. We bought the whole set, but for several of the books you could do OK with just the teacher's manual. We worked through the island level in a semester, but I had started with an easier level than recommended because I was using it with a kid who reads very well but struggles with parts of writing and interpretation. We're working through the town level grammar now and it started off with a review. Now that we're into phrases and it's added gerunds and infinitives, it's gotten harder.

One thing that helped me to feel like I was 'covering all of my bases' in the early years was to have something outlining topics to cover each year for science and history. I wound up with Hirsch's 'What your X grader needs to know' series, but many curricula have something where you can see what is covered each year - you could even use the topics outlined in your state's scope and sequence. What I've liked about this approach is that I can work with the topics in any way that we want, for however long we want, but I don't have the worry that my kids will get to high school and I've somehow forgotten to teach them the planets. Even if you choose to work with the subjects in a different order or in different grades, at least you have the list to remind yourself what you have an haven't done. And, with reading, math, and handwriting (the only things that we did with a specific curriculum in K/1), if you're making progress, then you've chosen something that works for your family.

It depends on your goals, philosophy, and kids, but we found that doing handwriting more often during K-1 was helpful. They can't really write anything else until they've learned all of the letters, so we did it 3-4 days/week in the early years. Once they were through learning the letters and were writing words, we'd back off and do it less, or use HWOT's gray block paper for writing favorite words. I also did the numbers part of the book earlier with one kid because they kept writing them backwards in their math. Otherwise, it looks good. If you feel rushed, try switching social studies and science - alternating days, a week of each, or even a month of each, depending on what works for your family. Some people do well doing both, and sometimes you can tie them together (maps, life in Australia, and kangaroos or the Great Barrier Reef) and others have a hard time changing gears between the 2.

Something that I consider sometimes is that everybody only has a certain amount of mental energy, or 'coping energy'. We can only do so much 'hard stuff' at once. It's why diets go out the window during times of stress. If somebody is having a positive, or neutral, experience in an environment, then they're probably fine. But, they are upset before they even get there, and it isn't going away once the inital 'new place and separation' anxiety should have passed, then what is actually being learned? I've used this to consider whether certain curriculum is worth the effort. One of my children doesn't participate in a yearly group activity at church because they dislike it so much that they wouldn't get the benefit of what is being taught. This is NOT to say that they never have to stick it out - baseball wasn't a favorite for one kid, but there was no trauma, and we finished the season. They have been anxious about new situations and done it anyway. But, if improvement isn't happening, it can be reasonable to ask 'what are they actually getting out of this activity?'. Perserverence and 'stick-to-it' is a laudable goal, but there is a cost. Going to 3 more ball games was totally worth teaching that lesson to my kid. Having them hate church because they don't like an activity was not worthwhile, so we opt out of the particular disliked activity. Only your family can figure what the right trade-off is.

It can be hard when parents seem critical. Even now, 6 years in, I still occasionally get 'Well, you wouldn't have that problem if they were in school' if I mention that I've heard too much bickering or some other totally normal 'mom complaint'. But, my dad, who had also worried about 'toughening up' a boy, no longer mentions it. My son plays rec league in 2 sports and will be moving up to middle school or travel teams soon, and my daughter does martial arts. She also plays a musical instrument and my son is in scouts. Both go to overnight camp, away from home, with no problems, and also local day camps for their sports in the summer. They get along well with the other kids on their teams (not 'coddled' homeschool kids - they're whoever signs up for the program from the community - some kids are sweet, some are rowdy). We've even dealt with a bully (in, of all, places, church). Somebody is at a volunteer job, practice, or rehearsal almost every day, with the accompanying coaches who push the kids and tolerate no nonsense and the 'non-participant' sibling entertaining themselves with whatever other siblings happen to be waiting for practice to finish. But, until folks see how it is working for your particular family, they will have an opinion based on what they worry about. When people say that they couldn't homeschool, or 'what about X?', I always say that it's a matter of what you're more comfortable with having to worry about or work through. Parents of kids in school worry about which teacher they'll get, if they'll get bored or left behind, or if they'll make friends. Parents of homeschool kids worry about whether they'll be able to teach everything, whether their kids get enough time with others, and if they're missing opportunities. The lists really aren't that different, but which approach works for a particular family depends on the people and situation.

We have used a simple, straightforward grammar (Growing with Grammar) because my kids do fine with it and it was quick and got the job done. In an effort to help my older child with writing, we tried out MCT's series this year, and WOW. We've been using the whole program, but the grammar part has really impressed me. My kid doesn't complain about it, and has really gotten a good grasp on what part of speech each word is and what their role in the senetence is. It doesn't teach diagramming, so I may use a diagramming book at some point. It's one of the few elementary school books that left me feeling like I had a much better understanding of the subject when we got to the end.

We had some dubious friends and family when we started, and my husband was fine with it but not enthusiastic. We only committed to doing it one year, and by the end everybody was OK, and some were impressed. As far as milestones, I've found that a lot of markers aren't school-based. Movng up to the 'big kid floor' or 'youth' at church, playing on the biggest field at the ball park, getting a bigger violin, earning scout awards - these are our milestones. But, we start co-op around the same time that most friends start school. We post 'first day of co-op' pics when they post 'first day of school' ones. Last year, we went to a scholastic books warehouse sale on our 'last day of school', and the kids have already asked if we can continue that 'tradition'.

I know myself well enough to have never tried it at home, but my kids took some co-op classes loosely based on the concept. One week they'd read a story and do a small project/craft. The next week they'd re-read the book and then add on some more history, geography, or science to go with it. My older child took an awesome class that used that approach with the Magic Tree House books. They read the books at home, and the first week they discussesd the book. The second week they continued their discussion and did a history or science lesson that matched the topic.

I have had co-op students take the SAT subject test in the past. I offered to help with anything that we didn't cover, but was told that what was left was the material that was fairly easy to learn on their own from the prep book. Having not taught it, I can't make any specific claims about the organismal biology, but most students find the molecular material to be the harder part. When I originally planned the class, I put the ecology at the end because if co-op missed some classes due to snow days, ecology was the material that they could self-teach if they needed to. Now that even the co-op students can catch up on missed material online, we're still happy to put that material at the end - they tell me that when the 'end of the year lazies' hit, they're glad that all they have to worry about is 'predator-prey relationships and symbiosis' and not the details of how tRNA works. But, if there's interest in an SAT prep class, it would be easy enough to add some extra modules. Some of my co-op students would probably take advantage of it, too. Hmmm...now I have a spring break project - figure out which chapters correlate with those SAT questions.

Hi again. When I designed the course, it was for my co-op and it covered all topics that were included in our state standards (which, depending on how the students' records were being kept, was necessary). Now that the class is reaching a broader audience, I've checked the standards for NY and CA and found that the only additional unit that they include is about homeostasis and immunity. If we have people requesting it, I can put together an optional unit for that material. Although I've been teaching at the co-op for several years (and before that at a community college), the online class is still new. If there is a need to include a particular unit for a group of online students, I can add it. Biology books are often not used in their entirety - the one that I used at the community college stated at the beginning that there were multiple courses that could be taught from the book, depending on which chapters you chose to use. I think that's probably why the SAT subject test in biology has 2 options - molecular and ecology. At our co-op, many of the students have been exposed to the 'whole organism' part of biology through their middle school 'life science with dissection' class, so I don't duplicate that material. If there's a demand for an online class that has it, though, we could possibly put together a separate class that uses a different set of chapters. As always, feel free to message if you have any questions!

I had one student go all the way through Singapore 6, and the other is is currently using 3B. I bought the textbooks, but find that we don't use them very often. There are some things that singapore teaches differently from how I was taught in school, though. We were taught the standard algorighm for addition, but Singapre puts a LOT of emphasis on making or breaking 10s. So, 9 + 8= 10+7, and for 23-5 you would borrow 10, but instead of subtracting 5 from 13, you subtract 5 from 10, then add 3. It sounds more complicated and takes a bit longer to teach, but both of my kids ended up doing mental math better than I ever could as a student. I think that I probably read the text the first time through, becauseI wouldn't necessarily have gotten that from the problem books. Do you get the homw instructor's guide? I could imagine that you could get by with one or the other, but probably don't need both. You will probably want a book when you get to bar diagrams - level 3 - unless you're familiar with the method.