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.

I thought I'd pop into answer the question about handouts - I talk about everything that I want for the students to know in the videos (2-5/week, 10-25 minutes each). My recommended approach is to take notes from the lecture and then re-write your notes, using the book, the discussion thread that I set up so that students can post messages to me or each other, or emailed questions to fill in any gaps. From experience with my in-person co-op students, I know that some carefully read the book, others skim, and others just look up sections that they don't understand or figures that I can't draw in detail during lecture. For most students, the homework questions help them to figure out what they understand and what needs more work. I also post links to other videos (animations, etc) for students who want it. You can message me if you have any questions - I don't want to veer into 'promoting my class' territory!

One of our splurges last year was Pin-It maps - it was pricy, but can be used for years for geography practice,

If that's meant to be a single-year budget, you have a lot of wiggle room. I'm not going to offer specific curriculum suggestions - we enjoy Singapore and have been eclectic with language arts, science, and history. Since you probably won't spend that much on this year's work, I thought I'd suggest a few 'stock your shelves' books. You might enjoy ED Hirsch's core knowlege books to get some ideas for history or science topics. Several years ago, somebody recommended that, when I buy a curriculum (like Singapore math) that I go ahead and get an additional workbook for my next kid. That way if they change the book, I don't have to re-buy the text. If you decide to re-sell, you haven't invested much more and can usually get the workbook cost back. Find some reference books - animal encyclopedia, illustrated history, Steven Biesty's 'see inside' books, or 'The way we/things work' etc. Depending on your preferences, DK, Usborne, etc, have good 'stock your shelves' books that you'll come back to for years. SOTW was the same way for us - we didn't ever do it straight through, but we've referred to it for years. The hardest thing for me is that I want to buy too many books - we have lots, and I have to figure out what we need to have on our shelves and what we can check out from the library.

My student found SM6 to be a lot of review, or at least not a lot of hard new material, so it might be a good fit for a kid who needs more math confidence. We moved to AoQS pre-algebra after that, but if I had it to do over I'm not sure that I'd make the same decision. I might supplement with some of the interesting problems, but I might choose a curriculum that is less time-intensive. I found that my student is willing to do math, but not interested in putting in a lot of time. This year we got through about 1/2 of AoPS algebra, but the amount of time it took was making my kid not like math. I decided to spread out the challenge problems and also do work from the Jousting Armadillos series (right now, Chuckles the Rocket Dog) a couple of days a week to reinforce concepts and also give us a shorter lesson on busy days. The new series has been a hit - my kid works on math with no complaints and likes the puzzles scattered through the book. It will make algebra take 3 semesters, but my student is young, so I'm not worried about fitting it all in.

We move through Singapore with no problem finishing each course in a year, with not a ton of time spent on math to get it done. My child was young when they started AoPS and weren't used to that much challenge, so once I saw how frustrated he got, I slowed down with it. It took a little less than 3 semesters to get through pre-algebra. I had thought we'd do the Algebra in a year, but I recently realized that we're pushing ahead too quickly - there are some things that aren't as solid as they need to be - so we're stopping to work from another book for a few weeks to get those concepts settled. The thing about AoPS is that the problems are often very challenging conceptually, so they may (or may not) take a lot of time depending on how quickly you see what you're supposed to do to solve the problem, but there isn't necessarily a lot of repetition/practice of a new idea before you start using it with harder problems. This can make it hard to see where your student is confused. So, we'll probably take close to 3 semesters for algebra, too, but some of the time will be spent on other practice. My kid sees a lot of concepts easily and doesn't alwasy find the challenge problems to be challenging, but can sometimes assume that they understand something better than they do and then start making mistakes once the problems get complicated and you HAVE to understand all of the different approaches to 'see' the correct solution. ETA: we do all challenge problems - this is a huge part of why it takes so long. But, my student needs the challenge, or at least the puzzle, to make him think about what to do with the math once he knows it. He's young, so I'd rather move slowly and do it all. That will vary depending on other needs and the age/interest of your student.

When I saw 5A, I at first assumed Singapore math so I solved it with bar models. First, I made same-sized boxes for Reena ® and Pauiline (P). Then I gave R 56 more, because if she gives P 28 they will have the same number - she'd be giving P half of what she has that is more than what P has. Then it says that if P gives R 35, she will have 1/3 of what R has. So, take 35 from P's 'box' and give it to R. When. you take 35 from P anhd give it to R, there's a new difference of 70 more between P's small box and R's total amount. So, 126 is the difference, and equals 2/3 of what P now has. So, the remaining 1/3 is 63 - that's what P has if she gives away 35. So, she started with 63+35, or 98. R has 98 + 56.

At that age, math is/was every day. We also do 'reading and', which depends on what the child can do. If we were still working on phonics, we'd do 'reading and spelling', where we read the words and then spelled them back orally. Maybe they'd read out loud to me for a bit. Once reading was fluent, we moved on to doing reading comprehension some days, with grammar and/or writing, possibly with this tied in with vocabulary. I didn't see any point in doing true grammar or writing until reading was fluent, and once reading was good, then everything became less mom-intensive and they could do a spelling, vocabulary, or grammar workbook on their own if I felt that they needed it. We also didn't do writing until handwriting was solid (5 minutes/day of HWOT). We don't do both history and science every day - I do blocks that are 3-6 weeks, depending on subject. We start every year with a few weeks of geography, them move on to world history, then a science unit, then art history. The new semester has science, American history, and music history. The methods and length of the unit vary based on the topic, age of the student, preference, and abilities. This is often fun - I may read aloud, or they read independently, or watch a video, or do a workbook, or build or draw something, or we make a chart together.

This is intersting because at my house we frequently have converstations about it being difficult to understand how other people are thinking. My husband and I both have STEM PhDs, but he is far more driven than I am. There have been times when I've earend awards, but I've rarely pursued them in a 'driven' way - they've been the result of me spending a lot of time on something that I enjoy, often with the goal in mind, but not in a 'driven' sort of way, if that makes sense. There are times when I don't really have anything that I'm working passionaltely on, and other times when I'm focused on something. When I was post-doc-ing, I decided to switch to teaching. Part of it was that I had realized that I had more passion for teaching than research, and part of it was that I couldn't summon what I had come to think of as the 'fake stress' that everybody in the university/industry/lab world seemed to have. The stress is real, but it's not about the kind of things that give me a sense of urgency - no life or death problems. People were alwasy running around in a panic over deadlines, wondering why I was calm, and I'd say that I put my talk together last week. There seemed to be a feeling that if you weren't stressed, you weren't busy enough. I hated it. I probably read as much primary literature now (to prepare for my Bio II class) as I did then, but I teach in an environment where chronic stress is something to be concerned about, not something to celebrate. :-) I wonder if, based on your descriptions, if your son will wind up with something that interests him but is avoiding the 'frantic-ness' or stress that he may associate with high-achievening academics. If that's the case, letting him do just enough to be successful academically while encouraging outside interests, volunteer work, etc, may lead to something that he cares enough about to pursue.

My kids aren't that old yet, but I've been teaching biology (with a lot of 9th graders) for 5 years. I've seen everything from parents who say 'You're in high school - you're responsible for talking to the teacher if you need help' to a parent who got upset when I added some material that wasn't in the book (it was written out on the board for them to copy, and I added explanations) because the parent learned along with their student to answer all of their questions (I sent a link to some websites - these days I have videos from my online section available for my in-person students). Some parents have to modify their approach - either they let the students handle it themselves and then see that they need to provide more structure after they see the grades on the first few quizzes, while other parents drift away once they see that their students can manage their time and be responsible for the assignments themselves. Many parents check in every week or 2 to make sure that assignments are getting done and quizzes are being passed. I think that it varies a lot by student - some of the parents who needed to be most involved had students who were 16 or 17, and right now I have a 14-year old who is doing a fantastic job and I haven't heard from the parents at all, but I do get occasional messages from the student to clarify an assignment or concept.

I second the Kay Arthur suggestion for Bible. My 5th grader has been doing them this year and likes them. They take around 6 weeks if you do them 5 days/week (we do Bible as a school subject 3 days, so they last longer for us), and there is't a ton of writing.

My kids have done Singapore math fairly independently - they look at the textbook and then do the workbook. i'm happy to teach it when they need it, but often they don't. Even when I do need to teach it, they stick with the same topic for a few days so that they can work independently once they 'get it'. They also have a placement test - my kid started a few years ahead.

They're finding links between vitamin D and lots of different things - immunity, energy/mood, cancer (which is in many ways a failure of the immune system)...and apparently one explanation for there being so much vitamin D deficiency is th at people stay out of the sun so much now. Depending on what else runs in your family or is in your personal history, it might be worth getting some low level sun exposure.

You've had advice that goes in both directions - get more involved, and take a break. At different times, I've done each. Sometimes I've gone 'bare bones' for a few days - just check math and grammar, and then we watch videos or read. Other times, I've found that if I try to 'revel in it', in whatever way that happens (maybe a field trip, or 'cooking a new cuisine to match a geography lesson' project) I get more enthused. Sometimes I take a break, and then do a project. :-) But, to keep from getting this way, we really try to get up and get it done early in the day. Other times may be better for you, but I try to mentally set aside a part of the day as 'my job' of teaching. For us, I grade as they go, so even if they are using something where they can work independently, I'm grading the subject that they just finished and we can go over corrections while it's still fresh in their mind. I'm available to explain confusing things, call out spelling words, and otherwise help and teach, and in between I do other prep or, if I'm caught up, read a book for fun (which gives me incentive to get the work done!). And, we all finish at the same time. Hang in there - sometimes life makes you weary and the joy goes out of schooling for a while. Good luck!