For my kids, if I don't get them started early, they're hard to get moving. Could you start your olders daughters on something independent, like handwriting, while your son is getting ready? Then over breakfast maybe you could read or watch youtube videos together to cover science or history (or literature if you need it)? I do either science or history with my kids every day, but rarely more than 20 minutes at that age. One thing that sometiems helps my kids is that I've got a pocket chart with cards for each subject. An envelope with index cards or a checklist would also work. I let them pick the order, and they know that when they're done, we're done for the day. That extra bit of control seems to help them. Either way, I wouldn't stress too much over science and history. You need sleep, and even though getting one out the door is hard, it gives you some time with your big kids. I would focus on the 3Rs and then let them read simple books, watch videos, or use read alouds to do a bit of history or science. You an also have them do simple projects - fold paper into quarters and illustrate the seasons or stages of metamorphisis, color a map, etc. What will work without a fight depends on the kid - one of mine hates crafts but will read, while the other loves to make models. Or, have you tried reading to them while they're eating? I did this when one of mine was young because they were happy to sit still. While I've never just called it a day for school, I've definitely cut some short after getting through the essentials. Good luck.

In our state, we're required to school for 180 days each year. When I registered with the county, we turned in a calendar with checks at the end of the year. At our current umbrella school, they use the same systeme. Usuallly at the end of the year, I look at my agenda, see which dates have school work written in them, and put checks on those days. We usually follow a M-F schedule with week or multi-week breaks around holidays and in the summer, but sometimes we have a sick day make-up or a cool educational trip and do school on a Saturday.

One other thing that I do is to write down what we've done each day in a student planner. I know that some folks do beautiful week planners, but I just buy a standard student agenda and write down what we did each day - pages 123-125 in math, spelling exercise 13A, field trip, etc. That way I can keep up with everything in one place, and it doubles for keeping track of attendance.

I haven't kept anything for elementary school. I got a box for hanging file folders and I put everything that they do all year into the box so that I have proof that we did something, should anybody evver ask. I hang onto the boxes for a few years and then go through and pick one folder's worth of things to keep as keepsakes. My older child is moving into middle school next year, so over the next few years I'll need to change as we start doing high school classes and putting together a transcript for college.

For an overview, we like the poster by schofield and sims that you can get on amazon. We like that it shows all of the continents, so you get a feel for what was going on in different places at the same time.

I sometimes include vocabulary, but when I do I often couple it with another subject. The MCT trilogies list vocabulary words, for example, to couple vocab with lit. We have used the vocab books (vocab with classical roots or wordly wise) as the source of our spelling list. When we were in the phonics phase, we did spelling and phonics together (after reading the _at words, we would spell them). We don't always do vocab, and sometimes we use a regular spelling and then take breaks from it to do vocabulary - it depends on what the student needs.

My kids are 7 and 10, and both have been homeschooled since K. Even in K, they were different. One generally sat down and worked, although I would sometimes scribe for him when his thinking outpaced his writing abilities. The other worked closely with me, although early-year work only takes an hour or two. At this point, in 2nd and 5th grades, I am available from 9ish to noon or 1 to help them. I teach new math skills - this is sometimes a quick explanation, and other times we sit in the floor with blocks or a chalkboard for a while. My son's AoPS math sometimes requires that I'm around to bounce ideas off of for a while. :-) We've chosen some things, like grammar and handwriting, that are DIY and require very little. We've recently added MCT language arts, which involves more time together. Science and history vary - sometimes reading, sometimes projects or videos - it depends on the kid and the subject.

Mine loves the 'how to lose a war' books - how to lose a war at sea, how to lose WWII, etc. They're by Bill Fawcett.

We're on year 5 of speech therapy and are finally fixing Rs. We go through a university, so we have a prof overseeing our therapy...I think she's had to work to figure out new things for us. One of her recent suggestions was to try to have him really focus on self-correcting Rs for 5 minutes at a time, 2-3 times per day. The short sessions are less frustrating for everybody. Good luck - I know how frustrating this is.

I think that thinking about this helps me to see one of the tensions in education. My goal is for my kids to be prepared to pursue their interests, whatever they have an aptitude for, when they reach adulthood. If they want to pursue an advanced degree, that's great. If they want to apprentice and learn a trade, that's good, too. I want for them to have been exposed to enough that they can make a decision about what they want to do, and I want for them to be fearless enough to pursue it, knowing that they can change their mind and go a different direction in the future. What makes this difficult is that, in order for them to know what they are interested in, I want to expose them to lots of different things, and learning about something that doesn't immediately strike you as interesting isn't always fun. I think that it's part of what the 'boxes' were intended to do - expose students to a smattering of things so that they could do more of what they were interested in...but sometimes, there's just some not-fun that you need to learn before you get to the 'cool stuff'. I see this with my classes that I teach. The first class is a traditional style - there are labs and projects, but there is also lecture, homework, and tests over things that students may not like. The next course, though, is a seminar-style discussion with weekly short papers on whatever topics they found most interesting during class. We cover all sorts of topics, some of my choosing, some from the students. The goal is to expose them to new ideas. One student commented 'This is so fun - why don't you do Bio I that way?' and I asked if he would have learned enough in the first class to appreciate the second class if there had been a different format, and he responded 'Probably not'. For me, there is often tension between letting my kids pursue their own interests and making sure that they are prepared enough to move forward into whatever area they choose...and making sure that they've been exposed to enough to know that the topics that they are ultimately interested in even exist.

We didn't get an apraxia diagnosis until my child was 5 and in K, but we had used hooked on phonics and had good luck with that. For writing, we used Handwriting without tears, and although it wasn't quite the promised tear-free experience, it did work. My sports-loving kid got a lot of motor practice with balls. They also liked stringing beads on pipecleaners and playing with little figures (think army men or polly pockets). We had an unusual presentation, though - the therapists were shocked that somebody whose speech was so bad could read so well, and dispite having a lot of somewhat unusual movements, the kid has pretty good handwriting these days and does well in sports (although it takes a lot more practice than for most)...but we're still in speech therapy, 5 years later. 2e've finally progressed to working on Rs so the end is in sight. Good luck!

We use it one semester most years. You definitely don't need to start from the beginning - the lists of words aren't realated. We've also used Vocabulary with Classical Roots, and we just got the MCT book so we'll be doing that for a while.

When I was in college in a science major, my usual routine was classes in the morning, lunch back in my room with maybe a short break, then labs 2-3 afternoons a week, for 3-4 hours each. I was also in the marching and concert bands, which fulfilled some humanities credits and were a fantastic experience, but that committed me to practice from 4-6 3-4 days each week. I would eat dinner and chill for a bit, and then study until bedtime most nights during the week. This actually wasn't that different from my routine in high school in some ways. The biggest difference was that everything that we did was important - there wasn't any busywork. I sometimes warn my high school students that there is some 'fluff' built into most high school classes - assignments that serve a purpose, but also help their grades. College didn't have any of that, so all 50 or 80 minutes of class were filled with content that needed to be understood. Labs weren't fun - you were graded in part based on whether you recovered the amount of chemical that your calculations said that you should. Many of my classes didn't assign and check homework or projects.- your grade was 2-6 test grades averaged together. You never felt like you were 'done' becuase you knew that you didn't know everything well enough to apply it to whatever problem you were asked about on the tests (this was great prep for lab work and grad school, but unpleasant at the time). For engineers, it was different. They worked lots of problem sets. If you were fast and understood problems for a particular class, you might have spare time that semester; there seemed to be good and bad semesters for most students. This is not to say that having that sort of schedule in high school is for the best. My kids are younger, but one of my motivations for homeschooling is that we can learn more in less time, leaving time free for other pursuits. For many students, homeschooling can be the most efficient use of time, and I think that college admissions people would understand the idea that a student could work more efficiently at home so that they'd have more time for other pursuits.

OK...if he's doing Bio then he'll get some biochemistry. I was concerned that he might do just the environmental science and therefore miss the part of biology that he might like best.

Are you considering doing BOTH biology and environmental science, or were you trying to choose one? I don't know about the difficulty of the env. sci. AP, but based on the material covered I would expect that your son would find it easier - most of my students think that the short ecology unit is the easiest part of the course. But, I've also found that most chemistry/physics-loving students find the molecular parts of biology much more interesting, and I don't know if there would be much of that in environmental science. It probably doesn't matter which one he studies in high school if he's not planning to pursue biology in college, but he might want to consider whether he wants some exposure to the basics of biochemistry (although he could always add that on his own, and it might be included in an advanced chemistry class).

I'm amazed by these detailed planners! I choose curriculum in the spring or early summer for the following school year. During the summer I read what will be covered in each child's history and science for the year and break the topics into braoder units - normally, World geography and history, then physical sciences, then art history in the fall, biological sciences, US history, and music history/theory in the spring. It usually breaks down to around 2 months for each science or history unit and 2 weeks for each fine arts unit, with some extra time for interest-led time and field trips. Then I look at what I've chosen for grammar, writing, etc, and decide how many days/week that each subject needs to be done. I have a pocket chart on the wall, and I make cards with the different subject names written on them. With the children, we decide how they want to distribute their cards - for a 3-day/week class, do they want M/T/W or M/W/F, etc? It's easy to change things if we want to, but each day they go and get their cards, and then work through their subjects, moving the cards to a 'done' pocket when they finish. They usually do one lesson in each subject per day - one math exercise, one children's book or history chapter, as appropriate. Once they finishe, I write in their student planner so I have a recored of what they did (I like the ones by Aspire, but I don't think it matters). Sometimes they decide to double up and do 2 of a type of lesson on Monday so that they can skip Friday. For subjects that are finished when the workbook is finished, they will sometimes double up when they have extra time so that the end of the semester has lots of time for free reading without worrying about spelling or grammar. I usually try to have a stack of appropriate books to choose from during unit study time - since they are still in elemntary school, there is a lot of flexibility. I think that, for us, using subject cards instead of lists of assignments makes us feel less tied-down, even though we actually do what I would have written most days. But, my kids like being able to sometimes move cards around, deciding to do 2 spelling exercises one day and then 2 handwriting the next.

For handwriting, you might want to check out Handwriting without Tears if you haven't tried it yet. They have suggestions about makign letters with dough, writing on a big chalkboard, and they way that they teach letters makes it unlikely that kids will flip them around. I've got a kid with some motor issues, and at 10 now has great writing when they choose to (and it's always legible).

I taught at a community college for several years. They vary a lot, and can have different programs within a single school - some are more of a vocational school (teaching certificate programs like plumbing, cooking, etc), some teach a lot of remedial classes, and some serve students trying to get 2 years of prerequisites finished before transferring to a 4-year school or a program like nursing. There are a variety of students, too. I taught young dual-enrollment students, traditional-aged students, students who were re-training or returning to school now that their children were school-aged, and grandparents looking for a career change or just some knowledge. I had students who could have been successful in any college they tried, students who needed coaching to learn how to study, students who couldn't write coherent sentences, and everything in between. Although a degree from a 4-year school is more prestigious, I don't think that there is a stigma attached to community college classes. A lot of places work hard to make sure that their intro classes are comparable with what is being taught at local 4-year schools so that students can transfer seamlessly. As far as looking for help, a quick search turned up 2 different sites listing possible help in your area. The first lists 2 different places that do GED tutoring and adult education, and the second is an alternative high school that claims to work 1-on-1 with students. I don't know anything about it, but I do know that there is a similar program near where I live. I'm guessing that the 2 resources listed in the first link could probably direct you to other resources. Have you checked your public library? They sometimes do classes, too. ged101.com/ged-classes-in-lake-Charles-la.html and www.syf.org/academies I know that it can be hard when you look at a long road and don't see the end. I once had a student break down crying in my class - she was a newly-single mom who hadn't taken classes in 12 years while she stayed home raising her kids. When her husband suddenly left, she was scrambling trying to train for a job in nursing. She was looking at long road, since she could only take classes part time while working to keep food on the table, and she was daunted by students who seemed better prepared, or at least hadn't forgotten how to do school. Although your situation is a little different, there are lots of people with similar struggles - folks who haven't been to school in a long time and have forgotten a lot, students who graduated from poor schools that left them very unprepared for anything (I had high school grads who couldn't write coherent sentences), and students juggling work, school, and family. Finally, don't feel like you have to make a 'forever plan' to work towards. Lots of people change careers. I have a relative who trained as a cosmetologist while in high school, then worked cutting hair to put herself through a program in a medical-related field, and another who worked as a dental hygienist for years before going back to dental school...and other people make even more dramatic changes. My classroom was full of people making changes, based on finances or interest. And, although it's good to keep learning and try to get where you want to be academically, not all careers require a lot of advanced schooling. Many people are gainfully employed without learning calculus, so unless it's something required to meet your goals, I wouldn't worry about something that you might not need to learn.

One other thought - have you looked into GED tutoring? I don't know where you are, but our church does free GED tutoring several times each week. Even if you ultimately decide not to take the GED, it would give you some tutors who know the material that you're getting stuck on. When I lived across the country, our church there didn't do GED tutoring, but they did have once/week tutoring for kids in the local school system. There were mostly elementary-aged students, but the volunteer group included engineers and retired teachers and between them they could have helped with pretty much any subject (and some of them would have been willing to meet more often to help somebody with unusual circumstances). I don't know how common this is, but having found it at 2 different churches on opposite sides of the country, I thought I'd suggest it. You might be able to search 'GED tutoring' or 'free tutoring', or look on individual websites of local churches or civic groups and look at their list of programs, ministries, or maybe even their weekly schedule of events. Good luck.

I was also a student interested in science but not really enjoying math. As the first in my family to go to college, there were things that I didn't know to look at, but I decided to study biochemistry and figured I could just deal with the fact that I'd need 3 semesters of calculus. The fact that I loved my molecular biology classes made it easier to endure the classes that I didn't like. When talking to college students, I sometimes give the advice that if you like most of your classes, you can persevere through the ones that you don't, but if you dislike everything, you need to change majors. But, he should also explore the 'course of study' for several related majors. When I was in school, biochemistry required 3 semesters of the calculus that engineers take. A BS in biology required 2 semesters of what they called 'baby calculus', which was an easier version, and a BA required even less, I think. Some programs might require statistics and probability instead of calculus - for some fields of biology, like population genetics (which would have more overlap with oceanography than biochemistry would) there is a lot of statistical analysis because they do a lot of population sampling. At the end of the school year, I have my Bio II students bring in potnetial 'course of study' lists because there can be so much difference between programs and schools. Good luck!

This isn't about maps, exactly, but when you mentioned roads merging it reminded me that my map lover really liked building train tracks with his wooden set and also loved his quadrilla marble run set. I think they both had some road-like structure to them.

There really could be something about writing on a big board that helps your kids, independent of novelty and supervision. When I was in grad school, I would go into empty classrooms or conference rooms to draw out the biochemical pathways that I was studying. There was something about having all of that space that made it easier to let the ideas flow freely, even though I had notebooks full of paper that I could have filled. In college I remember using posterboard to chart out a particularly complicated topic, and I have had students tell me that they made big posters to study from, too. For at-home study, I would use a smaller whiteboard, but I always tested myself using something bigger than paper. Maybe it's using more muscles than just your fingers to write, or the act of standing while you work, or maybe your brain just processes it as having 'enough space', but it can make a difference. With my kids, I have to look at math on 2 levels - do they understand the concepts (if they do, we can keep going) and are they paying attention to detail. A math teacher friend suggested having them work missed problems again without looking at the previous work, and then letting them compare the 2 to look for mistakes. If the mistakes are careless, they probably won't be the same both times. Eventually, hopefully, they'll get titred of doing the same problem over and over.

The Vocabulary with Classical Roots is weird with it's numbering - it goes from books 4, 5, 6, to A, B, c, etc. We started with 4 in maybe second grade? That child was advanced, though - i'll wait until 3rd or 4th to start with my younger child. I've never been able to find books 1-3, and they're not pictured on the back of the other books. I'd wondered if those were intended for grades 1-3, but I don't know - it's the only reason that I could think of for why a series would start with a book numbered '4'. There are only 16 lessons per book, so we do it in one semester. We actually do a semester of wordly wise and then a semester of classical roots with my older child. They prefer the classical roots semester, but mostly Ithink it's because they don't like writing out the answers to the wordly wise 'story with questionsn' section - they're fine with the other parts.

We've used Hirsh's Core Knowledge series for all of elementary school. What I've liked is that it's a good guide for history and science topics (and related literature and poetry) without being a set curriculum. We can customize what we get for different subjects based on interest and ability. We've used singapore math and art of problem solving because we need something challenging, but the bare-bones Growing with Grammar has been good for my 'we dont' like to write' kids. We just got MCT's language arts because we've reached a point where I want to expand their love of language a bit. We've done different vocabulary things (wordly wise, vocab with classical roots) as it fits their abilities. There is vocab in the MCT series, so we may mostly do that for a while. For one child, I use a spelling book, while for the other, a good speller, I have them use their vocabulary words for spelling. For history and science, we follow the core knowledge topics but use library books, Story of the World, History of US, Usborne books, fiction recommendations from Sonlight, videos, whatever I think will help that child learn. One child was upset by the emotionally charged Sonlight books, so I'm selective about what fiction they read, but they read a lot of non-fiction. Other kids balk at nonfiction, preferring stories, so they'd make different choices.

I don't have any specific advice about the situation. There are classes where it makes sense to go more slowly at the start and then speed up (I do this in my biology class, where we move slowly through genetics problems because students struggle, and then move quickly through ecology, because the idea of predators and prey does not confuse them). It sounds like the class was possibly poorly paced, though, if they needed extra class meetings and were not allowed to work ahead. It's completely reasonable to expect studens to learn content on their own, but they need to be told what to learn. It sound like the instructor may be pulling information from different books. The properties of water from the first semester is standard material for biology classes (it's been in both the high school and college texts that I've taught). But, if you're pulling material from multiple sources, it's even more important that you either make sure that you get to all of the material OR specify readings for the students to find. It's less of an issue if you choose a book and expect the students to learn material from chapters 1-15 - they can look at the syllabus and read at the pace specified, independent of of the lecture.