This is what we're using this year, along with DK's Definitive Visual History of World War II. I've actually split 20th century into two years - we're covering 1900-1950ish this year and 1950-2000 next year. I'm also looking at adding the decades books sold by Prufrock Press (1960s, 1970s, etc.) for next year too.

We live in a major metro area and I've had nannies who were 18/19 driving my kids on busy freeways every day of the week, so no I don't think this would bother me. I currently pay a 16 y.o. to drive my 14 y.o. to many of his activities, some by freeway. If a kid is 18, could go to war and drive a tank, the least of my worries is a car on a freeway. I understand somewhat, but if I'm going to release my 18 y.o. into the big wide world, they have to take these smaller risks in town, as scary as it might seem at the time IMHO.

Yes, I never got that memo either. We all still love read alouds. We're currently enjoying The Book Thief. It's been one of our better teen choices.

Huh. Well, I do teach a huge part of our days and yes, I still enjoy that bonding time. But realistically, my kids have very different interests from me. I still chauffeur them around to hockey and golf practice and am completely involved, but I'm not going to be any good to them teaching those skills. I absolutely go to games, practices, etc. but I still find it distinctly different than when we sat and shared a love of fairy tales for hours as they were small children. My kids are just not particularly interested in my strengths or areas of expertise. Those actually tend to be their weakest or most disliked subjects. I love that the boys expose me to new things as they develop their interests, but they are becoming individuals more as teens with distinct identities from Mom. That's not to say that I don't enjoy who they are at all, but I miss the days where more of our interests were held in common.

Oh my gosh, yes. I miss the days of parents actually teaching instead of looking for free alternatives to a failing public school situation. But I do miss those days. Simply because I think due to the age, more of our learning, activities, and family life was done *together*. My boys are developing their interests and progressing, but it is in all different directions and most of their experiences are individual or team based in teen groups that I don't share. They are growing and learning, but as individuals. For me, it is more a stage of life change I think. I miss the togetherness of shared learning and homeschooling. It's just different as they become older and independent (even though often the actual subjects and material covered are more intriguing to me now).

I honestly just looked at each kid and triaged skills. I have dyslexics, so we have had to drop a lot of WTM. Reading first. Once they could decode fluently, then spelling and light grammar, usually alternated throughout the week. History & science every other day Math individually every day. Now that they are older, it's similar but with interests driving the schooling. My oldest is inherently analytical, but leans heavily math & science. He probably won't ever take logic or rhetoric and I'm ok with that. He took very basic Latin in 4th grade, but wanted to study German for high school credit. He is not a language kid so we skipped any further Latin. His English is streamlined and includes basic literature, grammar, and writing. He has no desire or time for more. My youngest is strong in narrative, literature, and history but weak in language skills. He is still working on grammar, spelling, and writing. Those need to be the focus for skills work at this point more than Latin, logic, or rhetoric. He will probably take logic at some point due to interests, but basic skills first. I would have loved to do more of all the WTM subjects with them, but my kids' needs for additional skill work is the priority and determines what we drop. If the boys master the skills and we have time, we'll add in more. But realistically most of that extra time is taken up by chosen activities such as hockey, sports, etc. not more intellectual or academic subjects. And honestly, those activities are more important to me for a healthy overall human being than Latin.

Yup. There are days I just feel like I can't go on. The issues never end! Once they learn how to decode, they have to learn to spell, then they have to learn to read for inferences and main ideas and details, and it is ALL so much HARDER than for a neurotypical student that it is ridiculous. The only thing I'm grateful for is that my oldest wants to go into a field that has minimal humanities, so at some point he will get to hang out in his areas of strength that are NOT English. The trick is getting him to hang on long enough to get there. I have no idea what it is like to homeschool a non-dyslexic. It must be a breeze compared to this.

Are there any generic English textbooks for the average English student at the high school level? Something with a unit on poetry, a unit on persuasive writing, a unit that correlates with reading say, Romeo and Juliet, and then writing a literary analysis essay? I'm thinking of a resource that would include basic reading comprehension questions and teach annotation as well as general essay writing formats. I'm looking for more like a bare bones English and definitely not classical style. Does something like that exist?

The only thing we do together is a family literature read aloud and our history textbook. And even that is only because my kids are at similar levels for history skills and content knowledge. Their English literature books are tied to the same time period but different levels & content. So yes, I also vote doable.

Well Trained Mind Academy has been awesome for German I. Frau Edwards is amazing and responsive. I'm incredibly pleased with our choice.

Huh, both my kids are fluent at it and enjoy it as their preferred method of reading. They are only diagnosed dyslexic though, so no other language barriers as far as interpretation. Maybe that makes a difference? It is literally the only way my boys can keep up with grade level work. They could never read fast enough on their own even though they decode fluently and have been remediated with OG lessons. My oldest speeds up the audio significantly; my youngest does not yet. However, simply using immersion reading and making the sight/sound connection with grade level or above grade level text has dramatically increased my youngest's reading level.

All About Spelling or any other Orton-Gillingham program. If you implement it as written, or even with the review sentences several steps behind, you will constantly be reviewing the spelling words and rules. Both my dyslexics typed the review sentences to remove the barrier of writing. I'm not sure if she has learned typing yet, but it is the next logical step for a dyslexic.

Yes to all of what Bolt said. At my school, student-led conferences are required. Students spend weeks preparing portfolios and a presentation. The first year I taught there, *I* spent weeks preparing all the data you mentioned dyou wanted during a P-T conference. It was a huge waste of my time since no parents asked and I wasn't allowed to give out the information with the student present anyway. Student-led conferences are the current trend. Since your son's teacher is fresh out of teaching college, this is likely the way she has been taught to lead or conduct conferences as it is the new way. I agree with you that I prefer the old school parent-teacher conferences, but those days are gone. Unless educational philosophy shifts significantly, we aren't going back to those. All the podcasts, bloggers, administration instruction (which yes, goes in your formal evaluation) is in favor of the student-led conference. I agree that if you need more information, you may want to schedule an additional meeting, probably with the school counselor present as well.

Here's what I have so far after freaking out and conferencing with 3 other parents who have already graduated kids in my area. 🤣 Math - Geometry with retired math teacher (30 years experience, she chooses her favorite books, makes up problems, and just teaches) Science - Biology through privately taught class (probably Miller-Levine) English - no idea yet. It'll be mom-created & mom-taught based on interest. Maybe dystopia? Maybe Russian lit? History - ? Possibly none? Leaving freedom here to cut this out and not overload high school. Foreign Language - German II WTMA Electives - Choir - probably at local junior high (we have 7-9 here) Aerospace - Teen Flight program building a plane & flying it PE - high school golf team & lessons, YMCA fitness classes

Honestly, that 5th-6th grade age drives me crazy because they are becoming more cognitively capable of productivity, but fight it like crazy because they are still half little kid. I agree with PP that online classes will not solve that issue; in fact, they may make it worse with more work and more expectations. The fighting school is a developmental stage and is really more of a fighting growing up/puberty issue. Neither of my boys would have been able to handle that many online classes in 5th grade or 6th grade. IMHE, you just have to muddle through this age as best you can with a lot of humor, plenty of sports or exercise or hard work, and a wing and a prayer. The brain does seem to settle down and prune a bit by age 13 and they are more able to work then at a secondary level. I personally would favor keeping as much control of subjects yourself with mom-created courses or curriculum and adjusting to the day as necessary. Best of luck!

For those reading along with language challenged kids, another vote for Analytical Grammar, but delayed or half speed. I'm having great success using Analytical Grammar season 1 for my dyslexic 8th grader, but a half pace. He'll do season 2 next year in 9th grade, and season 3 as a 10th grader. It is way too much to be used by him successfully on traditional pace, but this schedule has served him well and I think is a large reason his foreign language work is going so well this year. My younger dyslexic/dysgraphic is doing MCT Grammar Island/Practice Island this year as a 6th grader, will do Junior Analytical Grammar next year, and then we'll see where he can plug in with Analytical Grammar. I was hesitant to use books behind schedule or grade level when the kids were younger - but in this case the presentation of material is so good that I don't think the age range or recommendations matter. Any of this content at any age is likely to be helpful.

There are a few ways to go about this. One would be to focus on writing strong paragraphs because the analytical formula is the same when applied to essays or reports, just in a longer version. There is a great resource on Teachers Pay Teachers called Paragraph of the Week and it walks students through brainstorming based on a prompt on Monday, circling the 3 best ideas, ordering these ideas (strongest last, next strongest first, weakest in the middle), writing 6 sentences (including detail and explanation sentences) on Tuesday, intro & conclusion sentences on Wednesday, typing up the paragraph or rewriting it on Thursday, and then editing for content, syntax, and grammar on Friday. This resource is likely to feel young to her as it's written for late elementary, but the basic explicit writing instruction is the same for any age. The format could also easily be expanded to write an essay on any of the topics once her organizational skills are stronger. Another option would be to use something like Writing Skills by Diana Hanbury King or Verticy by Calvert, which was written for dyslexic/dysgraphic students, and essentially walks students through a similar process by worksheets, eventually working up to paragraphs. Expository writing instruction is likely going to have to be very didactic in very small pieces over and over again to work for her. I totally get it - I have a writer like this too. He made me want to cringe at the beginning of the year, but he is making steady progress now.

We have been very impressed with WTMA German. The instructor has a Ph.D. in German and is incredibly responsive. I know multiple families who have been very pleased with German all the way through German III at WTMA. It is ds' favorite class this year.

Does anyone know when the Fall 2019 WTMA schedule will be out? With some class providers (both local and online) registering starting Feb.1, I'm trying to work out timing for various classes before I have to register and put down class deposits. Thanks for your help!

I actually have the exact same question. I'm debating adding the bio labs to our in-person bio class to add the lab report element and more experiments. I'm curious if this is an option too.

WTMA? Has anyone tried these?

I can't answer the CC part, but skipping history would be our plan. Our state only requires 3 years of social studies for graduation, and every college I've checked also only requires 3 years. I actually skipped history myself my 9th grade year with zero college consequences (and one of my majors was history).

My oldest with be 9th grade next year. He will be taking a local homeschool science class taught by one of the few teachers IRL I trust to teach my kids. The class uses Apologia Biology and includes dissections and experiments. He is currently considering whether he wants to double up on science next year (STEM kid) and take Clover Physics also.

Ah, ok. I think I got the number of reports idea from the fact that we will need to use a cover school to log a transcript, so maybe this is a question for the cover school. I just assumed since they required a set number of lab reports to count the course as a lab science, that there was some standard number of labs somewhere that was necessary for high school credit to be applied. Thanks!

Yeah, unfortunately that doesn't sound high to me for a CC class. But everything is expensive here.