Thank you for the suggestions!

Wow, that's a lot to think about! Thanks for the rec's! I'll look into them!

Yes, I need to know that if I have done at least whatever is in the curriculum I choose, then we have done enough. Anything else can be bonus at that point, but I don't want to have missed a genre of things. For example, dd8 last year surprised me when she didn't know how to read a calendar. Somehow, I just forgot to show her. If I'd been following a curriculum, that wouldn't have happened. I just had so much more time to talk with the older ones, and more came up in conversation than it does now with the littles. Well, and I had more time to think of things to share with them. Now that there is no naptime in our house, and they don't go to bed early, I find I don't have much time to have my own thoughts, and their education has become reactionary instead of purposeful.

Yes, I have the first two books, and they are very repetitive, but if the content is complete, I think I can tone that down to the needs of the kids. When I have experimented with them before, we just do 4 or 5 lessons a day. We do that with WWE, too. When I've tried it, we do it a week a time, in one sitting. But then I wonder, if this is second grade, and my 7yo is doing it with no instruction and no struggle, why are we doing it?

Oh, sorry. This fall, they'll be 5, 7, 8, 10, and 12.

Until recently, I've been mostly an unschooling/eclectic homeschooler. We have always done formal math, and A LOT of reading. This approach has worked well for my oldest two, but now that I have 5 children, there just isn't enough of me to go around. I can't be intentional and interesting in 5 different directions all the time! I'm so tired, and I fear I'm leaving major gaps with the younger 3. Since I am deciding to switch to a more scheduled homeschool, I'm not sure how to break down the lessons. My children do tend to learn quickly, and are frustrated with tedious work. That is actually why I began just letting them go originally. It was always SO tedious and boring for them to follow a regular schedule. I don't want school work to be piles of boring, yet I have to be able to just get the stuff done, and know they are learning something. If, at a minimum, I cover the material in the following, will their elementary education be sufficient? I used to be so confident with my first two, but now I just don't know. It's a very strange position to be in. FLL and MCT WWE SOTW Miquon/Beast/AoPS Pre Alg Apologia (all elem books) And then a lot of reading. Most of the typical classic books recommended to children, plus the majority from the Songlight lists. Again, I'm talking the very basics. Ideally, I will add some sort of art, music, and foreign language, but that's a post for another time. Also, I don't have any phonics or spelling, but I don't think we need phonics. The older two are great natural spellers, and the younger seem to be following suit. Opinions? Thanks for reading this long post!