Are there any electives that he would like to explore? Does he need more challenging work?

This board is pretty anti-CC, so keep that in mind. I'm an Essentials tutor. The first year of Essentials can be rough. There are a couple of analogies that we use - like drinking from a fire hose or throwing a pot of spaghetti at the wall - to explain how we throw everything at you but know you won't get it all. That's okay. If you stick with it, you'll get more next year. This is what I suggest for 1st years: Charts - Spend a max of 15 minutes a day on charts. Chart work doesn't have to be actually copying charts. Cut them up and use them as puzzles. Get creative. The idea is to just get him familiar with them. Task Sheet - He should only be doing the standard sentences and only up to the diagramming part (step 4). Skip the advanced ones. If you're doing the Quid et Quo, don't. It shouldn't have been introduced yet. That comes at the end of the year. When my daughter was a first tour student, we did them together on the board. Editing Excercises - They are totally optional. We've never done them. IEW - Scribe for him, and don't forget that you can't help him too much. Math - We don't add in any of it. If she has extra time, she'll play boardwalk. If not, she just doesn't. We don't work on additional fact memorization, either. Foundations - We use another Social Studies program in addition to memory work. It's pretty nice that most 5th grade social studies curricula is focused on US History. Works great for cycle 3. You can go that route, or you can check out books at the library each week to coincide to the new grammar work. Test Scores - There's a pretty long thread where I posted about them. Long story short, they're not insinuating that CC students have the best scores, although I'm sure there are some CC parents who believe that. However, the only things that they claim is that CC students score well on standardized tests, and that they score higher than average students. Those statistics could be written to show a variety of things. The main takeaway is that the graduates are successful. It's certainly not the only way, though. As for not sticking with it, I get it. Challenge A & B look amazing, but I'm not sure we'll stick with it, either. CC is great, but it's not the only option out there. Do whatever is right for you.

I don't feel like I ever really stick with one thing, thus I end up pulling what I like from various things. Currently for phonics & spelling, I'm alternating my first grader between items from Horizons Phonics & Reading 1, Horizons Spelling & Vocabulary 1, IEW PAL Reading, & AAS 1. He's very active, a mostly self-taught reader, and a natural speller. He gets bored if we stick with anything for too long. I use various programs to teach the skill he's ready for next. That said, I won't be purchasing AAS 2. I love the phonetic sounds cards. Some of them I didn't even know - or at least I would've never thought about them individually. Same thing goes for the rules. Oh, the tiles... They're the main reason I bought them. DS doesn't like to write a lot. His penmanship is actually pretty good, and he's got great fine motor skills. Still, writing is a fight. He's able to spell words without having to write them out. However, it also means that it's one more "toy" for him to play with. He likes to make "letter factories" where he can just slide the letters (map -> nap -> tap). This makes for a really freaking drawn out process because it takes FOREVER since he's playing. Ain't nobody got time for that. Then we went to just pointing at the letters. Lately, we've been doing a combination of spelling them aloud or writing them on his lap board.

DD graduated from level A to level B this year. We don't use the CDs. I read the lists & hints/jingles myself.

IEW's site isn't the easiest to navigate. I prefer a hard copy of their magalog, but you can find a digital copy here: http://iew.com/help-support/magalog I'm not sure how old your oldest is, but your 12 yr old fits right in the middle, given that their programs are generally divided up into 3-5, 6-8, & 9-12. Unless your oldest was quite a few years older, I think shooting for the middle of the road might be beneficial. IEW's decision pathway might be helpful to checkout: http://iew.com/shop/shopping-resources/pathway The 9-12 level has SWI-C, Advanced US History, and a 2nd Narnia book. Windows to the World & Elegant Essay would also be wonderful choices. There are more theme book options at the 6-8 level...Rockets, Narnia, Geography, Ancient History, Medieval History, US History, World History, Australian History, & Canadian History. Truthfully, each student could probably choose his own theme-based assignment. The units would be the same, regardless. The only differences would typically be the source text and vocabulary words. Dress-ups and decoratiins are typically added at the same intervals. That may feel overwhelming, however, if you're not fully comfortable with the program.

I have tried to dislike IEW. Really, I have. As a naturally creative writer, it's *not* my desired choice of writing. It's too formulaic for me. But...I've had to begrudgingly admit that it works. I'm actually a CC Essentials tutor, and we use IEW theme books for our writing portion. It really does seem to work across the board. Pudewa insists that you can't help them too much. I had to keep that as my mantra last year. I attempted All Things Fascinating with my 2nd or 3rd grader (now 5th) several years back. It completely bombed. Like you, I can't quite pinpoint why it bombed, but if I had to guess, I'd say that I wasn't providing enough support. The same thing happened when we attempted an SWI course. Last year, it worked, but I struggled with how much she was actually retaining. Like I said, we do CC, so the KWOs were generally done in class. The next day, she couldn't remember what it meant, so I wrote a new KWO on the white board at home (she provided some suggestions). She dictated her rough draft while I wrote it down. I provided most of the proofreading & revising suggestions, and I typed the final draft. I felt like her papers were more mine than hers. Then, the craziest thing happened. This year, she's doing it completely on her own! It really does work. That said, I can't think of one program that works for every single person. IEW just might not work for y'all. I agree that a key thing is to attempt to pinpoint why it didn't work. If your kiddos are saying that it was one of the things that helped them the most, it may be worth considering trying again.

We use readtheory.org. It will tell you your student's lexile level.

IEW's Phonetic Zoo?

If she created the fb group, she's free to dictate the rules. Posters, likewise, are free to join the group or not. If the rules state strictly secular, it really isn't surprising that they restrict the discussion if anything that isn't strictly secular. From what you've said, they're pretty up-front about it. It really doesn't matter if you think it's silly. We're Christians. I obviously don't mind curriculum that is overtly or subvertly Christian-based. At the same time, I wouldn't want something that overtly taught something I disagree with. I don't believe in the Big Bang, nor do I believe in macroevolution. I wouldn't a science curriculum that taught those things - and only those things - as fact. If I had a fb page created for Creationist homeschoolers, I'd be irritated if someone kept suggesting evolution materials because they felt it was okay. I'm a member of a fb group for a specific vacation destination. One of the rules is no advertisement or travel agent posts. The two admins are travel agents and plug their businesses when the opportunity arises. They also allow advertisements from people who are friends of theirs, but they delete other advertisements without warning. I'm not a travel agent, nor do I sell anything, but I still think it's a double-standard. I have 2 choices - stay in the group or leave. It's their group. They can do what they want.

Kentucky requires 180 days @ 6 hours a day. 10 of those days can be teacher planning days. You are required to submit a letter of intent to your school district within 2 weeks of the start of school. It's recommended to maintain progress reports at the same intervals as the public school. The laws have just changed, so I can't remember if it's actually required or just strongly recommended. Regardless, you wouldn't have to submit anything unless subpoenaed. Instruction must be done in the English language. The subjects that are covered must include reading, writing, math, history, civics, and (I think) science. Kentucky's Department of Education's website has a homeschool packet on their website that you can download for additional information in addition to an outline of the laws.

I help in an art class for 5-7 year olds at co-op. The class cap is 12ish. It's totally doable with an assistant.

As a sidenote, I would not recommend that anyone who is involved in a situation similar to the one described in the OP contacts the Red Cross. First, the mom in the described situation would know her son was okay because he is in contact with family members. It would only waste resources if the Red Cross was involved. Secondly, as others have mentioned, it could have effect him negatively if his superiors chew him out. Lastly, even if he doesn't get in trouble with his commanding officer, he would have every reason to be angry for a further attempt at communication and a disrespecting of b his boundaries. Forcing contact in a situation such as the one described would do nothing but drive a wedge further in the relationship.

This. He's an adult. Whether his mom likes it or not, he doesn't have to maintain contact with her. While there were multiple hot-button topics mentioned in her post regarding homeschooling, OP isn't looking for homeschooling advice. Someone in a situation described in the OP would benefit from a message board regarding family dynamics or military families as opposed to the General Education section of a homeschooling board.

My oldest is doing MiF 5A/5B. The TE provides pacing which tends to be what we follow since it works well for us. Most lessons consist of instruction, guided practice, lesson practice, and workbook assignments. The TE has the Assessment 5 questions & answers, but you'd have to rewrite them to use them. They do come in handy if you need extra practice. The workbook answers are in the TE along with the answers for guided practice & lesson practice. Mostly, they're good. The workbook answers show the answers worked out. The last lesson we did was difficult because there were no explanations on the lesson practice. Real-world fraction problems were my nemesis for about 30 minutes. That's the exception and not the rule, though. I would definitely suggest splurging for the Teacher Editions instead of the Homeschool Answer Guide unless you're just really good at math. I'm not bad, but that last lesson was a killer.

Have they said how much it's going to cost?

My 1st grader, we read about 1/2 a section a day in the guide book. Once it's time to work in the practice book, we do 1-2 pages a day. I have no idea how long it will take us to progress through it, but since we are doing two programs, I want BA to be light and fun.

I can tell you what we're doing. We've done MiF for almost the entire time we've homeschooled. DD is in 5th grade and doing 5A/5B MiF. I had planned to go from 5A/5B to AoPS, but I don't think that's going to happen. DD placed borderline into BA 5. Since it was going to be a supplement, I wanted something on the easier end of challenging. I went ahead and bought BA 4, and I'm so glad that I did. BA also suggests that an average grade 5 student should probably begin with BA 4. So, the idea is to do MiF 5 w/ BA 4 this year and MiF Course 1 w/ BA 5. We'll do AoPS Pre-Algebra in 6th grade. My son, on the other hand, is a different story. He completed MiF 1A/B last year in K, but he's not as strong as I wanted. So, we're doing MiF 1A/B Extra Practice workbooks with BA 2 as the books are released. The plan is for him to start AoPS Pre-Algebra in 5th grade.

There are 3 in our general vicinity. Co-op A: Science & heritage arts for younger ones Theology/logic & shakespeare for older kiddos Co-op B: Fine arts co-op ASL Spanish Band Violin Guitar Art Photography Speech Drama Choir Co-op 3 Government Current events Various PE classes Various types of dance Guitar Hands-on science for younger kiddos Speech Drama Spanish B & C are more expensive. It's about $120 per 2 classes. All 3 meet once a week. Not sure about C, but A requires parents to teach & B requires parents to help somewhere.

I would also agree that useful is relative, outside the benefits of just learning *a* foreign language, that is. Spanish and ASL are pretty useful around here. I technically live in the southeast, but I'm really on the border. There are quite a few immigrants and migrant workers in the area. When I worked in customer service - and later as a preschool teacher, there were plenty of times when I wish I'd retained more of my 4 years of Spanish. A more extensive knowledge of ASL would have been useful when I had a child who was deaf in one of my groups, when I had a co-worker who was deaf, and several times in customer service. Finger spelling is time consuming. ;) Regardless of practicality, I'd definitely involve my kiddos in the decision. It'll stick in their brains far better if they are wanting to learn instead of being forced to learn.

We've done something similar to that with the theme-based books during the assignments that have them pull from multiple sources. It might be something like: I. Galileo, scientist, renaissance 1. Pioneer, scientific, experiments 2. @17, med. student, U of Pisa The main point being that Galileo was an important scientist during the renaissance period. The following points would expound upon that. That's an example from the Medieval History theme-based book. I think that's 3rd-5th grade level. I'm not sure that's totally what you're looking for, though. Pudewa does discuss why he outlines like he does during the first TWSS video. You said that you're wanting hope that the program improves. Are you concerned with the types of essays that are being taught? Is it just the way he outlines? It goes against how I learned, but as long as the writing curriculum is teaching good writing, I'm inclined to overlook it. I can always teach outlining via note-taking in other subjects. Honestly, she gets that every Sunday morning during our sermons. IEW isn't my preferred method of writing. In fact, I've done my best to move to a different type of program. Yet, I keep returning to this one. My oldest, who used to HATE writing, just wrote a speech on her favorite hobby - writing. Her skills are improving, and she's enjoying it. 😊

We're in our 3rd year of Foundations and 2nd year of Essentials. My oldest is in 5th, and my youngest is in 1st. I tutored Foundations for 2 years, and this is my 1st year tutoring Essentials. I refer to us as the "bad" CC family. Lol We treat it as more of supplemental information that we work into what we're doing. In addition to Foundations & Essentials, my 5th grader does Math in Focus 5A/B w/ Beast Academy 4 & KA as a supplement, IEW'S PZ for spelling, Wordly Wise, Harcourt Horizons Social Studies w/ supplementary work from History Pockets, McGraw-Hill Science, Speech @ co-op, band @ co-op, and some supplementary work from McGraw-Hill Language Arts & k12reader.com. We do about 30 minutes worth of daily CC review at home. That looks like a lot, and I honestly don't think I could've pulled that off my first year of homeschooling. So, what would a typical CC-at-home day look for someone who is truly "trusting the program," as they say? Here are some ideas: Foundations: Go to the library. Find some books on what they're studying - creation to Miceneans (sp?), Christopher Columbus, human anatomy books, books about New England states, etc. (We just finished week 1, so that's fresh on my brain. ;) ) Are you on CC Connected? There are some really cool memory work games out there like Trivial Pursuit cards, notebook work, etc. Do you have any of the songs? Listen to them while you're going places. Essentials: Our mantra is that there is no crying in Essentials. 😊 Chart work for a 1st year student should only be about 15 minutes a day. If copying too many charts is an issue, copy them & cut them into puzzles. Again, if writing is an issue, let her dictate while you write. Andrew Pudewa emphasizes that you can't help them too much. Play Boardslam. Drill math facts. It's a lot of information at first, and it does take a bit to get accustomed. Talk to your tutors and directors if you have concerns. That said, not all communities are created equally. There are some less-than-desireable ones out there. CC also isn't right for everyone. I don't see us doing Challenge, and I'm not sure we'll do Essentials next year. You have to do what's right for you. There are SO many homeschooling options out there. If you're on the fence, I might give it a bit more time. How many weeks are you in?

I purchased a theme-based unit before I ever watched the TWSS videos. I was able to glean enough from their webinars to successfully execute the program. You should be able to save money on shipping by purchasing the streaming videos, although they'd only be good for one year. At this point, I've watched the videos three times now, and they are helpful in understanding the program. Can you check for the videos used or see if your library has them/can get them on an interlibrary loan? I'm not sure how that works in Australia...

We received 2A yesterday and have gone through the first few pages. He completed Math in Focus 1A/1B in K last year. While he did okay, he just wasn't as solid on it as I would've liked in order for him to move on to 2A/2B. BA 2A looks like it will be perfect for him. It'll be challenging, and we can take it slowly since we're just using it as a supplement. (Just for reference my 5th grader is doing MiF 5A/5B this year, and we are supplementing with BA 4A-D. It really depends on the kid.)

Have you considered Saxon K-3? I'm generally not a fan of it, but it is a more gentle math curriculum that is supposed to prepare students for 5/4 after Saxon 3. Just be aware that the K-3 books are completely different than the 5/4 & up books.

I bought ours through AoPS' website. I ordered it Saturday, I think, and it came today. I paid $10 for upgraded shipping instead of the $5 shipping.