Enjoying and understanding the Narnia books are two entirely different things. My kids have all been 5-6 yo when they're ready to enjoy the Narnia books. At that age, they understand the plot, but they don't really understand the books in the way Lewis meant for them to be understood, and that's okay. I always assume they'll be reading them again and again, understanding them on a deeper level each time. As an adult, I'm still understanding something new about them every time I read them.

I'm not sure what grades you're considering. We've used and liked some of the BF guides. Some others to look at -- TruthQuest Simply Charlotte Mason Ambleside Online Living Books Curriculum Sonlight

What did you choose for the main spine?

I don't teach my kids Latin at the high school level anymore. (I enroll them in online classes instead.) I tried to teach a few of the older ones when I was their only option. We had lousy internet connection and no available local teachers back then. But, none of my oldest three kids would have medaled with me as their teacher. Even though I've been studying Latin alongside my kids for the past 12 years, there is no way I could do anything that remotely resembles what Amy Barr does at Lukeion, so my current students have her as their teacher. I'm not saying it can't be done, just that it couldn't be done by me. Kathy in Richmond has always been superhuman in my mind. (eta: I was posting when she posted.)

Congratulations! So that was your son and that was probably his second year in a row with a perfect paper? Nicely done. Dd is in one of Amy's Latin 2 classes and got a gold but not a perfect paper. Amy is an amazing teacher.

Why?!?! You enjoy inner turmoil?

The most entertaining thing is my world is observing my INTJ (21yods) and ESFP (17yodd) when they're working on a problem or project together or even just trying to have a simple conversation. I mean I can hear that they're both speaking English, but one of them might as well be speaking whale. That said, dh and I are almost opposites (INFJ/ESTJ) and I remember reading that while that doesn't often work well in friendships (and I'm assuming sibling relationships), it can work very well in a marital relationship.

I'd like to see this, too. At the presentation I attended, the director was telling how her 15yo son had passed one of his Western Civ CLEPs with a 50 (if you're not familiar with CLEP scores, that's barely a pass on a relatively easy exam), and she was using this as a shining example of CC success. :confused: I think if she had had the statistics posted by ladybugjung above, she would have and should have used them instead... eta - although, like 8 above (who was posting while I was posting)...I'm not sure you would want to use that SAT avg in advertising either.

I'm INFJ married to ESTJ. The first couple years were bumpy, but since then we make a great team and couldn't be more in love. :-) (We've had the assessment done professionally 3 times for different settings.)

I don't remember seeing this site before, Hunter, but it kind of looks like this person cut and pasted the AO years and made a few changes without citing AO (at least I didn't see AO cited anywhere). Isn't that a copyright violation?

What helped: Consistent daily practice multiple times a day, every single day Buddy reading books that interested them (they read a page, I read a page) Games like those that come with Phonics Pathways and OPGTR Curricula: Reading Reflex, OPGTR, Phonics Pathways Articles listed under reading in the article section of this site Reading aloud to them at every opportunity from high quality literature Audiobooks while driving or playing What did not help: Vision therapy (time consuming and didn't help at all even though we were extremely diligent) Taking a better-late-than-early approach to reading eta: On vision therapy - I am really sorry for the time we put into this because it robbed time we could have spent on actual reading instruction. I think the conclusions in this abstract are worth considering before making vision therapy the first place to turn. eta again: I do agree with getting a regular eye exam (as another poster mentioned below). One of our sons has severe astigmatism for which he needs corrective lenses. He was not one of my struggling readers, but his reading did soar after he got glasses.

This is beautiful, Anna. I agree with you and wish I could meet your mom.

My list would include books by Holling C. Holling, James Daugherty (Poor Richard and Of Courage Undaunted), Marguerite Henry (Benjamin West and Misty), Ralph Moody (Little Britches and others), and Mark Twain (Tom Sawyer), and short stories by O. Henry ("The Ransom of Red Chief" and others).

This is how I feel about it and would add "for certain kids" to this statement. I've used it off and on for 18 years, and it's been a sort of love-hate relationship for me. I've always felt it needed a lot added to it to make it work for us, especially language arts. So when we do it, we do it in a WTMish way.

We've bought cute, high quality, modest suits for myself and my teen girls at Lime Ricki and Diviine Modestee. My dd's swim every single day in the summertime and frequently during the rest of the year, and these suits have all held up for two or more years.

My younger three are enjoying Narnia, too. We're on The Silver Chair. And 6yo is loving The Blue Fairy Book, so it seems our 6yo's have similar tastes and comprehension levels. We've read two of the books you're asking about within the last year. Paddle-to-the-Sea was enjoyed immensely by 6, 8, and 10 yo. The Princess and the Goblin was enjoyed by 6 and 8yo. (10yo wasn't sitting in for this one but would have enjoyed it, no doubt.) I hadn't intended to read The Princess and the Goblin to 6yo yet. I had been reading it to 8yo for a while when I discovered that she was then turning around and rereading it aloud to 6yo so he wouldn't miss out. So after that I had him join us. 9yo (March birthday) and I are now enjoying The Princess and Curdie. It seems significantly more mature to me than The Princess and the Goblin though. I don't think 6yo would enjoy it (and actually he goes off to play when we're reading it, which is fine with me.) That might be something to consider when choosing when to read them. If you want to read them back to back, it might be best to wait a bit. 9yo loved The Light Princess when she was 7-8yo. It turned out to be the perfect place to start with George MacDonald for her. eta (mulling over the previous posts in this thread): I can remember my dad reading The Princess and the Goblin aloud to us when I was around 12-14 yo. I remember being bored out of my mind. I never would have revisited it with my dc if it hadn't been for our enjoyment of The Light Princess. This time, reading The Princess... with 8yo and 6yo, I was spellbound and was delighted that they were too. It is so beautiful it just took our breath away. I wonder if there's an age to *not* read it.

Hmmmm....I own every single science textbook Apologia has printed for elementary through high school, except Marine Biology, and in some cases I own two editions of the same book. We've been using Apologia science for thirteen years or so and are huge fans. When I lay the Chemistry & Physics book next to my other Apologia books, I can see a significant difference in quality. Mainly, the C&P book has no center margin making it impossible to read if it's lying flat. So, did I just get a lemon?

This audio download by Andrew Pudewa is really good. Teaching Boys & Other Children Who Would Rather Make Forts All Day

Like Amy (in her linked post) I was terribly disappointed in the quality of the printing, and for that reason alone I chose not to use it. My older elementary dc read these books independently, narrating to me when they finish a reading. I could not see handing a book with no margins to a child when I wouldn't even enjoy reading it myself. Apologia's other books are all nicely printed and bound, easy on the eyes, but the quality of the chemistry book is a shame.

I wrote a long post and lost it. Now I really need to start school with my younger dc. Basically, for history and literature we've used and liked the methods and resources recommended in WTM. Other favorites are www.thegreatbooks.com and IEW's AP Lit and Lang guides. My all-time favorite literature resource is the one we're using right now. Unfortunately it hasn't been published yet. It was written by a friend who is ds's college professor and father-in-law.

It's hard for me to answer this because it depends so much on the student. On rare occasions, a few of our kids have gone to dh for help with questions; others never needed his help at all, not even once. For the most part, the dc think Wile's explanations are extremely clear. Is there someone in your church who could answer the occasional question if the need arose? We've had wonderful experiences doing this a couple times in other subjects. (We paid the person helping to say thanks.) eta: In the end, this approach was cheaper and more personalized than other options.

Your first concern - We don't ever worry about testing until 10th grade. Then we have them take a practice PSAT at our local high school in 10th before they take the one that counts in 11th. She should take practice SAT's at home. (I'm not sure how the new changes in the SAT will affect this though.) Your second concern - Chalkdust Math (video teaching) has been great for our kids. They've done it mostly independently. Your third concern - You're right to be concerned about keeping her math strong. Ds was a TI for a freshman chemistry class for nursing students and said that when they were failing it was nearly always because of poor math skills. Is Apologia an option? Apologia (just the text, no videos, no co-op) prepared our kids really well. They did some of the labs, but dh (medical doctor) and I consider high school science labs busy work, and all our graduates agree. (One with B.S. in biology, now in dental school; one with B.S. in aeronautical science, working in his field; one a senior with 4.0 and full scholarship studying computer science; and one freshman nursing student with straight A's so far. All did Apologia throughout high school. I'm not trying to give a resume here, but I've heard so many say that Apologia won't prepare students for college science, and this has absolutely not been our experience. Ymmv. I am not connected in any way to Apologia.) Consider finding ways for your daughter to job shadow in high school. Our kids had been around dh enough to know they weren't interested in being doctors. Job shadowing and volunteering was what made three of them realize how much they would enjoy midwifery, dentistry, and nurse practitioner. You can do this! Best wishes.

But...but...but....that doesn't mean you'll stop talking educational theory, does it? Because I would miss you, Hunter. I can't join you because I'm only on Chapter 2 of Beauty in the Word and already have almost 4 pages of typed notes. I only read it early in the morning though. Oh wait, educational theory first thing in the morning--does that make me an educationalaholic? Have fun with your pursuits and keep us posted!

Read the bolded. She specifically states that friends were always pressuring her and that "for our children" it's not an option "for us." Is she not allowed to make statements about what she's decided for her own children? We all have a different set of circumstances. It was reasonable for her to ask on a homeschool board if anyone else feels this way. "By definition smug"? No, I disagree. Like I said -- we all have a different set of circumstances and know what best suits our own families and situations. My family has severe allergic reactions to certain foods and food additives. Because of this, we won't feed our kids at McDonalds. We generally have to plan to pay more somewhere else to meet the needs of our own children. Would it be smug to say that we would never feed our kids at McDonalds to friends who were trying to convince me to do what I know would not be in the best interest of my own children? eta: One could even make an argument that the friends who were trying to convince me to do what they were doing could be considered smug. What if I have philosophical objections to McDonalds? I don't, but I know people who do. Would I be allowed to state and stand on my philosophical objections? Is making and stating decisions based on conviction for our own families smug? I don't think so.

I've used each of these extensively. I haven't been able to get my kids working independently in R&S before 5th grade, and even then some of my dc still needed a lot of teacher direction. At times it seemed that the dc who used R&S 3&4 instead of FLL 3&4 were able to use R&S 5 (and beyond) more independently sooner, but not by much. That's just an observation with my own kids (not a controlled study, lol). As for teacher time commitment, I think they're about equal. Pick the one you feel more comfortable teaching. They're both great programs. Honestly, you could flip a coin to choose between them, and there's no way you could lose. R&S does have some writing instruction in addition to the grammar. We use some of the writing lessons but skip a lot of them because I have other plans for writing.