I've only used 1st grade phonics and older, so I can only speak to FSR book E in the 1st grade package. Yes, I definitely agree with @Paradox5 in getting the lesson plans and the teacher's guide since it has the phonics helps in there and what you should review. I think you could take or leave the Core Phonics supplement. I used it because my girl was a very slow reader and needed all the reinforcement we could fit in. FWIW, I was incredibly happy with MP's 1st grade phonics and the spelling. I firmly believe that their heavy phonics work and repetition is what finally helped reading click with my youngest girl. Their whole 1st grade program was just the perfect thing for her.

I'm taking the adult version of Second Form Latin from MPOA - it's intense but excellent! I'm also working through Windows to the World so I can teach that to my oldest boy this fall, and reading through his American Government textbook so I can lead discussions with him. My 4th, 6th, and 8th grade girls will work through a mini government mom-made course this fall, so that reading his been helpful in determining what I want my girls to cover. Some summers I'm just so thankful that we actually MADE IT to summer that I can't do much more than plan the next school year or catch up with life. But this year, our lives are a little less hectic so I'm working hard to devote some time to teacher training. This was a good question and one I think about often.

Thank you for sharing your experience with it! The child that is going to use it is pretty used to the MP-style of answering questions in that manner, so I don't think that is going to be a challenge for her. Now the sister coming after her? Oh dear. I'll have to go to plan B for her due to the writing component. Thanks again 🙂

OP, can you elaborate on the negative experience with Novare PS in 7th grade? I have that for my daughter to work through in 8th grade, but I have no experience with Novare or this particular text.

I totally understand being overwhelmed with the plan and having decision fatigue. It can be so paralyzing! 😟 What makes you feel overwhelmed about your original plan? I think I'd work on this part first before changing to a different plan. I can speak to a couple of your original plan subjects... Math with R&S 6 - My 13yo just finished up 7th grade, and she worked her way through R&S 6 and started Pre-Algebra in April. It was absolutely the best thing she could have done and really shored up her math facts and the four operations. She was so, so happy she worked through R&S 6 because she's much more confident in her math abilities. R&S Math is predictable, the Teacher's Manual is excellent for drill, and it's just plain solid. Latin - I can't say enough good things about First Form Latin. I taught it to myself this year, staying several weeks ahead of my daughter. It's very doable as a 7th grader, and as a mom. I made a point to do every single thing the Teacher's Manual said to do and we are both pretty solid in Latin now. I had my own workbook to practice through and I made sure we did a full recitation together at least once a week. There's a (paid) adult crash course in First Form Latin via MPOA this summer: https://www.memoriapressacademy.com/catalog?pagename=FFL-Int-2020 So that might be an option for you. I'm taking the Second Form version of that class so I can get a jump start on the year. I will be teaching my 10th grader, and his classes will consume the bulk of my mental energy and I won't have as much for learning Latin. Spelling and Handwriting: This is going to sound crazy, but I had both my 5th and 7th graders work though Traditional Spelling II from Memoria Press. You would only need to purchase the TM and Student Guides for each girl. The TM is where you'll find how to color code the phonogram chunks and other teaching helps. It wasn't babyish at all (except for that penguin) and the instruction is so solid. I have seen huge improvements both girls. But we did every. single. thing. listed in the manual. I like R&S Spelling, but my girls needed more direct phonics instruction than what R&S offered at the time. They both seem to be 'phonics resistant' if there is such a thing. Hugs to you as you figure it out!

I looked through ABCs and All Their Tricks and How to Teach Spelling and came up empty. I flipped through All About Spelling Level 3 and found the answer in Step 7. It states that the 'e' in the word 'are' is what AAS calls a Handyman E, meaning it doesn't have one of the other 4 functions of a silent e (make the vowel long, make the c or g soft, etc.) So it would be the phonogram of ar and then the silent e on the end, according to AAS.

Thank y'all so much for the ideas! I forgot that we have the MP art posters, which my kiddos love. I might try to incorporate more of those this year. Grammar rules, and quotes are good ideas, too. And the string lights! I love that! I am not always successful at being a fun mom, so that would be a nice touch. I'm off to check out the south-up maps and other maps in general - my oldest is doing a World Geography high school course this year. I haven't thought it through quite yet, but a variety of maps would be a great idea to add to his study. Thank y'all! ❤

Yes, the bolded is my situation and my experience here at the boards as well. As my children have gotten older, the amount of time needed for me to read, understand, and plan for school has dramatically increased. My K-12 education was so sorely lacking that I have spent a ridiculous amount of time re-learning and then figuring out how to teach my children with a big dose of educational philosophy reading on the side. I don't assume, however, that this is every homeschool mother's situation, but constantly having to stay a step ahead of my children has been my constant. That, unfortunately, limits my time to interact here on the boards except for the quickie response-type answers on curriculum choice, etc. I'm not on FB (and will never be again), and it thrills me that this forum is still pretty active. I'm so grateful for it. @8FillTheHeart I would love to have a snapshot of what DIY looks like on the high school level. I've done DIY off and on through the years for K-6th, but I can't quite wrap my head around what that looks like with high school. I read through @Lori D.'s motherlode HS posts in the recent past, but I'll go back through them and look specifically for the DIY info. ETA: I saw in my profile it lists my join date as 2017, which is bizarre. I've been reading here since 2010 at least.

I'm looking for some new ideas and inspiration to change up our homeschool room wall posters and such. We moved into our new house two years ago, so we've been looking at the same charts and posters for two years. We need some fresh material for the fall! Currently in our homeschool room (some of these are purchased and some of these are mom-made): -- US Presidents line the room (these are my girls' favorite and they're staying up. I've been shocked how they've memorized the presidents just from having them on the wall.) -- ABCs (I have a 3 year old) -- Periodic Chart -- Major Art Movements with their time periods (Renaissance, Baroque, etc) -- 4 operations and their parts (minuend-subtrahend=difference) -- The symbols of North Carolina (state bird, mammal, etc) -- World Map My kiddos range in age from 3yo to a rising 10th grade with 3 in between. I've noticed over the past year we could really use a classification chart, so I'll make one of those. We also have MP's timeline cards, but those almost work better with us using them as flash cards and organizing on the table every week or so. Mind sharing what is on your homeschool walls?

We use Rod and Staff English. I know that MP recommends their English Grammar course since it coincides so nicely with the Forms, but we had already used R&S for years, and I didn't want to buy something new. Plus, I've seen the fruit of R&S Grammar, and it's just lovely. It teaches in such a thorough, consistent, bite-size way and it teaches to mastery. That works so well for my kiddos. I do slow down grammar a bit once we get to 7th grade R&S since it's pretty intense. My kiddos will do 2-4 lessons per week instead of 4-5 lessons per week as in the younger grades.

We did Christian Light (CLE) for a spell when I had such awful morning sickness. We only did the 3rd and 5th grade workbooks, but they were excellent. I can't remember the topic of 5th grade, but the 3rd grade year is packed with Jewish culture, and my DD learned a ton. There's also Rod and Staff Bible, and while I have never used it, I've used their English and Math for years. It is absolutely excellent and quite thorough. I've researched their Bible workbooks many times, but ended up going to other resources for various reasons. For Grades 1-4, their Bible is tied to their reading curriculum. While I personally wouldn't use this as a reading curriculum, you could easily modify it to make it for Bible study. Either CLE or Rod and Staff would be my top choices for workbook-style Bible. Both of them have a great method of mastering material that my kiddos respond to very well.

I couldn't agree more with this! The MP Forms are such a beautiful, logical, steady way to learn Latin. It's very doable for this homeschool mom that has zero Latin background to understand and teach this language. The way the grammar is presented is perfect whether you're starting out in 5th grade or working through it at 40 years old (like me!). We have used the online academy for Latin, and also taught directly at home with the DVDs, and I've taught it without DVDs. Any combo works and is effective. My oldest son and I worked through Henle I this year, and it was a BEAST compared to the Forms series. I'll take the Forms any day!

This is beautifully simple. I'm going to take a break from researching and pondering and mull over this through the weekend. Thank you!

That is the nitty-gritty and very helpful to read and process. Thank you for that! The answer is a resounding no, those three texts and their guides will NOT equal that amount of work. ( I still have so much to learn about the homeschooling high school process and the thought process behind course and credit decisions. Sigh. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels.)

I, too, didn't like the look of HWOT cursive, but I used it with my older three and it worked really well for all of them. I've used New American Cursive from Memoria Press with my #4 kiddo and I really like it as well. I don't think you can go wrong with either of those two. 2 of my 4 that have learned cursive were lefties, btw. One with HWOT and one with NAC, and both have lovely lefty accommodations.

So the English credit... He's still going to do the High School Composition through MPOA, which they call a credit. I've emailed them to see if the Memoria Press Guides of Iliad/Odyssey/Aeneid are worthy of a credit or half a credit, but have yet to hear. You have such a gift for breaking it down to the various options. I really appreciate that!!

This portion about the English credit was so important for me to read. Between the other responses on the thread (thank you all!) and these statements, I finally understand that he needs to have what's called an 'English 2' credit - so this composition course and then literature. Going through this scenario yet another time (I'm starting to get decision fatigue 😟), this is my current plan: 1.0 credit = English - MPOA's HS Composition Class plus the Memoria Press guides for Iliad/Odyssey/Aeneid1.0 credit = Math - Algebra 2 (local class)1.0 credit = Science - Honors Chemistry (local class)1.0 credit = Foreign Language - Latin II (Last half of Henle I through MPOA)1.0 credit = Elective: Theology - History of the Early Church (home)0.5 credit = Elective: Logic II (MPOA Traditional Logic) 0.5 credit = American Government (using BJU I think in the fall) 0.5 credit = Economics (either BJU or a local class in the spring) Total credits = 6.5 Since his 9th grade class from the private school will be listed as American History I and worth a full credit, I am going to do American History II for a full credit his 11th grade year. From what I understand, it will make his transcript look more cohesive and not raise any flags. The only other outstanding decision is WttW. Since he's sitting at 6.5 credits, I do feel like we could add it in without being nuts. Does this credit plan look better? It still feels like such a work in progress... Thank you all again for your time and help!

No, he doesn't want WttW specifically. One issue is that I'm not a strong writer and need a lot of hand-holding with teaching that to my children. From reading here, it looked like this would be a good help. I bought WttW and have read through at least the first half of it. It's marvelous! Maybe *I* should go through the whole course to teach myself and then use that in literature studies with him. Yes, I think you're right that the literature guides will have analysis. We're using the guides from Memoria Press, and in the younger grades they are full of analysis help. I can't speak to the upper school guides since I haven't used them yet. Thanks for helping me think through this portion of it!

You listed his American History II as 0.5 credits - should I figure out how to make this a full credit? I'm not sure how to do that, but I can research. I counted his Composition class as a full credit, because that's what MPOA recommended. But yes, I realize this doesn't include literature of any type.

Oh goodness. THANK YOU all so much! Honestly, I'm a bit overwhelmed at the response. This is my first attempt at trying to understand homeschool high school since he was in private school for 9th grade. I still am researching like a crazy woman every evening trying to wrap my brain around credits, etc. Since I didn't have any control over his 9th grade credits, I feel like I'm having to make up for lost time a little bit. For his 9th grade year, I understand from his school that these are his credits: -- American History I (through Reconstruction) - 1 credit -- Geometry - 1 credit -- Biology - 1 credit -- English I - 1 credit -- Theology - 1 credit -- Musical Theater - 0.5 credit Then with me at home for 9th grade: -- Traditional Logic I via MPOA - 0.5 credit -- Henle I (Units 1-5) - 1 credit So he will have 6.0 credits for 9th grade. --------------- Clearly, I don't know exactly what I'm going here since this is my first go with high school. I chose to do Amer. Hx II since he just finished I. Plus he loves American History and is super interested in government and politics. Also, if he did Ancients, would that count as a year of World History? I'm not clear on what counts for a year of World History in general... Do we just choose a time period and off we go? I'm going to spend a bit of time going through all of the responses carefully, and I'll be back with questions I'm sure. 😉 Thank you again for all of your time and wisdom!

I need some help with nailing down my 10th grader's plan for the next school year, and would appreciate some ideas or BTDT advice. I mentioned this particular child in the thread I started for US History help: My son was homeschooled until 6th grade, attended various private schools for 7-9th, and will be home with me 10-12th. His 7-9th grade years were a wash academically, although there was much maturing so I consider this success. 😉 He is quite bright, a voracious reader, and likes school only if it's subjects he's interested in. He detests busy work. We both agree that writing needs to be a central focus for him this coming school year, as he's had minimal formal instruction. The problem is I have too much planned, and I'm not sure what to rearrange: Latin: Henle I (last half) through MPOA - 1 credit Lit: Iliad/Odyssey 1st semester and The Aeneid 2nd semester (with me) - 1 credit Math: Algebra II (local class) - 1 credit Science: Honors Chemistry (local class) - 1 credit Logic: Traditional Logic II 1st semester through MPOA - 0.5 credit English: High School Composition I (1st 4 levels of progym) through MPOA - 1 credit Theology: History of the Early Church (with me) - 1 credit US Hx: Notgrass American History Post-Civil War to present - 1 credit So he's at 7.5 credits. While that is on the upper end, I do think it's going to be doable for him. He's really looking forward to more challenging work academically. I really would like to add Windows to the World. He has struggled to write for his lit class this year, because he hasn't been taught to write any type of literary analysis. In fact, he's asked for me to teach him this specifically. So how I can I reasonably add this in and not burn us out? Is this a bad idea? And is WttW traditionally a 0.5 credit even though it's 20 weeks? The two classes I would push off - Logic and Theology - are the two he's most excited about. He's a kid that enjoys deep thinking/pondering/talking through concepts. I've thought through this ad nauseam and need some help and perspective, please! Thank you! ❤

What a tragedy that the Roadmap portion of this is not still available! If it were, this would be the perfect solution, I think. I purchased Notgrass for him and we will just do the second half, I think. I'll have to supplement big time to make it a credit, and that will take some time researching since this is my first year homeschooling him in high school. The reviews of these books were excellent on Amazon. He is a voracious reader, so I may just purchase them for him to read during down time. I really appreciate this suggestion.

Thank you so much for these responses! I must have my notifications turned off, because I just assumed no one had answered. 🙂 I'll browse through your suggestions - thank you! @cintinative I do have TOG for all 4 years, so I could do that. I'm not sure how credits work with Tapestry, since I've only done it through the Logic stage. If I can't find a book/resource, I'm going to research this. Thanks!

Hi there! My son was homeschooled K-6th, and attended private schools 7-9th. He will be back home with me for 10-12th, and we will use mostly outside classes. This 9th grade year, he took BJU's American History, but just up to the Civil War. That school planned to do history over a 2 year period. He enjoys US History, and would like to take the 2nd half during his 10th grade year at home. I can't seem to find the right curriculum fit for this circumstance. I know that Memoria Press splits US Hx into two years, but he's going to do a lot of MP classes next year, and I wanted to give him a bit of a change of pace from that style. This is what I need: tests and quizzes that I don't have to create (he is MUCH more engaged when grades are involved), an easy plan for me to implement, and preferably something engaging. Any ideas on what we could use? I have all four years of TOG, but I know how much planning that is (used it for 5+ years), and I"m not sure exactly how to pull JUST the American history out of the rhetoric stage. Thanks! Lauren

Ah, okay. Thank you!