Thanks, that's what I was leaning towards in a year or so. I've decided on TC. I was looking at the samples and it looks perfect for her. The grammar will probably be too easy for her but that's actually good since she could use a little confidence building. But yeah, honestly, TC looks perfect for me as a teacher too. W&R always assumed I'd have better insights than I do and I could use more guidance. Writing is a weakness for me that I don't want to pass on to my children, so I'm very aware of it. TC gives me enough useful script that I think it will work well. I might use it for my 4rd grader here soon too, if it works out.

I agree that TT would not be a good choice. I've actually used TT for several levels for one of my kids, but I wouldn't recommend it in most circumstances. It is VERY weak (which is what that kiddo needed). If you like Saxon but don't want to have her write so much, I'd consider CLE. It is very similar to Saxon in teaching style in that it is very spiral, but it comes in workbook format. It is generally considered a strong traditional program and is reasonably priced (although unabashedly Mennonite-style Christian, if that affects your choice). I would also consider Singapore, which is workbook as well and is considered a good strong math program. I do enjoy having my kids to apps or computer programs for math facts though. Mine have done XtraMath (free but sort of boring) and Time4Mathfacts (previously called Reflex Math, way more fun but not free). Its was painless and effective for both of us.

I've seen TC mentioned a lot before but have never looked into it. I'm having trouble finding it though. Can you give me a link?

That looks great! My kids are working through learning to draw the world, so that would be a great supplement for them.

I just found out (through lots of sleuthing) that University of Arkansas hosts the AMC8 for anyone. They even pay for those who sign up. They haven't registered yet, so it didn't show on the website, but I'm in contact with someone who said they are going to and have added me to their email list. Since that's about a half hour away from us, I'm pretty excited about that option! And dd10 thinks it sounds more interesting to take it somewhere that isn't at home. 🙂

Maybe WriteShop or IEW?

DD13 is autistic and while she is mostly on grade level, she struggles with deeper analysis. She's been doing W&R from Classical Academic Press but it is starting to require analysis that is just too much for her. She misses the point in a lot of the readings. We're working on that through speech therapy and discussion, but I don't want to pause her writing instruction in the meantime. I was thinking of switching her to a program that was more "to the point" with clear rules and expectations. More mechanics I guess? Although not grammar-centered. I want to work on organizing her writing and writing good sentences that are clear. Is there a program that focuses on this for middle school level? She does well with very clear examples, not so well with inferences.

Does anyone have a link to one? Or has there been one recently? We have some educational apps we enjoy using on our iPad and I was wondering if anyone new of any gems that I maybe don't have yet. For my purposes I was thinking Elementary on up (so not Preschool apps, of which there are thousands). I'm also not including subscription services, like Epic Reading or Adventure Academy (both of which my kids love) Ones we like: Math DragonBox apps (all of them!) Slice Fractions Science TinyBop apps (maybe young elementary) Computer Science Scratch Social Studies Stack the States Stack the Countries

Apps and deliberate TV and other educational toys for main letter sound teaching. Once they demonstrated the ability to blend, which was around young 4yo for all of mine, we did OPGTR for all of them. They did other educational apps and programs informally, like ABC Mouse, but OPGTR was their primary and had all my kids fluent before they turned 6yo. It was fairly painless and I highly recommend it. Not flashy, but did the trick. They've also listened to audiobooks every night of their lives as they went to sleep, pretty much that definitely helped with language too.

Thanks for the link. So I looked and there's no one in a 25 mile radius (longest distance option). Maybe I'll have to take a road trip to a member of our family's house for this (not a huge deal, we like visiting).

So I looked into and sent them an email. It seems homeschoolers can't sign up without going through a public school? Is that true? How do you manage that?

DD10 does pretty well at math. Last year she did the Math Kangaroo competition and really enjoyed it and scored first in the state (tied 7th nationally). So she did pretty well for us having no idea what to expect. She really enjoyed the experience and is interested in working towards future math competitions more formally. So what is a good path for that? I literally have no idea about how any of that works. She's technically a 5th grader. I believe there are other math competitions available at her level, right? What would be some good math contests to sign her up for in the near future?

Also, I haven't bought it yet but I am strongly considering this for my bookshelf. It's a clock that tells time through quotes from books.

Sam's club large propane griddle (like a Blackstone). I made hash browns, bacon, and eggs for all 6 of us yesterday and it was awesome. I'm excited to use it more. Dh is looking forward to making pancakes.

Haha, right? Although of any company, I feel like WTM would be cool with that. So long as it is using the product, I think that would be an amazing characteristic in a homeschool consultant. The "real" advice. But my opinion might not be the same as the official opinion. 😉

I am very interested in this. I've essentially been doing this informally for a while with family and friends and it would be fun to be "official". 😊

Case in point, Not_a_number's post above yours. 👆 I love it but I always hesitate to recommend it to other new homeschooling parents. With the uptick in pandemic-schooling, I had a bunch of friends ask for curriculum suggestions and I felt comfortable recommending it to only one. I feel like it is good if you have fairly math-intuitive kids and if you are good at recognizing gaps and filling them in as a parent. It's not as open and go as many others. I use it for two of my kids but would never dream of using it for my oldest, for example. So, some people love it, some hate it. I love it, with an asterisk.

I'm not making things up, right? They weren't originally planning on a level one?

No clue. They just had a picture of the cover and this blurb: "The first book in our planned Beast Academy Level 1 series is currently at the printer's! In just a couple of months, these books will be ready to be delivered into the hands of a whole new generation of young math beasts." If anyone knows I'd be really curious myself.

I know BA is somewhat divisive but it has worked well for my girls, so we like it. I just got an email saying they were releasing 1a soon (a few months). I didn't realize they were even planning on doing a level 1. My 5yo dd will be so excited. She's in Singapore 2a but I don't think she's ready for BA 2 yet, so that will be a great addition and intro for her. Update 10/22: It's available to order now. Interestingly, it is a single book rather than a guide and a practice book. I'm ordering it since my youngest is at the perfect age and I plan on doing level 2 with her in a few months anyways, but I wish it was two separate books. Especially since the cost is the same as the two books.

We started in July (so going July-June) and are almost to 441. But that's only because we just went on a multi-week camping trip. Most regular days we average 2-3 hours a day. Which will definitely go down in the winter. 😊

I'm considering getting a subscription for the year to Generation Genius. We've had Mystery Science for a few years and we like it but my kids have watched all the videos several times. We're taking a break for a year or so and I'm considering this instead. We'd use it primarily for videos (not lesson plans and quizzes or whatnot). Do you find them to be high enough quality to be worth the cost? Or something else you'd recommend? My kids already do Adventure Academy, Prodigy, etc. But a science/math centered "edutainment" option would be great too, especially since I pretty much unschool science and resources like this have been great at exposing them to new ideas and concepts. If it's good. 😊 If not, any other suggestions for something like that?

So to answer a few questions, ST is 180mins/week, pt is 90, OT is 180/week. We're still evaluating for aba but I expect she'll qualify for about 12/week. We got burned out before when she was much younger so I have been putting it off for a while (mostly me. Dd enjoyed therapy). We are totally willing to back off if things seem too much. I'm very open to that. But we want to give it a good faith effort. And honestly, she adores the attention from therapists so I'm hoping she'll do well. Her speech is for pragmatics. She has some sensory issues I'm hoping ot will help with and pt mostly just because she qualifies and it's at the same place in the same block as the other two. My hope with aba is mostly with social stuff and preparing for adulthood. She is a very bright kid but she melts down in most groups activities (like church class) and struggles with interacting with others. If she perceives something as "hard" she whines about it for hours. Our biggest goal is to get her as independent as possible for adulthood (although I honestly don't think she'll ever be completely independent, but the more the better for her.) One reason we're doing it all at once is because of funding. To even be able to do therapy, we had to apply for tefra for her, which will cost us $400+/month on top of all our other medical expenses (and she has many). Our regular insurance covers barely anything therapy-wise. It would be impossible for us without it. Were hoping to get our money's worth, but totally get that it may be too much. That's one reason I'm wondering about academics.

We've taken a break with therapy for several years but for various reasons plan to start up again this fall. Dd will be doing 25 or so hours of various Therapies like st, ot, aba, etc. My question is how this should effect her academics. Right now she does about 4 hours of academics on a given day and is more or less on grade level. I'm wondering how much I should possibly back off if she's doing that much therapy and what those of you who have btdt do. For reference she's 13yo.

Dd5 is a fluent reader and hardworker. I'm having a hard time with writing for her, though. I'm sick of WWE, which I did with my older 3. I tried WWW but I'm not impressed. Honestly, I think I'd just like a copywork program. I can informally do everything beyond that at this level. Do any of you have a silly or fun copywork program you'd recommend? Pdf is fine. Or any other suggestions? Poop jokes and silliness are definitely a win for her.