I combine science until about 6th or 7th grade, and history until 9th grade. When they do separate courses after that, they do them independently. They read, answer questions, make their own timeline notebook, narrate, or whatever on their own.

I see that you are using multiple things for many of your subjects. That's going to make planning longer also. If you just had one book, like a textbook for science, for example, it would be pretty simple to, say, schedule 1 section a day 4x a week, or whatever. I'm not sure exactly how you schedule, but I look at each subject and ask "How much and how many times a week do we need to do this in order to get it done this year?" So, for Teaching Textbooks 7 (I also have a kid doing that this year), it's one lesson 4x a week. I write in my planner for 4 days per week. Then I move on to the next subject and do the same thing. Does that make sense? If you're doing something else, then maybe that's not helpful. Also, maybe there are things that you don't necessarily have to schedule. Like literature. If she's going to read 5-6 books, can you just hand her the first one and when she finishes it, hand her the next one? That wouldn't really require scheduling then.

I felt the same way about the upper levels of MM (and the other levels for my youngest son). TT is a much better fit for us for those ages. Part of the problem I had is that my kids needed way more review, so going to something that spiraled helped a lot.

Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1 when my oldest was struggling with algebra. HWT Cursive when my youngest son was struggling with cursive. Math Mammoth in the early elementary years when my oldest couldn't stand spiral math. Story of the World for modern history - so much more engaging and interesting than anything else! Apologia Zoology books for my animal lover. Teaching Textbooks 3 for my math straggler (didn't struggle so much as straggle) LLATL Gray for 8th grade English - wish I would have had my oldest do it but I found it in time for the rest The Reading Lesson when Phonics Pathways was overwhelming for my kids (too many words on the pages)

Have you listened to SWB's audio lecture about literary analysis? It might be worth a listen. She makes a lot of sense to me.

It can certainly work to combine them and I don't think that's detrimental to your oldest. I still combined mine at that age and he's done fine in high school. You could either continue the cycles where you left off, or have them choose what they want to learn about. I think that really helps them engage at those ages, if they are interested in what they are learning. There is no danger in "missing something" because it all gets covered again in high school. When mine were those ages, we used Science in the Beginning to combine science and SOTW for history (I think we were on volume 3 or 4; maybe volume 1 would be too young for your oldest).

That makes me feel better. It could totally be that. Thank you!

That is a possibility, but I always crash as soon as I get home and then I recover. I do get back to normal. I'm not always exhausted and in pain while home, just upon arriving home. In fact, sometimes I can feel myself "wilting" (I feel the crash coming) and today I felt it while we were driving home, before we even got there. Maybe, like Jean said, it has something to do with keeping it together in public and then crashing once I'm in the comfort of my own home again. But I will definitely look into the environmental side of it. Good idea.

I have mild fibro, so it's not that bad. However, I'm noticing that there seems to be a definite psychological component to it. When we are away from home, like visiting my parents for an overnight stay, I feel pretty good. But when we get home, almost always I am exhausted and I have more pain. It's not like I did a whole bunch when I was away either, just mostly sat around visiting. Last year our family went on a ten day vacation and I felt great the whole time. As soon as we came home, I was wiped and it took me a few days to recover. Is this common? Do other people with fibro experience this? It bothers me because it sort of feels like it's all in my head. What is this?

Would you mind elaborating on the eye rolling? ? Did they know it all already or did they think it was babyish? Just curious.

Yes, I read Cathy Duffy's review after I posted and it was helpful. Thanks for the replies!

Thanks for all the suggestions. Lots here that I haven't considered. I am exploring. ?

Can anyone who's used Total Health for high school give me a review? It's hard to tell from the sample table of contents what's included in each section. Like, under mental health, does it cover psychology and such or is it more about thoughts/feelings type stuff? Is there anything about drugs or STD's? I'd love to hear specific likes and dislikes if you've got them. Thanks!

It's really hard to have specific goals for that age because kids vary so much. I think tying shoes and copying a sentence correctly are probably appropriate. None of my kids have learned to swim that early, so that's pretty individual. I think mostly I would look for good progress being made in learning to read and making the letters correctly and beginning math skills, wherever they may fall in the scope of those categories.

After 11 years of homeschooling, I have not found an elementary English program that I love. I have spelling, writing and literature covered so I'm just looking for grammar, maybe some poetry, and lessons about paragraphs/topic sentences. So far I have tried First Language Lessons, Rod & Staff, Climbing To Good English, Learning Language Arts Through Literature (of which I really like the Green and Gray books so I have junior high covered) and Primary Language Lessons/Intermediate Language Lessons. If nothing else, I will use R&S a year behind, but I'm wondering if there are newer ones people are using that I should look at. So what do you use for elementary English/grammar? Grades 2 or 3 through 6. ETA: I am going to try Language Lessons for Today with my 5th grader this year, so I'll either be able to add that to my failure list, or maybe I'll love it.

The old versions would be more advanced. Some of the topics are introduced earlier. I find the newer version to still be advanced (especially 5th and 6th), so I wouldn't attempt the older version except with a very good math student.

I think the single curriculum that I've loved the most, used the most and seen the best results out of has to be Writing With Ease. I've also used and liked a number of other things for a few years or more: Story of the World, Notgrass Exploring World History, R&S spelling, LLATL for junior high, Teaching Textbooks, Math Mammoth 1-2, the Blast Off with Logic series, Let's Read and Find Out science books, My First History of Canada, Apologia Physical Science, Bluedorn logic books and Explode the Code.

For general and physical science, instead of having them to formal lab reports, I have my kids write summaries of the experiments. I think somewhere in the introduction of both books, Dr. Wile addresses this actually. I can't remember exactly what he says, but you could maybe look for that. You could also do some formal ones, and summaries of the rest.

The plan for mine is: Math - TT Algebra 1 English - a book list for literature accompanied by a few literary essays, R&S Reading for a few more lit terms and some coverage of short stories and poetry, composition will consist of turning his written narrations into essays and a couple of research papers. He will also do Easy Grammar Ultimate 9. History - Notgrass Exploring World History part 1, plus some map work and keeping a timeline notebook Science - Apologia Biology Electives - he wants to keep on with French and he'll do Computer Science and some extra things to make it a half credit of computer skills, I'll also give him a half credit of PE.

I just made one. It also includes the map activities. Should I pm it to you?

I haven't used it myself but I looked into it as I thought I was going to use it. I was going to use the book without the teacher manual. CBD says the teacher book has the answers and a daily schedule, but I was willing to figure those things out myself, so I wasn't going to bother. Hopefully someone with experience will reply.

If I needed a basic trigonometry course for high school, what would you suggest I look at? I'm not looking for anything advanced at all and it really doesn't even need to be a whole course. I'm fine with something like "do chapters 6-8 from TT Pre-calc". Where I live, trig is covered earlier than pre-calc and I want some basic coverage for my kids in case we don't do pre-calc at all. Thanks for any suggestions!

Hasn't worked for me either. I've been posting there for so long. It's sad. But, yeah, it did seem like they let the site go awhile ago (like no mods to contact, search not working) so I'm not really surprised it's gone. And I don't do FB, so that's out for me.

We also did one lesson a day.

I would suggest Anne of Green Gables, Little Women and Little Men, the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, maybe some Jules Verne if she's interested in that. A Christmas Carol is an easier Dickens. I loved Jane of Lantern Hill. The Story of my Life by Helen Keller is pretty interesting. The Prisoner of Zenda was a hit here. Daddy-Long-Legs, although there is some romance in it. Those are all easier classics, IMO.