That trashcan thing made me laugh -- I can relate. And that's about how I feel too! I'd probably miss him if he were TOO independent. It's been interesting to see how lately, he flourishes when I give him a little more responsibility -- and that, in turn, leads to fun conversations.

My son is just wrapping up 3rd grade now. He can do a lot independently but I am always at least loosely involved, if that makes sense. So for example, he reads a chapter in a book and then narrates it back to me and we talk about it. Or he works on some math problems but I'm on hand to talk about any questions he has or listen to what he thinks is interesting about it all. Or he practices piano but I'm listening. I have a first grader too, and she takes a lot more of my focus during her school time. So he does have to wait sometimes. But not too too long :) I feel like it's always evolving. He definitely benefits from working independently, but he gets a lot of enrichment from working together too. I still read some of his books out loud, either because I want him to listen to the sound of the language or because I just like reading aloud. And there is also lots of stuff that we all three do together!

I think people have actually given a lot of really specific advice about activities to keep the little girl busy, as well as foods and other strategies to combat hyperactivity, and methods of teaching both kids at the same time. But maybe people could help you more if you explained the situation better. Obviously you shouldn't give out the little girl's medical condition, but maybe you could explain what kinds of problems you've been running into? For example, you said that you can't just keep one eye on the little girl while she plays outside. Why not? What happens? Does she wander too far away? Does she do dangerous things? Knowing what the exact problem is makes it easier to help. What happens if you read a book to both kids, or sing a song with them? Does she interrupt, or can she listen, maybe while doing something else? What happens if you read a book with just your son? etc etc.

When my kids were littler and my son was the only one doing "real" academics, I liked to take them out to the park. I'd sit with my son as he did his math (or whatever), and my daughter could wander around picking up rocks and leaves. We live in a city and don't have our own outdoor space, so maybe this was a bit more of a treat for us than it would be for others! But it worked, and everyone was happy. When we stayed home, we tended to have more of a problem with my daughter wanting attention while I worked with my son.

Do you think this is due to a lack of understanding, or a lack of confidence? Can your kids articulate what they're doing with the rods? Like can your youngest explain how she's using them to solve an addition problem? Can your fourth grade explain what 3/5 means?

Yes. I recently got a bilingual edition of Beowulf and we spent a few days obsessing over the Old English side. The recordings that I found of it sound a little like a Scandinavian language -- apparently (and I guess not surprisingly) the language had a ton of Norse influence.

I really liked Rosemary Sutcliff when I was a kid. She has a lot of novels set in imperial Rome...she is British and incredibly pro-empire, but her books are very vivid and engrossing.

I love this. Thanks. I didn't mean to come across as critical of Alcott. I grew reading and rereading both Little Women and Little Men....Little Women was one of my favorite books. I do remember Little Men and Jo's Boys feeling just a little bit sad to me -- as a young reader, I wanted Jo to do "more" with her life. But you know, it would be interesting to read those and her other books again, as an adult.

We spent some time memorizing poetry last year and I loved it. It is on my list of things to start up again. I think we got off track because I let the kids pick their poems and it all got bogged down in deep indecision. I'm not especially interested in long poetry -- I just want them to store poetry in their heads. Where possible I also like to listen to poets reading their own work. We had fun listening to recordings of Robert Frost (such a strong New England accent!) and even Wallace Stevens. Or bits and pieces of Seamus Heaney reading Beowulf.

Everyone’s suggestions are great. I think this also depends on what your own strengths are as a teacher, and what’s going to make you grow. After all, whatever teaching method you settle on has to suit you, too. I know a lot of people love Brave Learner for its out-of-the-box style. Julie Bogart is definitely full of good ideas. Personally, I tend to be a little on the loose and disorganized side already, so Brave Learner slightly misses the mark for me. I get a lot more out of something like Charlotte Mason, and her many followers, for its emphasis on a sense of order and respect for children as individuals. I also found John Holt (early John Holt) really helpful for its concrete ideas about how kids learn and the ways teachers can facilitate learning.

I think most people need to have a teacher, or at least a mentor, even when they're adults and capable of doing a lot of self-teaching. I mean, I've always loved to learn on my own, but I also need someone I can ask questions of along the way. Same with my kids -- they love taking in new facts and ideas, but they definitely need guidance!

Online classes make a ton of sense. When the shutdown started, my son had just started taking piano lessons. His lessons were cancelled because of COVID, so I agreed that he try to work through the rest of his piano book alone. Pretty quickly, though, I realized that he didn't really know how to read the bass clef -- I don't either, but he was loudly insisting that it was exactly the same as the treble clef and the melodies he played were coming out super strange. I am all for experimental music but I also want him to learn the basics of piano, so I signed him up for Zoom lessons with his teacher.

Do you guys find that your kids can self-teach in areas where you, yourself, aren't very knowledgeable? or do you mostly stick to subjects that you'd be doing for school anyway? My son tends to think that he can teach himself anything he wants as long as he has a book. I love this about him but have found that he also needs supervision. I mean, he is actually very good at gathering and consolidating information, but he'll sometimes have little misunderstandings, or get the wrong idea about something he reads. I worry that if I just let him loose on a subject which I didn't know much about, I wouldn't be able to make sure he was on the right track. He's little still, so I also don't know whether this question changes as kids get older.

I've been doing more planning than usual, because my kids are getting older so I really do have to plan ahead more than I did in the past. But yeah, the fact that the libraries are closed is killing me. Normally, we go to the library once a week and bring home twenty or so books: books to read aloud together, books for science and history, books for free-reading, etc etc etc. Now that I have to actually pay for everything, I have to be SO much more thoughtful about selecting the right books. I can't just grab everything that looks interesting and then sift through them at leisure and then go back for another stack next week. I'm also trying to discipline myself because I've spent way more on books than I wanted to over the past few months. I'm kind of on pause now, waiting to see whether the libraries will open up again soon and, if they do, whether they'll be operating more slowly than usual. We don't start the school year until September, so I should be fine. It's frustrating though, because I actually have a lot of planning energy right now and I'd like to use it. I guess I should use that time to create lists etc.

Thanks a lot. I'll look for these both! I have very soaring ambitions when it comes to preparing for the coming year -- hopefully I'll meet my own expectations : ) It's been really helpful seeing what others are doing.

This was a fun description to read : ) and I can see why it wouldn't be a great fit for your curriculum. I guess Alcott had her limitations as a reformer. I remember once reading a short story by Alcott about girls' clothing -- the girl in the story was being given some kind of modern, experimental outfit that left her much freer to move around than the stiff bustles and things she would've been wearing otherwise. So there was this interest in change on the very immediate, individual level but I wonder if it translated into the bigger picture.

ASL must be such an interesting language to study -- I imagine it makes you think in a whole new way.

This all sounds amazing!! I did not know about the Quaker girl becoming a professional astronomer. When you order books ahead of time, do you also read them? Now that my kids are getting a little older and it's not just read-alouds on the couch, I'm thinking I should do that.

In theory, I totally agree. That's what I suggested. But in practice, the kids are used to granddad telling them long stories and talking with them a lot (in English) and they push back when he tries to change the language. So I understand that he just wants to enjoy them instead of pushing through their resistance 🙂

My 8 year old sometimes does stuff like this. I did too as a kid. I think when you spend a lot of time reading, you kind of develop your own private version of the way words "sound." Then it can feel weird actually saying words out loud. I STILL mispronounce words like "monastery" and "episcopal". Maybe having him read out loud to you would help?

I love this question -- it kind of focused my mind. I want to improve my French so that I can do a proper job teaching my kids. My French is decent, but it's never been a hundred percent fluent and at this point it's rusty. I asked my father, who IS french, to teach the kids, but you know, he wants to play with them instead, and I can understand that. So I'm going to give it a try. If I can't do it, I guess we'll look into hiring a tutor. My plan is to watch French TV, listen to radio, read books, and go through my old grammar book.

The first one I read was the Murder of Roger Ackroyd. I don't remember it being gruesome and I was definitely younger than 13 -- what I do remember is my total shock at the twist ending 🙂 I also remember loving Dorothy Sayers and Josephine Tey. Tey has a "mystery" based around Richard III which I think is called the Daughter of Time and is a lot of fun.

I've just been so overboard with book-buying for the last few months. I was used to relying on the library for everything -- free-reading books, reference books, science and history supplements -- so it's been a shock to suddenly have to buy all those books! I think some of the MCT books are available through ThriftBooks, so that could be my way to give them a try. Thanks for explaining how it all works; that's really helpful.

Thanks a lot. I feel really torn about this -- honestly the expense is a turn-off (when I went to the site it was over 200 dollars for a one-year set) so I'm trying to figure out what I actually need here. By "thin" I mean that the grammar books look like something my kids would treat as a picture book and would want to devour in one sitting, so I'd either have to hide the book from them, or else let them at it and then drag them through rereading and applying it. I'm thinking that it might work better to just get a more traditional writing curriculum and then adding my own explanations as we go. I'll look into Killgallon.

I mostly have experience working with adults on this, so this might not help. But what I'd do is to start with conversation. Before you even write anything down, practice having conversations in which you: -Describe an environment in detail -Debate an idea -Make a request and explain why it's important -Discuss the "main idea" in a variety of things that you've read together; discuss the kind of "evidence " that the writer used to support their main idea A lot of writing is about thinking and explaining. On some level, writing is about being able to break down our own beliefs and ideas so that they can be communicated to others. It takes a lot of practice to do this.