I personally don't have time to do multiple math curricula so my kids can get all kinds of extra math practice from multiple angles. For us, Beast Academy did not do a good job laying a solid foundation, even though my son was solving the problems correctly. Some people are whole-to-parts learners who love to "discover the principle for themselves" and some are parts-to-whole learners who don't. Just don't fall into the trap that says AoPS/BA is the only way for mathy kids and teaches them problem solving skills, whereas other programs just teach rote memorization. That's just not true. Lots of kids who love math do not fit well with an inductive approach, and that's ok, it doesn't mean they aren't mathy enough. Sometimes you just have to try some things and see how your kid is doing with it.

That article made some very good points, but my biggest problem with that article was this particular sleight of hand near the end: 1) classical schools are not turning out fluent 8th graders from 5 hours per week instruction, 2) but that's plenty of time because my self-selected and self-motivated learners spend 5 hours on their own prepping for my 90 minute classes and make great strides quickly. Hmm...

You know what's funny is after posting my comment I went back to the MP site and forums to look around...and it still looks good! Lol. It will always be the one that got away. 😉

Yep! Me too. They just look so great. Everything is very well planned. I love their ideas. It's the execution I don't like! It's as if they have an allergy to making anything interesting or enjoyable, like it's deliberately as dry as possible. And on the forum, it all sounds so beautiful. But when people ask them how to get their kids to like it more because it's torturing them, the response is usually that school shouldn't be fun or enjoyable; it should only give the joy that comes from doing a hard thing well. And I just disagree. I told my husband about CC because it sounded perfect. He basically wrote his way into the ivy league, and he thought it sounded good too - until he actually saw the sample. Hard pass. Identifying the reversal, using the technical terms -- it just seems pedantic. "Good writers don't learn to write like this" was my husband's view. And the MP forum also has some threads about kids completing the program who don't know how to write a basic research paper, because that's not the focus. Just food for thought.

I think memorizing long things or seemingly pointless history facts etc can be daunting, especially for older kids who aren't used to exercising that muscle. A younger kid can be expected to enjoy it while an older kid (3rd grade) starting for the first time might be more against it. Starting with something short and fun like a short Robert Louis Stevenson poem, and celebrating somehow when you are done, can get it going as a fun thing. The benefits depend on your goals and what you are memorizing. I'm not sure how much benefit there is to memorizing the presidents, unless the child really wants to. But I think poetry memorization is incredibly beneficial. I have watched my kids stumble over archaic words and struggle with the rhythm, and by the time they have it down, they have complete facility with these words and syntax even if it's from Shakespeare or from the 1600s. It absolutely exposes them to hard language and vocab but then it actually leads them to internalize it because it's in their memory and not just something they read and forget. There are so many favorites - Rain, The Cow, Windy Nights (perfect for Halloween and sounds like galloping if said well), Where Go the Boats etc. And my favorite is Robert Frost's Stopping by woods on a snowy evening, which is beautiful and surprisingly easy to remember if done one stanza at a time. Sometimes letting the child browse the poems and choose the one to work on makes it better. Try to see if you can have fun with it! Good luck!

For some cheap reading, you might try all the David Macaulay books. They aren't all about architecture like "Pyramid" and "Castle" -- he opens up and explains lots of systems, such as "Underground" and "The Way Things Work Now" which is often cited by engineers as one of the books that got them started on that path as kids. I say "cheap" because his books are usually available through most libraries.

I think if you get your child on board with the poem, the sky is the limit. Winston Churchill famously memorized Horatius at the Bridge, but he did it on his own because he loved it. My son doesn't always love some of his medium length poems and they don't always make it to full memory flawlessly. But he developed a love for Paul Revere's Ride and started memorizing it on his own. I would not have given it to him if he hadn't decided on it himself. Which is all just to say that a child's motivation or buy in is huge for poetry memorization. If the child has the power to help choose the poems and is engaged, they can do wonders. But even Robert Louis Stevenson will be beyond a child who hates it and doesn't want to do it.

This is a great question because there actually is a podcast where the author of W&R was asked this very question. It is the Classical Homeschool podcast episode 14. My memory is that he gave some basic response and they really pressed him and were like, "no seriously, which exactly should be skipped" and he went through and pretty much addressed each and every book and which ones were more important than others. I personally like the series and don't want to jump ship. But I do frequently look at the scope and sequence and table of contents for each book, and skip some lessons. Not all the lessons introduce new skills. So if you want to make time for other programs (I do), you can just focus your time on some of the lessons and leave out some of the extra practice stuff.

I think Dorothy Sayers' essay was sort of "rediscovered" just at the exact right time for it to catch fire. She was drawing attention to the fact that modern methods of teaching that were supposed to be much better than the old ways were generally having much worse results. In the 1940s this was beginning to be true, with lots of people still being alive who had received something akin to the old way, but well enough into the "reforms" to see the bad results. By the 1980s when people were re-reading this essay, it really resonated. FWIW, I think many people noticed she was right about the stages, in a very modest way. It's true that kids do progress from a "collecting info" stage where analysis and nuance is possible but difficult, to a time when debate and argument and nuance are fun and easy for them, and finally to a stage when expressing themselves uniquely and creatively (something they've perhaps done all along) becomes a more significant focus. So it had the ring of truth to it. I don't think her expertise convinced anyone. I think her argument resonated and they looked to her prescriptions and treated them like gospel. The trouble I think came when they tried to convert her ideas into systems and curricula, and take one line and run with it, and into the vacuum they invented something brand new (that may or may not work at all) and called it "classical" and then insisted that their collection of workbooks or plans are the same education that CS Lewis and Jefferson and Hamilton and Aquinas had.

"50 things that made the modern world" by Tim Harford is about as engaging and entertaining as it gets! Though you might take a quick glance for appropriateness. He only made the original series so it isn't ongoing but it's fantastic.

CAP's Art of Argument is fun and doable for an 11 yo.

I love Chesterton! And PG Wodehouse, and loads of other people who lived a long time ago. I don't really think there's much point in judging people by the standards of today. Everyone is a product of his or her time. But that's another subject.

For us, Latin is much more "living" than any other language. We hear it every Sunday. We don't do the full Latin mass but instead go to the novus ordo mass in English, but since it's a very traditional parish, tons of it is in Latin, and it's all memorized! We usually hear "Gloria in excelsis deo..." and the whole congregation starts in with "..ex in terra pax homnibus.." and I'm like "next week we are learning this!! I say this every week!!" Lol. My son prays the Anima Christi and I'm learning that too. The rhythm is so beautiful! We are Catholic converts. So I didn't need convincing to prioritize Latin!

Actually, I guess I was exaggerating a little. If I say "Quid agis?" They'll say "sum pessime!!" and giggle hysterically. They just didn't keep as much as I did, and that's frustrating. In retrospect, I think the best use of young-child time for Latin is perhaps memorizing declensions while memorizing is easy and fun. It's amazing how chants can stick in young kids' brains, to be recalled and used later. I'm not a devotee of Dorothy Sayers and the neo classical model, but this is true, and something she mentioned. Though she also mentioned that if you can get them speaking and hearing it spoken, that really helps. I'm intrigued by Artes Latinae for that reason, but not sure if it's worth the money to go that route.

I understand wanting to do LCC style and not wanting to give up on Latin and Greek. We've been doing Latin in some form since preK, and Greek for my oldest. However, it's amazing to me how little the young ones have retained from words they had down cold just 6 months ago - it's basically almost all gone, all 300+ words they had. I start the kids on their "real" Latin (LfC vs SSL) in 3rd grade, but honestly, my oldest still had a hard time on the most basic translations before 10 years old, and then it became easier. So now I'm dropping Latin for the littlests, because it wasn't worth all my time and effort. I wouldn't go with Familia Romana for young kids -- it's notoriously good but taxing even for adults. I even find Minimus hard for young kids. I like the history readers from CAP once they get there. For the long 6 hour day problem, perhaps some of his stuff can be done independently, and then perhaps you can just use the "timer" method to do what you can with core subjects? Then you can leave content subjects like art, history, lit, and science as library-book-based interest-driven subjects. Have lots of good audio books and library books around to read and keep your own contribution to a minimum. Sorry, one last idea: semester or trimester blocks! You can schedule fewer subjects in blocks. We only do Greek in the spring and Latin in the fall and winter. That eliminates the switching and confusion. And on the whole I can still see LOTS of progress. I still consider us as "doing Greek and Latin" even though we never do them simultaneously.