Math mammoth is great, and the creator Maria Miller specifically says that most kids should be doing only half the problems - the other half are for those who need more practice. She also teaches the same thing in multiple ways in case the child isn't getting one of them - which means you can choose to teach those "extra" methods or not based on what type of learner you have, like if your kid needs more of an abstract approach or more pictorial.

I agree with what everyone else is saying. I just wanted to add that when my girls were in pre-k4 and K together, we would slowly memorize a poem and a Bible verse, maybe 3 minutes per day. That's it! And it was great. They raced in circles around the house yelling "the rain is raining all around!!!!..." When they got the whole thing easily, I put it in their notebook and they could draw a little picture if they wanted. (They usually didn't, lol.) But that was such a great use of 3 minutes. We could do it while the kids were playing with blocks or animal friends. The whole "how many hours are in a day?" type recitation is a little silly. It's not like there's a benefit to having that early vs learning it normally, like you might get to adulthood and not know there were 24 hours. But filling the kids with poems has a direct benefit on their language patterns and skills, as well as building their memory muscles.

We just finished Fable with my 4th grader last year. I started it at mid-year because I felt guilty that we hadn't done any writing really. I liked it, and my son liked it. I don't have an unlimited time for LA because I don't like to load up his day and we also do Latin and school only 4 days per week, so this was our schedule: one day of spelling workbook, then 3 days of grammar. The following week it would be one day of spelling again, and then 3 days of W&R. In those 3 days we could get everything done for the lesson. So doing it every other week and starting halfway through the year, we got through about half the lessons. I'm going to just move on to Narrative 1 next year. Later on the program looks like it gets more serious, but Fable was nice and gentle (by design) for young kids, and I am happy with what we got out of it. My son was usually very silly in his writing but that was ok with me (like, they would ask him to replace the adjectives and he would write "The ugly mouse with the sleepy teeth.." and I'm kind of annoyed because it's not good writing, but his point was "look, I know what an adjective is and I liked replacing them with crazy ones." Maybe I should have cracked down on that but I sort of saw the curriculum as playing with stories and language.) My one major "con" is that it didn't seem to *instruct* so much as provide detailed prompts for changing and playing with stories. I do think that was by design. From what I've seen, it ramps up fairly quickly. That first book is like somewhere between IEW on one side and bravewriter on the other. It also has a little Charlotte Mason because it incorporates oral narration and dictation. I hate doing CM but knew those skills were valuable, so I liked that W&R forced me to do them. And he has gotten a lot of mileage out of them, especially the dictation. Not sure if that continues in later books.

I agree that the MP folks are helpful and you should contact them, and the MP forum is also very active. This link shows that they expect a 7th grader who has been doing MP Latin the whole time to be in 3rd form. (But switching programs might cause gaps.) https://www.memoriapress.com/articles/which-latin-program-do-i-start-with/ This link also says the forms (1-4) basically take 4 years to cover Year 1 of Henle Latin, so you might do Henle 1 at a much slower pace. You'd still be on track with high school Latin if it took you 2-3 years. OTOH, you might not like Henle... Some people don't. Can I ask why you didn't go on to Primer C? Since Latin Alive is also from CAP, it seems like skipping a level. I think finishing Primer C is supposed to put you in a good position to start a high school program like Henle. I am doing Primer B with my 5th grader next year and planning to take it slow, hoping to finish C by the end of 8th grade. And then not sure about what to do for high school since a lot of people dislike Henle and I don't want to force it at that age.

I think some people were a little surprised by this, but I would answer YES! I am currently doing Greek and Latin with my kids, and it is going very well, and I'm not learning ahead at all, and had no background knowledge. We either do it together or I use a combination of the answer key and the student instructions to figure out any issues, which has worked great and models finding the answer! Also, I was good at math growing up, but I had no memory at all of how to do those tasks like borrowing, or dividing fractions, and certainly no clue about the best ways to teach it! We use Math Mammoth, which is excellent and written directly to the student. If my kids need help, we look at the text or go back to where it was explained. You don't need to be a master of a subject to teach your kids, just willing to learn and problem solve. And I should add that my kids all love math and are ahead of grade level! Some homeschooling moms love to do more of a controlled teaching, with a guide. Some have a more relaxed "let's do this lesson together" approach. As long as you're willing to problem solve and approach it with a good attitude, you can teach anything! And if you top out on your skills, there are online classes at that point. Don't feel intimidated, just look for a program that is open and go, or written to the student, or with DVD lessons you can watch together.

I think your DS can get everything "extra" from schooly stuff you do with both of them, and she'll get some benefit from it on her level too -- reading aloud, doing a letter puzzle and talking about the sounds they make, counting songs, playing with math manipulatives like scoop-a-bug or a balance or cuisenaire rods or base ten blocks. Give them both maze books for small motor and lines for cutting and they can both practice to their abilities. That way you won't have to distract her with anything or do double duty trying to keep them separately busy.

I LOVE those two workbooks, Essential Math A and B. I love that A is basically an activity book, so no kid could really dislike it, and it builds confidence. And then B is really slowly and steadily solid, but never intimidating, just fun. I haven't used Kate Snow, but I did try the Singapore Earlybird K workbooks, and they were more colorful but not nearly so good. We are back to Essential Math for my next Ker. Love it.

(((Hugs)))

How long does it take you then to go through everything? Do you get push back from the kids with all of that? Also, "If" is excellent!! How had I never even heard of it? And yet the words are so familiar. It's amazing what I never learned!!

Five eyes is going on the list 👍

This is a good idea! I'm just now setting up my SCM-style box for scripture this year. I should add poems or stanzas maybe. I just checked out the Horatius set. It looks very cool! I think we usually don't add workbooks if we don't have to. But I do like the idea of tackling it in 6th grade in a systematic fashion over a period of time. We usually just spend 5 minutes first thing and move on.

The whole declaration? There's a lot of grievances against the King in there!

If you have your child memorize poetry, speeches, scripture, etc, what is the longest thing they have proudly and cheerfully memorized and how old were they? And when do you stop? This isn't a competition.. I'm just curious. I know Winston Churchill memorized all 70 stanzas of Macaulay's Horatius and used to recite them for friends his whole life. And PG Wodehouse always jokes that every child can say "The Wreck of the Hesperus." That one seems unlikely at our house. My fourth grade son liked "The Death of Sennacherib" and "The Charge of the Light Brigade." The longest ones my K and 1st grader did were "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost, and "How doth the little busy bee" by Isaac Watts. I'm thinking I really want to continue as long as possible, perhaps focusing on Shakespeare and speeches, like the Gettysburg address and "I have a dream," in the later grades. Thoughts from others who memorize poetry?

For someone just starting out, I would highly suggest they just pick out a core somewhere that aligns with their religion (or lack) and has lesson plans, and then over the course of the first year they can learn about the different styles and companies and their kids' needs. Oak meadow, abeka, mp, would all work fine for the first grader. But yeah, the 8th grader would need something more online given the custody and plans. But I think it's unrealistic to expect most moms to build their curriculum from the ground up unless they just like that sort of thing -- lots of people on here do, but IRL I never meet people who do.

Thank you, yes, this is really the advice I needed. I've mostly "outsourced" writing by having him do Writing & Rhetoric, which he is happy with. I just didn't know how or whether to correct his errors. I forgot to mention how I design my own curriculum. Here are the steps: 1. Research and choose the perfect resource for each kid for each subject. 2. Remember how much work it is to create the plans and adjust all year with 6 young kids. 3. Choose a prepackaged curriculum with ready-made lesson plans. 4. Follow the plans and almost immediately start substituting and adjusting. 5. Go on a shopping spree and buy all the materials I picked out in Step 1. 6. Implement my new plans, constantly readjusting, and swear that next year I'm just going to find a boxed curriculum and do it as written. 7. Repeat.

Thanks for the tip on Treasured Conversations! I will look at that. I think I just have a block about teaching writing. I love planning our curriculum, I love teaching basically every subject -- except writing. Either I hate having to make them write when they don't want to (because I don't want it to be a chore, which is why I don't assign reading either), or I hate having to somehow help them with their mistakes without criticizing them to death. It's like my self-designed curriculum is a beautiful, detailed map, and then for writing it's just a blank sea with "thar be dragons" on it. (Or I guess it would be a kraken in the sea, lol.)

It sounds like there are a lot of people in this thread who are talking about teaching writing, and are talking sometimes about young kids (like K-3), and not just handwriting practice or copywork or oral narration. And I've heard people elsewhere say their kids need to be doing some type of written composition every day. I'm wondering, why is that important? Mystie Winckler makes an argument here https://www.simplyconvivial.com/2016/teach-writing-without-curriculum/ and I wonder what people think about it? She basically says that before age 10-11 you should just focus on filling the kids up with excellent language (memorizing poetry, Shakespeare, lots of read alouds), because at 7-9 years old you will spend 2-3 years painfully teaching kids skills that are acquired very quickly in middle school, and that good writing is essentially about having interesting things to say in internalized, high-quality language patterns (which they won't yet have properly at 7). I'm inclined to agree. I don't know, though, my oldest is 10 and writing is easy for him. Just wondering what people think.

Forgive me, I only skimmed some of these great responses. I just wanted to say that I once spent a ton of time and effort assembling these types of things for the fall which I called Busy Bags, but were basically centers. The kids pretty uniformly dumped them all or did them once and then never again, and would just come find me or play at this age. It was a big regret for me. My new strategy is: never wait to "unveil" a new thing in the fall. If I plan to do morning time every day starting this fall, or whatever, then I try it right NOW, this week. Then if it works I can plan for the fall, but if we try for a week and the kids hate it or I hate it, then I know now and I can readjust. It's much nicer than finding it out when you've built it up and it's "showtime!" on the first of September. So whatever you want those kids to do (self-quiz using flashcards etc), just try it tomorrow and try to work out the kinks. There's no advantage to keeping it a surprise from yourself.

If it were me and I cared about making an improvement, I think I would focus on cursive, and then ask for their assignments to be done in cursive or typed. I think it's hard to make print look nice without it becoming chicken scratch unless you're really concentrating hard. I don't think fast, attractive print is a real thing. IMO, most adults who print nicely on a label or grocery list can't keep it up for a long document in longhand without it degenerating into a messy print-cursive hybrid. But with some work, you can improve both style and speed with sustained practice in cursive. Just my two cents.

I don't have anything else useful to add for the OP, just seconding that your DH should choose what he'd like to teach. And to have fun with it and make memories, and not load up too heavily and get stressed out. I just want to put a plug in for CHC. They are constantly coming out with new stuff and I get more impressed each year. I used to think they were too easy or gentle. But honestly, I add in different history and we do Latin from CAP, and it keeps us plenty busy! My kids can do a lot of it on their own. They have awesome hands on geography and religion projects. It's all very eclectic. We still sub things out, like math mammoth, etc. and once the kids get older I use less of it, but I think it's fun and creative, and I think the Catholic part is really beautifully integrated. I also like modg a lot and mix some of those parts. I wish MP or another whole curriculum would fit out of the box but it never does, especially when the kids get older and I just have so many preferences for what I want this child to cover.

Yes, I agree with OP. I heard the same podcast and totally was convicted by Angelina Stanford's arguments. I don't have a boxed curriculum to offer. Here's what I did/am planning: this year we were doing ancients, and after the podcast I took out the historical fiction completely. I focused less on names and dates (we were doing famous men of Rome) and focused on the stories we should know (I started focusing on Greek myths, retellings of the Odyssey, etc). Chances are he was never going to remember those Roman emporers anyway. Next year we are doing middle ages and I want to focus on Vikings, Norse myths, tales like Robin Hood and King Arthur, and Shakespeare, and possibly parts of Our Island Story and the children's version of pilgrim's progress that MP uses. (And so on for the other periods, asking what are the key stories and/or primary sources.) In other words, it's still sort of combining history and literature, but I'm prioritizing the literature by thinking about what kinds of stories and myths were heavily influential in the culture. My theory is that no one, not even homeschoolers, retains much of the details of history lessons, but we all remember stories. The Trojan horse is vivid in our minds long after we forget everything else about that project we did on Homer. So yeah, I know curricula are shiny but I'd just diy, and don't overthink it. I'd rather do too little and throw in interest driven reading than try to do too much, personally.

I feel like MP is not a good fit for our family as a full curriculum, but if you go to each grade level of students you have and copy and paste every literature selection (usually 4 or so per year) plus all the suggested read-alouds, plus all the suggested history and classical enrichment books (D'Aulaires etc) into one list, you have a really good booklist. In fact, if you have preK-6th and you copy every suggested book including the huge lists of preK-2nd enrichments for science and history, in addition to the classic read alouds for older grades, you will have a very long list of hundreds of books.

So does being on the same page mean you watched TWSS together?

I will be following this! I feel like an idiot for not really understanding how all the pieces in IEW fit together.

This is so hard. I'm not there yet and I don't know what the answer is, and I don't know what I will actually do vs what I want to do. I only know my own experience. I was not homeschooled but went to a small Christian school from K-8 and then went to public high school in a fairly nice, good suburban district. My mom pretty much thought of me and my brothers as "done" by that point - like she had raised us and put in the time and we went to the Christian school and the cake was pretty much baked and we were good kids. My older brother only had one year of public high school (12th) and he did fine. My younger brother and I had both lost our faith by the end, and I had gotten into trouble with drugs. It wasn't the school's fault at all, it's just the bubble of high school, the constant drama, the very very nice sweet kids who have access to a lot of free time/money/internet and become less than great influences. Everyone says "the social piece is really important" or "he went for social reasons" but that's my concern. I'd like it if I can find a way to get my kids some social outlets without linking it to 8-10 hours in that seething hormone drama bubble plus trying to get learning done. But my experience is likely outdated and now kids are dealing with stress and hyper competition over grades and tests and extracurriculars and getting into a good college, and I also don't want that. OTOH my kid will probably really want to go to school and I don't know what that fight will look like. Sigh. That's hard. But it is still our decision. He has 60 more years of his life to make his own decisions and he can be as free as a bird and as social as he chooses. Maybe I will try to get him a volunteer position during day hours to get some outside contact. And find more social stuff to do. And local co-op classes with a classroom experience one or two days per week. I hope you have peace with your decision whatever you choose!