I just want to encourage you to know that lots of people today are ending up homeschooling because of bullying and other classroom problems and not because they actually want to do so. You're not alone if that's what you end up doing. And it doesn't mean you have to do it in any certain way or the way you used to. If your daughter is strong willed and in Junior high age territory, it might make sense to give her a huge amount of input in what she wants to do and let her take ownership. She could choose if she wants to do an outside class, or online class, or if she likes one type of science more than another. If it were me, I would ditch academics for the whole spring and focus on healing, having fun, building good memories together. Maybe planting a garden, having her learn to cook some things, etc. And I would try to arrange for a daytime volunteer job somewhere in the community so she can feel like she's doing something valuable. Like a vet's office or meals on wheels -- they may be happy to have even a younger child volunteering. That can help them feel a sense of purpose.

I always find these lists kind of intimidating. But then I write out my own and it also looks like a lot. -Poetry/Memory: Classically Catholic Memory (CCM) and Bible and Harp and Laurel Wreath -Handwriting: NAC 2 -Math: math mammoth -Geography: CHC explore the continents. States and capitals. CHC map skills. -History: D'Aulaire's books (Washington, Lincoln, Pocahontas), MP's Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans. -Religion: Baltimore Catechism no 1, Bible (AO year 1 Bible favorites), saints stories -Science: CCM's facts and experiments, MODG second grade science. -Latin: Song School Latin Book 2. Plus CCM has Latin prayers and hymns too? -Music: piano lessons -Art picture study: SCM, or MODG second grade art -Art technique: Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters by Mary Ann Kohl and Kim Solga. And deep space sparkle. -Literature: one MP lit guide to help with composing complete sentences. Free reading. -Spelling: starting AAS -Grammar: finish CHC Language of God A, then nothing until R&S 3 the following year. We will see what actually gets done.

I want to start Shakespeare with my 5th grade son next year, starting with one play and seeing how it goes. We will be trying the Mystie Winkler approach of: 1. Introducing the Bard using picture book biographies 2. Memorizing an excerpt from the play 3. Reading a picture book version of the play 4. Watching a good movie version of the play 5. Listening to an audiobook version while following along in the text. So I am hoping people know which plays speak to boys (no Romeo and Juliet!), preferably with good picture book versions and movie options to go with. Bonus if there's a good audio version too!! Any suggestions?

You can also go through and just look at the lessons and decide if you really need everything. I don't know TGTB but with R&S grammar there's a lot of repetition from year to year. I felt pretty confident choosing the most important 36 lessons (one per week) and calling it good. Not sure if that can be done with TGTB but if you're feeling like you're trying to cram everything in, you might be able to go through and choose the most important bits rather than trying to check the box on every single lesson.

I want to second NAC from MP! I am not an MP person really, but I had used cursive books meant for Kindergarten from Abeka and needed something else. They were in color and pretty, but my kids didn't get the formation. With NAC 1 (which is designed to be started in 1st grade) there is a very clear instruction for the letters. I saw the "samples" of first graders' work on copying the pledge of allegiance in cursive and thought it looked like a miracle. But my first grader has really done well with it! I don't know why but it clicked for her. Now I'm going to buy NAC 1 again next year for my fifth grader actually, because he learned cursive back in 2-3rd grade but the instruction was patchy (my fault) and even now he can't form certain letters well.

Go the Andrew Pudewa route on this: bring home good audio books. Have him listen while playing or building Legos. That can bridge the gap and continue exposing him to excellent language patterns. Sarah Mackenzie has a post and podcast episode about this -- saying basically, yes audiobooks totally count. If you get the first two Percy Jackson or Artemis Fowl books on audiobook, he may be willing to read the next in book form if you "can't find it" on audio. This worked for my son. He still reads garbage graphic novels too, but now he also reads big chapter books like secret Benedict society. ETA: I shouldn't assume you know about Andrew Pudewa. His son couldn't read until he was 12, despite working on phonics one on one for years. But he listened to a ton of audiobooks. Pudewa says that of all his 7 kids, that child is the best writer and reader today, and he credits the exposure to good books even though he wasn't developmentally able to read well. I think chapter books can be a big jump for some.

I haven't done any lit analysis with my rising 5th grader, and I'm on the fence about starting it. I think I will choose one MP lit guide and see how it goes, probably only assigning a fraction of the written questions. I don't want to kill his love of reading and I do think it's a possibility. Sarah Mackenzie makes the claim pretty well that beyond discussions, you don't ever need to do lit analysis. But if your kid isn't into discussions, I don't think it's crazy to expect some type of written output. I am excited to try CAP's Art of Poetry. It's supposed to be excellent even for people who aren't into poetry. I like that, because I don't have to worry about killing his love for it, because he doesn't particularly love it. But it's supposed to be grade 7 and up. So I think I'm planning that.

I would bring only two workbooks for each kid: a handwriting book and a math book. (We use Essentials for K and math mammoth after, which you could print in advance or as needed.) That's it. And maybe a children's Bible. The library will have easy readers for phonics, science and history books, and excellent read alouds. If you're only going to be gone for a semester, just focus on the basics of writing and math and reading good books, and spend the rest of the time exploring! Actually, nevermind, I forgot you'll be abroad! Just explore that culture!! You could take the whole semester off honestly and still be fine at that age. It's easier to teach a 6 or 7 year old to read than a 4 or 5 year old anyway.

My husband has a perennial answer for this sort of thing: reformers are usually "right about what's wrong, but wrong about what's right." It's much easier to accurately critique what's wrong with the current system than to put forth a complete new theory that actually works and doesn't create new problems. John Holt is devastatingly on the mark about what's wrong with the school system, but when he puts forth his own theory, it's not clear that it's anything more than a guess, with potentially unintended consequences. For CM, she was clearly right about correcting a lot of wrongs in her own time -- but it's not at all clear how bound her ideas are to the Victorian era, and what books or subjects she might have covered today. (What would she have done with coding? With STEM kits? Would she have preferred Paddle to the Sea over an interactive globe? Her students also didn't have any screens to compete for their leisure time, ever; does that matter?) Again, these people are excellent guides to the problems they see in their own time and context -- but their positive theories are IMO much less reliable. If they work for you, great! But if not, I don't think that's surprising.

I expect the answer is "no"! I am going to try AAS for my 1st and 2nd graders next year, and I was wondering if I might use it for my 5th grader too. He's a decent speller but he doesn't know any "rules" of spelling whatsoever. The main snag with that plan is that he works very independently and hates to be "taught" by me, though he is very conscientious about self-teaching and getting correction afterward. I know AAS is teacher-heavy but I wonder if there's a creative way to do this. Maybe giving him the TM? Enlisting him to help teach the younger kids? I don't actually have the program yet so I don't know if this is possible.

I just want to caution you, that it's normal to feel "school sick" like feeling homesick when you move. Parents want to hear that the new town is even better than the old one, but it takes a while to feel that way and grieve for the old town. My son loved school (which was part of the problem: who wouldn't love being told all day how smart you are and gossiping about YouTubers? Ugh) and his first year was very hard. He was constantly reminding me what he was missing and it was all the same stuff: soccer during recess, sitting with friends in the lunchroom, etc. He felt a part of that culture and now it's gone. That was like a knife in my heart but it doesn't last. After the first year, he settled in. We have a great Friday group that does drop off classes in robotics, duct tape warfare, Lego challenges, etc and we got to know those kids. You do have to provide a new "culture" or "town" to replace the old one. It really pays to know why you decided to homeschool, and then stick to it. Kids get a lot of reassurance in knowing that it isn't their decision and that you will make these decisions in their best interest and they won't get to choose. It's frustrating at first, but it's worse for them if they think you aren't really in charge. Those boundaries give closure so they can move on to new fun memories.

H A Rey (of Curious George fame) wrote two picture books on Astronomy: The Stars (which is apparently what they start with at MIT in Astronomy) and Finding the Constellations. I love astronomy, and I found The Stars fascinating, but it is at a very high level. It is essentially an intro college course in picture book form. But it may be perfect for a kid with a real interest. For my 4th grader, we used Finding the Constellations as a supplement to MP astronomy. I liked that one, and it's clearly written for kids. I also bought an augmented reality star gazing app so we would always know which stars we were looking at and be able to make the books we were reading come alive a little better.

The Schole Sisters podcast is all about combining classical with CM and has lots of episodes on CM methods and narration. And Pam Barnhill's Your Morning Basket early episodes really focus on how exactly to do the nitty gritty of narrations, nature study, Shakespeare, etc and have been amazingly helpful. There's also the Mason Jar podcast and the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast and website/curriculum if you want more stuff or like podcasts. SCM also has a good forum. If you're serious about CM, Ambleside Online has a "pre-Year 7" curriculum (I think) for kids who are older and just starting out in the method. My two cents: I think CM always sounds really good! Short lessons, excellent books, classics, nature, poetry, art! What's not to love? But for me, I just can't make it work. For one, you need to be reading aloud a lot of the harder classics unless she's already in a place to read those herself. Maybe that would be good for her, because you'd be learning and reading socially together. (For me, I have too many babies.) And she'd need to learn to narrate orally first (oral composition) and then you can have her write short written narrations. CM is heavy on history and literature and using good, living, narrative books for science and Geography. If you instead want to prioritize Latin, logic, writing, etc or you would rather not have such a heavy focus on all the history and lit, it would be less useful. For me, when I look at the beautiful booklists, I have to remind myself that there are only so many hours in a day -- so it's a trade off. I personally don't value "content" subjects like history and literature as much as skill subjects like math, logic, Latin, etc. But for many people, the Shakespeare plays and such are the focus of their homeschool. So that is a personal preference. Well if you're starting in the summer or fall, you have time to decide! Good luck!

I'm confused. Do you mean reading something to them, and having them give you a written narration back of what they remember? Are they already doing oral narrations? My understanding is that young kids usually start by telling back orally from simpler stories (like Aesop or a picture book like Paddle to the Sea etc) and progress to written narrations around 3rd-4th. But I guess if you have kids who love to write, you can have them do it earlier.

There's so much great stuff in Ancients that it can feel overwhelming to want to cover everything and read all the things. Try to pick a few really good books and stick with those. And really heavily hit the ancient myths -- your kids will remember the Trojan horse and the sirens and the cyclops for a lifetime, when the exact dates of the middle kingdom or which Caesar lived did what will have long past out of memory. And when they read classic literature, they will see those allusions everywhere.

I think it depends on what you want to focus on. We do R&S English but I just picked out 36 of the most important lessons at the beginning of the year and do only one per week, and we don't do written narrations or the R&S writing. And then we use the extra time to do Writing & Rhetoric. I just wanted him to work especially on writing. And I've always been bad at narrations, personally. I agree to check back in later in middle school... I've always wondered how the CM kids get from written narrations to more complex forms of writing. But if course, you don't need a program to teach that necessarily.

Next year I will be homeschooling kids in PreK, 1st, 2nd, 5th, and there will be 2 littles under foot. This is currently our 2nd year and I generally love HS planning. I love deciding on the very best fit for each child for each subject. However... I'm wondering if it's just better to get the plans and the package and compromise on the curriculum choices for the sake of my sanity, or if I would just regret it and hate it. The reason I ask is that right now I have plans for my K/1st grader (CHC) and even though we use a different math and add to their weekly plans (poetry and Bible memory, history, Song school Latin), it really only takes me 15-20 minutes on Sunday to plan our week. Maybe it's because they're so young that they mostly just do the next thing? Or maybe it's because the plans make me feel good about being on track? I don't know. But for my 4th grader, I hand-picked all of his materials and tweaked them all and made my own plan for the year. But still, every Sunday it takes me an hour or so to plan out the week. There are just so many loops and blocks and chapter books and moving parts, and I like to tweak it if he's ahead or behind. But I'm feeling like that's becoming just too much, especially with a new baby almost here, and two more students moving into elementary work. I'm sick of reinventing the wheel. I've looked at Memoria Press, Catholic Heritage Curricula, Ambleside Online, Mater Amabilis, Veritas Press, Simply Charlotte Mason, Mother of Divine Grace... They all have some great stuff but they all also have a bunch of stuff I don't want to use. I'm always tempted by MP, but my oldest already loves his math and his CAP writing and Latin. Plus it's a 5 day week with 9 subjects per day - how could we not get behind?? I'd rather add to a gentler schedule than take away from a packed one. The CM ones aren't a great fit because I prefer a focus on math, writing, and Latin and I rarely have time to read aloud to a big group with all the littles making trouble. I don't want computer learning though.. I guess I'm wondering what other people have experienced. Did you make the move to just go with a boxed curriculum even if you didn't like all their picks? Was it frustrating and a waste of money or the best move you ever made? Did the non-favorite picks turn out better than expected or did you just go back to what you liked?

I also feel that way about CM. She scheduled her schoolkids for mornings only -- but 6 days per week. We have an excellent drop off program we do on Fridays, so we school only 4 days. I just couldn't see us getting to all of those lessons. And with lots of kids, and babies, I don't have the ability to do what some people say ("It's easy, we just do these subjects from 9-12, then take a break for lunch and play, and these other subjects from 2-4, and we're done!" Yeah, I do not have 5 full hours of instruction time in me to give). I need to be done in 60-90 minutes max for my young kids K-2 and maybe 30-40 max for my older independent kid. I can't be reading out loud with toddlers and babies screaming at me and throwing themselves on my books, which they do. We do a "daily checklist" of items with my young two in K and 1st: poetry and memory verse (both take 3 minutes or less), math, and handwriting. Then everything else gets done once per week on a checklist. I keep everything on a single sheet of paper with the pages and lessons we must cover. For my older independent kid in 4th, he does do loops. I have changed them around a lot to fit what I wanted to cover better. He does a language arts loop that started with copywork, grammar, and spelling. Now it's one week of 3 days Writing and Rhetoric and one day spelling, then an alternate week of 3 days grammar and one day spelling. Poetry, memory, math, and religion are daily (with religion on its own loop). He has a loop of typing and Latin, and a loop of history, science, and geography. So he may only do Latin twice weekly, but I'm happy with his progress. Sometimes we do history twice weekly with science and geography once, while other times we switch it to alternating weeks and just do one full week of geography or science, etc. I think loops are best used like that, per "subject" or per "slot." I know we can only have so many "slots" of subjects on my son's schedule before he really gets overwhelmed with school. Plus he reads so much outside of assignments that I don't think he needs 4 hours of official school work.

Another option is to think of your loop schedule items on more of a "weekly checklist" level, if you want to hit them all at least once in the week. So every day, you say "I'm going to choose 2 or 3 of these to work on based on how I feel, and what else we've got going on," and as long as you hit them all at some point in the week, you can feel good. This works well for me. I'm spontaneous and I hated having to "do the next thing" when it didn't perfectly fit the day. Sometimes no one felt like doing Latin and wanted to do Bible, and I just got sick of trying to deal with the loop. So we did the weekly checklist instead.

Things I don't do well and DO feel guilty about: nature study, reading aloud (my dh sort of does), deep literature discussions, Plutarch, morning time with hymns and prayers and such Things I don't do and DON'T care about: sports, unit studies, big history cycles with tons of books and projects, art appreciation past the early years

I wanted to reply to this, but this is pretty much exactly what I was going to say. I used BA as a full curriculum for 3rd grade and it was fun, but I consider it our "lost year" in math. He worked the puzzles but did not retain the procedures. I didn't want to let it drop because I was hung up on BA being the best and hardest option. But in reality, Math Mammoth is giving him plenty of challenges while building those solid core skills. And it includes a puzzle corner too once in a while. I intended to use BA as a supplement, but really we are so busy with MM and progressing so well I just didn't.

I agree with everyone who said 2A. Building solid foundations will prevent problems down the road. I had almost the same situation (good at math and enjoyed it, then unhappy, didn't like BA, felt behind). We have loved MM. It does have lots of practice but Maria Miller specifically says that an average child should do about half the problems. The rest are for extra practice. So I cross out about half, or we skip whole pages if he's solid on something. Then we do all the problems when we need to. We also skip sections like geometry in order to ensure plenty of time to cement the basic four operations, knowing we can always circle back later. What I liked about MM was that it was so cheap for all grades 1-6 when it was on sale at homeschool buyers co-op (which I think it might be now too?). So I figured even if I only used it to print off relevant review problems or shore up some difficult issue it would be worth it.

Yeah, that's fair. Of my 5 (soon 6) kids, only 3 are schooling and they are in K, 1st, and 4th. So those are limited data points. But the three of them all just love working on their own. I give their assignments very close attention, and the K child gets very little formal work to do. But they just love owning it. Perhaps this is just too limited of a data set. And kids change as well.

I feel like this comes more easily to homeschoolers, especially homeschoolers who don't have the time or inclination to be top-down lecturers. My kids have to work fairly independently because there are so many of them. Then we solve problems on a one-on-one basis (the tutoring model). I don't think I own a single curriculum where I use a teacher guide to "teach" or lecture to my kids. We use Math Mammoth, and similar programs. They all show great skills for self-directed learning and I didn't really teach that either. The question (in my opinion) is, how do you get that for kids in a public or private school? They are in a large group setting. It seems unrealistic to expect these poor teachers to get to all the content, attend to all the discipline, defend themselves to the parents, tailor their lessons to the different needs of their students if at all possible, and also to somehow teach independence and motivation to kids who may have totally messed up family situations full of academic pressure, overscheduling, two households to navigate, extracurriculars... It seems like everyone overlooks the sanity and character traits that are best for kids to succeed. A kid who goes to the right schools might end up taking a host of psychiatric drugs and failing out of school. But it seems largely a parent driven and family driven set of skills that those families make into priorities.

These 3 subjects would be really easy to do together. I would second those who said SCM picture study (just choose your artist(s) and you're good) and throw in some Deep Space Sparkle for technique when the mood strikes. For science, I would subscribe to something cheap like Young Scientists Club ($119/year) for the fun experiments, and then just get the kids library books in their topics of interest. You really don't need much in elementary science besides getting outside, observing the natural world casually, and passing along the fun parts of science so they will find it interesting. History would work well with SOTW. Fine and done, lol.