@kirstenhill thank you! That is helpful! I noticed they have audiobooks now, maybe I’ll go with that.

Yes. I feel it’s a very slow and steady spiral compared to other programs that felt like a cyclonic spiral. Horizons TGTB 👀🌪️

If you’ve used Sassafras Science do you have any thoughts or opinions to share? Most of the reviews I’ve seen on Amazon are glowing, but YouTube reviews say it’s terrible. I tried the sample, it didn’t seem too bad but it’s hard to tell from a few pages. How are the activities? Does it require expensive supplies? I can probably work about $20 for supplies a month into my budget.

Me too. I want to do all the things. My dss is going into 7th grade and I feel like time is slipping away. There have been so many things I’ve wanted to do and every year I’ve said “next year!” and we still haven’t done it. Like chess. I’ve been on SCM like three times today window shopping, so I feel you there.

I feel I can’t really proceed with buying and planning until I know if we’re going to join a coop next year. I’ve accumulated so many pieces of curricula in the past few years. I don’t *need* anything else. But when I look through everything I’m like, well…. If I use this then I need to buy XYZ books for it and the student book and 30 other random things. Then I’m overwhelmed and start window shopping. Ugh.

Same.

Glad to see your update! I hope you’re feeling better. ❤️

For us it’s more about the time commitment and money. I don’t want to sign up for any activity that requires multiple practices every week and then spending all weekend at games. We like to go on adventures and explore, and sports would really cut into that. We also value family dinner and most team sports we’ve looked into practice between 5-7pm. We’ve enjoyed swim classes, art classes, karate, bowling league, chess club, lego club, robotics, nature clubs, and ice skating lessons (rec level). Two of my children like to participate in seasonal plays at church. They all take homeschool PE at the YMCA once a week. We go to the Y a lot actually, it’s been well worth it for us.

I’m not familiar with MEP, so maybe I’m off in my recommendations…… Bedtime Math Math Start Series (not sure if this has questions at the end, we haven’t used them in awhile) Anno’s Math Series Richard Scarry’s Best Counting Book Ever (OOP) *no questions Mr. Base 10 Invents Mathematics Life of Fred? Possibly Math By Hand or another Waldorf ish style math. Not sure how you feel about the art component most Waldorf maths have.

My go to’s: Board games, grocery store math, deep clean vehicle, play in the forest, book scavenger hunt at the library, or try a new park. If you celebrate Easter you could do egg hunts, Easter baking, make a resurrection scene (like a nativity).

It’s a hard choice. TBH I would try it and see how it goes. Worst case, you pull her out and lose registration fees and a few months tuition. Best case, she loves it and makes lasting friendships while receiving a decent brick & mortar education. I was a lonely homeschooled kid, so that’s what’s playing into my comment.

Easy Peasy? We went to a homeschool park day and almost everyone there used Power Homeschool. I’d never heard of it, but apparently it’s popular.

I don’t know if I could handle that commute plus another school in the opposite direction. phew. That’s a lot on you. Do they have a summer program/school you could test run? Are there any other social options if you continue to homeschool? Any coops or groups? Any special programs that science centers or museums offer in your area? Does she want to go? How did the shadow day go? IDK If I had the money and my kid wanted to go, I would probably agree to try it. Especially if they were lonely and we couldn’t find anywhere else to meet their social needs.

I believe The Good and The Beautiful’s math has optional video clips. I haven’t used their most recent editions so I can’t say for sure. I think TGTB can be a nice step out of Abeka.

😂 Mine are like that too. The younger two tried to write with their socks on their hands today. I’m like okayyyy 🤪

That’s great! They must be very diligent!

13, nearly 9, and almost 8.

How many hours a day do you spend homeschooling with book work? I’m just curious! For us it varies, but most days it’s about 5-6 hours. If we just do math and English bookwork we’re done in about 2 hours. (3 school aged kids) We’ve had a lot of minimum days for various appointments/errands/interruptions and coming back to the full day has been…… tiring. Lol

Wow! Awesome! Is that the Truth, Beauty and Goodness notebook? I still really love the idea of this.

We used the Jr.K. At the time they only offered a two day a week JrK and I broke it into three days. I remember some the books weren’t to our taste but ultimately it was fine. A lot of people don’t like the crafts, but we liked them. We did MFW-K (mistake!) and half way through I dropped it and we doubled up on MP’s K enrichment. So we didn’t do everything. I loved the K though. My son was meh on the art and music. We listened to the music at snack. 😂 I really liked the science and history books that paired up with the literature. I bought most of them and we still read them! I think I read on the MP Forum once that you could combine and loop the K-2 enrichment if you had several kids.

I would probably buy some units off of Teachers Pay Teachers or subscribe to Read Aloud Revival for a few months. You could check Etsy for unit studies. There are lot of different things within your price point. We like HearthMagic and BooksandWillows. Would he like Reading Eggs/Eggspress? It’s an app, but it’s well done. It also includes Math Seeds but I think that may only go up to 2nd.

Coming back to this… there are so many reasons to homeschool! My favorite part of homeschooling is that we get to do life together. Homeschooling gives us time. It gives us memories. You never know what life will hold. These are our golden years. I followed a homeschool mom on YouTube that recently passed away and it broke my heart. In one of her videos she talked about how thankful she was her children had special memories with her from homeschooling. And it just gave me all the feels and put so many things in perspective.

We live on the same street as an elementary school. The car line opens at 6:45 a.m. and the tardy bell rings at 7:15 a.m. yeah, it’s a no from me (removed my GIF)

I probably don’t even need to buy anything if I piece it together because I have a ton of stuff….. FLL/WWE Rod And Staff Primary Language Lessons Veritas Press Lit Guides Memoria Lit Guides Voyages in English Dictation day by Day Draw Write Now Literature Pockets And who knows what else…. I find so much at the thrift store. 🤪 probably need to re-donate half of it.

I actually really like R&S. These two kids just struggle with multiple books for one subject. I guess I could try it again, maybe it would go smoother now that they’re older. I also have to keep myself in check when I piece things together because I tend to go overboard.