Yes, gap fillers would be wonderful. I’m taking all advice right now as I don’t know which way to plan for. We are really hoping the mail opens again soon! It’s been shut down since mid-March, so it’s been quite a while! Can’t see that they could keep it shut much longer, but then, this is all new territory, so who knows?!

Great! Thanks! I will check it out!

This looks great! Thank you! I’m going to look at it today!

Hi! Thank you! That sounds really interesting! And would save a lot in printing costs. Can you use any curriculum with the app, or is it one curriculum specifically? My girls are 7th and 4th.

wonderful! Thank you so much for this! I will check into it for sure!

Thank you for the reminder! Yes we have downloaded a few things from them in the past that I’d forgotten about. Will look at some their stuff!

Thanks for the ideas! I did contact BJU-I used their online chat and I emailed a rep directly. The person I “spoke to” on chat said they don’t have any work texts that are downloadable for us. I explained the situation, and she still said no. I was surprised, because I’m sure there are many other missionaries in our same predicament. I haven’t heard back from the rep I emailed yet. I’m hoping he can talk with a higher up and see if there’s something they can do. I will take a look at TT. Thanks!

Yes, we have access to the library back home. We can borrow books on our kindles, so I can get some books that way for the girls to read.

Thank you so much for these options! I will take a look at them. I’ve never done online classes before, so I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. History has gone to the back shelf for us this year due to lots of changes. We were doing MOH before and will probably start with the third book. Although that book is in the US right now and we can’t get it. Ugh. I will look at VP. I’ve never used their stuff before. I was interested in their omnibus program for our 7th grader, but it looks quite rigorous and I’m not sure she’s ready for it yet. I’ll also look at SOTW. I think it may be downloadable? We had to pull our girls out of a school here, so that’s why our year has been disjointed and we are needing a stable year coming up. I hate to switch curriculums, but I may need to. Reading is a big one for us because my older daughter needs work on her comprehension. I need a strong program for her. If anyone knows of an online reading program, I would appreciate any ideas! Thank you so much!!

Thank you for your help! I just contacted MUS and they said they don’t have the student workbooks as downloads, but that we could use the worksheet generator to go along with the online instruction pack. I’ve looked at MM in the past, but it’s been a while. I hate to just switch math curriculums if I don’t have to. It’s just sooo frustrating that companies don’t offer more of the curriculum as pdf. It would greatly help people overseas! We have 2 daughters-upcoming 4th and 7th grade. My 7th grader really needs stability in her curriculum. She’s bounced a lot and has anxiety issues, so we want a solid year for her this next year.

Hi! I’m hoping someone will have some ideas that will help ease my mind! We are missionaries currently overseas. We are looking into curriculum for this upcoming year, but we have a concern. The country we are in is not receiving international mail now due to COVID-19. We haven’t received any mail since March and it looks like it could be this way indefinitely. This makes it impossible for us to order curriculum for the upcoming year and have it shipped here. I’ve been looking for options for downloadable curriculum, but I’m not finding much. Does anyone have any ideas??? We currently use MUS, BJU for reading and science and WWS for writing (which we downloaded and paid a ton to print!). I’m feeling panicked about what we will do if we can’t get anything shipped! Any help would be appreciated! Thank you! Carrie

Thanks so much for the help! I will look into these things.

Thank you for these ideas! What you said makes a lot of sense. I will try doing these things this next week. Thanks! Carrie

Hi! My 6th grade dd is a delightful student. However, she struggles with writing. We’ve used WWE in the past, and more recently, BJU. Neither seems to be a good fit. She’s a very literal thinker, so it’s extremely difficult for her to brainstorm ideas, organize her thoughts and write paragraphs. She wants to be told exactly what to write and when to write it. There is very little creativity on her part. She doesn’t like writing and fusses every time she needs to write anything. She doesn’t write for fun at all. Her grammar skills, on the other hand, are great. She doesn’t have any trouble in this area at all. Her reading comprehension is fair. Not exemplary, but not bad, either. I’ve looked at bravewriter (May be a bit too loose for me with not enough help in instruction), EIW (would this help with her creativity and brainstorming, or would it be more like “do x,y,z?”), IEW (I’ve read its very formulaic), W&R (wondering if this would be a good fit) and writing strands (wondering if this would also be a good fit). I’m so very overwhelmed and confused. I keep changing my mind on what might work for her. I really want for her to develop her own thinking, expound on her thoughts and write a cohesive paragraph (and essay). Am I expecting too much for her age? Right now we are working on just some journaling using different prompts and story starters. For the first time, she’s actually smiled some while writing. But I am not confident in my abilities to teach writing, and would like a curriculum to help her develop as a writer. Does anyone have any suggestions for curriculum, and for me personally as her teacher? I would love some advice! Thank you! Carrie

Great idea! I should’ve thought of doing something like that! Ha! Thank you!

Great! Thank you so much! I will look at this and see if it could work for us!

Thanks for the help! MUS has just never been great for her. We started with it when she was in K and used alpha as well. She complained even then that the method confused her and she had a hard time focusing on one basic topic for the year. She also never liked using the manipulatives. I don’t think there’s enough review of previously learned topics for her. We used BJU for third and fourth (and did well), then our little group started for 5th and they decided to use MUS. Delta focuses on division, and I’m sorry to say, she couldn’t remember how to do division with double digit divisors this year. She did 3 months of Epsilon (fractions) and was doing fairly well on tests, but wasn’t confident and was getting lost as the lessons continued. She says she hates MUS and wants something else. So, we are using the BJU 5 that we had gotten previously when we thought she would be using it for 5th grade. She doesn’t like that it’s “5th” grade, but I’ve explained that it’s all I have right now and that she will use 6th at home. But then I didn’t know if we should do all of 5th and 6th before starting 7th. I will look at MM and see how it is! Thanks so much!

Thanks for the help! I’ve never looked at MEP or MM. My experience has been limited to BJU and MUS. We can print in a shop in town, so I do it that way if we went with either MEP or MM. I will definitely check it out, though! Thanks!

Ok thanks! I was thinking along these lines as well. I didn’t want her to skip anything important that would make math more difficult for her in the future. She’s just very conscious of the “5” on the cover and has asked several times why she’s doing 5th grade math. She’s a very anxious child. But I agree that we should look to make sure she is on the appropriate level, rather than “grade.” Thanks for the advice!

Hi! I need some advice for my dd12. We are missionaries currently on the field. My dc have been part of a type of co-op group here for a little over a year. The group used MUS, but I’ve found my dd12 didn’t do well with it. She was often confused by the methods and didn’t retain much. She completed the delta level and the first part of epsilon. When Coronavirus lockdowns occurred in the country we are serving in, I took over my dc’s schooling. Our country here is closed for mail delivery, so I can’t order anything from the US right now. The only math curriculum I have for an upper elementary student is BJU Press 5. We’ve begun using it to try and fill in gaps she’s missing, but it’s technically a grade lower for her. We are planning to return to the US in the fall for our furlough (when flights reopen) and can get new materials then. She began her 6th grade studies in Jan, so we are only 5 months into the year. My question is-should I order the 6th grade math curriculum when we return home and use it for a few months, then begin 7th in Jan, or should I do the whole year of 6th when we return in the fall and thus have her start 7th halfway through her 7th grade year, or should we just continue the 5th grade math curriculum until Jan, and then begin 7th? She would essentially skip 6th grade math in that case. She’s an average math student. I would appreciate any advice! Thank you!

Oh I appreciate all that you wrote! I didn’t specify in my first post that she doesn’t like to write. Thank you for the reminder to just let her play! I haven’t homeschooled very long, and probably put too much pressure on myself and my dc. You are so right that playing with legos, drawing, and all her creative activities are important, too!

Thank you sooo much for this! It sounds like your ds is an amazing kid! He does so many great things! Typing is a good idea! I hadn’t thought of this before, but that may be something to consider with my dd. Thank you for sharing how he does activities at different levels. I will definitely keep this in mind! I haven’t homeschooled long, so I hadn’t thought about using different levels. Thanks for sharing!

Ok thanks for the input. It helps to know that your dc takes no more than 3 hours as well. I want to make sure my dd is solid in her foundations, but I also don’t want to bore her or leave her unchallenged. She hates writing, even the physical act of writing, so getting her to do the writing chapters in BJU is like pulling teeth. But everything else, she just understands so very easily and finishes with no effort at all. We are missionaries in Kenya (don’t have many options here for testing and the such) and I just needed some confirmation of what we should do with her as far as levels. Thanks!

Hi! This is my first time posting. I have a very bright 3rd grader that I need help planning for. She’s currently using MUS gamma, BJU for English, reading, science and Bible, and we are doing MoH with her older sister. Both girls also started using Building Critical Thinking Skills and Reading Detective once a week to help with critical thinking skills. My 3rd grader flies through her work and rarely gets less than 100% on all her work. I feel she needs something that will challenge her more. We had planned to continue using BJU for a lot of her classes next year. Should we do 4th grade for her, skip to 5th grade work, or do a different curriculum entirely? Just needing some advice! TIA!