I am in a unique situation. Either in December or in the beginning of the year we will be placing our four children, grades k-7th in a traditional Christian school. I have been homeschooling since the beginning, mostly following the Classical Conversations track along with a smattering of Sonlight, Tapestry of Grace and Veritas Press online courses and their self-paced Omnibus course. Most of these curriculums use living books. My kids have Memory Mastered multiple times and my 7th grader is really doing well this year in Challenge A. Since we have been following a CC model it will be a huge pedagogical switch for me to place my kids in a school that is very traditional in curriculum and methodology. The curriculum they are using mostly is Bob Jones and Abeka for Science and history. What I want to know is multi-facted: 1) How did your kids adjust to a pedagogical difference in teaching? 2) Has anyone afterschooled with Classical Conversations, on all three levels, Foundations, Essentials and Challenge? If so, how did you schedule your afterschooling days? 3) Are there things I should be aware of in regards to the curriculum? I am excited for my kids and the path the Lord has provided for them in regards to being able to go to a quality school. However, I love the CC model and what the classical model of education is all about. I have known for a while that we would follow the model of the trivium that classical education lays out. I am mostly concerned with my oldest who is entering the dialectic stage and will have no one who has been studying like he has been. I have previewed some of their curriculum and I find it lacking in some ways, but in other ways I can see how it will only enhance what we have all ready have done. I would love some insight here of those of you who have gone before. Thanks!

My middle son was just diagnosed with conversion insufficiency. He will be 10 in June and will be finishing forth grade. I would like to know what other homeschooling mothers have done with their kids in terms of making adjustments to their schooling/reading. I have three other kids to homeschool, so honestly it will be a challenge for me to make adjustments, but I know for his long term success I will have to. We have not committed to VT as we are in a transition time life wise. Can you recommend any resources for him? I have found the Gutenburg Project for the Kindle. We use a combination of Tapestry of Grace and Sonlight for readers, but I find that he will gravitate to the larger font books that my lower grammar kids are reading and he desires more of a challenge, but cannot handle the font of books that he would find interesting. He uses an iPad right now that reads the Bible to him and he follows with the text. I cannot buy all the readers for the Kindle and I cannot sit down all day and read to him. (Although all my kids would love that!) Even when I read to him I find that his comprehension is minimal and his summary of the story sometimes lacks. So I am wondering if he has an auditory processing problems as well. When I ask him a question, he will say it out loud again if he missed it and then think for a good while and then answer. We had an MRI done, but we are waiting for results. In the meantime the kid rides his skateboard, plays basketball, builds Legos and is an awesome pianist and drummer. Perhaps he really just is an auditory learner and I need to adjust. My oldest is a reader and so is my youngest boy. I find much of my day is dedicated to always being with the middle guy while neglecting my preschooler :-( Any ideas or encouragements would be great! Thanks!

I just found this thread today as I am thinking about CC and Science for next year with my four kiddos. We've been in CC for four years and enjoy/love/cant get enough of the program :laugh: . However, I have found in the switch to CC four years ago, science has really been lacking in our home outside the "listen to the Science weeks 13-24 for memory masters" or pick a topic in the Usborne Science encyclopedia and go for it!". My oldest is entering Challenge A next year and really is a humanities kid and could care less about science. However, I do feel he will be at a disadvantage even though he knows the science memory work for three cycles well. We all know there is much more to science than that! I did apologia 4 years ago and that was too much, but I am willing to visit it again for all of them and adjust it for my youngers. Has anyone done this? (Right now we are plugging along through Science core F and Core B and think we are in week 16--gasp! LOL!) (DS 9 and DS 7 are real science kids by the way) So, do I: 1) Have DS age 12 finish Sonlight F through the summer, then have him do science with CC next year, which is more in depth study of what he is doing now, human body, and piece science together according to CC's science sentences with the youngers 2) Throw out all the Sonlight for both age groups this summer and then go ahead and do Apologia general science together as a family this summer and hopefully DS who will in Challenge will be able to handle the double science load along with everything else I am going to pray and research some of the information that others have posted, but would appreciate any wisdom from those who have gone before me. Blessings!

Hi Katie Jean, I am new to TOG as well. We are in year one too! How is your year going?

Elena, Thank you for your response! It was so helpful to realize that it will be okay if I do not speak perfect Spanish to my kids. Thanks also for the link to amazon. I will have to see if it exists somewhere else in a more economical fashion :-) . I would rather just speak to my kids in Spanish and focus on the Latin grammar and then work Spanish into a more academic way later.

I was curious to see if anyone has a good schedule or insight on teaching Spanish and Latin together. I will be using First Form Latin and have been slowly making our way through Spanish for Children A... for three years LOL! Does anyone have any insight on: 1) Confusion of the languages being taught together 2) How do I integrate fours ages in all of this: 11, 9, 7, 5 3) What should be my best course of action in terms of work load per kid? I am fairly fluent in Spanish, but it isn't my native tongue. Has anyone ever tried to teach a non-native tongue to their kids soley by speaking it? I am nervous to go solo without a curriculum for fear I will teach them incorrectly... like I will use the second person conjugation of a verb instead of the first person or something like that. Do you ever do a "one day" we are only speaking Spanish and put formal school aside? (I should probably mention that I wasn't going to teach Latin, but now that my eldest has been in Essentials with Classical Conversations for 2 years, he needs that next level of grammar and I believe that Latin will give that to him.) Thoughts? Help :-)