This is my 5th year hsing and I think my answer is different now than it would have been 5 years ago! In the beginning I just didn't know my teaching style and my kids' learning styles. I'm not one to cater to everyone, however it does make sense to me that I do what I can to help each child achieve success, which usually means teaching different children different ways to some extent. Now, the only reason I change a curriculum is if either a child or I have a major problem with it that can't be fixed within the confines of the curriculum. I have explored different things and have come to know how my children best function and how I best function. This year I went back to All About Spelling after dropping it because it takes a lot of teacher time. My kids hated spelling and even though they were independent with SWO, it wasn't worth it. So, I re-bought AAS and all 4 kids are as happy as clams. I came to the point where I'm resigned to teaching ALL DAY LONG! :001_smile: The only other changes I made this year was to my dd's material. She entered Logic Stage this year, but she's not really ready maturity wise to handle much of the Logic stage curriculum my ds used last year. So, I had to readjust for the way she learns. I went back to MOH for history because she likes to lapbook and they have a great lapbooking program to go along with the lessons. I changed a couple curriculum of hers because she just needed something different than my older ds did. My boys at the end are using exactly what they did last year because it works. They'll be fine through 4th grade, then we'll have to see from there which Logic road I take with them. I doubt it will mean new curriculum though, but who knows. We'll likely be in Japan by then so things could change because of moving to another country! The only time I look at "the latest and greatest" is if I am looking to fulfill a need I have... not just to browse. Too easy to think the grass will be greener.... when you have something that works, go with it! :D

My 11 y/o started FF last year and is finishing up this year. He had 2 years of Latin prior (Prima Latina and Latina Christiana I) so realize where he's coming from. He is also very independent. Day One: Watch DVD. Study the lesson in the book. Day Two-? Do a worksheet. Now, my dd10 is not so independent. She's taking a break from Latin to conquer some things in math. She's finishing up LC1, but will move onto FF after that. Here's my plan for her: Day One: Watch DVD with Mom (She does much better if I'm watching with her otherwise she can't remember what she watched.) Day Two: Worksheet 1 Day Three: Review with CD and Worksheet 2 Day four: Worksheet 3 Day five: Review with CD, worksheet 4 continue until worksheets are done If there seems to be too much writing in one sitting, I would suggest doing half, taking a break and doing something else and then coming back to the second half.

We're up! First time school blogging in a year. Going to try and do better this year! Link in sig.

I usually start in March or April. Gives me time to find as much as I can used. I'm pretty set on what we use so there's not a lot of research I need to do anymore.

Take this for what it's worth... we've used both. JAG moves quite fast and there isn't a ton of practice. It's like eating a full meal all at once. It also teaches parsing which my "big picture" son HATED. He does very well with diagramming, but just could not tolerate parsing. GWG is more like snacking all day long. (Or being pecked to death by a duck... choose you're favorite analogy). :D It's little bites over more time. Personally, when it comes to grammar I like the little bites over time. I don't think grammar needs to be an intense subject, yet on the other hand I do believe it necessary to good writing. 3 of my kids use GWG and we use the grade level they are currently in. Yes, it is a lot of review and the format makes it quite easy for them. But, is that a bad thing? I would like for my kids to be reminded over and over again how to construct good sentences. My 2nd grader STILL does not remember capital letters and periods all the time. He needs to be reminded often and in small chunks. You probably want to think about your philosophy when it comes to grammar. Do you want little reminders over time or do you want to hit it hard and work the rest out in their writing over time.... just my $.02 for whatever it's worth! ;)

Thank you for your response! This is very helpful! I'm glad to hear we aren't the only ones struggling with this. My ds has always been strong at math, but his confidence is wavering because of all the mistakes he's been making. I think what you've suggested will help guide him through this phase. :001_smile:

My 11ds (almost 12) is having a hard time with his math work. He understands the concepts well, but he makes errors in calculation all over the place. Just minor ones, but mistakes nonetheless. He is a slow worker so he can't get a whole lot slower. I don't want to tell him to "slow down" or he'll take all day to get math done! I've tried telling him to double check his work at each step, but that hasn't seemed to help either. I'm not sure what to tell him. Maybe less problems so he can really focus on just a few? Right now he does 2 pages of Math Mammoth a day and he's half way through 6A. Maybe just go down to one page? He is naturally a "big picture" kid (like his mom) so details mess him up a lot. We're fighting a wiring issue here... not just carelessness. When I sit down with him he can find the errors and knows what's wrong.... and again, he's getting the concepts. Then again maybe it's adolescent fog! Any "cures" for that? :lol:

We've used all the grammar levels and logic Bio. We're doing Earth Science logic this year and Earth Science grammar. If you want to do science WTM way this is the way to go! ES is simple and straight forward. My kids like it and it's the first science to get done in our house! We don't always do all the experiments, but they are easy ones to gather supplies for. I highly recommend it! Paige is really good about answering questions too. There's a Yahoo group for support as well as her website.

We've used First Language Lessons, Growing With Grammar and we also watch Grammar Rock! Right now my 2nd, 3rd and 5th grader use Growing With Grammar. I teach it to them first and then they do the sheet. GWG didn't work for my oldest. Too predictable and he got bored. He uses R&S and that works well for him. ETA: My kids didn't like FLL all that well because they don't like to repeat things over and over and over. GWG works better for them.

We've used Prima, LC1 and FF. I have SF on deck for my oldest once he finishes up FF. Prima is pretty much all vocab. It's not difficult. Easy for younger students (depending on how young). We start Latin here in 3rd grade, so my 8 year old will be doing it this year. My oldest has enjoyed FF. It's a lot of writing. We use the DVD's and he likes them MUCH better than the LC1 DVD's which are pretty boring. We've found Memoria Press to be good for us. We're not Latin centered here... just want some exposure. It's worked well for us!

I know this isn't going to help much, but I really think to supplement or not to supplement (or what do I supplement with?) is unique to your learner. I Started all my kids on MUS. I quickly found out it was too elementary for my oldest son. He needed more challenge. I switched everyone to Math Mammoth at this point. Now, for my 3 boys MM is perfect. Each boy is working ahead in MM according to grade level. Great! MM did NOT work for my dd. She HATED math and was getting very frustrated and could not work independently at all. So, I went back to MUS with her and she is tolerating math again. She will never love it, but she at least is understanding it and is able to do it on her own after I teach her a concept. For her, I am NOT supplementing. She is not mathy and never will be. My goal for her math education is to learn enough basics to get by. She will never want "more" from math and that's okay for me. MUS is perfect just the way it is for her. She'll get basic math concepts down and actually understand them. So... you may want to start in MUS and get a feel for your child's math ability/interest. If you have a mathy kid on your hand you may want to look at Math Mammoth for a supplement. I started MM as a supplement and ended up switching completely over to it for my mathy kids. If your child is not a mathy kid MUS may be enough in and of itself.

This is our house!! I do get up earlier, but the kids don't get up until 9am. However, we do some school in the evening too. I really think you just have to go with what works for the rhythm of your family. Trying to fit into someone else's mold doesn't work. That's a beauty of hsing!

I'm planning on using it this coming year with my 6th grader. He's turning 12 in Nov. so he's an older 6th grader. He's pretty mature in his thinking so I'm hoping it will work well. Thanks to the PP for the great description. That helps a lot! This is a whole new area for me! Hope it goes well for you!

I correct things daily. Most of the time I correct in the evening and do one of two things. If there are just minor mistakes I wait and we talk about it right before I assign the next lesson. If there are major mistakes or misunderstandings I call the child over to me when I'm correcting and we go through it then. Then the next lesson starts on a good note. Other times if there have been a lot of mistakes or lots of misunderstandings we use our lesson time the next day (in say, Math) to review the concept and redo the problems missed. WWS sometimes takes me a couple days to get to, but usually my ds does okay on it because we discuss it well before he writes and I give him the rubric so he knows exactly what I'm looking for. He usually just has minor things to change so I don't require a rewrite. I have to go easy on my young writers... all my kids are writing phobic! ;)

I'll put in a vote for AAS. We're coming back to it after trying something else less teacher intensive. I will not change again.

I think you really hit it on the head when you say you both need to be flexible. That's how people stay with curriculum. NO curriculum is perfect. You just have to find something you both generally can like and then tweak it. That's true with any subject! Remember, the curriculum is a guide! If something isn't working, change it up to meet your daughter's needs. You will be more content with your schooling if you can find ways to make what you have work. Sometimes that's not possible, but with most of the curriculum that's discussed here.... it's great stuff. Just can't do everything for everyone so we need to be flexible as teachers and students! (Now that I got on that little soapbox, I won't tell you I've spent the last year changing curriculum for my daughter who learns SO differently from her older brother that I had to change up most subjects for her!) Enjoy your upcoming year of history! Yeah for you for figuring these things out! It will go a long way! :D

It's a tough question with lots of answers! I think a lot depends on teacher and student. We started with spelling lists early on. My two older ones were constantly in tears (what is it about hs kids and crying??? ;)) So, we moved to AAS. The older two LOVED it. I tried it with #3. I think he was actually too young... didn't work. He read fluently, but wasn't ready for spelling. Last year I decided to give up AAS (much to my older two's dismay) to put everyone in Spelling Workout. The younger two had started in SWO and I needed something the kids could do on their own. Most of the curriculum I use is so teacher intensive. Well, believe it or not, after selling all my levels of AAS, I'm now re-buying them. My older two HATED the last year of spelling and after doing AAS, it just makes so much sense. Memorizing lists of words just didn't hold the power I thought it did! :D So, this year all of the children will be doing AAS. Yes, it takes more time, but I've realized it's worth it. I have good spellers and average spellers. It works well for both. We just work faster through the things they already know. As far as transferring to their writing... I'm finally seeing progress in my older two. I think it just takes time. I don't think you're going to see perfect spelling every time you complete a rule. It's going to take several years before spelling becomes 2nd nature. That's my experience anyway. I think the only kids who instantaneously have good spelling are the ones with good visual memory. My kids read a lot and that doesn't even make them excellent spellers. I think the bottom line is, do you believe in the method AAS uses and are you willing to take the time to implement it? If yes, then I think it would go well for you, it's an excellent program and well worth the expense... if not then I'd give something else a try. ;)

We're trying to get over two writing humps here... 2 of my kiddos aren't ready for the next level of WWE/WWS... so I looked at WWW for an "inbetween" thing until some maturity happens. I think it looks good and lots of people say there are no tears associated with it and it gets done. That is probably just what you need! I've looked at WWW and a few other writing programs and decided to go with Writing Strands. We use GWG for some kids and I'm not too fond of the format (although it works well for my kids who hate grammar). Not sure I could deal with writing in that same format... so we're going to try WS.

We are in the process of downsizing to a smaller home. In our current home I have tons of room and we have a schooling room, plus places for the kids to work in the "dining room". When we move I anticipate no school room. This is what I plan to do.... If they need a table they will work at the kitchen table. I have some that are much happier parked on the sofa so they will do that. Each child will have a crate for their work. They currently all have fun lunchboxes that house their supplies (pencils, markers, glue, scissors, etc.) Storage is the more difficult part. I'm getting rid of anything I don't absolutely need and the rest will go into bins. We have lots of bookshelves now, but I don't anticipate as many when we move. Eventually we'll be moving to Japan so we will bring bare minimum with us. At that point I'll try to get as much on e-readers as I can. Much of the curriculum I buy now is digital to save on space as well. I don't think you need a dedicated space at all. Just have a place to put everything away and insist on it. When the kids were younger we also rotated toys and really just didn't keep a lot of toys. They played with very little when it came down to it. Toys could be kept in rooms if you want them not near any schooling. Simple is actually very good! :D

I don't think manipulatives are mandatory, but they do help some kids. My oldest never uses them, my younger 2 only usually to intro a new concept, but my dd uses manipulatives all the time. We have MUS blocks and they work well. (I have actually put my dd back in MUS because MM didn't work for her and things are going much better!) Maria does a really good job of using pictures to illustrate the concepts. You may want to start w/o and see if your child needs them. If you decide to get them I've found the MUS ones to work very well as they look similar to the pictures in the book. We usually just end up using the ones and tens though.

We used Level 2 Ancients last year and it went well. We did 3 lessons a week. We didn't do the literature because he had already read some of the books. We just skipped the lessons with literature. He did all the writing in addition to his other writing. It's a lot, but it helped him process. We may do more orally this year, not sure. I think there may have been some longer research type things we skipped. We skipped the History Pockets as my ds is NOT a crafty guy. He did do the reading in them though. We had a hard time with the timeline. Not enough room to write and the stickers didn't help. This year I got some software and we're trying a computer timeline that will hopefully be neater and make more sense. My guy is a "history" guy so I don't know if that made a difference, but he really liked HO and we are planning on doing Middle Ages this year. ETA: My only hang-up is I don't like the arrangement of chronological by country. I prefer straight chronological such as in SOTW, but this didn't seem to bother ds at all.

Here's our library page that explains it... not sure if all libraries are the same? http://www.rochesterpubliclibrary.org/downloadable/ebooks.html

I just came up with a good idea today that I'm working on. I decided I would like my older two to be able to have some control over choosing their books, but I want to limit their choices. I also don't think just a list would help them as they can't really see the book or know what it is about just from the title. I just created a "listmania" list at Amazon for my oldest. Had to split it in 2 because you can only get 40 things on the list at once. Here he can view the books and descriptions and tell me what he'd like to read next. I won't buy them as we have a great library, but it's really just for him to choose a book. Here's the one I just made for my upcoming 6th grade boy.... http://www.amazon.com/Jayden-6th-Grade-A/lm/R2ZP1FEEYHBQLL/ref=cm_lm_byauthor_title_full

My advice would be similar to the above... Use audio books in the car... or as an option during another activity (building legos, coloring, etc.) We use audio books during lunch. Keeps everybody from arguing all of lunch! When we first started audios years ago, my younger ones were not real interested. Now, everyone LOVES them. It might just take a little time.... start with shorter ones (the ones with books are a great idea) and gradually go up to the longer ones. You might even start with some Magic Treehouse or something that is a little "light" and fun to just get the love there.... then you could go onto more complicated longer stories. Another idea is to do an audio book of a movie he may have already seen. Maybe having those pictures in his head would help him to visualize the story better.

Thanks! I ordered the KQ software.... seems just what I was looking for! I hope it's good though... it was $30! :001_unsure: