I think one of the major issues I have with educators suddenly trying to help homeschool parents educate their children is a fundamental misunderstanding of what homeschooling does or can look like. So many trained educators think that homeschooling is "school at home." They think of a classroom situation and assume that homeschooling parents want to mimic that; or worse, think of that as the best or even only approach to education. And certainly many, if not most, Covid-schooling parents are, to some extent, driving that idea. They want to mimic school-at-home so that when their children return to a post-pandemic classroom, they will be at the same"level" as their peers who remained in the classroom. (I also acknowledge that there may be "regular" homeschooling parents who would like to mimic a classroom education) . The problem is that this approach completely undervalues and even undermines the true value of a homeschool education that does not mimic the public school model. I am continually surprised at educators who think they can help me educate my fourteen year old daughter and never once consider studying what I did to successfully graduate my four older children from homeschool into university. The fact that educators do not even consider studying homeschool to see what might be successfully transported from our approach into the classroom has always been a source of frustration for me. There are thousands of parents successfully educating their children on what is sometimes severely limited budgets (and certainly much, much less than my own provincial government school's $14000/student/year budget) and no one is asking how we are doing it? In fact they keep coming into our spaces and asking how they can assist us to do a better job? I am not saying that your assistance is not welcomed or even that it is unneeded. In fact I am a supporter of more resources to help more parents make this job easier. I am just bothered that those wanting to help do not have any involvement with the community. I think that someone who wanted to understand the pain points should find local families to spend time with (difficult during covid, I know) and see what homeschooling actually looks like. On a more practically note my personal pain points include: Since learning is predicated on healthy attachment, how do I maintain healthy attachment with my grumpy teen so that we can get some learning done? Since we are legally allowed to unschool in my province, how to I write my reports to reflect learning that has nothing to do with the current curriculum, when the government administrators don't really understanding unschooling and keep trying to remind me to follow a curriculum I don't have to follow. Since true learning happens through the "great conversation" how do I get into my daughter's online world so we can have those conversations? How do I ensure that any online learning she is participating in is offering that "great conversation" or is allowing me to enter into it with her? (Especially since most edtech/online formats just vomit information at participants and forums don't' really allow for true discussion.) How do I stop creepers from blowing up my bed on my daughter's Minecraft server?

I just saw a copy of the old book the other day and it doesn't contain any description for why the corrections are made and little directions for what to actually do. If you are personally very strong in understanding grammar and applying it, you may find it useful to use. If you aren't strong in grammatical concepts, I think the old version might be very frustrating.

This is an old post, but I am just putting a list together and had some that weren't included here. Many of my suggestions are older books because I think sometimes older books expected children to be less "worldly" or perhaps more "sheltered"? Henry Huggins series Homer price series Burgess animal books by Thornton Burgess Any of the early novels by Cynthia Rylant (like the Gooseberry Park series) Some of the Cynthia Voight novels My Father's Dragon series The Moffatt children series The Railway Children and other by Edith Nesbitt Swallows and Amazons Twenty-One Balloons Cheaper by the dozen series The Phantom toll booth Paddington Bear series The Estes series The Moomin books Mr. Popper's Penguins All of a Kind Family series Owls in the Family Understood Betsy Miss Pickerell series Mercy Watts series by Kate Dicamillo The Great Horned Spoon George's key to the Secret Universe series by Stephen and Lucy Hawkings Consider non-fiction books as well. My boys loved reading non-fiction literary books (where there is more text than pictures). They mostly loved science and nature books (and not so much biographies). This website has a good mix: https://imaginationsoup.net/nonfiction-book-recommendations-for-10-year-olds/ Also, don't be afraid to let them read lots of pictures books! There are some really beautiful ones there. The oldest of my five highly-sensitive children read them into her teens. She is in graphic design and social media communications now and I can't help thinking that her love of the picture book contributed to her skills in design!

Wow! I know this is an older thread but the information offered here is amazing. Thank-you so much for all of you that gave such detailed responses. I look forward to trying to implement some of this not only for my son, but for myself as well!

Thank you so much Donna. I think I'm going to buy the Canadian text and see how it goes.

I am thinking of buying the Oak Meadow Grade 9 English program but I'm wondering if I have to use their version of The Least You Should Know About English. I can get a Canadian version for $20 less plus I will save on shipping, but I am wondering how integrated the syllabus is with the textbook. Does it refer to just page numbers or to topics? The sample lesson plan doesn't show the use of this texts. Can someone with the program, enlighten me? Jennifer