I think your son sounds like a normal six-year-old boy, in that it’s very common for boys that age to not like writing. I think SWB talks about that in The Well-Trained Mind (although I may be confusing authors). But I remember reading about how, in general, seven-year-old boys aren’t fond of writing and it’s ok to give them extra time to develop, which gave me some peace about my own son. He was very much like your son—gifted reader and reluctant writer. In my son’s case, his spelling skills lagged behind his reading skills, which is also normal, but that increased his frustration with writing. I think his fine motor skills were lagging a bit too—he was capable of writing, but his hand would tire easily. There are a lot of components to writing that we aren’t conscious of as adults because the process feels automatic to us. In my son’s case, I decided to focus on the basics, and I stopped asking him to write anything that he had to come up with on his own. We did All About Spelling, handwriting, copywork, and oral narration and kept these lessons short. Now he is starting to do written narrations. He still doesn’t prefer writing, but he can do it well when he needs to. I think focusing on the basics for a couple of years allowed time for his spelling and motor skills to mature and for all of the different processes to begin working well together.

I haven’t ever used Math Mammoth, but my impression has been that it’s a more time-consuming curriculum. I suspect it would be hard to use all of MM and all of MWC. I’m not sure from your description what parts of MWC you’re doing, but you mentioned the teacher’s manual and the workbook, so it seems like you’re doing most of it (but maybe I’m misunderstanding). Some suggestions would be to alternate days using them and to make one supplementary to the other, so that you’re either going through it more slowly or not planning to do every lesson in the book.

We are using this too, and so far I really like it. It teaches through songs, stories and picture studies. It’s also scripted, so it’s okay if the teacher is learning Latin at the same time. There is an optional workbook for 3rd grade and up, but for younger kids, you just do oral lessons, nothing written.

I struggled with starting school this year too. It’s been a hard year for us health-wise, and I didn’t feel ready to get back to the daily grind after our summer break. I’m wanting to take several breaks this school year though, so I knew I needed to start now in order to do that. We started on Monday, and I’ve been surprised at how calming it has been to get back into our school routine. I think breaks and rest are important, but there can be comfort in going back to daily routines too. One thing I would suggest is to make sure you are planning things in your school day that feed your soul as well as your kids. It could be poetry or art or math games or literature—it can look different for different people. Try to include one thing in each day that you look forward to doing. It really does help.

I am glad to know I’m not alone in thinking this. My kids loved this book, but I didn’t enjoy it very much because the parts about morality and educational philosophy felt so heavy-handed. There were aspects that I thought were well-done, but it’s not one that I want to read again. **ducking tomatoes**

We have liked them. The books are well written, and the illustrations are beautiful. There have been a couple that I planned to break up over several readings, and my kids insisted that we read them all the way through in one day because they were enjoying them so much. Wings for Per is my favorite of those in the sale. I thought it did a good job of gently introducing WWII to kids. As far as other similar biographies, I don’t know of any for that age group that are well written and have wonderful illustrations. I really like Jean Fritz’s books, but the illustrations aren’t as beautiful, and they have a narrower focus, mostly on the Revolutionary War period.

Do you guys have Sum Swamp? That’s one my kids have enjoyed.

I’ve heard the phrase “redeeming your education” used in Charlotte Mason circles to describe that.

Have you looked at Primary Mathematics 2022? It’s a newer Singapore curriculum. I think it’s easier to teach than Dimensions is.

To be very honest—and I apologize if I come on too strong here, but sometimes it’s hard to judge how direct to be online—I think his lofty words are just that—lofty words. You shouldn’t feel bad for not understanding them. Whatever substance I’ve found in what he says has been when he’s quoting someone else, although he doesn’t always say when he’s doing that. In reading some of those old threads, I recognized a lot of ideas from Norms and Nobility in his responses. His more original responses seemed rather fluffy to me. ETA: My real issue with Andrew Kern isn’t that he’s using other people’s ideas because we all do that. That’s how we grow as humans (although it’s nice to acknowledge our sources when possible). It’s that he’s taking these ideas and making them harder to understand with his flowery language. A good teacher should explain challenging ideas so that they seem easier (though not dumbed down) and more attainable—not cause students to question their intelligence. To me (and people can disagree, of course) I think he benefits from making these ideas seem harder than they are because it capitalizes on homeschool moms’ self-doubts and convinces them to buy his stuff. It isn’t just him though. Many other curriculum companies do this too.

Nm

We’ve been using BFSU with Mystery Science too. I also like to add in picture books, like the Let’s Read and Find Out series. I think the combination works well.

Farmer Boy is great! Other suggestions: The Cricket in Times Square and Homer Price are classics that are on both AO and Memoria Press book lists. I would consider them fun reads, and they are somewhat shorter than Farmer Boy. Wind in the Willows is good too though if you decide to stay with it. I read it aloud to my kids last year. There were some slow bits, but the parts with Toad kept them interested. Afterward we watched a few of the movie versions for fun, and they enjoyed that a lot. ETA: I thought you were wanting books he could read himself, but after re-reading your original post, maybe you’re looking for read alouds? If so, The Reluctant Dragon (by the same author as WitW but much shorter) and Farmer Giles of Ham by Tolkien are classics with more difficult language, but they are short and funny.

“Nothing to Fear” by Jackie French Koller is set in New York City during the Great Depression. I haven’t re-read it as an adult, so it’s possible that there are content considerations I’m not remembering, but I don’t recall any. I read it several times in jr. high and loved it. It does cover some weighty topics, such as kids begging for food, unemployed fathers, Hoovervilles, and Prohibition. As I recall, there is also a neighbor family in the book whose dad came home “shell-shocked” from WWI, and there is some discussion about the difficulties the family faces because of that. But there are also humorous parts in the book that balance out the seriousness. It was one of my favorite books when I was about 13, and I can still remember historical facts I learned from reading it.

Nm

Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes. All of my kids enjoyed that one as preschoolers. It is a mystery, although I don’t think the other books in the series are.

I agree with editing. I’ve done that and, if the older child noticed, explained why and they were fine with it. But if you want something different, have you looked at Beautiful Feet’s Early American History? We’ve used some of their book selections this year and enjoyed them. It covers roughly the same time period as SOTW 3.

That's so true! There's a popular math curriculum that I've looked at several times because people often recommend it, but I can't understand its appeal. To me it seems like the creators don't like math themselves, and they don't expect children to like it either. Each page is full of colorful pictures and stories and random facts, to the point that it's hard to tell where the actual math problems are. Based on their samples, I assume their philosophy is that the only way your child will enjoy math is if they fill the pages with stuff-that-isn't-math. But there are no areas (at least in the samples I saw) where they lead the child into creatively exploring math, just for the enjoyment of it. There doesn't seem to be any expectation that a child might like math for its own sake. Sorry for going off-topic, but this comment struck a chord with me. I agree--the author's enjoyment of the subject matters, and it's also important that they expect that your child can enjoy it too.

I looked at the 2nd grade MWC again. It starts off with a review of addition and subtraction within 1-10, but then it ramps up pretty quickly into bigger numbers. You could always start there and then back up or supplement if you need to. There is some focus on writing equations in 1st grade MWC, which I thought was helpful. I think they understand equations better mentally after they've had practice writing them. With clocks, K teaches telling time to the hour, 1st grade adds in half hours, and 2nd grade teaches quarter hours. On the Kindergarten book, I think it depends on the kid. When I was working through Preschool Math at Home with my 4-year-old, we started the K book before we finished with Preschool because she has been picking things up from older siblings' math lessons. She loves Kindergarten MWC so far and was so excited to get her own workbook! We only do it a couple of times a week, but she asks to do it and usually wants to do more than one page. Definitely depends on the kid though. I don't think every 4-year-old would be excited about a workbook!

I really like Math With Confidence. So far I’ve used part of Preschool, all of K, all of 1st, and part of 2nd. In my opinion, their teacher manuals are the most user-friendly math teacher guides I’ve come across. Everything is straightforward, and because the curriculum is written for homeschoolers, there is less need for adaptation than with curriculum written for the classroom. The manipulatives are mostly household objects. My favorite part about MWC is that it incorporates math facts into the daily lessons and workbook pages. Some math curricula expect you to teach math facts on your own, and it isn’t addressed much in the daily lessons. With MWC, it’s built in. The 1st grade book covers addition and subtraction facts up to 20, and it also gets into simple addition/subtraction up to 100. Based on your description of where your kids are, I think the 1st grade book would be the place to start, although some of it might be review. You could get the PDF version so that you can just hit the parts you need. I haven’t had a problem teaching two MWC lessons on the same day when I’ve had two different kids in it. The lessons are relatively short, and you don’t have to teach every part of every lesson every day. It’s also okay to break a lesson in two if it’s taking too long.

Also Clyde Robert Bulla’s books. They are typically on a simpler level reading-wise but have lots of adventure.

My Father’s Dragon series Charlie and the Chocolate Factory The Wizard of Oz Charlotte’s Web The Chocolate Touch Henry Huggins series Homer Price

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I use a spreadsheet. I like it because I can include whatever subjects I want, and it’s easy to change things around.

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