Bible/Character: Bible Study Guide for All Ages, Foundations Worldview, Manners Made Easy, learn a new hymn once a month Language Arts: Hake Grammar, IEW, All About Spelling, Vocabulary Virtuoso, lots of reading Math: Saxon 6/5 History: Heritage Studies 5 Science: The Good & The Beautiful - Health/Physical Body, Health/Human Mind, and Safety courses PE: swimming, speed walks on the treadmill for 15 minutes a day, some days she's willing to join me in my workouts Other: Keyboarding without Tears, weekly craft projects with her little siblings, baking

Yes!! Peril and Peace was the book I was specifically looking for! I didn't realize it was a whole series before @ScoutTN had mentioned it too. You guys are awesome! Always pulling through, even with the random questions I have! Thank you!!

At these ages, keep it simple with these subjects. Your main focus should be on language arts (mostly getting all your kids to be excellent readers!) and math. That being said, I love the Good & Beautiful for science. You can add more to it or keep it simple. They've got a newer science program for littles too. I think it would be fine to do with your 3rd grader. We've also enjoyed the Sassafrass Science adventures. You can just read the books and maybe do a related Pinterest activity once a month. That is sufficient at this age. History is not an essential for kinders, and I don't think its even recommended in WTM if I can recall. But for your 3rd grader, I also love SOTW. Like someone else also mentioned, you can get the audio for it to save yourself time. Or just read a chapter and choose one activity in the activity book to do. Keep it simple, it will serve you and your children well if you spend more time with a reading primer and good books than history or science at these ages, so don't stress too much about it. And if you get busy one week...or two months... and find you don't have the time for history or science, it'll be ok. I promise!

Awesome! Thank you for the recs!

There is a book out there similar to "Trial and Triumph" by Richard Hannula. I'm wondering if anyone knows what I'm talking about? I could've sworn it was a sequel, but I can't seem to find it. If not, any recommendations for books with short stories about Christians worthy of reading about? Thank you!

A couple years ago I purchased the membership for The Alveary. I printed out all the resources and everything, but didn't actually end up using it. Pros: it is similar in my opinion to Ambleside.(I used Ambleside for 2 years.) As someone else said, Ambleside is notorious for scheduling books above grade level. I don't recall feeling like the books scheduled with Alveary were dumbed down at all. In fact, there is a popular blogger (Heritage Mom) who spoke highly of them simply for their booklists! She was the one who actually convinced me to pay for it! Everything is much more organized than Ambleside imo too. They have some really great resources for planning out your year, so I think the cost is worth it if your set on a Charlotte Mason style homeschool. That being said, that style of education just doesn't work for MY family. I decided that I needed to simplify my life. I have 7 kids, so I really minimize our homeschool to the essentials. My number one priority is "its gotta get done!" If there is too much going on, things will not get done. So really, we're just not Charlotte Mason homeschoolers, though I still glean some of her principles and use them in our school. I think if you are committed to the Charlotte Mason style, the Alveary could be a beautiful place to start. The longer I homeschool, the more I believe that consistency is more important than method. If that's the method that you think will work for your family, then who cares what some lady who you've never met thinks! But that goes for my opinion too! haha

As someone who has also struggled with consistency, I have found that when I'm inconsistent getting going on our schooling, my kids wake up each day not knowing if they have to actually do school. So when they do, they complain! I had a baby last year and some medical complications that followed, so I really understand that sticking to the schedule can be so hard! But that made it difficult for my 11 year old especially, and she would get a huge attitude when she had to do her work. Finally, I realized that a 5 day schedule just doesn't work for our family. We have a lot going on, so 4 days works best for us. Now we only home school Tuesday-Friday. I also have a calendar on the wall (a big dry erase board one) that has all our family events and such on there. My kids now know that unless told otherwise, they will be doing school Tues-Fri. My oldest's attitude has improved tremendously with this because she can mentally plan for her day - and she plans what Lego design she wants to build next! Play is important still at this age! I also feel like outsourcing is helpful too so there is less going on between you two. Idk what you do for math, but something like Nicole the Math Lady or IEW, or EIW can take the major subjects out of your hands. Then maybe just get a basic history spine and have him read a chapter a week, or have him watch the History Channel! Science can be watching documentaries too. The relationship with your son is the priority, so insist he works on the basics, but let the rest be easy for a little bit. Maybe he feels burnt out too. I would talk to him and see how he would feel about slimming down the schedule for the rest of the school year. Maybe he'll feel relief and you will too.

I have also used Abeka math and my daughter ended up doing poorly on her testing. She just struggled and ended up having a pretty bad attitude in regards to math. We switched to Saxon and I found that it was a good fit for her because of the review built into every lesson. Make sure to give your daughter the placement test to place her correctly. If she's struggling, she'll probably land in 5/4 which is totally fine! Don't be frustrated that the numbers don't match her grade. It's okay! 5/4 reviews a bit at the beginning and has lots of math fact review built in. Saxon is considered the most popular choice for a reason! For video lessons, we have used Nicole the Math Lady and DIVE. My kids liked the DIVE videos better. Their website also has tips on how to get a struggling student set up so you both aren't so overwhelmed. The videos are short, and I watch them too so I can help if there are any issues when she does the assignment. I haven't used Math Mammon, so while that may be excellent I can't recommend it. There are plenty of good programs out there, but I did find success with Saxon. Good luck!

I haven't done this particular year before, but I have an upcoming 7th grader as well and I'm looking at this exact course. My daughter did the Grade 5 Heritage Studies video lessons before with the same teacher and loved them! She said out of all the video teachers she had, Miss Ingersoll (now Mrs. Bancroft) was her favorite. I think the videos are very well done.

Older post, but thought I'd mention the keyboarding program from Learning Without Tears. I start my first graders in their Kinder program. So my kids use it a level behind, but they love it! My now fourth grader (10yo) always puts her fingers in the right spot when she types. She's still slow, but does it properly. Bonus, its only $11 for a year subscription.

Well, first of all, I know what it's like to debate schooling options for my child and go back and forth. So, my heart goes out to you. It's a tough decision! I am also quite surprised at the options for public school you have. In my area, GATE is nearly nonexistent and there is absolutely no differentiation of subject matter at the same grade level. So, kudos to wherever you are. If it were me, I would go with option 2. Socially, it appears the options are either a wash or slightly in favor of homeschooling. Homeschooling you don't have much of a community, but you could potentially attempt to find other more like-minded homeschoolers. May take some work, but possible. With the school system, he doesn't appear to have much of a good influence socially or it's just not a good fit. I would also have concerns if my child told me they consistently felt sick or bad at school. I would worry about bullying issues, but maybe I'm reading into this differently than you mean. Either way, from what you wrote, it doesn't sound like socially either one is a strong winner. So that leaves academics. Homeschooling you can tailor his education. Obvious win there. Academically, you said the public school isn't a good fit. So homeschool for the win here. I imagine the hardest part of this is putting the rubber to the road. Homeschool is just more work than sending him to public school. Maybe give yourself a few days to see if you could tailor an education plan that would work for him and your schedule. If you think it would only be for a year and you would like to enroll him in ps for 4th grade, then maybe just focus on the basics to give him time to pursue his interests and to lighten your own load. He's very young, so I imagine even if you only focused on the basics, it would still be a stronger education than what he'd get at public school, even in a GATE program. Best of luck!

I keep the bottom shelf of one of our bookshelves with "toddler books" to distract the younger ones. Those are pretty much all board books and boy are they BEAT up! Then there is a shelf of toys above that for the toddlers as well. The top 3 shelves are books for my other kids. Most of our other books are kept in my girls' room, where the bottom of the bookcases have the cabinet doors on them, so the toddler can't actually reach the books on there either. We also purchase a lot of our books used from Thriftbooks. You could also try putting them in a storage container that has the lift tabs on the side so your oldest can get them out, but the toddler can't.

I agree with this. I actually took Algebra 2, pre-cal/trig, AP Stat, and then Calculus and it was hard. I had forgotten a lot and it would have been very helpful to go straight into Calculus after pre-cal. I absolutely loved Statistics too, such a fun class if your into math! You only need Algebra 2 beforehand. I also knew people who took both Statistics and Calculus their senior year.

Thank you for your response! @Green Bean I think you're right that SOTW will be an easier spine for her history, but I'm hesitant to change it because I know she will enjoy it so much. I spent quite some time last night reading through the WTM book and you're definitely correct about the summaries being too light! We'll need to add in creating a history notebook with timelines and outlines. So I need to ramp up my expectations of the amount of work she can do here. I do plan to get her reading some primary source material that I'm hoping will be enough to balance the easier spine reading. I have thought about Fix It because yes, it goes with IEW, but I was under the impression it wasn't a complete grammar course? I honestly can't pinpoint where that idea came from, but I'll look into this more, especially if it saves some time and money! Cathy Duffy surely has reviewed it well. I went and looked at MP's lit guides for 6th grade and they are all books recommended by @ScoutTN So now I'm really tempted to do them! Ah, latin...we started twice and it fizzled out both times. Definitely my fault, but we just didn't have the time. Maybe next year. We're scrapping the Abeka for science. We talked about it and I think it just won't be enough really. It would probably come across more as busy work for her. She decided she wanted to do God's Design Science, which I think will be better to help her get some nonfiction outlining practice in. I never thought about MP's science before though. The History of Medicine looks particularly interesting! Seriously, thank you so much for your thoughts! I really want to get a good plan for her next year and I'm feeling more confident about her schedule now!

I was thinking Middle Ages paired with fantasy too! Thank you for the recommendations!

Thank you so much for the replies! It helps to have more than one set of eyes looking at this. I agree about the lit guides, we only did them one year and I don’t know that she got a whole lot more out of it than just a discussion would have provided. She will most likely not be thrilled about the literature from WTM. She loves to pick her own books, and usually gives me the side eye when I choose a book for her. Mostly because I try to get her to read classics and she just wants to read Fantasy all day everyday. But I think the Middle Ages has some great reads in there, so here’s hoping she’ll enjoy it! It should stretch her reading skills if anything. She does love history, and thoroughly enjoys SOTW and the activity pages. She will end up making a lap book (or two) as she goes through the book as well. I forgot to add that she will do art with her sister too. This isn’t even a weekly thing, so it’ll be here and there, but she will like that too.

My oldest will be in 6th grade in the fall and I think she had a fairly easy 5th grade. I want to make sure she is challenged this next year, without losing my mind - or her losing hers by overdoing it. So take a look at what I’ve got and give me some advice, especially language arts. This is honestly where I’d like to challenge her the most. Math: Saxon 6/5 History: SOTW Middle Ages Science: Abeka Grade 4 Video Lessons with her sister (this will probably be easy for her, but for the sake of time I’d rather not do a million experiments this next year) Also debated on using God’s Design for Heaven & Earth and having her write chapter summaries for more writing practice. LA: AAS 6, IEW 2A, Hake Grammar 6, follow SWB literature suggestions from the WTM book for the Middle Ages. I feel like LA is light? I will have her write a short summary of each SOTW chapter when she’s done, usually only about 4 sentences once a week though. Should I have her do more writing? WTM doesn’t recommend the writing portion of Hake Grammar & Writing, but I’m tempted to have her do that too. Is that overkill if she does IEW? We’ve done Memoria Press lit guides in the past too, should I do more formal literature or do you think just reading is enough? Should I add in vocabulary? A huge thank you to those who’ve gone before and can give me your thoughts!

Yes, 6/5 is usually used at 5th grade from what I’ve heard, (though my 6th grader will be using that next year.. the older sister who doesn’t care for math so much), but this is for an incoming 4th grader. So it seems a jump to go into 6/5, even though I’ve heard kids will place into that after Abeka’s 3rd grade. I’ve never looked into Math Mammoth before, so I’ll have to give it a peek. Thanks!

Thank you for the replies! I’ll give the placement test to be safe, but I wasn’t planning on bumping her into a higher level. I’m basically debating whether to use Abeka’s 4th grade math or Saxon 5/4. I think DD will dislike Saxon though because the lessons are long and black and white. I could definitely see her complaining about that. Her older sister uses it fine, but she needs all the practice and review it brings. It might be overkill for this kid who enjoys math. And Abeka just redid their 4th grade math and I’m probably thinking oooh shiny haha, BUT I’ve also heard that their math tends to slow down in 4th grade and I don’t care for that so much for this kid. I was curious to compare the kids who’ve used Abeka in 3rd grade vs 4th grade and then where they went into Saxon to see if it really does slow down.

Hi everyone! Out of curiosity, if you have used Abeka math at younger grades (1st-4th) and then moved into Saxon, what grade did your child leave Abeka and what level Saxon did you start them in? I have heard many parents say that their child tested in higher levels of Saxon after Abeka, but then there is a decision as to whether they really should go that high. How did you feel the switch went? Thanks!!

Thank you so much! You've been very helpful!

Congrats! That's so encouraging to hear! 😊 I doubt my daughter will major in math, as she is already a bit of a history buff, but I suppose we never know! Did you use Saxon all the way through?

Ooof She definitely doesn't like math. We originally started out with Saxon 1 and she really fought me on that. It was painful for both of us. After awhile we switched to Singapore Primary Math and she got through Math 1A - 2A pretty good. 2B started to get really difficult about halfway through, to the point of tears everyday. So we regressed back to Saxon 2 and have gotten through most of Saxon 3 now. I was worried she wouldn't be ready for 5/4 becuase she doesn't have all the facts memorized, hence giving her the placement test. I doubt an hour a day will be feasible for us, as she is the oldest and has younger school-age siblings. I did have her try Nicole the Math Lady to go along with Saxon 3 and that was definitely an epic fail. She loved the jokes and memes, but that was really all she got out of it. So I know she needs one on one teaching. I'm also worried about switching again because I feel like we will lose more time so I have just stuck with it at this point. Her younger sister is a mathy kid though and uses Beast Academy. So she decided she wanted to do that as well (she really just wanted to make her own beast!) and is currently working in level 2. I do feel like that makes her think quite a bit.

Thank you for the replies, very helpful! Yes, she knows her addition and subtraction facts, but she is just really quite slow with the multiplication/division. Apparently Xtramath is a thing! I just looked that up, so that's a great option, thank you!

Dealing with a 5th grade student, I gave her the 5/4 Saxon math placement test, and she scored 15, which firmly places her in the 5/4 program (a score of 16 would have recommened me give her the 6/7 placement test). However, I know she doesn't have her multiplication or division facts memorized at all really. If you have experience with Saxon 5/4, can you recommend placement for her. Is there enough fact review in 5/4 to allow her to continue, or will she really strugle if she doesn't have those memorized yet? Should we do something else beforehand to make sure those facts are memorized? Thanks!