I have two older children who had awful handwriting. They went to a very traditional elementary school that gave them a lot of practice with it but I could always pick my child's paper out of dozens on the bulletin board from twenty feet away 🙂 Like @popmom, my daughter got better around age 14 or 15 but had to start writing small. She now has really lovely, but very tiny handwriting. I don't think it was anything an OT could have done anything with because she has always been a phenomenal artist in all mediums (pen and ink, pencil, pastel, watercolor, oils, you name it). So she obviously had great grip and total control but handwriting didn't click. My older son still has terrible handwriting but besides his AP tests, where he miraculously got 5s despite his awful handwriting, he hasn't really needed it I suppose. But I'm with you on the importance handwriting for these younger generations - I suspect with AI and ChatGPT they may start using more handwriting, not less, when it comes to testing and essays.

We do MCT Town (Island last year) and I read the Writing Revolution and thought it was great BUT super hard to implement. I tried doing the Summary sentence worksheet on our daily Story of the World reading last year, but I almost always had to modify it a bit. What I've found that uses a lot of Writing Revolution sentence structures and fits in great with MCT's Town level (actually calling them an appositive phrase or participial phrase) is Wanda Phillips' complete steal of a book (price wise). It's called Easy Writing and I got it from Rainbow Resource. It covers elementary to high school so we won't use it all in one year and is easy to add a page. For example, there are 13 pages of semicolon construction work, a topic which MCT covers in Town but then just sort of leaves there. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Wanda Phillips. We use her Daily Grams as well and that fills holes MCT has without having to also do WTM's Language Lessons, which we found kind of not for us after the first year. WTM, however, covers all those little nit-picky things I find actually quite important. So Dr. Phillips has provided the perfect easy solution we can just add in without any prep.

These are all great suggestions above so the only thing I really have to add is history. We have done Story of the World during Elementary school but in Middle School I plan to do the Big History Project. A lot of my homeschooling friends have done it with their middle schoolers. It is free! I should point out that it is secular. www.oerproject.com

My two older children went to public school and are now in college. We started homeschooling my caboose child in 1st grade after being really disappointed with our local "top" public school in terms of curriculum. My youngest is easily the most social of all of my children. Homeschooling isn't super popular here and my local homeschool park day is rather sad. So at the beginning of our journey three years ago, I was really worried. However, my son is on a travel sports team and we do a once-a-week outdoor homeschool group that is super wonderful and he has made close friends there. He is also friends with some neighborhood kids who go to public school. We follow the local school schedule more or less and he goes to multiple summer camps. At Halloween this year, kids were constantly calling out his name on the street - I couldn't believe how many people he knew. This year we found a great online class that meets once a week and the teacher is a homeschool mom so I think she does a great job of keeping the kids engaged and involved. It's nice to see him interact there as a little change from just being with me. I initially planned to send him back in middle school but now I'm thinking we might just keep homeschooling. There are different opportunities that I plan to build into his curriculum then that get him out and interacting in the community more. I provided some of those same opportunities for my older kids who went to public school - my daughter did a weekend art studio time at a place where the next youngest participant was 56. One of the older people asked her how she liked it and she said it was a great counterbalance to the drama of middle school. My middle son did a program where a group of young people from many schools did sort of a restorative justice jury for youth offenders of minor offenses - most of the kids were interested in law, psychology, or social work and they even had a retreat once a year. There are so many things to participate in with kids their own age, kids of different ages, or even adults - opportunities that can make them much more well-rounded and well-spoken. Looking back, I honestly think my older kids could have had better social experiences and experiences with more depth and less drama than they had in public school. Not that public school was a bad experience - it certainly wasn't and they had some great friends and teachers. But homeschooled kids can have great friends and mentors too. We will reevaluate every year, but so far I am loving the social experiences he is having without losing his own identity. And as one commenter above mentioned the book Hold onto your Kids, I love the chance to have a really deep and meaningful relationship with my son. I have that with my older, public schooled kids as well but I feel like it took more effort. Since my youngest and I work together every day we have a mutual respect and understanding for each other that makes parenting a lot easier.

Since he is in school, I think this pace is great. My eldest completed AOPS Intro and Intermediate Number Theory courses and their Counting and Probability as AOPS live courses but she did them over the summer and I know at least one of them kept her very busy - maybe close to 20 hours a week. One summer she did two of them - Intro and C&P I think - and it was like a full time job and some weeks maybe more. But she is a kid who lives for that stuff. My youngest is in Beast now and it takes him about a year to complete a course. But when we get to Pre-Algebra and Algebra, I will let him take as long as he needs - my goal is a rock solid knowledge of Algebra. As my daughter's AP Calc teacher said, 'if you have a problem in Calculus, you really have an Algebra problem.' My youngest likes math a lot and is good at it - as is anyone who can thrive in a Beast course. But kids are different and not everyone has to live for it. He can just like it. My middle child never did AoPS at all but had a solid Algebra background and he has an easy A in a notoriously hard (so much that have a night before finals ritual surrounding it) math-y business class at an Ivy League. So I think if he's working an hour or so a day, then he is on a completely fine track. To complete the courses in those short time spans, kids are doing a lot more work per week and a lot of AoPS students live for math. For kids that are gifted at math, but don't live for it, AoPS is still valuable but you don't have to expect to be like everyone there. Btw, if they still have it, I would highly suggest the Alcumus practice (it was required in the courses my daughter took) but it is super high quality and it used to be free to anyone. I did have my middle child do Alcumus over the summers in the subject he had just completed to keep his math fresh. I don't think he ever maxxed it out though, just did some work every day. Oh, and might I add that your son doing it totally by himself is HUGE and WONDERFUL. That alone is such a skill - and as a parent of two college students a very important one. That's the kid that has an easy time later. As a matter of fact you might see him start to speed up as that giant skill is honed.

Oh I remember this problem so well! I can't remember everything we read but I found a few simple readers that served as a gentle intro to longer reading. My son loved the 'Frog and Toad' series as well as 'Danny and the Dinosaur.' Once we were done with our first few phonics levels (we used the ancient Hooked on Phonics because I still had it from my older children!), he was able to read them - slowly at first, but they were good challenge books that weren't TOO hard. My older daughter loved the Mercy Watson series at that stage - there were a few hard words, but tons of repetition and predictable story lines. This is an area someone really needs to address! Those Step-into-Reading books are all over the place and most of them have awfully boring and flat story lines. None of these are a series that gently increases in difficulty, I felt like I sort of pieced together this stage by checking out dozens and dozens of library books and returning over half due to incompability.

While I agree with SWB on co-ops, I also think it depends. We are lucky to do a once a week outdoor school which is multi-age and super diverse. This is our third year and I feel the benefit is not just social (my son has neighborhood friends - all boys, travel team friends - all boys, cousins - mostly boys, etc.) but it is a community of sorts in all the best ways and he has friends that are girls as well. Like a one-room schoolhouse of old. The parents are wonderful as well and we often go on outings, camping trips, and even had a Friendsgiving this year. I feel like that community building is something that schools try to create, but they are just too big to do it in a meaningful way. That community has become a very important part of my son's life and we have enjoyed it as well. I have heard of co-ops that aren't so time consuming - one half-day a week and parents take turns teaching an elective class over 6 weeks. That sounds very lovely as well. Perhaps there are other unhappy parents and you guys could start a small half-day co-op that is less intrusive to your time? I guess there are two ways to look at it - the importance to your child but also your feelings as well. A wise person once told me when I was looking for preschools to make sure it was convenient for me as well (and I said no to a co-op preschool!). Maybe there is an option that gives your child community and social time without being a burden on you. The decision doesn't have to be a binary one. As homeschoolers we are used to being creative and finding a solution!

Hi PeterPan! I would go with this link that lists a printable unit study for $7.99. It is from the same package I purchased in 2021 but it is much cheaper! This is a really good price for all the info she provides. https://www.etsy.com/listing/889684312/reindeer-winter-unit-study-arctic-animal?click_key=a2be32b0f05cd3e97de43cc6e2043acd02980c2c%3A889684312&click_sum=7ee63269&ref=shop_home_recs_2 I bought the pack that includes the reindeer antler and the lichen (at the time that was ONLY product available - but not sure I would have sprung for the full deal if I had an option. And now it has gone up in price (A LOT). I think I paid $45, which also seemed like a lot, but we really loved getting the lichen and the reindeer antler portion and I was impressed with the unit study. So much so that we used portions in 1st grade, skipped a year, and will do it again with some of the activities that were too much for him then. Getting two years out of it, and having the antler portion (and possibly the lichen if it doesn't decompose!), to keep in the Christmas box seems worth it. But if I had had the $7.99 option I would absolutely have gone with that!! At this current price though, I think I would want to share the cost with a friend or two. https://www.etsy.com/listing/872010094/alaska-reindeer-box-winter-activity-box?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_-toys_and_games&utm_custom1=_k_CjwKCAiAjfyqBhAsEiwA-UdzJOPXfX7GQqvaZFNYKtT2mpliJMq4ofJK2k84d1l8-f8R6Pj1oGVsaBoCjwgQAvD_BwE_k_&utm_content=go_12665398257_121762925993_511610210343_pla-314535279060_c__872010094_140176376&utm_custom2=12665398257&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAjfyqBhAsEiwA-UdzJOPXfX7GQqvaZFNYKtT2mpliJMq4ofJK2k84d1l8-f8R6Pj1oGVsaBoCjwgQAvD_BwE

We are doing the following fun things the last week or so of school before our Christmas break: Math: The Great Gingerbread House Project https://www.edutopia.org/article/great-gingerbread-house-project/ Writing: Gingerbread House for Sale https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Holiday-Writing-Activity-for-Middle-School-Gingerbread-House-for-Sale-2867123 And because we are in SOTW volume 3, Read aloud picture books: Baker's Dozen, A Colonial American Tale and An Early American Christmas Independent reading: The Best/Worst Christmas Pageant Ever Science: Reindeer Unit Study and Winter mini-lessons from Mystery Science

I would definitely suggest the YouTube Channel "Regular Secular Mama." For at least of year of her channel they were homeschooling out of an RV and she even had an RV homeschool organization tour. I've never done it but it was fun to live vicariously!

I'm not sure where you live, but maybe you have something like Berkeley Independent Study? It's a space kids can go, connect with peers and teachers, and take some classes in art, etc. from what I understand from some families I know. The amount of oversight is up to the family/student. Kids can also participate in sports/extracurriculars through the district. https://www.berkeleyschools.net/schools/independent-study/ Though my older children didn't homeschool, my eldest definitely could have done high school with little supervision on my part. She has always been super self motivated and because she is an uber night owl (thank goodness she majored in computer science!) she would have been asleep until noon anyway. 🙂 So looking back I really wish I had homeschooled her.

One subject I have not been satisfied with is Spanish. We tried Beautiful Mundo (I'm fluent in Spanish but way too much time and planning), Homeschool Spanish Academy (good, but not good enough and the worksheets had the smallest blanks I've ever seen!), and have now tried to implement Avancemos 1a (which has gone well but the exercises are too school-like, i.e. boring, and it is teacher intensive). I do not think my son would enjoy Song School Spanish and while I should speak Spanish with him more often, if I'm honest with myself I know I won't 🙂 Although he has a decent amount of Spanish exposure through his soccer teammates and their families. The problem with all of the above programs is that he seems to learn quickly - in Homeschool Spanish he would go through each lesson in two sessions - but I don't think it has stuck. If one of his friends' moms asks him pretty basic questions in Spanish it's like he can't remember anything. This is the only subject that he seems to have this issue with and I'm guessing it is because the above programs didn't consistently spiral previously learned vocabulary and lessons? Calico Spanish looked great though I am a bit worried about it being too cutesy for my 9 year old. I'm thinking based on prior knowledge he would probably go through the first couple of levels very quickly or maybe we could skip them? I liked that it seemed like it had some teacher involvement but not too much and the exercises seemed useful and meaningful without being boring. Middlebury Interactive Spanish seems interesting but I can't find any sort of demo online? Would I choose the Spanish 3-5, the Spanish Middle School, or Spanish I? Does it have any writing component at all? The info on this program seems limited and the reviews I found didn't answer these questions. Has anyone used either of these programs (or do you have another you would recommend)?

Science Comics has good books on birds and they are graphic novels. I believe they have one on Crows and another called Birds of Prey, I believe?

@El... This is a great question! I think the curriculum is along the lines of SOTW - inclusive but pretty general without a political leaning. Over the course of the curriculum they focus on Native Californians, the Spanish in California, the 49ers, Asian, and Latino culture. There is a short mention of African Americans in California, but that is an area that one may want to expand on. For someone who was religious with a more literal interpretation of the Bible, they might want to know that the curriculum mentions the earth is 4.6 billion years old a few times, but they could easily edit that out. For me, I think I will add in field trips to Angel Island and China Camp (we are in the Bay Area anyway) as well as attend some local Native American events and educational presentations. During the 'Antiguo' section I supplemented with books on our local Miwok people but our local Miwok museum closed during Covid and hasn't reopened. The curriculum also ends at the depression so unless I'm missing something in the glance over of future units we do need to add in Japanese internment, a Rosie the Riveter musuem visit, etc. The book has a lot more I didn't mention, like John Muir (Muir Woods field trip!) and a section on water scarcity (an important topic for all of us in the future most likely). That's an area I would like to expand on with watersheds, water stewardship, etc. and maybe adding in a volunteer day working on projects with our local watershed (they have something once a month I believe).

I couldn't find a review for California Out of the Box, so I thought I would write one. I have been so impressed with this curriculum, which teaches California history in (mostly) chronological order, using stories and novels as the pegs to which kids can relate the knowledge being studied. The 'Stories from Where We Live' has had some great short stories and the novels (Island of the Blue Dolphins, Valley of the Moon, By the Great Horn Spoon!, The Earth Dragon Awakes, and Esperanza) are really wonderful as well. Each section not only covers the history of California from the prehistoric period, but the natural habitats, geography, and more. Initially I planned to study each section during the year as it lined up with whatever SOTW volume we were on but the curriculum is pretty in depth and I decided it would be better as a summer unit study project between volumes. So we did 'Antiguo' after SOTW Volume 2 (he would have been too young for this after Volume 1) and we will do Missions and Ranchos and the Gold Rush this summer after SOTW Volume 3. This curriculum could also be used, of course, as a year long history course. For those using the curriculum with various ages, there are suggestions for younger students in lieu of the novels. It seems like the intended audience is fourth to sixth grade based on the novels suggested in the main curriculum. I also noticed the author has an online course she teaches using the book. For us, we will use it as a summer "extra" making it more "light" by listening to the novels as audiobooks and doing the stories as read alouds. I will also omit or change a lot of the writing assignments so it doesn't feel too much like schoolwork. Though we didn't do this with the first unit, "Antiguo", in future units I would like to have him make a notebook/scrapbook to chronicle his studies. One of the reasons I'm most excited about using this as summer units is that we can combine some field trips with camping trips, which I think will also align nicely with the habitat studies. I wouldn't call the curriculum completely open and go but I also don't think it requires a lot of planning - mainly just reading over the lesson the night before and seeing if there is anything you need to have at the ready (i.e. a copy of a map from the appendix, a page marked from the Stories book (not included), or some supplies for a nature study).

@Clarita maybe you could see some sample pages online if you're interested but it seems like you have science covered! Now that I've bought it there will be a few things I pull out that I think he will still find interesting but probably not worth the full price for us.

We've been doing Beast Academy Science for a month and will probably quit using it. My youngest has been using Beast Math for almost three years and my eldest did AOPS classes in Intro and Int. Number Theory, Counting and Probability, and Math Contest prep classes, so we love AOPS! I was excited about it because we do these major science deep dives once every other week and since my son loves science I thought it would be nice to have something he could do himself on off days. While I think Beast Academy Science is a great addition to homeschool science curriculum options as it 1. covers grade level science standards in a deeper way 2. is open and go and 3. can largely be done by the child independently, it was not a fit for us. Why? Mainly because we have done BFSU for three years and are already in the second book. Because of that my son complained that it was too easy. That being said, BFSU takes a LOT of planning. And honestly I'm not sure that I would even be able to teach some of the units without a major time commitment if it weren't for the fact that my husband has a degree in Physics and Mech-E. So is it doable for everyone? Yes, but only if everyone had tons of time. We haven't used Scientific Connections through Inquiry, though I know it follows BFSU so I'm guessing kids who have used it for a couple of years might feel the same about Beast. But I think Beast Science fills a real need that isn't being filled (I often see homeschoolers complain they don't really get around to science - like me with art!) and your child will be far better prepared than public school (and probably even most private school) students for whatever upper level science classes they take. My daughter went through regular public school and since she was always reading and watching science videos in her free time, she didn't reach any new science info until high school.

We love MCT and are currently well into the Town level. We did the Island level when my son was in second grade. I never thought my bouncy child would get excited whenever I announced we were going to analyze a sentence. Tips for the Island level: - I don't think you need the student books at this level. The Teacher's Guides were sufficient as we were reading together and I always put the practice sentences on the whiteboard. - Putting the practice sentences on the whiteboard was fun and I think he felt a bit "teacher-y" when he would either point to the word or write the part of speech, etc. underneath the word. - Don't let kids guess at the parts of speech. I always said, "what is it doing in the sentence?" and this has given him a really deep understanding. He can pick out tricky prepositions and adverbs after a year or so of doing them. - I didn't try to do all of the practice sentences from September to May - I left a chunk for over the summer too to keep us fresh (we follow our local district calendar so he is free when his friends are). Literature: I wanted to like the Mud trilogy and it was fine, but if I did it over again I would skip it. We did read alouds from a lot of classic books so I think he was getting exposure to great vocabulary anyway. I have a completely different opinion in the Town level. Writing: As a multi-published author, I have struggled the most with teaching writing. How did I learn to write? I have no idea and sometimes when you've done something professionally for years, you struggle to break it down. Plus I have had some excellent editors (my punctuation is quite imperfect). I stressed a lot over the amount of writing in the Island level - not enough, weird, and disjointed were my first impressions - but now that we are in Town Level I'm starting to see the forest for the trees - more about that below. If you are starting with an older student you could easily start with the Town level. It has everything the Island level has with additional topics like phrases, subordinating and coordinating conjunctions, but not so much info that a fifth or sixth grade student couldn't handle. My son is in third grade in this level and I feel like it might be a lot to start with Town in 3rd. Not impossible, but I think it would take the fun out of MCT and that would be sad. Tips for Town level: - I would get the student books at this level. I like to have him follow along in his own book while I read out loud. Plus there are more in-book sentence analysis exercises. For Caesar's English we co-read most chapters. I make a photocopy of the word searches because the book is so beautiful it seems ashamed to mark it up (we got the color version). - I will stretch out the practice sentences at this level too. - I would buy the full package (expensive, I know) that comes with the guide, because I found the guide really useful in pacing at this level and it gives additional writing suggestions. Maybe someone else would not find it worth it, but since I wanted the student books and I am now an uber-fan of MCT, I went all in. - This year I did add in Daily Grams from Easy Grammar for punctuation and capitalization practice, etc. Basically some of the stuff that First Language Lessons would cover. My son liked FLL in first grade but at the second level he lost interest. And FLL does have some nice touches (formatting a letter, abbreviations, punctuation) that MCT doesn't cover. I made a note of those topics in the second level but for most of it Daily Grams takes care of it without me needing to plan it in. Literature: I am loving the literature trio at this level. The books incorporate vocabulary, sentence analysis, quote quizzes, Socratic questions, and callouts of writing tools and techniques. Like a Brave Writer Dart or Arrow but more rigorous - once we were well into the Island level of MCT the grammar in the Darts seemed too easy and I could no longer get out my money's worth. Writing: Since I panicked in the Island level, we started doing CAP W&R over the summer and into the fall. I will continue with it as my son likes it and it doesn't take too much time. BUT, now that we have moved further along in MCT, I'm starting to see the logic in MCT writing. My son loves MCT's writing assignments and really gets into them (unlike CAP which he treats more as a "get it done" exercise). And they are more beautiful and more creative than other writing he does. MCT's grammar means it is easy for me to point out errors and even make my own checklist a la IEW which does NOT include the requirement of an -ly adverb. The adverb is not your friend, as Stephen King says (who has an excellent book on writing btw). My son and I love the quotes from great books and speeches and I've bought the speeches books since my son loves history. We sit down as a family and learn from them. I think it's helpful when the teacher can be excited by a curriculum as well - that excitement rubs off on the child. I wish I had this when my now college age daughter was young - she would have loved it as well. My kids are quite different but they both really hate anything that's too easy, cheesy, or banal. MCT is a joy and a work of genius in my opinion. It might seem unstructured but in fact it is a highly structured curriculum with tons of review and weaving of one facet of ELA to the next and back again.