Love this, and also loved reading your signature and seeing everything your kids are doing. It's so fun seeing all the cool and varied things homeschoolers are doing as adults! It's such a testament to this lifestyle.

This annoys me so much, too!

Interesting that they call the books age inappropriate. Rollins has always been about Ambleside, where the books are IMO very age inappropriate. As in, the Year 1 books are so far beyond what any normal 6 year old would retain, let alone be interested in. I am a firm believer that kids are usually way more capable than we give them credit for, but some of the stuff there is overkill in that regard. But that's just my opinion 🙂

I realize that's a broad question, but here's the thing. I have gone back and forth between whether to continue with a full core from Memoria Press (which is what we've done for 2 years now), or to just use MP for the 3 R's plus Latin and use Sonlight for everything else. I've only got one child, so I have little homeschooling experience, which makes it difficult for me to make a decision. I got the Sonlight IG in the mail and it *seems* great, albeit not as cohesive as MP from what I can tell. I love classical pedagogy, even if I am very much still learning about it all. The problem with SL is that you can't find much on the internet about whether or not it is sufficient and rigorous enough to stay with throughout a child's education. That's one thing I'm BIG on -- choosing a curriculum and STICKING with it. The thought of jumping around and second guessing myself for the next 10 years stresses me out. To sum up, my line of thinking goes like this: - MP is wonderful but I worry that there's not much "delight" in the program - SL seems delight-filled, and I love the emphasis on exposure to other cultures, but also seems a little disjointed, and also the Usborne books as history spines really throw me. Ha! Thoughts?

You know, you're absolutely right. The answer may be as simple as that!

Hey everyone, my son and I have been working through Abeka's Handbook for Reading for phonics instruction, but he is getting frustrated every day even just doing one page with about 10 words. I'm looking around for gentle phonics programs because I think we may need to dial it back and start elsewhere. I've looked at All About Reading 1 and The Good and the Beautiful. Anyone have experience with either of those, or another program you recommend? We tried Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and were not fans. FYI - he is 5.

I really love the idea of narration, I'm hoping to implement that, too.

I would love to be able to chat with you more since you have so much experience, but since I'm new here I'm not allowed to send messages 😞

I have been back and forth for months now on which direction to go with our schooling. We have only ever used Memoria Press (aside from a few items from Abeka for phonics). For a while I had said I would hope to only ever use MP going forward, but now I'm not so sure. I appreciate their view that students should be disciplined, but I feel like it could be taken a little too far. I want my son to enjoy learning, and one of the things they're always on about is "learning isn't supposed to be fun" which I agree with to an extent, but still...... I think of the Charlotte Mason quote often about how at the end of a child's school years, it doesn't matter how much he knows but how much he cares. It seems their materials are just joy-sucking, to be honest. Anywho, I'm just curious if anyone here has switched FROM Memoria Press to another curriculum, for any of the same reasons I listed or for different reasons altogether. I can only ever seem to find posts of folks who switched TO them.