Looks perfect.

Yep, my oldest daughter. We used a timed CAT in 4th and 6th grader and she felt so overwhelmed she was in tears much of the test. She thought the test was easy, but being timed made her feel sheer and utter panic. (Both times) And yet when we received her scores she had essentially maxed them out. Go figure.

As my kids started to outgrown naptime, they had the option to read or sleep. So the time became known as "Quiet Book Time". Still the same thing even with older kids. They can read or they can sleep. I don't have much twaddle at home and try to keep it from coming home from the library. With that in mind, they can pretty much read anything during that time that they'd like. Every month or so (or more often if I have a kids in a reading slump) I pass them a book and say, "Hey. Read this." And they do. Easy peasy. I'm convinced that this time of an hour. every day. 365 days a year (or almost...) is why I have such great readers. Even my youngest two who still have speech issues are fluent readers. I'm also convinced that this time of an hour of silence every day is why I'm still sane. (mostly)

Anything CLE sunrise Pentime Abeka elementary science Abeka handbook for reading and 1st grade readers (a page from the handbook and one story or section from a reader. Boom. Done.) Stacks of books to free read, read slowly and copy or write narrations from, or have them as read alouds

10th grade Jacobs Geometry with Khan Academy DIVE Chemistry Notgrass American History-perhaps IEW SWI C plus lit list I don't know what else. Im finding he's reluctant to cooperate with courses that *I* put together, but if it's in a lesson plan that someone else wrote, he won't argue with me so much. ALSO I'm finding that he needs to spend less time doing planned work with the rest of us. Scratch that. WE need him doing less work with the rest of us. Teenage testosterone is no joke. It's making him not so nice and definitely not particularly cooperative. This year has been hard. I have enrollment forms for public school sitting in my desk drawer. DS has expressed he doesn't want to go, but he knows if he doesn't want to submit to me as his teacher at home (and treat the rest of the family like actual human beings), he can go submit to someone else as teacher. So I'm planning next year with that in mind....he may not remain at home.

CLE math CLE LA OR Rod and Staff English (I'll let him decide) An IEW theme book (spread out over 2 years if necessary) History and science are still undecided Family Time will continue. An hour of reading aloud will continue as will an hour of silent reading. All decided now. CLE math AMCM Early Modern with Entymology Oh I love how streamlined that looks.

CLE math 100 Abeka readers for phonics Pentime FLL OR CLE LA - I remain undecided They'll sit in on whatever history and science I do with my middles if they choose and also must sit in for family read alouds, but as far as formal curriculum goes, the 3rs is it for 1st grade here.

Math- CLE Alg 1 with Khan Academy to reinforce I'm thinking we're going with Teaching Textbooks Alg 1 English- IEW SWI C or EIW, Easy Grammar, Lit list Science- Dive Earth Science or Apologia Physical History- Probably CLE SS 800 with additional reading from Sonlight 100 Spanish-Duolingo PE- She LOVES fitness blender workouts Family time studies

CLE Math RS English with Pentime OR CLE LA WWE 2 maybe Something for science and history Family Time - not even close to having this all planned out yet After spending the better part of this year in a very bad place, I've decided to go another direction. Sticking with the CLE math but everything else will be A Modern Charlotte Mason Early Modern. We already did our consult and I feel so much better. I don't do well with things undecided and all the little details with 6 kids were going to kill me. I don't do details.

Loving- CLE math- as always Rod and Staff English- for my 9 year old. He loves doing this together SOTW as a spine- never any complaints STACKS of books DIVE Biology- my son declared that this is very difficult but that he loves it and is really learning the material Not feeling the love- Everything Good and the Beautiful- just not good for us.

We got about half way through SWI B with ease. The checklist then started to become tedious and life had some hiccups...which just led me to feel very behind. So, I did end up returning it. After that I essentially created my own writing projects and the skills from IEW actually stuck! This year my oldest is using EIW 9. It is definitely a more independent program. And it's a program that isn't designed to fill a whole year which makes it no pressure to slug through. My son prefers it....because it's easier. But I don't think he's really learned anything. And his writing has seemed to take a step BACKWARDS. In between essay units from EIW, I've been essentially reteaching them myself using the principles from IEW and his writing is far and away better when we do it this way. I don't regret using EIW this year, because I really did NEED something less intensive for me right now. Also, if we had never tried it, I would always have wondered. ;) That being said, I have already purchased SWI C for next year. Hope that helps a bit. (My other child that I used IEW with before is using Good and the Beautiful Language arts and loathes it, BUT she told me that if I made her switch curricula again mid year, she'd lose her mind.)

Science in the Beginning hands down. We actually tried a Good and the Beautiful science unit earlier in the year (along with their LA and History) and none of it really worked for us. It felt all over the place to me and not nearly as in depth as what we've done before (even when I fly by the seat of my pants!). But that's just me. Some people do love it. There are some good reviews on youtube if you want to get more of a feel for what it's like. GraceandGrit's channel is the one that comes to mind.

Which ones have been your favorites? Also, have you thought ahead for how to assign high school credit for the form 4 sciences?

I really am less than thrilled with Apologia General/Physical Science and have yet to find an alternative that would be a good fit for us. The Sabbath Mood Science Guides look amazing! Has anyone used these? I did a search and not much of anything came up.

About 3 hours in the morning of either independent or one on one work with me 1-1 1/2 hours of family time studies (after lunch and a walk) 1 hour of quiet reading time That's about 4- 4 1/2 hours not counting our 2 mile family walk after lunch, and any time spent studying or pursuing interests in the afternoon. I am ok with this.

:grouphug: I'm so very sorry. Your post definitely made me pause and put things in perspective.

Unfortunately, I now live several states away from my mom. Otherwise, this would be perfect. :) This is the only way I'd consider having a tree. And thank you, by the way. My very oldest child is a boy and he says he doesn't care at all about having a tree. BOTH of my girls are very excited about the prospect though.

I've seen this in my own mother. She does LOVE all the holiday stuff but does end up feeling this way. I'm in process of making a list of things for this right now. Things I know *I* can handle. I do love the idea of spreading it out over the month of December so Christmas isn't just one grueling day. You sound very much like me in this post. This is exactly what's happening. And honestly, Im happy she's telling me now that she wants more rather than telling me 20 years from now that holidays were a huge disappointment. She's currently working on pinterest boards dedicated to holidays. I've told her I'm open to facilitating her projects (ie me not leading and doing everything) I asked my kids about the holiday meal they want, and shockingly they all care very little about it aside from the dessert.... We've done take out for the past few years, and they're happy with that. Buffet style take out food and then parking ourselves in the living room to watch movies is something they're happy with. Ditto to the first part. And my mom also is like this. We've gone to my parents' house for holidays before, which does make my mom happy...but then I feel guilty because of how drained she is after. I tend to have unreasonable expectations of myself in general. I'm working on it. :iagree: It's very unfair that people think this. I expressed to a close friend my disdain for having to do any kind of craft project. She then invited us over and surprised me with....a craft project. So I could somehow be cured of my disdain from them? She meant well.

I was so afraid to ask this, but I'm so grateful I did. These kinds of ideas are so helpful. I'm going to get as many non craft/cooking ideas down on paper as possible and let my kids pick the ones they'd like the most. Maybe they each pick one for the season? We shall see. I don't want to overplan...this has been my downfall. Plan too much, fail, and then do nothing. Then feel guilty. Determine to try again next year. Repeat. And thank you, Jesus that everything doesn't have to be cookie swaps and crafting my own decor.

This is the first time any of them have expressed an interest in actually doing more. I'm open to facilitating some of their ideas...I just can't handle putting it all together and doing it myself, which is what I used to do when I only had small kids. See. Maybe this is part of my problem. My mother is Martha Stewart. What you're describing doesn't sound nearly as intensive as what I had growing up...and tried to duplicate. I do make a turkey on Thanksgiving unless we spend it with extended family. We have a Thanksgiving madlibs, and they usually watch the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie while I'm cooking. We haven't done Christmas gifts in many years. I have a child with a birthday right before Christmas, so that definitely makes it harder. Last year we went to candlelight Christmas Eve service at church. Then on Christmas Day we read the Christmas Story, got take out, and marathon watched Christmas specials. I generally make big plans as to how I'm going to make a zillion batches up cookies leading up to it (as my mom made a different kind of cookie for all the 12 days of Christmas...) and then burn out after two days. With the decorations, part of the problem is that I have sensory issues. If there is a lot of "stuff" in my space, my brain is spinning and I cannot think. If we have decor, it needs to be isolated enough for me to have a part of my living space relatively stark. The more I think about it, I really am thinking I need to find our balance between nothing and too much.

I'm not a holiday person. At all. I had perfectly "normal" holiday celebrations as a child with all of the traditions that go along with that, but never do I remember having any kind of warm fuzzy feelings about it. When I started to have a family of my own, I began to dread holidays because of all the traditions I was supposed to do that go along with celebrating them. I don't like cooking. And anytime I hear the word "craft" or "project", I die a little inside. It's not that I don't want to be thankful at Thanksgiving. I just do better being thankful with a time of quiet reflection rather than....all the other "stuff". I find it all so overwhelming. We've always participated in family and church gatherings around the holidays, but in my own home...I've kept things as simple as possible. Readings about whichever holiday, discussions, and then music. Essentially that's all. Even having themed decor stresses me out. Whenever there is a multitude of things to DO, I feel robbed of time to just think and BE. My oldest daughter has expressed that she really wants MORE in terms of traditions, but she is not interested in giving me any kind of input (or helping) as to what she's looking for other than the fact that she wants a Christmas tree this year, That I can handle. (We haven't had one in 9 years I think?) Just because *I* don't connect with holidays doesn't mean I want to deprive my children of them if it's something they are realizing they do long for at this point and time. I'm hoping to find ways of enriching their holiday experiences without completely draining the life out of me. Is anyone else "holiday impaired"? Have you been able to find ways of making holidays special for your family that you were also able to connect with? And if so, please share. Any other words of wisdom? I know I cannot be the only one in the universe who feels this way, but most of the time I feel as though no one understands at all. Please don't verbally stone me. I've always carried so much guilt over this.

At this point, Im definitely considering doing SWI C next year with my oldest two and then go from there.

I tend to think I would feel more comfortable with it the second time around just knowing what to do differently. I did sort of study the lessons ahead of time in so much as I read through it all and tried to break down how many days I thought would work for us on each assignment. IF we did try again, what level would we do? We made it 3/4 of the way with SWI B. Do we start over with SWI C this time? It will have been over a year in between.

I will admit that trying to even remember why it didn't work is difficult. We started strong with it but as we went on, the checklist became more and more tedious, which in turn made the process more difficult. Because of that, we spent longer and longer between IEW lessons and other "homemade" by mom lessons. I eventually dropped the checklist which did help, but by that time we had spent sooooo long trying to get through it, that *I* needed to be done. Just having it around was giving me guilt. What DID work......well, my kids both say that it helped them more than anything else we've done. I liked that it had ONE video lesson per assignment rather than a little each day. We did watch lessons together, discussed the assignment, and then I helped as needed. Also huge for me was being able to combine my oldest two instead of having to come up with and teach two different lessons. I'm not opposed to this idea, but I haven't been able to find theme books for high school?