Okay, here goes: Math: Teaching Textbooks Geometry Science: Probably Miller Levine with Kolbe syllabus, labs done with a friend English: Illuminating Literature and Power in Your Hands History: TOG Year 3 FL: French I, probably at Aim Academy Personal Finance: Dave Ramsey? Health: Total Health PE: Daily Run, possibly exercise class if we join a co-op Activities: Taekwondo, organ, piano, acting, maybe volunteering at a Kid's club, youth group

My last 3 started level A in second grade and work through 2 levels a week. We do half a lesson/level a day and take off one day a week. So, they finish a book a year. Your pace is fine. I would rather pull my eye lashes out one at a time then do more than 1/2 a lesson and I have no idea how kids who struggle with spelling could do a whole lesson a day. For the record, I am now on my fourth child doing the program and I am very pleased with the results (always doing 1/2 a lesson a day). They are not Spelling Bee winner level spellers, but are at least average for their age.

Praying for you and your family. It sounds like you are processing the grief, which is so good and healthy. I am praying for comfort and peace for all of you.

We do Just Dance on the Wii for indoor exercise.

I am so sorry Yael, and so glad you could be there.

A few novels-unless you are using Jill Pike's syllabus for WTtW which includes novels.

Me, too, and I did it with my oldest! Now I'm stuck with an 11th grader in Calculus who is sick of math. I SOOO wish we'd slowed down. We need to figure out one more year. . . .

Yes, in the alternate readings SOTW is lined up with the D reading. However, you couldn't do SOTW and answer the D questions. It is an upper grammar alternative. The discussions are only for D and up.

I'll do my best to answer your questions. The way I use it is different b/c I have kids at 3 levels. We are on our 6th year of TOG. Bookshelf Central has a search feature where you can search what books you need at each level. That is the quickest way. Oh, I see you did that. Well, you would need to get the curriculum to see what the Core books are. For D and above, you really need both for the questions. Are you looking for next year? I would not put a fifth grader in dialectic. My ds, who is gifted in LA, would not have done well. I tend to begin to transition my kids during the final quarter of fifth grade. So, I would put off doing TOG until your oldest is in sixth and just finish up with SOTW next year. Then start with Year 1. there are no questions for grammar levels, so there is no real difference using TOG vs. SOTW with added books from the actiivty book. In fact, that's mostly what I do. The Writing Aids books has the writing instruction. I have done different things different years. Sometimes I use TOG, sometimes IEW, sometimes other resources. Really it's a mashup depending on the kid and the year. I can get a lot at the library or used through Amazon. Lit--mmm. Well, the rhetoric lit is deep. The dialectic lit is pretty good. The discussion questions at that level aren't super, though. Now I do a once a month book club on one of the books with a couple of other families. I base my discussion questions around Teaching the Classics. I like book discussions in groups and I like those questions. Lower levels, I prefer Sonlight. How we use it: My D and R students do the history readings, questions and have a once a week discussion. I read SOTW and some other books to my dd7 (with dd 11 listening in). Sometimes and some years I also read a D reading outloud. They also do the map. I don't do the people or the vocab. At our Thursday co-op the grammar (and sometimes dialectic) do an activity related to what we are studying. We sometimes have unit celebrations. This quarter it's just watching a related movie together, last time we had a Medieval feast. This is getting long. There is no one right way to to Tapestry and I use it more or less depending on the "season" of life. I've been very pleased with the discussions. But I really am glad we didn't start until I had a D student--I just don't find the grammar selections very compelling.

:grouphug: :grouphug:

I just told my dh to make that for me next time he does nachos for the family. I LOVE nachos, but can't handle the carbs.

Until my ds was in fifth grade, I thought we'd use Sonlight all the way through. We switched to TOG in sixth. It was no biggie. It's okay to switch history and science curriculum. And the teacher's notes are not hard to get through when you have older kids. I do it during piano lessons. It helps to have another family to do discussion with, though. If your dc are grammar age, don't even worry about TOG. If you don't want a big financial layout and want to save your money for "the big curriculum" when your kids are older, I recommend Story of the World with the activity book (and extra books to supplement). Honestly, my lg TOG kids do SOTW and a picture book from TOG--same thing, plus an activity in our group. There is no way I'd invest in TOG in order to use it all the way through when my kids are small. You just don't know what will happen/turn up/come up. At this pt, I will probably use it all the way with my 7 year old b/c I have it. But I still see Sonlight and MFW and HOD as great alternatives (I don't know much about Biblioplan).

I'm interested, too. We are planning to use this next year.

Well, our co-op was very clear about participation. Everyone had to teach and be an aid and do some other service. It didn't stop the complaints (which is something when you are complaining to someone who is doing that and much more!). It didn't stop the martyr complex/ we are holier than you complaints--I know I agreed to come and you said my participation was necessary, but my dh says you are not being Christian b/c you said we can't join if we want to take a month long mission trip in the middle of our commitment. Blah! As if it is "Christian" to make others work twice as hard so you can go off on a mission trip when you knew the commitment ahead of time. It did drive me to the invitation only model. But I don't think that this is limited to homeschooling at all or even nowadays. There have always been self absorbed people. And, for the record, I totally get that there are seasons when one can't volunteer and where one is barely getting by or when one has to pull back. I even get that you might not ever be able to offer anything. It's the complaining that there aren't any field trips, but being unwilling to do anything, not even set up a park date. If you are unable to do it, maybe other people are too. If no one has the energy or time, then it can't happen. That is sad, but true.

No, I think the same exact thing and I did start a co-op. I just couldn't keep it up b/c I let them get to me too much. If I could have felt this way and remained emotionally detached, all would have been good. I think. OP: you can't make anyone volunteer. You can empower them, require them and encourage them. You can call them on selfish attitudes and educate them on how the group works. But there will always be folks like that. Always.

Oh my goodness. A lot. In the beginning I took one family's six year old for science and took her to library storytime and the park b/c her older sister's (3 of them) needed to school, she and my son got along well and I knew my friend felt badly that she didn't do the little kid things b/c of schooling hte olders She would take my son for writing club once a week or so.(I had 3 6 and under when this started) After we moved, we joined a teeny co-op that met during a Bible Study at church (5? families maybe) I taught writing once a month. Then I started a 25 family co-op. Oh, my word! I am great at organizing and delegating but do not love all that responsibility at all. But no one else was doing it and I felt that if I wanted it for my kids, I needed to do it. I had 4 10 and under when this started. But I got burned out completely, especially by the parents who were takers. Maybe I shouldn't have let them get me down, but I finally decided that I kept compromising what would work for us to make it work for others. And spent a lot of time making it work. After a really hard year, where we had had a major conflict which had major fall out, as well as my sons ninth grade year which had been really, really hard emotionally and he'd fallen far behind, I looked at the returning surveys and realized almost every high school parent had written that they'd only come back depending on what we offered. "We" were a small co-op (10 high schoolers, maybe 8 at the time) so what "we" offered was what "we" were willing to offer. I realized that I just wasn't willing to bend over backwards to make it work anymore. And "mama" wasn't happy, so no one was "happy". So, a couple of friends and I left and are doing a small 3-5 family Tapestry co-op where we do just what works for our family in a relaxed manner. We are no stress. Oh, and I have my friends littles (the 6,7 and 8th of 9) over for a science club once a week so my youngest ( youngest by 4 years) has fun activities and I'm more likely to do it if other kids are coming. I also host mother's meetings at least once a year, organized the "how to homeschool" meeting for a couple of years and now have one teen meeting at my house. Oh, and I'll post that we are going to the park. I don't organize field trips for anyone other than us and our best friends. And I never, ever, ever will. Not ever. I know I haven't answered all your questions. Mostly my motivations have been what I want for my kids. I also have enjoyed mother's meetings so I like to host one to keep them going. I do get disappointed that others aren't hosting and that few people are even hosting teen events this year. But I am a firm believer in letting things die if they aren't generally wanted and others aren't willing to step in. Sometimes I am willing to do more than my share, but I try to make sure that I can do it without resentment. Oddly, my biggest years were when my oldest was 10 until he was 14. Those were the years my youngest was 1 until she was 6. Now that I have teens, I don't know, maybe I'm more tired, maybe I don't want to host mother's meetings b/c I'm not as enthusiastic and I feel I know less than I did before. . . . I don't really know what I'm doing parenting my teens right now. I am fairly confident in schooling them, but maybe less confident in being any kind of expert that might influence someone one way or another about homeschooling. It's not really that I think we are making a mistake, more like I just can't be a leader right now. Ack, that makes no sense, I know. My biggest advice to newbies is if you want it, make it happen. And don't judge the parents of teens if they pull back. Some are tired some have put in a lot of time, some have no time to give.

Sound like a 13/14 year old. My ds was the same. 15 was SO much better and now, at 16, he is taking my advice about what works and doesn't--well, most of the time---or at least some of the time. LOL

I live in a high regulation state. All homeschoolers I know have kids on grade level after 3rd (and having been a first and second grade teacher in a former life, I know that "grade level" is very variable earlier than that) except in the case of LDs. I think that all the crazy reporting and paperwork does scare some folks away. You can just pull your kid emotionally without a plan b/c you have to send in a plan 2 weeks later. However, we have too many regs. I agree that I like Virginia's.

I cannot believe that it's been a whole year! You have been missed. I'm so glad your dh is doing well. We spent a month in Mn last summer and my kids all loved it, and some preferred it to our East coast home, so I get your son. I'm glad he's been able to roll with the punches. Great to see you.

Well, my friend did it with her daughter who did go off to college. . . Ancient counts as World history, why not call it that?

I am not super spontaneous, so it would be hard to shift thoughts for me, but, like you, I'd try. But some things are commitments that you can't drop last minute--like ds's FLL meeting today with the competition next week. A five year olds hockey practice I would drop, but probably not a12 year olds. I like advanced notice.

I found AP and intro statistics infer Specialized in the independent learner section, but no Calculus. Prep for calc and ap review calc. I wonder why? Sorry.

Are you sure? I am sure there used to be Statistics and Calculus. Maybe under a different category? I can't check easily Snd link right now, though.

We do and really like it. My student is learning. It's all pro for us. I suppose the only con would be if you want s lot of outside work. Ds has about two hours of work outside class. Sometimes less. It's what we want-active learning but not crazy rigorous. Even that could be negotiated with the teacher, though. It's very flexible. I love that ds had to speak every class and do things like make up stories.

The before is to have a baseline and to make sure you start below 120. If you are higher than 120, you shouldn't eat. I don't test before unless I think my blood sugar is still too high from a previous meal. There is a website Blood Sugar 101 which is very helpful. The one hour is for me more indicative of how my body handles those foods. The two hour shows hoe quickly I rebound. Some meals my one hours are okay, but don't really go down much by two hous and actually keep my blood sugar up at three hours.