Thank you ladies!

I'm wondering what is available that begins mid-year? I will be pulling my 7th grader out of PS after the semester. She has been HS up until this year. We have not been thrilled about the lack of academic rigor at school. DD has not done any literary analysis previously other than us discussing read-alouds. She has a 12th grade reading level so I think she should be able to reasonably handle a 9th grade literature class. I have seen the Veritas Press self-paced, but I don't like how they cram in more books than my college literature classes. She will be using Cover Story for writing as well as BJU Writing and Grammar for skills review. I appreciate your input!

Thank you all for your responses. I'm not so much concerned about the legal aspect. I am already a registered child care. I'm pretty sure it is legal no matter what I call myself: http://www.thsc.org/homeschooling-in-texas/state-requirements/texas-education-code/ I was looking more for anecdotes.

In Texas, home schools are legally considered private schools already, so I think I would be safe there.

I'm curious to hear other mom's experience in this area. I'm considering privately educating 1-2 students in addition to my own. So my questions are: How did you find your clients? How did it work out for your family? Did it interfere or add to your own children's educational experience? How much did you charge? TIA!

My sister has the Flour Water Salt Yeast book as well and it is really awesome. We made the pizza dough while I was visiting, and it was INCREDIBLE! The best pizza I've ever had short of a brick oven.

This one by DK looks pretty good too: Get Started Baking I haven't used this myself, but thought it looked pretty good when I was looking into cookbooks for next year.

My girls started at ages 7/5 with Power Glide Latin. Last year and half of this year we did Song School Latin. And now we are doing Prima Latina since I already had it. So far we've only done it as a fun extra. All the programs are on about the same level so they have just been reviewing the same material over and over again. I would definitely do it the same way again. They have developed a love of the language and can't wait to start a higher level in July. Depending on how they like PL, we will do either Latina Christiana or Latin for Children next.

What I'm planning to use next year when put together comes close: Evan-moor The World Reference Maps and Forms Kingfisher Maps and Mapping Rand McNally Classroom atlas I'm also using the Carson Dellosa World Gepgraphy workbook, but is a 4th-6th grade book. Forgot to add another book I love: What is a Biome? by Bobbie Kalman

So many wonderful options! You may want to skim through a "5th grade schedule" thread to get an idea of what curriculum is out there. I would start at the beginning of the cycle with ancients and biology. Have you thought about adding in a language? Since he is already working at an advance level in LA, Latin may be a good fit. Memoria Press has a lot of good options for rigorous Latin,composition, literature, and classical studies. Their material is challenging, but age appropriate. This curriculum is mildly christian. You didn't mention whether you were looking for secular or christian curriculum, which makes a huge impact on your curriculum options. If my 5th grader were reading at that level, I would consider starting on the Veritas Press Omnibus series. But some of the books are a little heavy for a 5th grader, so you would have to hand-pick which ones to cover. I believe the first 3 books in this series are still written for the logic stage (I'm not positive).

Wow...I've never seen this curriculum before. This would have been perfect 2 years ago!

Technically by age I will have 3rd/5th graders next year, but since I'm burned out on teaching everything twice they will be combined into 4th grade. Only math will be taught separately. So here are my tentative plans: Latina Christiana I Horizons Math 3/Horizons Math 6, LOF G.U.M. Drops 4th grade MP 3rd grade literature guides MP Intro to Composition Christian Studies II, Christian Heroes Unit Studies Geography/Science/Music/Cooking - I'm making unit studies similar to MFW countries and cultures. Adding Master Books Weather unit and Steck-Vaughn True Tales science/geography readers (we love these!) Karate I'm really excited about this! Hopefully our days will run much smoother.

I just wanted to say thanks again for recs. After more research I ended up going with Horizons 3 after all. So far so good! I feel like I have a better handle on where DD is at with this program.

Double post.

Looking into CLE. Thank you all for the suggestions.

Right now I let her enter in the answers in TT3, and then if she gets it wrong I help her enter it in correctly. She gets frustrated with the program. I like the R & S, but worry it may be too much writing. Are the 3rd and 4th grade as much busy work as the 1st/2nd? If I don't scribe for her, it would be too exhausting. Both of my DDs have learning challenges, so I don't think scribing a large amount would be doable. I think having her complete 1-2 pages per day would be good. I don't mark wrong answers that I know she understood, but just wrote incorrectly. I was looking at Horizons, but it seems interwoven with critical thinking problems. I saw some in the samples. I was looking at Math in Focus and MCP as possibilities, but without having them in my hands it is hard to tell. Are you familiar with either of those?

I need help trying to find the right curriculum for my almost 8 yr old for next year. She has dysgraphia and suspected dyslexia, but still does pretty well with math. This year she is doing LOF, TT3, Times Tales, and some misc. worksheets from Rod & Staff 2 and Miquon. I like the way R&S teaches the triplets, and we use the bee posters for this. She struggles with the Miquon math sheets. I think they are too abstract for her. I thought that the TT3 would work well with the reading/writing issues, but she often still enters in her numbers transposed. We plan to continue LOF, but need something for more practice. Here is what I am looking for: Concrete math (no critical thinking problems) Not too much writing Easy to teach Not too much planning If workbook - Interesting, but not too busy Has to have some visual way for DD to see her progress Any suggestions? TIA!

We do tend to buckle down and stay in this time of year. I told our friends we are not having any social days other than worship service and karate. We tend to get started later in the winter time also, so it works out better to make sure we are home in the afternoon.

I would say for me, number one would be learning to read for understanding as taught in "How to Read a Book." As opposed to one reading for entertainment or knowledge/information. Once learned, I believe this skill can take them as far as they are capable of going.

My girls love LOF; it is always what they want to do first. I wasn't sure the books were worth it at first, but recent "table talk" has me convinced. Last week my dad was over and asked the girls what they had learned. My 9yr old told him that the cardinality of the set of (my maiden name)s at the table was 2, and the set of (our last name)s was 3. Then she told him that the cardinality of the union of the sets was 4 since mom is in both and can't be listed twice. A few days ago my 7yr old told me that her peanut butter and jelly were commutative. I think it just depends on your kids. Mine struggle with reading, but the weirdness of Fred has drawn them in. My 9yr old says she wants to complete the whole set....we'll see!

Island of the Blue Dolphins? I haven't read it myself yet, so I can't be sure it fits all your criteria, but it was the first thing that came to mind. It is on our must-read list.

My 9yr old enjoys using them for the cursive/facts, but will usually default back to coordinating art from the Draw Write Now series. I think the art in the others is too advanced for her.

I don't think it is the end of the world if you curriculum hop. We started with Saxon, and I couldn't stand how labor intensive it was. I agree with a previous poster that it has to be easy to look at. We now use a combination of many programs, and it works for us. I have very mathy hands-on girls. My second grade will be using TT3, miquon, R & S, some Saxon worksheets, and LOF. My fourth grader will be using Mathematical Reasoning, LOF, and tons of free online math instruction and games. I just started adding their lesson plans to my blog so they can link to the internet activites from any computer. I thought it would be a great way for me to lessen calls for help.

I have both, and the content is almost identical. The daily is short and sweet instead of the same material covered in one longer lesson. I would just purchase whichever is cheaper.

Awesome! I love the books I find from this era. Growing up we had a set of the The Bookshelf for Boys and Girls. I have great memories of pulling them out for stories and crafts when we got bored.