This year, my 6th grader is doing Apologia Zoology 3 and my 8th grader is doing Apologia Physical Science.

I have one son out of four who really liked colouring. When he was 2, he coloured every single morning while the older two did school work. My girl likes colouring, but it took her a while. She didn't like it at all when she was 3, but now at 4 she does some every day.

Everything is going well here. LLATL is a hit once again for middle school English-phobic boys. I'm still a bit undecided about Master Books' astronomy. The text seems very technical while the worksheets are easy (so far). Our only miss is the SOS computer elective I was going to have ds15 do. Tech savvy hubby took one look at it and didn't recognize any of the contents so we didn't even attempt it. I found a free Udemy course instead. Expensive mistake.

I think accelerating is a good idea. She will probably find 7 easy in comparison. 8 gets a bit harder.

We cycle through the R&S 7 history text, then SOTW 3 and 4 for world history from about grades 3-8, so grades 7 and 8 are either one of those, depending where we are in the cycle.

I found it was really helpful to have something specific to look for, so I made a list of things by season that we could find. I actually bought Exploring Nature with Children, but it was NOT written for nature study in Canada (we're not finding earthworms in February, for example). So I just made my own list and we did a whole year of it last year with my then 3rd and 5th grade boys. One week we looked for moss, drew it and wrote about it (I used other science books for some info on each topic), the next week we looked for fungi. We looked for birds in fall, winter and spring. We "adopted" a tree and watched its changes through the seasons. Stuff like that. It worked out well. ETA: We used God's Design for Life books for more info on each topic, because I already had that set.

I had the same experience with MM, and we did switch to TT (and love it) but for different reasons. MM 6 was too hard for my kids and there wasn't enough review for them. They need the less-rigorous, spiral nature of TT. I know that doesn't really help you, but I understand the feelings...

It does depend on the child. For my oldest loves-to-read son, it was this year for 10th. Until now, he's read so much on his own, including all the ones I wanted him to read for school, that I've never felt the need to assign books. Now he's getting busier, so I've worked them into his schedule and officially assigned them. But I am also assigning books this year for my 8th grader, because he does not read as much, and when he does read, it's always the Hardy Boys (old ones) so I'm trying to expand his horizons a little. :)

Whenever they are reading well and finished with phonics - usually 3rd grade, but I've had a couple start in 2nd.

Thanks for the ideas! I think it's mostly drawing he doesn't like, so I'm going to ask him if there are other mediums he would prefer. I suspect he will want to do more painting and construction paper type projects, so maybe I'll focus more on those.

I agree with SilverMoon, that it works better if you read it yourself and teach it, rather than having a kid do it on their own. My son hated it, and I loved it, so I just gleaned the ideas and went from there.

Explode the Code (ended up not working for one of mine) R&S Spelling God's Design science R&S 7 history book Writing With Ease writing as per SWB's audio lectures <--- working for every single kid so far Pathway Readers - we don't use the workbooks but we love these for reading practice in early grades, and then I use them for narration and literature later on. As for English and math, we used to be a MM/R&S English family, but now we're a TT/LLATL family. I like the change very much but I haven't used it for enough years to add it to the list.

This makes me feel better. Last week, my 15yo son did the wrong two history lessons. Then he came to tell me that his timeline notebook was GONE and when I went and looked, it was exactly in the middle of his shelf where he had been looking, right where it was supposed to be. There was some other goofy stuff that I forget now. But I totally relate.

Do you still make them do it? And by do it, I mean make them colour, paint, learn to draw, etc. If you don't make them do art, do you have them do something else like art appreciation?

I had one son who was a bit like that, and it REALLY worked for him to earn rewards. His reward was extra computer gaming time and he could earn it if he put forth a good effort and showed me that he was trying to have a good attitude about his work. It was like night and day. I had no idea how capable he was before implementing this system. He could read and do everything better than I thought he could! Of course, it's not a guarantee, but it might be something to try.

My worst speller (also 8th grade) loves that method of spelling, and does very well with it. He was never a terrible speller and isn't dyslexic at all, but he was the weakest of my boys (so far) and has used that method for a couple of years already. He learns a lot by having a word list, writing them out, and then having me test him. So I say it's worth a shot, especially if rules-based doesn't help much.

I've used both. Nallenart is still in business as far as I know. Although GSWF is inexpensive and easy to use, I think I prefer Nallenart because it has you reading, writing and speaking French with each lesson. With GSWF, I found that all of the exercises were translating into English, so you were reading French, but only writing in English. Also, unless you use the audios and make an effort to say what the audios are saying, you won't be speaking much French either. You could probably make it work, but I personally think the exercises in Nallenart are better for writing.

I've used it in younger grades but I only use the book, not the CD's. I don't really like the idea of having my 3rd grader do math on the computer without me. We started last year with my 9yo in the 3rd grade book and he did great! He had previously done Math Mammoth 2, but I was going to have him repeat 2B, because he didn't get a lot of it and it would've been good for him to repeat. But instead I switched to TT for 3rd grade, and it was right at his level. He did awesome. The spiral was perfect. Occasionally, he needed extra practice with new concepts, but then I just made up extra problems off the top of my head. I think doing R&S 2 would be better than skipping from R&S 1 to TT3, but that's just me. There are placements tests, so maybe try doing that and see how he does.

It might depend on the kid. When we did it, my older ones (5th) got a lot out of it and it went way over my 1st grader's head. I think I would only do it with a younger kid if they are tagging along with older siblings, but that's just my experience. I agree - great book!

I like the Fallacy Detective.

When mine are in 4th grade, they are just transitioning from oral narration to written. By the end of the year, I am happy if they can get a 3-4 sentence paragraph down on paper, twice a week. So yours sounds way ahead to me! But to answer the question: two a week (but only a paragraph; not a whole page).

I had a big one and I didn't have any symptoms. After they found it, I started getting spasm pains in my side, but other than that, it was just blood and WBC in urine. Google says you can also have nausea and persistent urination, or less/more frequent urination.

Kidney stones? I always have WBC in my urine. They've cultured it dozens of times and it's never a UTI; it's kidney stones.

Very interesting. Thanks for the stories! Lots to think about.

My doctors are really pushing amitriptyline on me and I don't really want to take it. They say it would help for fatigue (because of better sleep at night), fibromyalgia pain, anxiety and heart palpitations. But everything I read about it is negative. Things like.. it only works on fibro pain for about 25-30% of people, it can cause weight gain that is difficult to lose, it's only good for 3 months and then you have to keep upping the dose... etc. At this point in my life, I just don't want to go on it. I don't feel like I *really* need it and I can cope with my conditions using other methods. Does anyone have experience with this drug? Negative, positive, I want to hear it all. Also, please tell me what dose you took, because I think that matters. Thanks for sharing any experiences.