I haven't tried it, but I think I'm going to as well. The guy who wrote the program tested it out with a friend of mine who homeschools. They are neighbors. I think he was trying to come up with something to help his grandkids or something and then got the idea for Cap Jax. Anyway, my friend loves it and swears by it and is a walking advertisement for it (I guess he must be a nice neighbor!).

I'm planning to have my high schoolers read Grapes of Wrath next year. I loved the book. I felt completely absorbed in the Joads' world and all the hardships and heartache of the times. Maybe it's because my own parents lived through the Depression. But I have to admit that I have enjoyed every Steinbeck book I ever read. And I think I like this type of book. I am in the middle of a re-read of Mary Barton and it is full of death and woe and I think it's brilliant!

I think you'll be fine without a reading curriculum for a year. Especially if you've loaded him up with lots of other structured learning, it might be nice to have one area that he can carve out on his own. He'll do fine in high school without it. I did very little of that kind of stuff with my now high schoolers. Frankly, I think you can overdo it and burn the poor student out. At the high school level they are much better at analyzing, figuring out plot, irony, deeper meanings, arguing with the point of view of the author. I do not think my high schoolers have suffered a bit for not having a formal reading curriculum every year. So from my own personal experience, Mama Lynx is right on target. As long as they are reading and discussing, thinking about and loving books.

This is exactly what I do! Mondays we read a non-fiction book (This week we began The Story of the Orchestra), On Tuesdays we read fairy tales/folk tales, on Wednesdays we read Bible stories (doing the Life of Christ right now), On Thursdays the kids pick (yesterday they chose a biography of Audobon) And on Fridays we do poetry. I haven't gotten the poetry in yet today though! Maybe at dinner. I also have a read aloud going for my teens and a read aloud for my youngers. I'm reading Sophie's World to the teens this year. I just finished up Miracles on Maple Hill for my 3 youngers (wonderful tear-jerking story). We're going to start Farmer Boy after Easter.

Ooops! You said just LA and I gave you the whole spiel! Sorry!

My plans are: Latin for Children MCP Math Writing Tales Various read alouds for Religion, History, Literature Reading to mom from Faith and Freedom reader/independent reading Science at co-op Piano lessons Gymnastics, tennis and track for P.E.

Hi Quiver of Ten! I know a family of 7 where the youngest two needed outside medical services. They had therapists come to their home. The way the mom handled it was to go to a more relaxed, year round schedule so that they had time for all the doctor's appointments, therapists visits. The kids still learned Latin, Greek, math, writing etc. I think she didn't worry about science until high school and the kids did lots of independent reading. Now the difference for you is that you have younger ones to worry about that aren't as independent and you have 3 more childen! But I have seen folks with big families handle crisises and still continue to homeschool classically. One thing about this particular family is that they lived an at least an hour away from town, so she would schedule all her errands/doctors appts on that day and just spend the day doing that. So it would take one day out of her week, but she'd still have the rest of the week. Plus she didn't have a definite stopping date for summer so some of her kids could spend summer finishing up a subject. She'd give them breaks when she felt they needed them. Anyway, hope this might help some. God bless you! I so admire your hard work and commitment.

I have real trouble believing that there are no valid studies on the effectiveness of vision therapy. I'll have to ask my VT about this. So far 4 out of 5 of my children have had reading difficulties and 3 out of the 4 were helped immensely with VT. I've know my Vision therapist for several years. She is a very conscientious and up to date and I admire her careful methodology. How can there be no validated studies? That's just blowing my mind; sorry to be redundant. My VT does quantifiable tests where the kids get faster at reading, she's testing the response of the eyes muscles, etc, etc. You can actually witness my kids eyes working together, where before, they didn't. I can notice that after therapy, how can the scientific community not? My kids eyes went from getting red and watery while reading to being able to read for hours with no discomfort. They stop skipping lines and misreading words. They stopped getting headaches from reading. I'm just baffled by that. But I guess I'll go to my VT for the answers.

Thank you!

I notice a lot of people sign off by stating how many kids they're homeschooling and what curricula they are using. Can you somehow set up this signature to happen automatically or do you type it in every time? I guess I just have 'cool signature' envy and am wondering how I can keep up with the Jones!:001_smile:

Well, I'm going with Latin Centered Curriculum. Basically my 2nd grader will listen in on Latin for Children that her older brother will be doing. Then we're using MCP (Modern Curriculum Press) Math for second grade. For Language Arts I just got some sweet workbooks from Catholic Heritage Curriculum for spelling, grammar and pensmanship. Other than that we'll be doing lots of read alouds for Christian studies, Classical Studies and Modern Studies. We're going to be in a co-op that will have nature study and cultural studies. That's it, short and simple. On her own she does lots of coloring, drawing, playing with clay, etc so I don't feel the need to make art formal yet. If she wants music lessons, we might work that in. We listen to lots of different kinds of music and all 4 of her older siblings either sing in a choir or play a musical instrument so she's pretty much surrounded by it. For PE she does gymnastics and track and she'll most likely continue with that next year. Congrats to you on starting homeschooling! I started homeschooling my oldest 11 years ago when she was starting 2nd grade. Now she's a junior in high school (still at home). It's been a wonderful, wonderful journey that I wouldn't trade for all the world. Good luck to you!

Thanks! I went back and looked at all the programs and I still like Writing Tales the best! I seem to gravitate to all in one LA programs like LLATL and Classical Writing (I'm doing CW for the Older Beginner with my 12 yo and I really appreciate it's depth of learning and that it covers everything from vocabulary, spelling, grammar, literary analysis, writing). Writing Tales seems very similiar to CW except better organized. The one thing I do not like about CW is that you have to read through the program several times to even understand it (at least I found it hard to understand) and I'm forever flipping through different books which is annoying. Thanks for your responses!

I would love to see a comparison of the popular and newer writing programs out there. Before frequenting this board a few weeks ago, I had never heard of Writing Tales, Jump In Writing or that SWB had a new Writing Essentials program out. I thought I was sold on Writing Tales for my 4th grader next year, but now both Jump In and SWB's program look enticing. How is one to make such a decision?????:confused:

Or wait, maybe you really are referring to a different program?

I think it's really called Spelling Wisdom. I just downloaded the high school book basically to use as copy work for my high schoolers. (I've got penmanship/copy work for the youngers). Basically, you just use studied dictation instead of a traditional spelling program.

Hi Terri, I am going to attempt to go from being very unschoolish to LCC and I'm having the same problem envisioning things! My kids all have struggled with language arts so that is the thing that I focus on even when unschooling. They just won't sit down and naturally write or learn to read (late bloomers) so even in my most unschoolish times that has been a focus. As for the other stuff, music does just happen with us and in fact it happens a lot more joyfully once I unschooled it and took it out of the realm of me formally planning it. Especially since your children are so very young, and the fact that you're starting them out with lessons, you really probably don't need to schedule it. It will happen, probably not in a nice neat fashion, but when the kids are most receptive and enjoyment will be the highest. Art history for kids that young is simply getting a picture book out once in a while and poring over it. Or taking them on the occasional fieldtrip. That's all you need, unless your kids are chomping at the bit for more. I am envisioning my day as doing Latin and Math right after breakfast, taking free time to work with the older kids while my youngers play (they gravitate to music, drawing and gymnastics when left on their own). Then after lunch we're going to do a bit of language arts. We'll have a set reading time for read alouds as well as independent reading (this isn't different from what we do now). The free time gets taken up in all sorts of wonderful ways. My trouble with streamlining is that I have teens and little ones and life is so complicated that there really isn't a way to streamline. That's just the season of my life I guess. Maybe Plaid Dad's revised LCC will give up some hints. Not sure I've helped at all . . .

Hi Christine and Profmom, I just got an email from Mary Harrington with the computer requirements and such. There's a way to visit a class, too. I'm really intrigued by the way it is all set up. It seems very student friendly. We need lots of hand holding. I think that my 13 yo would probably get enough Latin from it that he could go to the local Christian classical high school in 9th grade, if that's what we wind up doing. My 16 yo has the luxury of being able to take the class for two years if he needs to, since he's at home for his high school years. Oh, well, decisions, decisions....

Well, just because one reads AG books doesn't mean that one doesn't read a lot other books too. In fact we have read many of the books on Eliana's list in addition to and not instead of. One of my favorites is Milly-Molly-Mandy. I discovered those a couple years ago when my now 6 yo was 4. I read them aloud to her and soon the whole family, teenagers and husband included, would sit and listen. It became a family read aloud. They are really delightful. I had never thought about the tie in thing and I think I might be a tie-in kind of person, without ever realizing it! I look around my home and I see the Milly-Molly-Mandy doll (came with one of the books, don't you know!), and both Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy dolls(we went through a summer where that's all my dd wanted to hear). And of course we have Madeleine. And Little House paper dolls, and Alice in Wonderland paper dolls and Curious George paper dolls. Oh and cute little Peter Rabbit stuff (we went to an exhibit on Beatrix Potter years back and I couldn't resist!) Oh well, I'm probably hopeless! And in spite of the fact that my now 17 yo dd read all the AG books numerous times, she's decided on her own to read all the Jane Austen novels. (She still struggles with LDs) So far she's read Pride and Prejudice and is now almost finished reading Sense and Sensibility (she tells me she'll write a paper on it). So I don't think AG books ruined her completely. . . . . (I probaby shouldn't even mention how I used to let my now 12 yo read Bionicles and how that led him into mythology that lead him into Greek history and he is even now reading a book about Xenophon because he finds it interesting. . . . .)

My dd did not care for the Dear America series. She has a reading disability so the fact that they were written in cursive or in dialect with misspellings really made it hard for her. She liked the Royal Diary series better, which isn't American history but world history. However, a lot of her friends liked Dear America. They are an easy read. You could check them out of the library and see. As for history, they are light but as I said before they opened up my daughter's world into history and made her love it. Since reading came hard for her, I loved that she loved these books and got so much out of them.

I have this problem too because I am naturally a morning person but my dh and kids are all night owls. I resent having to stay up at night with them but at the same time, there's only one of me and lots of them! LOL! Two thoughts - can you go back to bed after seeing your DH off. Don't drink coffee then, maybe just a nice herbal cup of tea or something. Then go back to bed for a catnap? Or maybe you could grab a nap in the afternoon? As for the teens, I would schedule certain nights that you'll have a late night 'date'. Maybe you can bond over a tv sitcom or something and get a nice chat in there. And let them know that if there's anything on their minds you are there to talk to them but you just need more sleep! So I would try to plan what nights you'll do your teen bonding and what nights you'll do your dh bonding! Sometimes folks just have to take turns, LOL, if they want your company. You simply can't constantly be burning the candle at both ends. When I do that I'm too cranky for anyone to want to spend time with me!

I started reading the Felicity books aloud to my dd when she was 5 or 6. She was a late reader (didn't click until she was 8). Once she was reading, she re-read them all and then started reading the new series as they came out. She's now 17, so this was a few years ago!

These books were wonderful for my oldest dd. She loved them all but she got really into Felicity and we wound up going to Williamsburg and doing the Felicity tour which was very educational. Then when she got into the Addy books she wound up going on a Slavery/Civil War streak where she read all about Harriet Tubman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Little Women, Abraham Lincoln. This happened again when she go into Kit and Molly; she spent months reading about the Depression, the Roosevelts, lots of kids historical fiction on WWII. This was all on her own. She basically unschooled herself in American history using these books as a jumping off point. So we really appreciate American Girls books around here. We also went through a long period of buying the dolls and accessories. It was wonderful. You never had to wonder what to get my daughter for Christmas or birthdays for about 6 years there! You just got something to go with Felicity, Kit or Josephina!

Hi Busy Bee, The whole set up of Latin in the Christian Trivium really intrigues me. Your child took it online, right? Is Latin I of the Christian Trivium the equivalent of a high school year of Latin? I really like the small classes. The level of support seems very good! What kind of computer set up do you need for the online class? Did you like the teacher? I'd love to know more. Thanks!

I want to enroll my 13 year old and 16 yo in an on line Latin course next year. This would be Latin I for high school. Any recommendations? Thanks!

Wow, praying here! I haven't been on the boards these past few years but I remember Stacey L. And I will certainly pray for you Heather as well.