Im going to list what we are teaching that I know are not offered at our local PS since unusual is a relative term. I suspect on this forum that most of us do these though: Latin Formal Logic Free market economics Philosophy Apologetics My children also participate in robotics classes at the moment but they are not required.

I think it depends on what you are going for. You can complete the season and only compete in scrimmages. Or not compete at all. Or only compete in the robotics games. You just do that knowing you won't move on. We always compete against robot only teams during 1st round qualifiers. As for core values, I don't really "teach" those. I just insert them where they fit organically. Truthfully, if you want to have a chance at moving on, you do have to put in some time and effort, but the program is totally adaptable.

Have you ever considered first lego league? It is a robotics competition that includes a research project. It runs from Sept-Dec. It is a lot of fun and very educational.

It was on purpose. My middle child is "mathy" and I didn't see any reason to put her through a level of math she already had mastery of. We do classical conversations and they use Saxon. I guess I need to at least look at it. We haven't really had any issues with my oldest being in a different math, but if long term Saxon is going to be the better option I would rather know that now. I think part of me is stuck on the fact that 10 years ago, everyone I knew hated Saxon math. A lot of our local schools were using it and all I can remember is everyone talking about how incomplete it was. I realize a lot changes in 10 years, but I have been indoctrinated, haha.

Now I am a little bit panicky. I had really only glanced ahead at CLE upper level maths, but my daughter just completely skipped over CLE 6 and will be starting CLE 7 as soon as it comes in. However, when I looked just now, CLE does have Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, and Functions and Trig. Am I misunderstanding what is missing or do these maths just not hit the marks for your family?

I would be curious to know where you read that about CLE. We use it and I have never seen anything so I would be interested to read it.

We started formal reading for all of my children around 7. Within the year they were reading at grade level and within 2 years they were several grade levels ahead. I don't know if this is typical, but three different children, 2 girls and 1 boy, and the results have all pretty much been the same. My son is only 8 now, but he is progressing at a rate that will definitely put him ahead by the end of the year. My husband is British. We had planned to take a vacation with my SIL's family (they live in the UK) and when I chose the date they turned it down because my oldest niece would be starting pre-k. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why they were so adamant that she not miss a few day of pre-k and instead go during the busiest time of the year.

As a general rule, we assign 1 hour of school work per grade level until the work is capped at between 4-6 hours (sometimes it takes longer, other times it takes less time). It is hard to pin down an exact time, but my son (going into 3rd) definitely spends the vast majority of his day playing.

We are currently using it. I will admit though, it's kind of something we squeeze in rather than something that we do all the time. I will probably have them put it away for the school year since we are doing CC; they can pick it back up again in the summer next year. Neither of my girls are head over for it, but I feel like it's been good. I like the set up. I think our issue was the lack of consistency, something I really couldn't help considering our summer schedule. I did try it too early last year and it bombed. I would definitely wait until you have a 6th grader, but encourage waiting until closer to 7th or 8th grade to do it.

What about simply doing a read through in a year plan? We used CLE's Bible and I did like it. There were a few things that we didn't agree with since it is Mennonite, but I can't remember any of it specifically so it must not have been that big of a deal.I also really liked the Studying God's Word series by Christian Liberty Press. It has a Calvinist lean, but again, I can't recall anything major that we believed was contrary to scripture. One year, we simply went through the Westminster Shorter Catechism, once again just correcting where we felt there were errors.

We have been using Life of Fred. My daughter is only technically in 5th (but a bit ahead as she is very math oriented), but she is enjoying the casual nature of the LoF book and I feel like it's a good introduction.

I grew up on Abeka. They are definitely not Calvinist, but they also aren't strictly Arminian. Frankly, they were so vague and taught practically no deep theology at all so by the time I graduated and started studying other theological view points I kind of had to study and figure out what the Bible actually said myself. Anyways, my point being that you could probably get away with Abeka if you really wanted to. I think it's a dreadful curriculum in terms of academics though. We are I guess described best as right in the middle of Arminian and Calvanist (anything that attempts to explain God and how his sovereignty works is probably going to be at least a little off) and I use a mix from Memoria Press, Apologia, CLP, R&S and many others. I just make sure my kids and I talk about theological differences as they arise. I don't find it's ever a good idea to rely strictly on a curriculum to teach world view.

I had all of our books planned out for this next year and then I asked my kids what they wanted to learn about. Much to my surprise they have given me a very comprehensive list that I now feel is important to incorporate into our schooling experience. Both girls asked to try out classical conversations this next year and my MIL, in her eagerness to have me shuffle my kids off to anyone else for their schooling, has paid for it. We will use this as a springboard for covering some of the other topics the girls have chosen. I will be somewhere in the middle of CC being our core and it being supplemental. We are also utilizing another once a week co-op but strictly for fun classes like cooking and a hands on science class. Again this is at the request of the kids. Fridays the older ones will be doing First Lego League which is robotics and computer programming. Wednesdays we will work on a Frontier Girls badge with friends. Thankfully, both of those last two things are here at my house so no big deal. There are so many awesome resources for homeschoolers around us, the one catch is that everything is in different locations. My only homeschool complaint. Other than that, I plan on letting them pursue their interests within their writing and reading. We do like lapbooks so they will do some of those. My younger DD asked to do physics so I got her a LOF book she works through, usually on Fridays. My oldest wants to learn consumer math so I found one for her as well. Little man asked for airplanes. My main focus with my son is fluent reading. He is a late bloomer, but flying through it now. He is typical boy in wanting to spend most of his time playing with Lego and taking stuff apart. His daddy brings him home broken electronics regularly. He is also very interested in circuits so he plays with a kit that does that often. He's not quite old enough for FLL so his uncle who helps me teach it, comes over on Fridays and does some private build and program time with him. He knows almost as much as the 9-15 year olds who are in the FLL group LOL Mostly, I want my olders to be able to start pursuing specialty topics that interest them so they can start honing in on what excites them. I had no idea what I was good at or wanted to do when I graduated because every time I got interested in something we had to move on. I was certainly a jack of all trades master of none poster child.