I generally agree with this. Good versions of Shakespeare for children -- yes. (Though my kids did see the LOTR movies at fairly young ages and before they read the books -- which did help make the books more accessible to them, so that DD plowed through Fellowship at 7. Shoot, the movies made the books more interesting to *me.* :) ) With things like Shakespeare, I feel that a good version for children helps make the basic plot and characters understandable, and then they can appreciate the full version even more. But in general, I prefer to have kids wait until they're old enough for the full book.

LOL, my older two children's birthdays are 19 days apart, in mid-Feb. and early March -- prime time for heavy schoolwork. So we don't take a full week off then, just the actual birthdays. Then, DS3's birthday is in mid-July, and since we start the Monday after July 1, I don't want to take a full week off just as we've gotten started. One day is fine. :) We do do lighter work in the summer if my parents are visiting (which often happens; they have an RV and stay nearby). The place they stay has a pool, so we typically do a bit of schoolwork and swim a lot. I do count those as school days, even if there's no actual bookwork done, because swimming counts as PE. And we took off from most regular bookwork between Thanksgiving and New Year's, but we did a lot of different activities (trips, baking, special holiday activities, etc.) that also counted as school days. We'll easily log over 200 days by the time we finish the curricula I want to finish. I really appreciate the flexibility to do what works for us.

My kids love the dwarves' song about the plates and all, but I am not quite sure how long it is; it's been 23 years since I read it.

I can't comment on the laws in NJ, but here in PA, we are definitely advised to do ONLY what the law requires -- nothing less, and certainly nothing more. Here, if the school feels that you have not met the requirements of the law, the burden of proof is on them, not you. If your local school district decides to get sticky, I would not do anything until and unless they sent something certified stating that you are truant (and it doesn't even sound like you can be truant in NJ if you haven't been in their schools previously). If a school district is going to take you to court, they'd better be awfully certain that they're right because it will cost them money as well, and they have to answer to the taxpayers. When you give them more than the law requires, even "just in case," you raise the bar of expectation, and schools start overstepping their bounds more and more.

Whew. Thank you. :)

Thank you; it does look good. I will have to see if the sixth grade one has diagramming.

Really dumb question, as I am new to the iPad. Do I have to do anything to it to make it safe?

Each of my three older children went through a set of the workbooks from Rainbow Resource (four books, called About Three, Bigger Steps, Color, Cut, and Paste, and Doing My Best -- or something similar) and liked them a lot.

Do any of the programs mentioned above teach diagramming of sentences?

We take off from school completely on each child's birthday. Maybe on mine too. DH's only if he can have the day off work to do something fun (which is not likely). We take off on our family's birthday (aka mine and DH's wedding anniversary). We do school year round so that we can take days like those off. :)

I know someone who has had seven c-sections, and I also know someone who has had 2 VBA 3 c-sections, so I think a fair amount of things are possible, depending on other factors.

Okay, that's good to know about R&S. It's a little hard to tell from the few samples online sometimes. If I go with R&S, it would just be the English, not the additional spelling and reading, but you're right; it doesn't make sense to go with that and skip a lot. Okay, that makes Easy Grammar look even better -- thanks, Ellie!

Thank you. :) I looked at Easy Grammar, and I like the looks of it. (I also looked at Hake online; it seems very expensive for my needs.) Does EG do diagramming? I think my DD would enjoy that, and the Rod & Staff covers it. I think I'm trying to decide between EG and R&S. DD is a somewhat reluctant writer -- she'll do the assigned exercises but doesn't write for fun much -- so I'm not really convinced that writing is enough grammar for her at this point. I want to give an actual grammar program a shot next year and see what it yields (or doesn't yield). How independent is EG? With several young ones, I have limited time to spend with just DD and prefer to spend it on Latin and writing (and math as needed; she hasn't needed me for math much this year, but I expect that will change). If she can open to the assigned page, read the lesson and understand it pretty easily, and just ask me if she gets stuck, that's helpful.

You know a lot -- thanks! I like WWE's approach, and since SWB is clearly a competent writer, I'm inclined to go with WWS, especially if it is a stronger program overall than WS. I hadn't looked at R&S before (we haven't really done much formal grammar, just what's been in our general skills workbooks, which I'm tired of, and what has come through Latin study); I like the looks of their sample lessons and might go with them for grammar (with or without the writing; I'll have to see if it duplicates or complements WWS). I'm also looking at Hake Grammar, since DD likes Saxon's math approach.

Oooooh, I hadn't heard of Art of Argument before -- that looks great! Definitely want to try that with my sixth grader next year. This year we've been doing logic once a week (using the CryptoMindBenders book), and that's worked well; AoA looks like it would work well to do once a week as well, even if takes more than one year.

We generally read a chapter from SOTW on Monday. Usually we read the full chapter; sometimes I split it and finish it on Tuesday. We do the map page either Monday or Tuesday. Then, Tuesday through Thursday, we read supplemental books and do projects (sometimes; my kids are picky about projects). Sometimes, if a chapter is short and doesn't have a lot of supplemental books or activitis, we will do two chapters in one week.

We switched to Latin's Not So Tough Level 3 after GSWL and have been pleased. We plan to continue with LNST. Level 3 is very easy for my fifth grader (no new grammar concepts), but lots of practice, and more importantly, vocab that wasn't in GSWL.

If we were learning Spanish, I would probably try Getting Started With Spanish. I haven't actually seen or tried it, but we loved Getting Started With Latin, and its approach was excellent for young ones. It definitely taught my DD to form sentences correctly. There's no writing, which was a plus for her. I think it would have been doable even if she hadn't been reading; it could definitely be done completely orally. I am assuming that the Spanish one would be similar.

We just moved on to reading whatever my son wanted to read. For a while, it was Dr. Seuss, but I let him pick whatever picture book he wanted to read. Then we moved on to chapter books. I think a Magic Treehouse book was his first chapter book. I tried to suggest Little Bear or Frog and Toad, but for some reason, he really didn't want to try those.

Are there programs where it's NOT expected that the parents will do practices at home? Our speech therapist insists on that, so she sends home exercises and practices that take me 5-10 minutes a day to do with each boy. When I was in speech therapy back in the 80s, I had homework too. I can't imagine that my boys would have progressed so well if they only did speech practice during the hour each week they're with the therapist.

Tell me why you might choose one of these over the other for a sixth grader (she is in fifth grade this year, working through WWE4). Also, if you've used either of these, what, if anything, do you use to cover additional grammar and/or spelling?

I don't have experience going through the public school, but I wanted to tell you that we sought speech therapy (through our health insurance) for our 7yo almost a year ago, and we're really glad we did. Our therapist is wonderful, and it's made a huge difference for our son. I hope it is a positive experience for you as well.

Absolutely! There are often people dressed up and just hanging around town anyway. It is super gorgeous up here in the fall and way more tolerable, crowd-wise. If you happen to come on November 19 (weather is iffy though), they'll have someone dressed as Lincoln who will read the Gettysburg Address at the site. I think, especially with kids, you'll enjoy it MORE when it's not so crowded, because you'll be able to see things better, guides may have more time/energy to talk to the kids, etc. If you want to see a reenactment of the battle, come in July, but I really don't think that's necessary to understanding the battle. I wholeheartedly vote for coming in the fall.

Probability theory -- she'd probably love that! I'll look at AoPS too -- thanks! Okay, that makes sense. I think word problems would be good for her. I got her a couple of LoF books this summer, thinking they'd be fun. She hated them. She doesn't like silly at all. Fred is too goofy for her. (Otoh, part of the reason she likes Saxon is because she likes subtle humor, and Saxon is full of stuff like, "Johnny had 50 appleseeds" and "Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy went to the store." *That* appeals to her mightily.) What would this look like in practicality? We do math four days a week and all year round, except for random breaks, and a several-week chunk in May-June. Maybe do Alg. 1 only three days a week and use the fourth for other math-related stuff, like logic, or word problems? Actually, I kind of like that idea a lot. We do currently use very different programs; younger brother uses and likes Singapore. I do think it's unlikely that he'll catch up three full years, but I was very much in the position of feeling like (and I found out later that it was an accurate feeling) my parents held my younger brother back so that he wouldn't catch up to me, and I really, really want to avoid DD feeling anything close to that. Another great point -- thanks! That's the kind of thing I was looking for, as it's been years since I took the SAT. Okay, that makes good sense, and it's a very good case for not doing Alg. 2/Geometry in 8th. Even if she's capable, I just don't see her wanting to do a lot of advanced math. I'm thinking I really like the idea of stretching out Alg. 1 (and even Alg. 1/2, starting next year), doing those two in three years (with some other stuff thrown in), and doing Geometry and Alg. 2 in 9th and 10th grade (in some order), Trig in 11th, and a year (or two courses at a local college) of Calculus in 12th. Thank you for your thoughts! Okay, that's good to hear too. I don't know if this child will do well on the AP tests or not. I don't test especially well -- AP tests were too high pressure for me. I hope dual enrollment will be an option still -- the thread about it doesn't sound encouraging. Also good to know. I should ask my neighbor sometime what math her son took, because I know he got into a good college. Okay, that's good to know, that we could just include the middle school classes on the transcript, even if they didn't count for official credit. But I'm really liking the idea of slowing her down a bit by focusing on word problems and other things. I think that even if she's capable of a lot of higher math, there could be the issue of time -- I want her to have plenty of time in high school for history and languages, since those do seem to be her strong suits. Thank you, everyone!

Editing to add changes. It's all set in stone now, since it's in my little homeschool planner app. :p MATH -- Saxon Algebra 1/2, split over the next two years, so as to slow her down a bit and hit Algebra 1 in eighth grade; we're also going to supplement with word problems and other applications over the next couple of years. SCIENCE -- Mr. Q's Chemistry HISTORY -- 20th Century US history, and the Prairie Primer. I feel kind of called to one last storybook year for her, kind of a last year of childhood before she hits the upper half of the grades. GEOGRAPHY -- the Great Global Puzzle Challenge with Google Earth, coupled with GeoScribe notebooking sheets and supplemental library books LATIN -- whatever level of Latin's Not So Tough is right, levels 4 and 5, maybe 6 FRENCH -- ditching this; she wants a change. She wants to try Chinese or Italian, so we're going to play around with Mango language online and see which she likes. ART -- continue with ARTistic Pursuits. MUSIC and PICTURE STUDY -- whatever composers and artists we decide to do, haven't chosen them yet. I had hoped to study Mendelssohn and Wagner this year and didn't get to it, so they're at least on the list to try again. Co-op may do composer and picture study too. Also, the MusIQ program from Adventus. WRITING and LANGUAGE ARTS -- Writing With Skill 1 and Figuratively Speaking. Everything else, as needed, more of an organic, in-context approach related to writing. Decided not to try any sort of dedicated grammar/etc. except for some sentence diagramming. LOGIC -- Art of Argument Still undecided about Bible.