Apparently I have a couple dreamers ;-) Dd9yo - a mom Dd7yo - a Queen Dd6yo - a mom with kids Ds4yo - a transformer or a doctor Ds2yo - too little to answer but loves trains, dogs, and stars . The sky is his limit. Dd 5mo - way too little to answer, but I wish she could just stay my little baby :-) It warms my heart that a couple of them said mom, I guess that means I am doing an OK job. :-) ETA: My Dh and I have joked that my 2yo will probably grow up to design moisturizers. He is constantly testing different foods on his skin by rubbing them ALL over his body ( legs, arms, face, stomach, hair, etc.) he has tried ketchup, ranch, egg yolks, frosting, ice cream, milk, etc. thankfully he has started doing this less.

Thank you all so much for your help. It sounds like bravewriter is probably the best option. I have to be realistic with what I will actually get done, I have been so scatter brained at the moment with a very busy toddler and infant. I have come to accept that I do best with open and go curricula or at least curricula that explain step by step what I need to do. I haven't been able to wrap my mind around how to do that with bravewriter, has anyone been able to do this? Would bravewriter's patternership with writing help with that? My Dd had a pretty good break from "academic" writing over the summer, so I feel like I need to do something with her. I agree that pushing her isn't going to fix her anxiety over this. I really like the idea of stepping back and doing the actual physical writing for her for a while, this is what I ended up doing the other day with her TC assignment, it made a huge difference. When she is ready to step back up to the plate I am sure she will let me know. In the meantime I am really going to take on the challenge of trying to figure out how to make bravewriter work. I would love to hear how others are able to make bravewriter work for their family, and your schedules/routines that you have. Thank you all again, all of you have given me a lot to think about and more confidence that I can do this. 😀 ETA: I am also going to look more into R&S grammar, Write On, and Spectrum Language Arts. Thank you for all of these suggestions. 😀

I am at a loss as to what to do with my almost 10yo Dd with regards to writing. I am hoping someone on here may have some advice. She is a natural writer and a reluctant writer. She loves writing stories. By choice she will sit down for an hour or two at a time and type up or write stories. But writing for school assignments is a whole different ball game. She will cry and become anxious at a simple request of please write one or two sentences about the story you just read, or two things you read about in science, etc. She says she doesn't know what to write. However, I know she is perfectly capable of doing this as she has before, and on rare occasion has done this by choice. But it is a battle every time I ask her to write about something. I am at a loss as what to do. I feel completely inadequate when it comes to teaching writing, so I feel like I need the hand holding of a curriculum. My plan was to use Classical Writing with her this year, but before I invest in that should I be considering something like IEW? I own the Writers Jungle and have read through part of it but I don't know that I could be dedicated enough to make it work. I have tried CAP W&R but it was a fail, it asked her to write an expanded form of a story and she broke down. She loves creative writing, but not on demand. She has done WWE 1&2, but they were also a battle to get through. I am trying to find the balance between teaching her writing while not pushing so hard as to crush her desire to write. Does anyone have any advice or suggestions? Thank you! :-)

I have answered questions as they have come up, but I need to do a better job. The birds and the bees conversation almost came up last week while reading about King Henry the VIII with my Dd. Um, I was not prepared at all to discuss the topic at that moment. It really caught me off guard, I never realized history could spur such an awkward conversation, LOL.

Thanks! 😀

Thank you! I will play around with it and see if I can get it to work. 😀

I just discovered quizlet! Does anyone know a way to do cumulative review but have all of the cards created ahead of time? For example I want my Dd to use it for GSWS and Ceasar's English. For GSWS I want to be able to add cards as she learns them. For Ceasures English I want to be able to add a new set of words each week, but mix them in with her previously learned cards. Ideally I would love to create all of the cards ahead of time and somehow have the unused ones organized by lesson/week. Is that possible? Not sure if this matters or not but I am planning on bringing the cards over from quizlet to Flashcards by NKO for my daughter to review and play games. Not sure if what I want to do would still possible? Any help or advice is much appreciated. Thanks!😀

Such great ideas in this post, thank you for sharing! I am not trying to derail this thread, but do you have a link to this book, I tried searching Focus Moves on Amazon and couldn't find it. Thanks!

No advice, just hugs. I feel for you as I am dealing with some of the same things with my 7yo. Lots of meltdowns. It is getting really old. Hope you are able to figure things out. I will have to find that book, I own it but have never read it.

Last year with my 3rd grader we used MCT Island (we didn't do any of the writing assignments), WWE, FLL, and TC. We attempted to use W&R Fable but it wasn't a good fit for her. It was definitely a Language Arts heavy year, but that subject area is one of her strengths so it worked out just fine. MCT grammar island, and sentence island really deepened her understanding of grammar. The 4 level analysis in practice island really helped reinforce and solidify what she was learning. After learning the concepts in MCT the lessons in FLL, with the exception of diagramming, were mostly review and my Dd was bored most of the time. I got a few eye rolls from her, but we pushed on as we did come across a few new concepts here and there and the review didn't hurt. She actually really enjoyed learning how to diagram sentences, to her it was a fun puzzle. She even attempted to diagram some of the sentences from her practice island, although there were many things she wasn't sure how to diagram ( I.e. Prepositional phrases). Doing both the 4 level analysis and diagramming was not confusing at all for here. In fact I think doing both is what really helped her gain a deeper understanding of grammar. We are planning on doing both again next year. For next year I am definitely going to have her do MCT town as well as an additional grammar and writing program. I am debating between FLL and Jr. Analytical grammar. For writing I am planning on using the rest of TC as well as Classical Writing. This seems like a lot again this year but I plan on staggering them a bit like I did last year. Hope that helped some, I would be happy to answer anymore questions.

Thank you for your replies. Hmm, I am not sure what to do now. I feared that having to use ADE would make things frustrating. I sure wish they were regular PDFs.

Does anyone know if it is possible to print PDFs from Prufrock press? I am looking in to buying a few workbooks like lollipop logic but they say they require you to have Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) to use their PDFs. I just want to make sure that it is possible to print them, as I would plan on eventually printing a copy for each of my kids. Thank you for any help or advice. 😀

I love this idea! I think I will have to try this with my kids. :-)

I am really excited about another edition! I am extremely grateful for TWTM, it opened up a whole new world of homeschooling for me, so thank you. I don't have a lot to add as I still feel like a newbie. I will say that I love both the how-to sections as well as recommendations of different curricula. The how tos helped me understand the whys and hows as well as the big picture. I appreciated those sections when I first read through the book, they helped me understand what a homeschooling week/year can look like. They Also gave me a sense of I can do this. As much as those sections where helpful at the beginning of my homeschool journey they continue to become more useful as time goes on and I feel more empowered to create/tweak curriculum to better fit my kids needs. Those how tos have been invaluable in helping me know how to do that. I agree with others that I would love it if you added more how-tos. One audio lecture I would love added to the book in written form would be the lecture on literary analysis at various stages. I do also love the sections of recommended curricula, that was crucial in helping me feel like homeschooling was possible. I loved the idea of classical education but would have been lost without the curricula recommendations. I needed a ton of hand holding when starting out and those sections accomplished that for me. Again thank you for TWTM and this forum!

Math: Mostly Singapore but I will probably add in some Rightstart and Miquon Reading/Phonics: probably continue with AAR, slight chance I might switch her to Barton like her older sister. I will probably have her do SL readers when we get further along in AAR. Spelling: AAS or Barton Grammar: FLL Writing: WWE History: SL Core A with older sister Science: SL Science A with older sister

For multiplication we used Timez Attack. It did a very good job of helping my Dd get down her facts, and she enjoyed playing it. I believe you can download a free version, also HSBC has a discount code if you purchase a paid version.

OhElizabeth, thank you so much for the wealth of information you shared. I have read and re-read your posts. I did go ahead and buy the first two Ronit Bird books. They look great! I think I will definitely be using them, perhaps in combo with Math-U-see not sure yet. I am still trying to decide on whether we will be using Barton. It is hard to swallow spending so much after already investing in AAR. The programs seem so similar, but from what I can see Barton looks like it moves at a slower more thorough pace. I also love that Barton uses nonsense words as well. We are taking June off so thankfuly I have a couple weeks to really think about all this and decide. Things will be crazy next year with all the kiddos, I love your idea of using Ronit Bird math with more than one. I will really need to spend the next several weeks looking through the books to figure out how to best do this. I am actually planning on combining my 7yo and 5yo (almost 6) next year with several things. They are both on about the same level academically. I love that with homeschooling it is easy to do this and work at whatever level they are despite age. I am sure I will probably have more questions along the way, thank you again for taking the time to share with me your wisdom as well as encouragement, I really appreciate it! :)

I am excited to read more to my kids this next year. Something I did better at the second half of this year but failed at the first. We are using SL so I can read more books, but don't have to plan any of it. I need a year that I don't have to think much about our schedule. I am also really excited to do American history with my oldest Dd. I am also really excited about morning time, something I failed at this year and am determined to do better at next year. My plan is to also make art more of a priority which will be a fun change. It will also be fun to use MCT town level with my Dd, she did Island this year and I saw a huge growth in her understanding of grammar.

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Thank you all so much for your thoughts and advice. I spent my Dd's 1st grade year focusing on only math, reading, and handwriting. Thus why it was a bit discouraging to have her only test at a K level. However, I feel like we did make some progresss over the last year. But I think she may benefit if I change things up a little so she can have more review as well as a different approach. I am still debating about Barton, but may go ahead and at least give the first level or two a try. I still plan on focusing on the three R's this next year. I just wasn't sure if I should be trying to add in some things like WWe and FLL, but is good to have the reminder that I won't be completely failing her if we don't get to those things this year. My priority for her at this point is to give her a strong foundation in reading and math. I also plan on increasing how much I read aloud to her, I believe that doing this will make a big difference. I appreciate all of your kind words and encouragment as my confidence took a bit of a hit when getting back some of the results.

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I am exactly like you describe when reading aloud while pregnant. I have a really hard time catching my breath and I yawn a lot also. I actually have a really hard time sleeping as well, I spend most of the night feeling like I need to catch my breath. I would guess that you being pregnant is most of what is going on. Sorry wish I had a solution to fix it. ;)

I just realized that this year was our fourth official year homeschooling (if counting from K onward). I had a rough year due to a lot of various things, so I understand feeling like you have fallen into a rut and homeschooling isn't what you want it to be. The only thing giving me the extra push of motivation to get through the remainder of our work this year is the fact that I have a baby coming in June and I want to be done with most things. I agree wholeheartedly with morning time, we did that last year and it was the highlight of our day, for some reason that dropped by the wayside this year and I really missed it. I plan on making morning time and art a large priority next year to help make our year more fun. Not sure how that will work out in the end, but I know that when I am having a hard time fitting something in adding it to the beginning of our day usually forces me to fit it in. Another thing that really helped me the last half of this year was being more diligent with read alouds, I forgot how much I enjoy reading to our kids. I also second changing one aspect of your homeschool curriculum just to give you something new/exciting to work with. I changed to SL in the middle of the year, which was such a nice change of pace for me. The last thing that has really helped me get more excited about next year has been listening to some of the great audio lectures I found on this blog. It has helped remind me why I am doing this, and that I am not the only one out there crazy enough to homeschool ;) . Hope you can find the breath of fresh air that you need for your homeschool. Hang in there!

I have yet to use SL science, but for what its worth my plan next year is to let my 9yo (will be in 4th) do SL D science independently. After looking through it I don't think it will be to difficult for her to do.

I was homeschooled myself from 7-10th grade. So the idea of homeschooling was not new to me, but I had never decided for sure that I was going to homeschool my kids. I had also attended private school for a short while, and the rest was public school. My Dh did public school, and he was quite skeptical at the idea of homeschooling. When my oldest hit preschool age I couldn't bare the thought of sending her off to school nor the cost of doing so, we were on an extremely tight student budget. So I decided to give homeschooling a trial run for the preschool years. It went so well that my Dh and I both decided to continue through K. And the rest is history. We just love the freedom that homeschooling allows our family. My Dh now can't imagine sending our kids off to PS. Recently I asked him if he thought if one of our Dd's would be better off in PS, I was having a bad week (Feb. blues and pregnancy hormones), and he was very much against the idea. Glad he can be my voice of reason when I need it ;). I have so many fond memories of when I was homeschooled, and I am glad that my kids get to experience some of those same things as well.