Miss ya! hope to see you back soon. 😀

Hopefully others will chime in as I have only used the composition portion of cqla for a season. What drew me to the program in the beginning was the step by step approach to writing.The directions are written to the student however, they do recommend meeting with the student at least once a week to discuss expectations etc. I loved the key word outline or the super short sentences which helped dd in learning how to summarize. Everything is layed out down to the topic which can be issue for some. The program is also not secular if that makes a difference. What I nor dd liked about the program was that it was very dry. Even though dd found the program helpful she thought the it to be too formlamatic especially since she is more of a creative writer. After using it for a few months we dropped it and used Jump-In for rest of the year and afterwards WWS1. HTH

I love thoes pens they rock!! I gave some to my oldest dd to help limit the scratch outs. I saw a nice selection of color on Amazon a while ago that plan to order over the summer.

Not sure if this may work for you but here is what I have come to do after trial and error. In the past I have tried different planners bought or printer and none have ever fit my needs except a good old fashion composition book. Each week I write out what assignments are due and on what day for that week then we discuss for clarity. I use to have oldest dd use my assignment book however, I quickly found out that she was not taking ownership as mentioned above nor could I find it when I needed it to log her assignments into HST+ because she alway had it. So, I bought her and her younger sister some cheap but nice planners from Amazon to write out their own assignments and it has been working for me so far except for the occasional missed assignment because dd forgot to thoroughly check her planner. My oldest dd is 16 and the youngest is 9 with the youngest being a work in progress as I have her write out what subjects she is to do for that day.

Kendall, Overall, I am getting that Reading literature is the best place to start much like what we do with our children. Reading books about writing which is a fuzzy subject will be a good way to go. I have some writing curricula on the shelf and some recommended books on writing by Susan Wise Bauer that I can read over the summer. This is just a rough idea but here is what I plan to do so far: *Listen to some audiobooks via podcast or Librivox along with some other things I find enjoyable like Circe podcast. *Read fiction- I have always read informational books on history, education and so on. So, I went to library yesterday and checked out Aesop Fables, Grimm Tales and Andersen Fairy Tales as a place to start. There no way I can handle the literature discussed in the The Well educated Mind at this time so I am taking you and Rosie's advice on starting small and working my way up. * study grammar in small bits daily and probably do some of the basic grammar stage writing exercises my youngest dd is doing but on an adult level. Eventually, after I feel more comfortable with grammar I may move on to more advance writing. *Latin I guest I can learn with youngest did since she has just stared on her journey and move a little quickly just to keep up.

Rosie, you make a good point about starting out small by doing some grammar daily along with listening and reading great literature rather than spreading myself to thin. I should have remembered the teaching "Slow and Steady wins the race" but my mind was swirling and go not make heads or tales on what to do. I have listened to some of Julie Bogart's audio on how to teach writing last year I will look up the writing exercises you mentioned too.

She is doing Analytical Grammar season 2 and Wheelocks Latin

TheseIridhHill that is a good idea to read some classics posted at AO. I have start to read Aesop fables to build myself for the larger classics. I will give it a look Rosie listening to Librivox is also a good ideas I have a couple of the fairy books downloaded for the girls so I get into listening to audio books too as it builds listening skills which is lacking. Starting with grammar will be a good place to start since it is the foundation but I am wondering should I just put writing on the back burner for a while?

Hello, I hoping to get help and insight from the board on where to start when self educating. Here is what I want to be better educated in Latin, Grammar, Writing and Reading more classics. I am looking to enhance my own dismal education I received during my schooling years so that I can 1. be better educated and 2. so that I can better help in the education of my girls. The problem is I do not know where to begin. To help aid myself in the process I wrote a list of things I need to learn but even with that I am still stuck. Part of reason I get stuck is because I want to be a better teacher and feel like I need to start in all the subjects mentioned above but I feel like I will spread myself to thin to be effective. So, I am asking where would you start and why?

Love the Evernote series!!! I use Evernote for bookmarking and planning. For me Evernote makes it easy to keep track of my notes that I can Sync across devices which is the best part. I can access info from anywhere without the need to turn on the PC. As for major planning like schedules I use word, Google drive and doc. Evernote has my booklist, subject plans, curriculum ideas etc. Onenote is nice but I just could not get into the grove of it. I saw a nice thread on it a while back ago I may look through it for some ideas.

My ideas are all over the place but here is how it goes every year. *I start off by gathering my ideas for the up coming school year from Evernote and my planning notebook. *Then I use good old pen and paper to write a rough draft of subjects and resources I plan to use that year. *I am not really good at planning ahead I am more of a do the next thing type so, I go though each resource and create a general outline of how many lessons to complete daily/weekly to stay on track. *Once I am sure everything is the way I want I enter the info in hst+, type the docs, and then print and place them in each dds portfolio. *Since my oldest dd is in high school I also type out course descriptions for Homeschool tracker for transcripts. ETA: I use to do everything by paper and pen using the homeschool planning sheets by Donna Young's website in the beginning and rarely used hst+ because of the learning curve.

I live in Maryland and It is not that bad. To avoid the horror stories I have seen others go through many go under an umbrella group that checks your portfolio yearly.

I turn mine in at staples ever few months for in store credit.

I have so many ebooks i have collected over the years that it does not fit on my hard drive anymore so it makes it a lot easier just to have a drive dedicated to just for ebooks.

This is what works for me and is not fool proof as i would like but I have an external hard drive dedicated to nothing but ebooks labeled by subject/topic to keeps the forgetfulness down. Every semester I go through this drive to find books I need for the subjects I plan to work on before I go looking on the internet to download or buy books. Then I create a basic lesson plan of the subjects with the books/ebooks I plan to use that year. After that I place the ebooks on my tablet to be used daily.

My kids like this.

My friend whose dd came from an international school is having the same trouble others have posted. I have come to learn that schools with nice titles does not equate to better schools with better learning.

Thank you Hunter for your hard work. This looks great!!

OP I wish I knew you or of the WTM when I started my homeschool journey because it would have saved me a lot of headache of knowing where or what to start with. What you have described sounds reminiscent of what others and I discovered when I started my homeschool journey. I thought all was ok when I took my oldest dd out at 6th grade but when she took several placement tests I had a rude awaking. I was warned 3 grades earlier by a teacher how schools were teaching to test but had no idea the magnitude of what she meant until I got my dd home. What shocked me most was not her 4th grade level math but her 2nd-3rd grade level science that I found out later was never really taught in school. This school that dd went to is considered a good school that changed its status to make it a more selective school that now offer stem. Now my friend is sending here daughter to that same school at the same grade (6th) I took my dd out and is now beginning to see some of the same issues I saw especially with the teaching of math. She is under the same impression I had about this school years ago because of its 4 out of 5 star rating with special programs for an inner city public school. But I tell you, this school on its best day is not better than many of the county schools on their mediocre days. @Elisabet1 same here dd won the 4th-5th grade spelling bee in 4th grade and thought all was well I too do not ever want to send my girls to public school again.

Good point, but I am almost willing to bet yesterday's 8th grader of 100 years ago would be more prepared for college than many high schoolers of today at least from what I see in my area.

Thanks I have waiting for this!!

I am a morning person by nature and so is my oldest dd who works best early starting at about 9am fizzing out by early afternoon. My youngest dd8 is not a mourning person like her father who likes to start his day after 12 if he could. I have tried to get both dds on the same schedule but have had to admit defeat. So, now dd8 starts her day between 10am and 11am and I have found that I get less fuss when I let her get her sleep. But here is the amazing part, lately dd8 has been trying to get up early to do her work or staying focus so that we can finish because she does not like seeing her older sister off following her own interests while she is stuck doing school work.

Less is more has worked for oldest dd in the way of block scheduling she has 3 subjects per day instead of of six. I have seen dd get more done in one day than I have ever seen her do with daily scheduling and is now progressing faster than expected. Focusing on fewer subjects daily without the sacrifice on quality has also been a lot easier on me and my sanity too I have noticed that everyone is less stressed and feel they are really learning more than they did before the change.