My DS's birthday is Aug 4 and he is a fourth grader - he will be 10 this year. He met the public school cut-off date (Aug 31) and was in public school until 2 years ago. He is a gifted student and has no problem with anything academic. That said, my DH & I decided that he would have an extra year to prepare before going off to college. My DH (also gifted) has a June b-day and has said many times that he was not ready for college 2 months after his 18th b-day. So DS is definetly NOT going off to college 2 weeks after his 18th b-day! We are taking the opportunity now to give him that extra time. When my DD starts the ancient cycle again in 9th grade, so will DS and in essence "repeat" the History/Science of 5th grade. This next school year (DS 5th/DD 8th) will be a quick pass through Middle Ages, Renaissance, & Moderns so DD will be ready for HS great books & Ancients so DS will not have 2 years of Ancients back-to-back. As all the posts have said, you must do what is best for YOUR child. If she is academically ready to read, then start reading and don't worry too much about the rest of it. If she is bored, then you can always move her up later.

...some of her books are adult only - Wifey would be one of those, she has at least one other, I know because I bought it and never finished reading it...something about a beach maybe?...I sold it in a garage sale! My personal favorite and one I bought for my DD when she turned 11 was Are You There God?, it's Me, Margaret. I remember reading it in junior high and wishing I had read it a couple of years before I did...it was not an option at our K-5 library. We also have some of the Fudge books. I remember a lot of fuss when I was in 8th grade about a book called Tiger's Eye - you had to have a signed note from a parent to check it out. I thought it was boring and never finished it either...of course, my signed note was that my mom allowed me to read Harlequin romance books!:lol:

is the Harry Potter series! I have read them all several times. I spend so much time reading non-fiction in preparing the kid's school work (I will be reading the Histories, the Republic, & the Last Days of Socrates this summer!), that I love to unwind at Hogwarts before bed! I will be branching out some when I finish this cycle (currently reading book 4)...my ds loves the Bryan Davis series (Dragons in Our Midst & Oracles of Fire) which are Christian fantasy, Chuck Black's Kingdom Series (also Christian fantasy) and all the dragon books from Donita K Paul (more Christian fantasy!) Hmmm...we seem to have a Dragon theme going here!

Thank you sooo much for posting list!! I have been looking for something like this for about 2 years....ever since I saw Elie Wiesel on Oprah. Thanks again!

We are in TX and I pulled my kids out of public school 2 years ago at the end of their 2nd & 5th years...didn't even wait for the school year to end! Don't stress over math! My "advanced" 5th (now 7th!) grader has taken 2 years to work through Saxon's Algebra 1/2 (which is where the Saxon placement test placed her - not me!)....because I had to UNTEACH the weird method she had been taught! They had to draw pictures & write sentences, etc BEFORE they were allowed to solve the math problem!! :ohmy: She will finish this book at the end of August...and start Algebra 1 in September. One thing I am planning to with each of my kids is a math lesson every day that is a "school day"...meaning all year round except for school breaks. They will do math all summer with a few weeks "off". This is mostly just because I seem to remember (and my dd just confirmed!) all the first 6 - 12 weeks of each new school year was review! Why waste that time? I am using the WTM as a guide! Here is good link to an article on the main WTM site: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/schedules.php It has taken me 2 years to unteach (is that a real word?!) what the public school system where we were taught our kids. I know some ps are really good! (I'm not bashing ps!!) My sister is a 3rd grade teacher in a great ps - she is how I know that we did the right thing in pulling our kids out!! What works well for one child may not work well for the other and it may take a while to figure it out! After 2 years, we are just now getting into a good rhythm. Which is how I found this forum! I feel comfortable enough in what we are doing to look around and get other ideas. I am currently laying the ground work for highschool...which is why I'm on this forum and not the K-8.

I would just like to point out...because I know not everyone on this forum uses the WTM...that the quote in the article from WTM p.23 is taken out of context. The paragraph that the quote is taken from goes on to say "Seize this early excitement. Let the child delve deep. Let him read, read, read. Don't force him to stop and reflect on it yet. Don't make him decide what he likes and doesn't like about ancient Rome; let him wallow in gladiators and chariot races. He wants to find out how things work, how ancient people lived, where Mount Vesuvius is located, and what Pompeii looked like, covered with volcanic ash. This thirst for sheer accumulation won't ever die completely, but it is more easily satisfied later on. And the wonder of that first encounter with a strange civilization will never come again." I am not familiar with the other texts/writings that she quotes from, but knowing how she used something in the WTM out of context makes me wonder how many of the other quotes are also out of context, used to support what *this* author believes and not the original works support. Anything out of context can be twisted to mean something else. From the article in the original post: "If this theory is interpreted in a rough, commonsense way, it sounds plausible. Young children amass facts: from the sounds of the letters, to the multiplication tables, to the names of a universe of entities. Notice, however, what the authors of The Well-Trained Mind mean by the “facts†acquired at the grammar stage. They say that the grammar stage (grades one through four, remember) is “the first time your child will encounter Egyptian embalming rites or the atmosphere of Venus; this is the first time he will understand what light is made of or why Americans rebelled against the British.â€23 Everything—from religious rituals, to analysis of major political events, to the most abstract discoveries in science—is placed under the heading of “facts.†The Well-Trained Mind regards it as the educator’s job to stockpile a young mind with such facts." I don't think that I would trust any "facts" this author presents in her paper. I think she is biased...heavily...against anything that doesn't explictly agree with her point of view.

I'm curious...what do you do for worship? I only ask because since we have moved, we have not found a church that we feel comfortable in. The church we attended before we moved was wonderful. Where we moved to, the churches all seem, somehow, false. I am tired of church politics. We have talked, half-heartedly, about "home churching" as well as home schooling. :001_unsure:

6 large russet potatoes, peeled & cut into 1/2" cubes 1 large onion, chopped 3 cans of roasted garlic chicken broth 1/4 cup butter 2 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 1/4 teaspoons black pepper 1 cup whipping cream or half-and-half 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese 3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives 1 8oz container sour cream (optional) 4 bacon slices, cooked & crumbled shredded cheddar cheese 1.) Combine first 6 ingredients in a 5-quart crock pot. 2.) Cover & cook on high 4 hours or on low 8 hours or until potato is tender. 3.) Mash mixture until potatoes are coarsely chopped and soup is slightly thickened; stir in cream, cheese, and chives. Top with sour cream, if desired, and sprinkle with bacon and cheese before serving. My family loves this! Sometimes we serves this with grilled steak in place of a baked potato! :)

Here is the link: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/greatbooks.html SWB has lots of really good info posted under the resources link. I have the revised & updated 2004 edition and still use the articles she has posted. Enjoy!:)

Hi! I'm new here...this is my first post. I just wanted to say to Nan that I love your posts! We are using the TWTM/TWEM also. My dd is in 7th, but I am planning 9th grade at this time and just yesterday made her a "question" sheet for her reading notebook. I took all the questions to consider from the Novel genre and typed them up for her with the pages in the TWEM for her to reference when she needs to and I will do this for each genre. For 9th grade we are planning to read 8 from the Ancients great books list in WTM and hope to read 12, but we won't stress over it if we don't! :) We have been homeschooling for 2 years and are using TWTM as our guide. I also have a ds who is 9 and a 4th/5th grader.