You know...I think my biggest problem is that I really don't have an overall vision for my literature approach. I've got grammar, vocab, composition down for at least the next year or two. I've got a plan for history/social studies that will take us through high school. Science isn't quite as pared down, but I've got a general idea of where I want to go with that. But literature? Gah! So many pieces to fit in. Shakespeare, poetry, literature elements, short stories, novels, classics, British lit, etc etc. I need some hand-holding on what needs to be covered and when. What should my graduating high schoolers have under their belts for literature studies?

Do the book studies, aside from the Shakespeare section, cover more than just three weeks each? Because I need lit studies that will cover the entire school term. Sounds like I need to do some more research on other options. I suppose I COULD stay with Mosdos for now. Just...meh though.

Is Tan before or after Green? What were the reasons you didn't like it?

Contemplating different LA options for next year. And, LLATL has popped up again. We used LLATL Blue, Red and Yellow, and I have not been shy about sharing my overall disdain for the program. Just...dated and boring and the books were below the grade level I had my 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders. Plus...many of the parts of LLATL, I felt were done better by various other programs. Essentially, I only needed the Literature piece and it made little sense to purchase LLATL JUST for that. So for a number of years, I chose chapter books...3 or so a year, plus a Christmas-themed story. I either purchased Lit guides that corresponded, or I made my own...often I modified whatever lit guides I purchased AND made my own. We talked about Literary Elements, parts of a story, vocab., etc. All kinds of stuff. But...it was a lot of leg-work for me. And when my younger two began to reach chapter book age, I began to burn out. So this year, I purchased Mosdos. Opal for my 3rd graders and Pearl for my 6th graders. It's...ok. But I just don't love it. Our literature discussions are not as interesting...less inspired. The stories are all short. And...it's expensive! I *could* go back to my own lit studies but I'm just kicking around a few other ideas. Which brings me to LLATL. Many people had said that the later grades were better than the early grades, and I'm wondering if it might be a good fit for my middle schoolers. We would still be using EIW for composition. I'm already teaching my kids research methods on my own. We use Editor-in-Chief to review and practice grammar concepts. Word Roots for word study. We're done with spelling. Basically, I'm primarily looking for a literature program! Something that has solid lit choices with solid study aspects. Something with a variety of literary genres. Something that teaches literary elements as well as good literary analysis. I'd prefer to read an entire novel, not just a selection. We would likely start with LLATL Green next year...but I'm not opposed to going back a level, or even ahead, if necessary. Thoughts? Am I going to hate these levels as much as I hated the first three?

I dare say most of us use a mix of various resources. Even within families, different kids use different materials. Isn't that kind of why many of us homeschool? So we can customize and individualize our children's learning? Granted, your first year, you may want to avoid recreating the wheel as you get comfortable and learn your student's strengths and weaknesses. But yeah, don't be afraid to modify, recreate, create your own, switch it up, etc. Know that you may change from year to year. You may change mid-year! You may decide to write your own! I've done this for a few years with Science,because I loathe Apologia and everything else on the market just wasn't quite what I was looking for. We use parts of some programs and substitute other parts. The best part of homeschooling is that YOU get to make it work for YOU and YOUR student. As opposed to forcing your student into the mold that was pre-determined for her based on her age. My almost 12 yr old is in 3rd grade math, way below "grade-level". But she's KILLING it, because it's where she needs to be. Anyways...spend time reading lots and lots here at WTM. Lots of luck! We're all here to help in any way we can!

Science Fusion can be done online.

The thing with Singapore is that it DOES have review, but you have to dig a bit for it. The Textbook has review sections, and same for the Workbook. But, I add in IP and some pages from the Testbook for spiral review. We also do some Prodigy Math for spiral review, as well.

I used MUS for my daughter's first two years, mostly to give her basic math skills while I worked on identifying and remediating her dyscalculia weaknesses. But, while I liked MUS for that very beginning, I did NOT find it to be strong enough in conceptual teaching.

Absolutely not. Definitely no for Beast, and I would not hand Singapore to a struggling math kiddo without first identifying why she's struggling and then addressing that. Singapore can be great for SOME struggling math learners, and not for others. My DD11 has dyscalculia and Singapore was a disaster for her in her early math years. Once we identified her weaknesses, I spent years focusing on remediating those areas. We used MUS for a couple of years. Last year, she had made such solid progress and MUS was beginning to bomb, so I switched her to Singapore. We started in Grade 2, but she has done amazingly well, considering how extensive her math LD is. Beast is a whole other animal. It's specifically designed to challenge math-intuitive kids. My daughter enjoys reading her brother's Beast books, but I have no plans to actually have her work through the textbook.

Anybody else's otherwise mathy kid really struggle with Beast 5? DS10 has never really struggled with anything in math. Even with Beast 3 and 4, he might have hit a patch of "huh?" here and there, but it was always short-lived. But so far this year, he's just really been struggling with certain sections of Beast 5. Currently, it's the Sequences Chapter. He had some struggles with the Factors/Multiples chapter (mostly with the puzzle pages). He's on track to begin AOPS Pre-Al after the holidays, but now I'm starting to second guess that. I can't tell if this is a math issue (likely a lack of maturity in that he perhaps has not grown enough cognitively to handle some of the abstract stuff Beast is dishing), or if this is a 10 yr old distracted boy issue. Anybody else's kid struggle through these books?

Personally, for a mathy kid, I would advise ditching MUS. It's just not enough. It's boring, lacks depth and exploration and gives a basic math education. Perfect for some kids. Not for others. And keeping it while supplementing would be difficult because of its tight scope and sequence. If Singapore is a challenge for you to teach, even with the HIG, how about Singapore's counterpart Math in Focus? From what I understand, MIF is easier to teach. Singapore is an excellent curriculum for mathy kids. I combined it with Beast for my mathy kid and have been pleased with the results. If I had put him through MUS (which I have used with DD), he would have been so so bored and he would not have the problem solving fundamentals he has.

I'm planning on buying a subscription to this for my art-loving 9 yr old, when he turns 10 yrs old.

Textbook, Workbook, Intensive OR Extra Practice (depending on your kiddo's math abilities), CWP, and Process Skills in Problem Solving.

I'm just following my own thing. For this year, I wrote up a scaffold for them with sections for taking notes, a section for writing down important dates, a section for writing down sources, and specific paragraph sections. Then, for their specific topic, I'm writing up specific questions they should be thinking about while researching. These are the things I want your essay to address. As they progress in their research abilities, I will remove more and more of the scaffold until they are thinking on their own and able to complete this process from start to finish. I hadn't planned on doing this until last minute more or less. But my eldest two are kind of in a "gap" year for history and I wanted them to be able to explore things of their own interest, but with them being in middle school, I wanted that to have more structure than just, "Here, read all you can about this topic and then tell me about it."

Our formal program is Essentials in Writing. But I started my eldest two on research essays this year and so that's a huge part of our writing. They are completing one a month, around a historical topic of their choice. Complete with timeline, bibliography, the whole nine. My son is abhorred that I would do such a thing. "But mom, this takes up ALL of my free time!" (It doesn't). Maybe one day he'll thank me?

I've used Levels 1-6 so obviously I liked it enough to stick with it. That said.... 1) It is costly. 2) We really only used the tiles in the first level and a bit in the second level. Otherwise, we did everything on the white board. 3) The spelling rules really didn't stick and/or translate. My 11 yr old is a natural speller but my 10 yr old, who is accelerated as a student in every other way, still makes ridiculous spelling mistakes in his writing. Yet both did just fine on their weekly spelling tests. 4) It's a bit dull. I'll be glad when my younger two are done with it, lol.

I've used Spectrum all along, but like PP said...only as a supplement. I've used their Phonics workbooks through Grade 3 (along with Explode the Code). I've used their Language Arts workbooks, and I've used their Reading Comprehension workbooks. Mostly because our state requires testing and I know that they'll see similar reading comp questions in the future. My kids do not seem to mind them. They are colorful, direct, etc. Now that my Bigs are older (middle school), I've phased out of Spectrum and am using other things. Essentials in Writing covers our Grammar and Composition. Editor in Chief provides the practice for the grammar, because EIW does not practice enough, imo. Word Roots for phonics/vocab/latin/greek/spelling. I really like Editor in Chief. I find the exercises to be difficult but...real. Where Spectrum's practice was more rote, EiC is more...proofread this passage and find the mistakes. Which is exactly what I want them doing when they're writing. And fwiw, I did not care for FLL. I found it to be so boring. We lasted through half of the first year.

I'm using Opal (3rd) with my youngest two boys, and Pearl (6th) with my Bigs. The curriculum has a lot to it. I bought the workbooks for both grade levels and pick and choose what I have them complete, which mostly amounts to vocab for the Smalls, and Reading Comp and Vocab for the Bigs. Mostly, the writing stuff is skipped because I coverI writing and grammar with Essentials in Writing and Editor in Chief. What I DO like about Mosdos is that it specifically teaches literature skills that I was otherwise having to come up with on my own. I felt comfortable enough doing that in the lower grades, but this is middle school now, and I wanted to make sure they were well-rounded. What I don't like is that, so far, it's JUST short stories. I think that's totally fine for a year, but I think it's important to read good long novels as well, and have discussions about it. And I know some folks do both, spreading Mosdos out...but I can't seem to make that fit our schedule. But yeah, Mosdos is much more structured and predictable. And because the stories are shorter, it's small bites. Might be worth considering. How is Timberdoodle's return policy if you don't like it?

Dyscalculia is so poorly understood. I mean...the word STILL pops up as an unrecognized word in my keyboard dictionary. And because it is so poorly understood (and nowhere near enough research has been done on it yet), there are precious few resources available. Ronit Bird is definitely the "Barton" of dyscalculia, but even her stuff has a long ways to go in addressing the needs of these kids. With my daughter, I spent YEARS focusing on number sense. Years and years. I never did use Ronit Bird, as I became aware of her stuff mostly after my daughter's subitization and number sense skills were starting to come together. Today, at age 11 1/2, she can mostly consistently count forwards and backwards, through larger numbers, and over tens, hundreds, and thousands thresholds (though it's harder for her with larger numbers). She is adept at skip counting, has all of her math facts solidly memorized and can solve multi-step word problems. She also does fairly well with money. She is a solid 3rd grade math student and last year on her district-required standardized test, she scored well above passing on her 2nd grade math. (The previous year, she scored 15th percentile, though they did test her at 4th grade level). Problems still persist, however. She can tell time, but adding and subtracting with time is very difficult (if a movie starts at xyz time and lasts for xyz minutes, what time will it end...that kind of problem). She still has considerable weaknesses in reasoning and most of the mistakes she makes in ALL of her subjects, and life, are related to those poor reasoning skills. As far as I know, there aren't many (if any) programs that directly address poor reasoning. Is the poor reasoning part of her dyscalculia? Or is the dyscalculia part of whatever it is that causes her to have poor reasoning? Who knows? Anyways, my goals for her are to get her proficient enough in math that she can engage her world as an adult, without needing me to check her bank accounts, etc. I'm confident that I can get her there (where a few years ago, I wasn't sure). Once we've accomplished that, we'll see where she goes from there. I think that's kind of the best we've got for these students right now.

I loathed LLATL. So so so much. Partly because it was dated. Partly because it was corny. Partly because I wanted to use whole books and I found some of the book selections to be lower reading level than my kids were. Just not my style. We muddled through two or three years of it I think (Let me remember...Blue, Red and Yellow...so yeah, three years and I added so much in that it became redundant). So if I was forced at gunpoint to choose one of these two, it would be TLP. I've done one of their book studies and it was ok. More easily customized than LLATL, and I tend to be the queen of reinventing the wheel when it comes to curriculum. That said...I did ditch TLP in favor of doing my own thing for literature for a number of years. That got to be a bit onerous, so now we're doing Mosdos. Not sure if I'll stick with it for next year. I like it enough...but not sure I like it as much as it costs.

We have a modified year round schedule as well, but I'm not sure for how much longer. I make sure that we finish our core subjects in a typical school year. So math and language arts will start the next grade level at the "official" start of our new school year (which is usually the 3rd week of September) and I try to have them done by the last week of May. History is run from October through March, and Science is from April through August. Electives, depending on what it is, I usually try to space it out over the school year. This leaves summer for math review, summer reading, and whatever other electives I wanted to get to, but can't squeeze into our 4-day school week during the formal year. Last summer, that included health for my Bigs, and cursive for all four. Next summer will again be Health for the Bigs, but we'll be learning keyboarding for the group. I try to make sure our summer schedule is very light. For the most part, curriculum kind of just gets "done" around late April to late May and that's that. No big to-do. As we draw closer to summer, the days get a little easier (this is totally by design, lol). The last week of May, I take it completely off, we "celebrate" and the first week of June...summer school begins...and they lament. As the kids have gotten older, it's becoming more and more difficult to school year round. Summer is just so.stinkin.busy. And if they land on a travel team, forget it. And I have to be honest...I miss lazy quiet summers with very little to do. Every summer, I'm more and more tempted to just chuck summer school out the window and chillax for as long as I can. But then I'd probably have to give up my 4-day week and I love my 4-day week, lol.

Mmmm....I'm thinking stick with Singapore until the next Beast book comes out. At least, once you get to 3rd, you won't have to wait....and wait.....and wait...this time around.

Seems a bit ironic to mention this when we're considering christians and their navigation through curriculum, no? I mean...as a Christian, I COULD just stick with BJU, ABEKA, Sonlight, etc., and be totally "safe". So I guess in that regards I'm privileged. But branching outside of those particular curricula means a minefield of questions on what's being presented, does it align with what we believe, can I still use it if it doesn't, can I modify it, etc. Especially in science. Basically, I can use Apologia which, imo is just awful and actually doesn't represent our family's values at all, or I can wander into the world of secular science, or I can write my own. I chose the latter of the three for a number of years. So yeah...I would have to say most christians that venture outside of the big three main Christian curricula options do have quite the time navigating programs, trying to figure out what's what, what's "safe", what can be modified and what cannot.

But Farrar that's the thing. This discussion had not gotten heated or anything. LOF was mentioned, in passing, presumably because it had come up on the OPs suggested maths questionnaire. The moderator/admin shut it down stating LoF was not to be discussed. She then quantified her comment in a second post stating the author had made disgusting derogatory comments about the LGBTQ community. It was obvious that her beef was with the author's view of the LGBTQ community, which is why I said it was political and that I don't buy at all that that particular discussion had anything to do with having a safe place to discuss curriculum free of religious based programs. It totally wasn't about that at all. I can respect that need. But this was different. It's done now though. Folks have a choice now. Seems silly, especially when issues of faith really don't come into play when we're talking about Beast (unless you consider those folks that won't even use it because OMGOSH BEASTS!!!). But that's why I started an open group where adults can moderate themselves.

No, you're right, I never noticed it. But that kind of makes sense I guess. I'm not so easily offended that the mention of someone else's beliefs would stick out to me. And just for the record...despite the fact that we are christians, I actually school my kids with all secular materials. To each his own.