Read aloud SOTW to everyone as a read aloud and don't worry about activities or tests. Add additional biographies or free reading books for the 10yo (or audio books) - like all the Rosemary Sutcliffe titles. :) Can you use audiobooks for some of the Sonlight books? Read science, but skip workbook pages or experiments. That's how I simplify, anyway.

We do about 2 a year, starting in 4th (ish). I am of the "Shakespeare was meant to be seen" camp. :) Here's how I do it: www.simplyconvivial.com/2014/shakespeare-kids-easy-5-step-plan

We use and enjoy Latin for Children. I just wrote a review this week on my blog: http://www.simplyconvivial.com/2015/homeschool-latin I will be starting my 5yo & 7 1/2 yo in School Song Latin for fun next year, because they want to do Latin like the big kids. :)

Seems like this issue manifests the problem with fill-in-the-blank tests or workbook problems. Was fascinated a vocabulary word? Wouldn't it be a better approach to say, "Use the word fascinated in a sentence"? This is the reason why I use hardly any preprinted curriculum or workbooks. The point isn't to learn to use the rules and words, it's to guess what the material-writer was thinking. It makes it easier to grade and it makes kids into better test-takers, but it doesn't help them learn to use and apply things in their own thinking.

Technically, these things that you point out are usage and not grammar. Grammar can be taught through Latin. Usage can be taught through, well, using English. :) Things like appositives and such come up in writing, because I teach them what they are and then require them to use it (I do my own modified IEW style).

To that I would only add "correct everything they write" as well. Most of that we have learned only through my correcting their written work. Translating a Latin sentence? The English needs a capital and a period, every time. Writing the date out on your math? There must be a comma between the day and the year. etc. etc. ...and that requires being willing to be a mean mom. :)

I'm going to have my 7th grader work through "The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Study" by Starr Meade that takes them through reading the entire Bible. I think I'll plan it out over 2 years: http://amzn.to/1MS9YZQ

I love my printer. It's a BW Brother Laser with a tray to scan or copy stacks of paper. This one: http://amzn.to/1MOpk3k

BTDT with my own 8-year-old freak out stage. Now I'm working through the 12-year-old freak out stage. :)

I'll play! I love to talk homeschool philosophy. :) Here's my summary of my principle/vision goals for each grouping: Toddler-4yo: grow a secure identity through love and trust, learn to be responsible for actions (pick up what you get out, clean up your own spill, ask for forgiveness when you do something wrong, etc.), play outside a lot, play primarily unstructured creative/pretend play. early elementary: learn to read, do basic math as desired (I only do math with this age when they want to), be read aloud to a lot (I include audio books in this category), play outside & unstructured a lot (you start to see them playing out the stories they're being read and it's so fun!) --the transition between these two happens when they can read fluently-- elementary: to grow in skill (reading, handwriting - not composition, math), to be introduced to the world as an interesting place and be interested in all manner of things (so, like Charlotte Mason, my goal isn't that they *know* many facts, but that they *care* about all manner of things) --the transition between elementary & middle school is more gradual than hard-and-fast and depends on each child-- middle school: begin to apply skills to studying and learning, transition to being more responsible and independent in studying, make connections and learn conversation and questioning skills, learn to write to communicate a point high school: grow in independence and responsibility, make own goals and execute them, transition into adulthood and university-like learning The high school part is still vague to me because we're only now transitioning into middle school. However, I do think that what is typically done as a college freshman today should really be high school work. I did 2 years of college in high school, as did my husband. How do you cultivate better and deeper thinkers? Reading, reading, reading - and let conversation be natural and organic, don't push it. They need lots of broad experience and connections made on their own before they can become thinkers. But to think, they need material. So they need lots of stories, lots of books (above their level through audio books, too), and lots of time outside. Then they'll develop the material with which they will be able to think as they mature.

David Hicks did write the introduction to Consider This. :) I think Consider This is not only an excellent summary of Charlotte Mason's principles of education (most books summarize her practices and exclude much talk of her principles), but also a more approachable version of Norms and Nobility (disclaimer: which I love). I am not sure how old your kids are, but your questions are exactly the same ones I had when mine were all 8-and-under. As we hit 10-and-up (and my oldest is now 11 1/2 and I'm planning 7th grade), I definitely see that there is no hard and fast line and there's definitely no point at which the analytical pushes out the poetic, synthetic view (hopefully!). I teach very Socraticly. When I help my kids with math or Latin or anything, I ask them questions and never tell them answers. I make them think it through. It's tedious, but it's valuable. That is entirely different in my mind to a Socratic discussion on literature, which I have tried to do with 14-15 year olds and it is like pulling teeth even at that age (or was with them). You can't have a grand conversation until you have enough experience and enough "relations" (as CM would say) to have a valid opinion you can defend logically. So, in 7 & 8 we'll start logic, but I doubt it will be until high school that conversation will bear the fruit of all those relations, connections, experiences, and logical backbones. For me, mostly, that means I must remind myself to not be disappointed at lackluster attempts at conversation. Start them, but don't be surprised if the child ends up sounding like a 10-year-old boy if that's what he is. :) It's easy to set up grand expectations that are dashed by reality, at least for me. Here are more thoughts I've written out about Consider This: http://www.simplyconvivial.com/2014/consider-this-education-book http://www.simplyconvivial.com/2014/classical-homeschooling-components

I was homeschooled myself, all the way through, and I think that helps my perspective - My default "learning" setting is reading, not classroom or curriculum. So, my thinking is that if learning is happening organically, then it's *better* than if I were micromanaging it all. If I can set up conditions and atmosphere for learning, then that's better than my directly teaching it all. I pay attention and make sure materials are available, but I don't stress about measuring or output. Here's how these things look for us. I hope that all helps! There've been some other great responses here that I totally agree with, but I thought maybe a nitty-gritty look at how one family merges these into "just living life" as much as possible might be helpful.

I have a friend and we swap older kids and younger kids; this is our second year. We live on the same street, so this makes it easy to swap. The 11-8 year olds come to my house for 2 hours twice a week and we read and discuss history, science, Bible, and Shakespeare. I pick books to read aloud, read them aloud, then we talk about it and once every 6 weeks we play Jeopardy where they make up the questions and then quiz each other. I use Covenantal Catechism for Bible and my 5-step plan for Shakespeare, but no real curriculum - just read and narrate/discuss. This year we're reading 3 M.B. Synge titles and Guerber's The Story of the Great Republic for history, and The Mystery of the Periodic Table and a few of the books in the Story of Oxygen line. We do it while our 2-and-unders nap in the afternoon and the 4-6yos are at my friends' house. She reads picture books aloud to them and then they play blocks or kitchen or other open-ended play without the disturbance of the big kids and she makes sure they resolve disputes kindly. Next year we'll have to rethink it somewhat because we'll have 3 different groups of kids who need things rather than 2. But for now it's been great!

We do 6 weeks on, 1 week off, December off, and June off. Our new school year starts in July. I love it!

i agree with everything Stellarella said. I picked MUS because I wanted my kids to understand the concepts, I wanted a manipulatives-based program, and I wanted a video teacher who can explain the same thing over and over and still smile and crack a joke (video teachers are great that way). I saw a Steve Demme video on Youtube once, and now I can't find it, where he was answering parent questions and he said, "Your child is never "behind." He's always where he is. You teach him where he is and help him move forward from where he is to the next step." I loved that so much! My oldest was "behind" until he was almost 10, and now 18 months later he's a book ahead. Something clicked. I love how MUS is flexible in being able to slow down or move faster based on the child's understanding. We're just starting prealgebra now, at the end of his 6th grade year, even though he took 3 years to do Alpha (I started Alpha at 5 - since then I've started Primer at 5 with my others, my 4th is now in Primer). I do also supplement with flashcards, Calculadder drill pages, and xtramath.org. While they're in Alpha-Gamma, they also get a facts drill several times a week. When they're in Delta and up, sometimes we'll take a week and just review all the math facts and I'll also pause their lessons and just have them do fact review and practice when calculating errors rather than conceptual errors are giving them the wrong answer frequently. If he's figuring out how to get to the answer, that's better than memorizing without understanding! After that, he just needs lots and lots of practice, and the more he practices, the faster he'll get. It's just like sounding out words to figure them out. Sounding things out is a great strategy, but eventually, at their own pace, each child finally starts reading fluently, where they aren't sounding out consciously most of the time anymore. Practice, practice.

A large part of my homeschooling practice is just having a lot of books available to pick up, so by February I usually have picked what we're studying and have an idea for the spine, but then when I start seeing serendipitous mentions of books that fit my goals for the year, I look at them at Amazon and Exodus Books and if there's a low-price used copy, I start collecting books in February. I finish most of the buying in May and plan in June and we start our new school year in July.

Uh, yeah, life of a homeschooling mom. lol. The student having their own checklist helps me with that. We start out with our group time (Circle time, morning time, basket time, memory time, whatever it should be called), then I do one thing with my 5 & 7yo (imo, the 5yo doesn't *have* to do school at all, but he can sit in on the 7yo's lessons and I can give him spelling words, math pages, etc. to do next to me while I'm actually working with the 7yo). The 9yo & 11yo do what they can independently from their list, in whatever order they want. When I'm done with the middle kids, I call the 9yo and we do Latin (that's not a starred subject?? Mine need hand-holding the whole time) and whatever subjects he'd already attempted but needed help with (I check his math and we go over any errors). Then he corrects his math more if needed, finishes something else, or keeps working, and I do the same thing with the 11yo. Both of them sometimes also need another clipboard/work check/tutoring time after lunch after the baby is down for a nap, but they try to start off everything independently, so then when I sit down with them, they've generally hit their question-point or roadblock and we can work where they have a question, which makes it a lot more effective. But writing and grammar instruction time is saved for once a week when I do a class with other kids and my own, and my younger kids are not around and calling for bathroom assistance. :) During the week, we work on their homework where they need help. The older kids have enough on their list where they can keep busy with *something* until I call them for their tutoring time, and being interrupted by toddlers is just the way our life has always rolled, as is probably the case with you, looking at the ages of your kids. :) After 20-30 minutes teaching time (and group time) with the 7yo (she just turned 7, this is more like her 1st grade year), she's done for the day except for drawing, reading, playing outside, and those sorts of things that are just living life and not school assignments at our house. For the older boys, if they play LEGOs or otherwise goof off before their clipboard is complete, they lose their computer privileges for the day. They do have "run to the end of the road" on their list, so they can intersperse some fresh air and movement when they feel like they need it, but not playing and not lounging around reading, either. Hope that helps!

My almost-five is reading also, pretty much fluently without much instruction, but it's my just-turned-seven-year-old who still needs work to move from BOB books to fluency. I have newer readers read out loud to younger siblings where I can hear and remind them to sound out a word if needed. My older ones moved from the leveled readers to just reading the classic picture books. Billy and Blaze are also good books. My older two boys read at 5, and it was tricky until they got to 7 or so, because most books for their reading level were geared for 7+. But picture books are great. I tried to make sure we checked out every book I could from this list: http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celoop/1000.html Another thing that has really helped, even though it wasn't why I was doing it, has been our morning memory time. Each child has his own binder with the memory work printed out, but we're reading it aloud together, reciting. That has helped a ton with fluency and ability to read words they'd never encounter in a reader. :) Just keep having them read out loud - maybe Aesop's Fables? Don't move them to independent silent reading too soon, especially at 5. Though the fluency is there, it might not be until he's 7 before picking up a book is something he does for his own entertainment, just because of developmental/maturity issues as well as the fact that most "chapter" books are geared more for the 7ish range. If reading is a normal part of your home, and you read aloud to him, picking up books on his own will come and it isn't something to worry about, especially if screen time is also limited and he has plenty of opportunity to move and get his energy out, too.

We have clipboards with a weekly checklist, and things they need to do with me are shaded and things that are independent aren't. The checklists are mostly the same every week. They just say things like "MUS 100%" for math. The night before or the morning of, I put their next math page (sometimes with a sticky note to watch the lesson) onto their clipboard, and that's the page they do. This is the second year I've done it this way and it works pretty well. It would drive me nuts to handwrite all that every evening. :) But I do reserve the right to make notes or adjustments on their checklists throughout the week.

Here's where I have written about our Circle Time: http://www.simplyconvivial.com/2014/start-circle-time http://www.simplyconvivial.com/2013/circle-time-pretty-happy-funny-real-exhausting

Thanks to those who helped with the testing and giving feedback! Simplified Dinners for New Cooks is now available for purchase! I know I didn't get test copies to everyone who asked, so I created a special discount code for 50% off for WTM people only. :) Enter the code wtmcooks at checkout for 50% off Simplified Dinners for New Cooks (or any other Simplified Dinners version, too). http://www.simplifiedpantry.com/new-cooks Thanks!

I would totally be there, but we've already paid a deposit on a vacation rental on the Oregon Coast for that week.

I haven't had time to read all the responses, but this is what it looks like at our house. For two-year-olds to nine-year-olds: "Try that again." They have to repeat their request with a polite voice. When they're four-and-under, I usually repeat what they said in the tone I want to hear, then they repeat that to me. Usually the whiny tone is just their "asking voice," and it takes practice to change that habit. If they won't repeat it cheerfully, if their stubbornly cranky or resistant, they don't get what they asked for, and if crying ensues, they go to bed - "Fussy babies go to bed." The first thing they have to do when they get up is ask for forgiveness from me cheerfully. All that has to be done with a cheerful attitude on my part, or it's just hypocrisy – you have to not be fussy, but it's ok for me to be cranky and fussy - which the kids can sense and will resent. Generally at our house huffiness and complaining about school sets in around 7. For awhile, my response was to shrug and say, Oh well. I don't usually want to do the laundry, but we all need clean clothes, so I do it. This is what you have to do and it's only going to take longer and be harder if you complain about it. If you set your mind to it, you'll get it done and be able to do what you want afterwards. Then, I figure, they need the experience of proving that right. They aren't going to take my word for it, but my 11-year-old has banged himself against the wall enough that he's mostly learned that statement is true from his own experience now. That experience is good for them, even though it's painful for me and it takes a lot of energy to be a brick wall. I've sent them out to run a lap around the house if they won't stop arguing or complaining. I've given extra math drill pages so they can practice doing their work without complaining. At about 10 1/2, my oldest was really butting heads all the time, and my husband gave him a man-to-man talk about bucking up to the work and respecting his mother. After that, my husband set the consequence of any back-chat equaling no computer for a day, and it was cumulative. So I could just turn and put a tally mark on the board for number of days without computer if he wouldn't quit. I had boxes on the board to put a tally mark when he started complaining or arguing or huffing or eye-rolling - one for no computer, one for no friends, and one for extra chore. When he started huffing about my adding a tally mark, another one went on the board without me saying a word. And so on. It took him awhile, and it took several Tylenol doses for myself, but he finally figured out it was better to just do his work,that he was only hurting himself and not getting anywhere. That lesson takes time. And while we were in the trenches dealing with that, I started realizing how huffy my own attitude was about many of my own responsibilities, and I had to deal with those in myself as well. None of us are immune to bad attitudes about our work. It helped, too, when I started pointing out to my kids how this is something we all deal with all the time; it's not unique to them and it's not unique to schoolwork. When it gets to be a habitual response, you can't just stop it. You have to learn a new habit to take its place. So I'd give them something to say like, "When you feel like saying, 'Ugh! But Mom!' say, "Dictum factum, said and done!'" They usually didn't like it at first, but giving them a concrete strategy instead of just "knock it off" did help.

This will be my third second-grader! My first two were advanced readers and she's more at a typical second-grade level, so practicing reading fluency will still be part of her plan, though it wasn't for my other two. Priority #1 in our homeschool is Circle Time (Morning Time, Basket Time, etc. - ours is primarily memory work). That's something we all do together as a family. Math: MUS. She's halfway through Alpha now, but I don't expect her to finish until well into her second-grade year because I want her to have all her math facts at instant recall before she moves on. She'll keep working in Alpha until she passes xtramath.org's addition level. Language: Library early readers and early chapter books to build fluency. Plus I'll read aloud poetry and fairy tales and Bible stories to her and her K-1 brother. Sequential Spelling. Beautiful Handwriting for Children - she wants to learn cursive. Content: Covenantal Catechism books 2 & 3, AO science (nature study drawing, reading living nature books w/ narration). She'll join in the Shakespeare studies with us this year. And we'll do geography w/ Geography Songs and filling in blank maps. I'm also working on a list of books I want her to have as "read-alouds," but that reading aloud will come mostly in the form of audio books. We won't do anything for history until third grade. My main goal before third grade is to get them interested in the world and accustomed to turning to books. I want her to have plenty of outside play and free creative open-ended play.

Our favorite is the Barnes and Noble Children's World Atlas. It's big, well-laid-out, lots of information, and my kids love pouring over it.