I would keep going with some kind of handwriting instruction, whether it's print, cursive, or both. It's hard to predict whether there will ever be a future where a person would *never* need to handwrite--but right now it could certainly be a drawback. My college kids both have to do things like essay tests and in class work that requires handwriting (a student would need a formal diagnosis and accommodations to have an electronic option), note-taking is almost all by hand (some instructors don't like laptops in class--I've read of lots of situations where professors don't allow them posted on the college board)--not to mention the various forms in our lives that we're given to fill out... I guess I just wouldn't assume that the future won't require any handwriting, and I'd hate to put any limits on a child when she's still so young--a LOT of abilities can grow between now and adulthood, and she's only been writing for a few of her living years. She has many, many more years to practice and grow in this area. My oldest struggled greatly with handwriting (in fact, I had a similar goal with regard to dictation/copywork type of writing, which I also used to increase his stamina and speed). This kind of activity is really worthwhile (and look how far she's come from the beginning of the year!) I'd keep at it. I did a combination of scribing for my son, having him write shorter things which we gradually lengthened as he was able, going back to oral strategies any time he was on the verge of shutting down in frustration etc... I pushed handwriting for some content subjects more as he got older (I didn't work much on note-taking until he was in 8th grade, when I started teaching my kids how to do T-notes for history--before then, anything longer than a few sentences was usually oral with me typing, and sometimes he recopied, taking several days if necessary, depending on length). This is one of the many things my son has come back and thanked me for doing since going to college. (Ironically he has no memory of how much he struggled in elementary--he just basically remembers it was still hard in high school but we kept working on it.) I know it's really hard some days and the resistance is strong! I just think it's worth it to persevere in many cases. If your daughter is seeing an OT, maybe the OT can help you come up with an ongoing plan. Dysgraphia, Dyslexia, Vision Processing, Auditory Processing, ADHD--all of these can have an affect. The more you understand about what's going on, the more you can help her build on the skills she has. It's okay that she's not really to content writing yet--she's a baby writer in the scheme of writing. Just keep working on things at her pace and gently nudging what she can do.

LOL, yes, lots of misinformation about scholarships out there! On the one hand, they seem so prevalent--it can seem easy for an outsider to think, well, they're easy to get and you aren't paying much or anything after that. In reality, it's kind of like used-car shopping, where the student's GPA and ACT/SAT scores are the "trade-in" car that knocks so much $ off the price automatically. You still have to "buy the car" though! I can understand a counselor not wanting to get deep into financials, but there's so much they could do without getting into it too much. "Do you know your EFC?" "What's an EFC?" "Have you and your parents filled out the FAFSA?" etc... Tons of schools require the FAFSA even if the student won't qualify for fin. aid--so it just seems really ridiculous to say they don't have to file. "File and find out" should be a no-brainer standard line. Let the family decide not to if they want, but the counselor should be more of an expert it seems. LOL about asking about how much "we" make! Cute! I have friends whose kids do a class on "how much do I cost?" for high schoolers. Basically the student has to find out how much it costs to feed, clothe, house, educate, etc... them. I always thought that was a great idea!

LOL, yeah, I'm not ready for the 12-step program yet! Thankfully I have undergrad students who (mostly!) appreciate my need to over-research (and over-think) things!

Taxes can do that to a person! (I am so glad they changed that though--much less stressful than having FAFSA and taxes to do at once!) Hang in there!

Yes! I didn't think this exactly, but I assumed that inflation for college would be pretty much the same rate as most COL increases. Minimum wage has doubled plus a bit since then, so in my mind I thought tuition might have doubled or tripled, but believed it would still be fairly doable for a student to work his or her way through with no or very low loans, especially with a little help (we had some money put away, but we never made anywhere near enough to have put away the $100-$120 K it would take just to go through a state school here!) My oldest was in 6th grade when I started reading high school boards on here and other places, and caught wind that tuition inflation was much worse than that. Just as I don't know how people homeschool without message boards, I don't know how they plan for college without them! It's hard to know to go learn something when you don't know your current knowledge and assumptions are so wrong! I'm thankful I did hear about it (mainly on here!) with time to gradually understand the system and the options. Even with assumptions though...it is really hard to imagine traveling so far to a school without knowing a lot about it (like cost!) before going. To me that doesn't seem like it takes "Hive-level" research skills or propensity! It seems like--wouldn't you think of at least that? But maybe they are used to being able to make decisions without considering costs and assumed it wouldn't be an issue? Interesting. She doesn't want to go to an in-state school but may end up at the local CC...maybe she'll reconsider what she really wants! (If it's a good CC, it might be the best option if she wants to transfer out of state later, though she won't understand that right now...) That kind of misinformation from a school counselor is just maddening!

This is interesting. So, I see that Yasko has a test (gulp $495!), but are you saying you can get the same info doing a cheaper test like 23andme, and running it through one of these other sites (promethease or kyg?) Do you have links to the other two sites where you do this?

It really depends on the child. Some kids seem to pick up reading almost naturally and just take off with it, but many benefit from direct instruction. Explode the Code can work for some kids, though for others it's not really enough practice, and as you said, it doesn't really cover all the things that a reading program would cover (not much work on things like vocabulary, fluency, comprehension etc...). If you think she needs more, you might look at All About Reading. It's open and go, and a lot of the built-in helps are also great for English Language Learners--here's a blog article you might find helpful. It also fits in well with both Charlotte Mason thinking (short lessons--keep them to about 20 minutes), and Classical too. There are a lot of components to language learning, but you don't have to do every subject every year. Start with the basics of reading and handwriting, add on spelling when she's ready, and then add on grammar and writing after that. First Language Lessons is pretty gentle though, and if she's enjoying that, keep going with it. Here's an article on planning language arts that you might also like. DS = dear son, and dd = dear daughter :-). I hope this helps!

Absolutely fine (and it might not even be that non-traditional--I still hear of schools doing earth science in 9th). It's even fine to do a more non-traditional sequence, depending on the schools your dd might be interested in (for many schools, having bio & chem with labs would be enough "traditional" sciences and you could do something else. None of our state schools required Physics, so if she had another interest you wanted to capitalize on later, you certainly could.) Have fun! It's definitely worthwhile to capitalize on a student's interest within a required subject area whenever possible!

When you get down to it, most grades are somewhat subjective no matter what the source--so I don't think there's a big concern out there that the grades are unreliable. I think homeschooling has a good track record too. And schools can tell if the applicant's test scores, application essay, and other things tend to "match up" with what they'd expect. I used Lee Binz materials, and she has a free webinar that's helpful with getting started. Enjoy the high school years--it's fun to see our kids grow up!

Do you need it to actually focus on letter formation, or is it just an opportunity to work on better handwriting? For the latter, there are lots of nice copywork selections out there that work well for handwriting practice. When my dd was in 8th grade we used Our Beautiful America for copywork so she could work on making her handwriting nicer (her desire). (Sometimes she did find some punctuation errors, or I would see one and encourage her to look for it, but overall she enjoyed it.) Any copywork materials or things like collections of famous quotes could work nicely for this. For individual letter formation--something I used to do was to spend about 5 minutes or so before or after our spelling practice to work on specific letter formation issues. This part is probably better taught in person if the student is junior high or high school--the patterns are so ingrained by then. And then have them practice more on their own too. But I know there are programs for older students and adults... Write Now from Getty-Dubay Italic is one. A few on this search page from Rainbow list that they are up to adult ages--see if any of those would work.

It's hard to finish the ACT for slow and careful readers. I do think your best bet for deciding is to have him do a sample for each. Slow readers are "penalized" in 3 of the 4 ACT subject areas though, so I do think that makes it harder to get a good score there.

That sounds so frustrating! Our process is nothing like that--quick and painless, and I do like doing it from home! However, we do have a registrar's office (new students are required to register that way the first time, after visiting an adviser.) If I had any trouble, I'd go there with a class list and get in person help with the site. Would that be an option for your son? LOL about the good-ol days! I went to a large state school and they had rows and rows of tables of registrars with computers, and a couple of flaggers to show the next person in line who was open, to keep things moving. The line was generally at least an hour long, sometimes a couple of hours if you didn't time it right! I did kind of like it though--went with friends so we could all talk in line. But...yeah, our current system is so fast and easy. I'm sorry it wasn't for you!

I wouldn't. I think it's more worth your time in high school to do Chemistry, Physics, and then maybe an advanced science. I would only back up to Physical Science at this point if you have a student who isn't strong enough in math yet to move on to chem, and/or a student who likely won't go on in a science field. Let him read Physical for fun if he wants though, but I'm not seeing a strong reason to backtrack in science now. And I can't really imagine doing chem in 2 trimesters instead of a year! I found the courses got longer/more involved/harder as you go.

That's so sad!

I agree--I'd push both courses back to fall & spring of junior year, (spring of junior year to start figuring out how to look for colleges is a bit late too). That said--I think one of the most valuable things you could do would be to have several professionals visit your class for the college/career one to do a short presentation and maybe q & a for a limited time but be available after class for more (maybe do it at the end of class time to make that more possible.) It's really hard to figure out what careers are like from online sources, though videos can be somewhat helpful. Hearing someone in person can be compelling. Or you could do panel discussions etc...--but expose kids to people in real jobs and get them used to asking professionals questions so they'll do it more when they have an interest in various majors or careers.

I'm glad you found a good solution! I was going to say, since the school she is transferring to is known for having a really tough Psych class, maybe studying on her own now would give her a leg up for that later. And, that's ridiculous that the class will be filled with busywork!

This definitely needs a video, LOL!

I'm so sorry! I know at least in our small rural area that even though CC is very popular, there are other homeschoolers here. (I was surprised at how many--we have a relatively small support group, and someone started a FB group that has like 140 members now!). In my experience though, if you want things like park days to happen, you may need to be the instigator for awhile to help find others and get them involved. So, if you do ever decide to homeschool again, don't give up hope! There may be others out there who don't know anyone to connect to but would like to! I hope your son has a good spring at ps.

Team Hoyt (Father-Son Triathalete, son is in a wheel chair) Getting Back Up (Story of Nick Vujicic, born with no arms and legs) Achu's Hope (15 yo Sudanese Orphan who almost lost her leg and life)

Yeah! That's awesome! Way to go!

Honestly, I wouldn't even use the separate Level D HBL (History-Bible-Literature) package with 6 and 7 year-olds. Sonlight tends to push the envelope just a bit with regard to emotional maturity needed for the content as well as length. I too found their recommended ages spot on. D+E is recommended for ages 9-12, and D is recommended for 8-11. I combined both of my kids and I found that it was usually just right for my oldest (in the middle to upper end of their ranges), and usually a good fit but sometimes a bit rough for my youngest (who was always at the young end of their recommendations). I'd want more picture books and fun for 6 & 7 yo's. Also, I wasn't sure if I read your post correctly, that your oldest would do Core F (maybe just the lit?) along with D+E? I'd stick with just one core, unless you are just making F optional lit or something. (Even then, I think I'd pull from the Grade 4 Readers instead--they don't correlate with any HBL package, leaving you free to use F in the future, and they are more "fun" reading. The F readers are really good, but they are going to be meatier and you'll want to discuss more. They really do go well with the full HBL package.)

Do email AALP--we'll work with you to get it working or make it right. One way to get around this is to select All About Spelling Level 7 (Lesson 1 has most of the tiles but you could scroll down to the last lesson). That will have all of the spelling tiles and the spelling tags. I have it on an iPad Mini, and it took me a few tries to get used to it, but now it's working for me. If you continue having issues, email AALP.

What about just letting him read for the most part? I just had my kids tell me what was going on in their book. Sometimes we had short conversations, sometimes longer ones. I think it's more important that kids read a variety of works than that they do the kind of lit analysis that Lightning Lit requires. I usually downloaded 1-2 free lit. guides per year to discuss a couple of books in more depth. We often did those discussions orally rather than through a paper, though there were times I had them write. Our English credits typically involved: reading (30-45 minutes per day, I gave the list of books) writing (30 or so minutes per day) vocabulary (informal through read-alouds that I continued throughout high school to cover more difficult works, and also some formal through our spelling program and working on some word roots). We did do a grammar unit one year as part of the credit, but most years it was part of writing. One year I did speech in place of writing. I didn't find formal lit. analysis especially important as a college pre-req, but I did work in some of the "lingo" as we discussed (literary elements etc...)

LOL, that's hilarious! My son used to make tiles explode! I love that the app allows you to put all tiles away with one movement! (He could have made his explosion sound while doing that!) My dd also used to draw animals and objects around the words she made. Kids are so creative! Enjoy the quirks...they do grow up and one day you'll miss some of these little things!

The syllable tags do match now. The video was made before the other style tag was added on.