They were helpful reference materials here, mainly for science fair reports to round out the sources (or sometimes to get us started on the right track before getting to the library) but sometimes for random questions.

If it makes you feel better, I didn't start working on note-taking with mine until they were 9th and 7th grades. And independent science happened the year they were 7th and 5th. Hang in there, they'll get there! Sometimes it's a process. Remember it's not a sprint--homeschooling is a marathon. Pace yourselves :-).

I think you'd have to add to them to round it out for an American History credit (the publisher doesn't bill it as such). There is a lot of US history in those levels, but the focus really is World History in MOH. I preferred to use it as is and do a specifically focused US history course rather than lose the flow of MOH by trying to make it into credits for both world and US history.

It sounds like your older ones learned easily and may have colored your thinking. It's not all that unusual for 6 year-olds to be sounding out 3-letter words after 3 months of practice. That's not to say you don't need something different, but more an encouragement to not be in a hurry to "rush ahead" and get to longer words and sentences that she may or may not be ready for. Lay a solid foundation first. She'll get there. You might like these articles: Helping Kids Sound Out Words, and 10 Tips for Reaching Your Struggling Learner.

I used Sonlight 100 with one of mine, but got bogged down in the endless notes on Hakim. So much that for the other, I subbed in Notgrass for a spine but still used SL 100 lit for my dd. Notgrass is "okay" but not as interesting--if I had it to do again, I'd go back to SL 100 and probably either significantly cut the notes or drop them completely. We enjoyed the variety of other books. I did add in a couple of higher level books based on interest (The Scarlet Letter which SL schedules later, Christy, my son read Red Badge of Courage I remember--my dd wouldn't have been interested but I knew he would be. When my dd did US history, my oldest was doing Sonlight 430 literature with Notgrass Government--which I do like--and I read some meatier books out loud like Huck Finn and My Antonia...) So, I was kind of eclectic but mostly followed Sonlight with a few twists based on my desires, their ages, their interests... Not sure if that helps!

I did! My dd kept them through her Freshman year and then transitioned to a "stack" method with a tote that she took up to her room. She liked to power through several subjects in a row. My son however continued with the workboxes throughout highschool. He would grab one or two subjects at a time, do them, then put those away, chat a bit with me, and grab one or two more. The visual was extremely helpful and motivating for him (in fact, he kept his workboxes into the first semester in college, thinking he'd keep using them--but the logistics of needing to take books/notebooks etc... to classes made that not as easily workable for him. Too bad!)

One thing that helped immensely here with feet-dragging, getting off course, losing materials and other ADHD issues is to use workboxes. The author (Sue Patrick) also used them with autistic children, so I think it could offer you some successful strategies. It was really helpful here for getting my student onto some more independent learning (not "all day" independent at this stage, but a short meeting with me before one or two subjects so I could also work with my other student. Eventually in high school this morphed into two daily tutoring times for one student and usually one tutoring time for the other--and occasional short interactions with either as the day went.) I used to start each day with a together time (Bible, history if you still do that together--we separated in 8th grade), and then work one-on-one with each one for 20-30 minutes. Figure out some subject you can start your struggling learner on, or even have him exercise for 30 minutes, and work with the other one. If the time doesn't get used well by the struggling learner, oh well. Pick up and carry on as you can. In other words--decide that a certain level is just non-negotiable for spending time with your non-struggling learner, and then make it happen as best you can. The morning tutoring times worked well here because then I wasn't tempted to just keep pushing things off for whatever "urgent" needs came up in our house that day. I'm with Lori on Algebra--many 8th graders just aren't ready yet, not because they aren't bright but because the brain development just hasn't kicked in yet. I don't think I'd let it take hours if you continue with it. Spend an hour and let a lesson go over into the next day. Or back track and solidify basic operations this year and try it again next year.

I created simple forms and a Teacher Binder to use each year. Most planners had pages I didn't want to use, and the ones I did want to use weren't quite laid out the way I wanted. This way I can have a "schedule at a glance" for each week, and then behind subject tabs I can keep a yearly plan, resource lists, short Answer Keys, and so on.

I have a history shelf for spines and biographies, and then other shelves for historical fiction and literature (US younger and older, and World younger and older). You can use colored sticker dots or strips on the spines to associate books for one year together, which might help you find them later. If any covers do get damaged, I love Vernon Reddi Roll (library-quality laminate) for recovering and repairs. Have fun!

I like the Laser Maze too! We got ours from Timberdoodle, which always has some fun hands on activities. I also like the IQ games--we have IQ link which I really like, but I don't remember the recommended ages--might be for older ones.

If it was only during the summer, then I'd put it in either year, whichever made sense. My ds earned a .5 theatre credit over two summers, so I put that credit on the school year in between those two summers.

Wow. Ridiculous imho. You could turn a half-credit elective into a 1 credit elective just by having to travel farther?! I agree with that idea being unethical. Colleges might reasonably expect that a very minimal amount of a credit was spent in "wasted" time such as travel or waiting for something, but should be able to expect that by far, the majority of the credit earned was actually doing the activity/class stated. Telling people to actually COUNT travel time towards a credit is ludicrous though. If a person needs to count the travel time, perhaps that person should ask themselves why they want to count this activity for credit instead of just putting it under extra-curriculars.

I put the course in the school-year that my student did the most work.

Poor kid! Were they sentences he could easily read & would he have the skills to spell most of the words before trying it? (I did find that copywork backfired and reinforced bad habits if there were too many words he didn't already know. I also found I needed to pre-teach it first). How does he do with dictation of simple words?

Not Melissa, but I scribed for years for my ds (way beyond age 8). We worked on handwriting and copywork and spelling (we eventually used AAS which also has dictation--and the dictations and Writing Stations really helped the eventual transition--I like their gradual writing progression). I remember when he was 8, my goal was just to get him to be able to copy 4 very short sentences in one sitting by the end of the school year (there was no independent writing at that point). In upper elementary, I sometimes had him copy what I had scribed (and this often took him more than a day) so that he could see his words in his own handwriting. We did lots of partnership writing and scaffolding as he got older. We had some starts and stops with various writing curricula as I continued to try to scaffold him towards more independent writing. It was definitely a gradual process all through school. For a time I really stressed about whether I was doing the right thing--helping as much as I did--but you have to teach the child in front of you, not an outside expectation of what "should" be. I finally relaxed in the high school years when I thought, well, if he ends up needing remedial writing instruction in college, that's why they have those classes. He didn't (though he had some rough times with writing that first year in college--and then he just took off).

Many English classes do include some kind of oral presentation, so if you don't feel the speech work has been enough for a 1/2 credit class on its own (or if you don't want it to be a separate credit), I do think you could use it to supplement a lighter English credit. One year I did two half-credit classes for English--I gave a 1/2 credit for British Lit, and 1/2 credit for Speech. I like separating out speech as a topic on a transcript because around here it's a required subject in the public schools (and I would have required it either way because I feel it's an important class to have as well).

If you look at the HBL packages under "shop by level," you can see the various age ranges listed (Core A is for 5-7 yo's or K-2nd, for example). Like the previous poster, I found that it was a better fit for the child who was closer to the top end of the age ranges, but that it could work to combine two children who were within the age ranges listed. Similar ranges apply for the science programs, as you can see on this listing. Science D is for ages 8-11, or grades 3-5 (they actually used to say grades 3-6 for this and the HBL package...interesting.) For the grade level packages, they pick the youngest age a student could be for that level. If that's not a good fit (and it's not for many kids), you might be better off ordering components separately and choosing what you want. HTH!

Could be. Here's what it's like for me: Forgetting Plates and Auditory Processing.

I'm sorry people in your life are giving you trouble about this! Goodness, "late" wouldn't even be on my radar yet at her age. (I had a child who sounded out 3-letter words until age 8! You'd never know it today though.) Sounding words out is a difficult skill and involves more thought than it might appear at first--here's a blog article with a video and some tips that can help. She may just not be ready to start a reading program yet though--I agree with the comments to work on phonological awareness skills first. Here are some additional phonological awareness activities you can download for free. Play with words and language and have fun--she is not late at all!

If you have some magnet letters or letter tiles, you can start to casually show her how to sound out words, and get Ziggy to help show her how to blend them etc... Keep working on oral blending types of exercises (where you say 3 sounds--not letter names-- like /k/ /a/ /t/ for cat etc...) and have her guess the word. Let her say sounds for you to blend too. My kids used to love to hear me try to blend their sound combinations (which didn't make real words but it still helps kids to hear how sounds blend together). You can also play the opposite game where she segments a word into sounds orally, or guesses the first or last sound in a word, or the "I'm going to market" or "I'm going to the zoo" games etc... Here are some more phonological awareness activities if she needs more reinforcement. Have fun! Pre-reading has all the skills a student needs to be ready for AAR 1, so it's not so much that there's a big jump as that some kids plateau and just need a bit more time for brain development before they are ready to move on.

True, but if a person had to send to multiple schools and on top of application fees...ouch! Regardless, it was a surprise expense we didn't have in the budget.

We had a surprise yesterday--my ds will be a transfer student but the school still wanted high school transcripts and ACT scores in addition to college transcripts (he'll have an AA degree when he transfers)--and ACT charges an "archive" fee to send those scores on (another $24 on top of the $13 to send the scores)! (What, do they have to send someone in person to go dig through the catacombs to retrieve his scores?!) At least the school waived the application fee!

This is awesome! So happy for you and your daughter!

30 minutes a week X 36 weeks X 4 years is 72 hours--that's way more time than it takes to keep up with record keeping and creating/updating a transcript. I'd probably want more out of a service than that to make it worth my while (especially since you still are doing the record-keeping along the way--I'm assuming the service doesn't do any type of grading...) If they would purchase the materials (or even a good portion of them), then it might be worth considering. Are you getting any other benefit out of it? Personally, I enjoyed the freedom of doing things myself.

Yes, it would have been too much here. That doesn't mean you can't make it work, but I would use more criteria besides whether the kids enjoy it to decide. Definitely start with that, but other things I'd consider: Are school goals being met Is mom exhausted or energized by all that activity Is there daily family time (reinforcing the family structure), or do the activities tend to encourage pulling away from the family (because that only increases as they grow and become even more independent--think about the family culture long-term) Does everyone have down time to "just be"--to think, create, let the mind wander? It's possible to enjoy something and yet still find it overall detrimental, so just think through those dynamics in your family Some people are comfortable being much busier than others, so I don't think it really matters what others would think. I do think it's important to think through the whole health (spiritual, mental, physical, emotional...) of both the individuals and of the family when considering outside activities.