Classic Literature Poetry Church history as a part of "history" Writing handwritten notes, in cursive, to friends and family. This includes thank you notes, get well cards, birthday and Christmas cards. Life skills

Listening in for answers to this too. My rising 6th grader with some latin experience will start FirstForm in the fall, I would like my rising 4th grader (10 yo in December) to do the same program. She has done some prima Latina and Latin roots. And she is very strong in English grammar. Even if they move through at a different pace I'm hoping it will work for both.

I would not worry about the grade levels on the books. My fifth grader finished WWE 4 in January. Worked through W&R fable pretty quickly. Is doing W & R book 2 now, will do book 3 over the summer. He is able to move quicker than my 3rd grader, but these first two books have not been a waste of time at all. He's learned new things even from the Fable book. I do plan on him starting WWS 1 sometime next school year, late fall or winter but I'm not sure if that will come after W&R 3 or 4. I plan to use both though. My 3rd grader is doing wwe 3 & W&R, we alternate weekly.

Thank you, so kind of you to share!!

I would start with Fable too. I have a 3rd and 5th grader using it. We all love it! The fables are fun & both enjoy the writing.

The ones in my area are all a little different, some of the bigger ones you don't need to teach a class, but they ask you to contribute something like morning set up, lunch clean-up, snack table or afternoon clean up a few times per semester. Ours has the option to opt out of volunteering for a $25 fee. But they all seem to have different rules & policies.

Following

My oldest went from private school to homeschool back to private school because she just thrived in the classroom setting and not so much at home. I don't know about part time private school, but we do have co-ops in our area that offer something similar. There is a Christian co-op near us where students attend class all day, 3 days a week, in the co-op. Assignments and homework are done at home the other 2 days of the week. These are academic classes taken for credit, no fluff or "fun" classes. I'm not sure if that's what your looking for, but maybe worth looking into.

Some people use Bravewriter, not only as a complete writing program, but as a lifestyle. Incorporating her ideas, language, writing etc into all aspects of schooling & family life. Writers Jungle gives the tools to do that. But many parts of BW can be used without it. We do some Arrow, free writes, and poetry but it is not my main writing curriculum. There are also many ideas on her blog.

I think whether younger kids retain history depends on their experience and level of interest. Mine seem to be retaining, but they really enjoy it. But I don't spend a lot of money. I choose an age appropriate spine, dd 3rd grade, has a shorter, simple book that she is able to read on her own. Then we add literature, biographies and other books mostly from the library. And add some movies or documentaries. We don't really write about history or do any projects/activities. DD fell in love with the Little House books this year after reading one for American history do we stopped all other history while she read through the series. DS really showed an interest in documents & speeches during Am. History this year so we are incorporating those into his memory work and taking more time with them. So history here is very flexible.

We did AAS through level 3, wasn't really working for ds who has always struggled with spelling. Dd is a natural speller, so she prob. could have stayed with it. But we switched last fall to WRTR and ds just took off with spelling. But also at this time he started reading more than ever before, like 2-3 hours a day sometimes. So maybe it was the reading, maybe WRTR, maybe both. But now we are really just reviewing the phonogram cards and taking a break from doing the list for the summer because they are spending so much time reading.

Math, literature, bible, music 5x week Writing, latin, poetry, art 4x week Science, handwriting 3x week History, grammar 2-3 x week

You might want to hold onto those expensive Star Wars toys, my son at age 8 decided he was done and sold them at a garage sale. Now he's 10(almost 11) and is using his allowance to buy more Star Wars toys!! Lol! :)

Before Christmas we purged almost all toys, the only things we kept are- Thomas the train & tracks Disney Cars Dress up clothes Wooden blocks Toy instruments Magnetic wooden dress up dolls & paper dolls American Girls, stroller & accessories Melissa & Doug wooden food and play kitchen Puzzles Legos Snap circuits Various building sets, widgets(I think they are called), Lincoln logs, magnet building sets, kinex, Fold up tents & tunnels Sand box toys/ Tonka digger, bulldozer & dumper Water Table I think that's it!!

Thank you, I signed up too!

Depends so much on the specifics. I had a baby in nicu for 50 days, but by the time he came home he was fairly healthy. He did have quite a few dr. appointments & specialist follow-ups, but I had family nearby to watch my others. When we were home schooling wouldnt have been an issue. Actually I think when he was 1 & 2 it was harder to school than when was an infant. But my main concern would be do you have reliable babysitters for all those appointments? Will your baby have special needs and medical care required of you once he comes home nicu? Mine didn't have any, so I wore him in a moby wrap like my others. Germs coming home from school would be an issue to consider too.

Hello & welcome!!

My husband sat with our kids when they practiced last night and sent a recording if it to their out of state grandparents. I sat with them today and they really enjoyed performing for me. I really think that us being more involved in their practice will help to motivate them. Thank you to all!! 😊

Thank you so much, all of this makes so much sense to me. I can definitely work on inspiring them. I bet you are fabulous music teacher, you've sure reassured & inspired me!

Raven gave some great advice about starting with a good routine & expectations. During my first year I was so focused on curriculum and school type stuff that the routine and expectations got pushed to the back burner. Now 2 years later we are doing okay with school work, but we are starting at square one with our routine. I really wish I would have made our routine a priority because it has been the biggest struggle for our family.

Do you stop & define every unknown word in your read alouds while reading? Or let them try to figure it out by context? I find myself stopping a lot and asking "do you know what that word means?" Just wondering how you all handle that.

Do you stop & define every unknown word in your read alouds while reading? Or let them try to figure it out by context? I find myself stopping a lot and asking so you know what that word means? Just wondering how you all handle that.

This year my 3rd grader has done The Children's Hour -Longfellow The Flag Goes By -Bennett Pocahontas- Benet I never saw a moor- Dickinson Sonnet 18 -Shakespeare Preamble to the Constitution

I think I've made a mistake in thinking they should want to practice, I think I will put it on their school list and school isn't done until music practice is done.

Haha, love this! Thanks for all your quick responses, I guess honestly I haven't given our goals a lot of thought. They wanted to play and I always regretted that I never followed though with my music. So, I need to think about that. But off the top of my head I think it's character building and music appreciation. I think they will enjoy it more when they get good enough to actually play something they like. Everyone has mentioned being present & involved with their practice, I think that would be a good first step since usually I do just send them off to practice on their own. Great advice, thanks to all who responded.