I thought about that, but we already skip quite a bit. There are two sides to each homework page and I only make him do the front. And we only do the time tests a couple of times a week instead of every day. It's during the lessons themselves that he melts down. I guess when I say it's a good fit, it's a good fit for me. It's math the way I learned and everything is spelled out for me. But the lessons are too long and he just can't sit still and listen for that long every day. Plus it's taking time away from me doing lessons with my other kids.

My son has some struggles. He is 9 now and currently in third grade. I had him evaluated by a psychologist 2 or 3 years ago and the tests came back borderline ADHD or inconclusive. I'm not sure what all he tested for, but he basically said to come back in a couple of years if things didn't improve with school. Well, they haven't. We have curriculum hopped with math trying desperately to find a good fit. We've tried MUS (which I loved, but he didn't), Horizons (which moved far, far too fast for him) and Saxon (which has actually been a nice fit with our teaching/learning style, but there's too much drill and he gets overwhelmed). As the meltdowns become more and more frequent he's begun to just shut down altogether, so it's obviously not working. I've resolved to try Teaching Textbook as soon as possible. I've read the reviews and I can see that most people feel you need to move ahead a level. He's done the placement tests and it looks like right now he is ready for level 4 but I doubt he'll be in it long, so I figure we'll do that over the summer and start him on level 5 in the Fall. He's tried the demos and loves it, so crossing fingers! That said, we're having issues with LA too. We currently use FLL. He's on level 2 right now and he knows his parts of speech as far as definitions are concerned. He can rattle those off no problem. But if you ask him to find an adjective (just an example) in a sentence and he'll pull out the most bizarre answers. It's obvious he doesn't know how to apply the definitions. A friend told me yesterday not to worry about it because they'll cover it again, but it seems silly to move along if he doesn't understand something. I'm not sure if I should supplement with something or just try something else altogether. I picked up a cheapy LA Core book at our local education store last night and we'll probably do that through the summer. Then I figured if we decide to stick with FLL, I'll probably start level 2 over again and have him do it with his sister who is currently in first grade. Any other suggestions?

Sounds good to me! My kids don't get a summer break. We just finished Friday and will start up again in 3 weeks or so. We just take a couple weeks off here and there all year long. That way they don't forget anything and it keeps them in the school habit so we don't have to go through the drudgery that was our first week of school in the past. Much simpler this way.

I know this thread isn't for debating theology, but I starkly disagree with this statement. The basis of the entire Bible is JESUS. The whole story; the lead-up, the moments with Him and what happened afterward, it's all about Him. That said, I used to believe the Creation story was literal and that the earth was young. I have since changed my stance. Fact is, the Creation story wasn't taken literally until a few hundred years after Christ's death. It was written as a story to inspire the Israelites who had been held captive in another land. I now accept the OE POV and I'm still toying with evolution. But, for me, the main things are that we believe the same foundational things. Jesus is God. He died for our sins. He rose again and He will return. Those are the things I'm not willing to budge on. I know how you feel. Since changing my beliefs I have felt like I need to hide them from other Christians for fear of being labeled a heretic. There are very few people I feel comfortable sharing my beliefs with because I've already seen how people feel threatened and treat you differently when they know you don't agree with them. It's as if I'm less of a Christian in their eyes. I would hate for my kids to miss out on a good opportunity because of our beliefs. Seems pretty unChrist-like to shun those with differing beliefs. But I can't ignore what I know.

Thank you so much for all of the wonderful suggestions! I so appreciate it!

Hi! New here! Several years ago, before my oldest was even school-aged, I started reading The Well-Trained Mind and got way overwhelmed. My son is now in 2nd grade and we've bounced back and forth between a couple of boxed curricula. I recently picked TWTM back up and decided to give it a try. I really would like to keep my soon-to-be 1st and 3rd graders together as much as possible and I have decided accomplish this by placing them in the same History (starting with the Ancients). Then I see that it is recommended (but not required) for the students to study the correlating science. If I were only teaching my 1st grade daughter, I wouldn't bat an eye at this. But I'm concerned that the recommendations (animals, human body and plants using illustrated children's encyclopedias) would not be thorough enough for my 3rd grader. I have long considered Apologia science, but each text being a year-long study is sort of turning me off as well because I wouldn't be able to cover everything I wanted to in one year. I don't know where we would start. Anatomy? But that's supposed to be the last one in the sequence, right? Up to this point my son hasn't done any structured science study, just fun projects here and there. Any advice? Sorry if that came out like babble. I'm very tired. :tongue_smilie: