We go through about 2 books a week - more if they are short. We do a Wizard of Oz type book in about a week (4-5 chapters at a sitting). I would consider "The Hobbit" a longer book than "Wizard of Oz" (I read from the Gutenburg so I can't tell). I read to both groups of kids - one book to the girls (6 and 8) and one to the boys (12 and 14).

I would totally let it go. My 14yo and 12yo (not so much the 12yo, but he does whatever his brother does) really wanted to work on his handwriting recently. He was still printing "J" and "S" backwards - simply from lack of practice and did not know how to make any of the lower case letters. We started doing copywork of first one sentence, then a couple sentences and now no more than 3 sentences (we're about 2 weeks into copywork?) and his penmanship is AMAZINGLY improved. He is writing lower case and upper case and is now noticing punctuation all over the place. His brother is showing the same amazing changes and now they're both wanting to learn cursive so I've printed out some worksheets. My 8yo and 6yo's (girls) are very much into tracing lately and have big thick cursive tracing books that they pull out and work in at their leisure. I really don't think this is something you need to force.

If you look through the archives and search this board for TT you'll find the "controversial" threads that K-8 references. I searched both forums pretty well before ordering the curriculum, and all I could find was that some people feel the curriculum is not difficult enough because in a couple instances kids did poorly in College and in the majority of instances, the mothers felt the kids were not challenged because they didn't complain about the math. Not that the kids said they weren't challenged, but that they didn't complain about having to do math. So go figure. I found that my boys are really enjoying math with TT and that is good enough for me. I honesly don't believe it doesn't provide a solid foundation for college and you will find MANY posts saying just that - that their kids had no problems with College math after TT. It is too bad it has this reputation because I really don't think it is at all warranted.

THis is excellent advice. My BIL is a firefighter in California and his career echos your post. He recently left one station (city) to work at another. He had TWENTY years of experience and had to start with the grunts and go to school. He also spent many years (I don't know exactly how many) before he qualified for EMT training. He is now an Engineer (in the new city).

Thanks! If you click on the "Education" sidebar link, you'll find 25 items instead of the 5 most popular.

thanks! do you have a link?

I don't think I ever would have considered logic as a subject to discuss with my kids - whenever we read I am always commenting or questioning (and the kids say, "It's a MOVIE mom!!! It isn't REAL LIFE!" :) But Holly, you've convinced me. If nothing else than for myself.

Yes, I have found this to be true with my non-reading 6 and 8yo's (who write a LOT) and my 14yo (sight reader who couldn't sound out a word to save his life) and my 12yo (phonics reader). I have never done any spelling curriculum but they are learning from asking me how to spell words from Runescape and drawings and notes, from copywork and from reading.

I don't personally follow any kind of order but I believe you can infer the order from the item number in the Sonlight catalog. So, for instance, looking at my catalog, Core 3 Read-Alouds, Calico Bush has an item number of 3A14 and Carry On Mr. Bowditch is 3A07. From what I have read, one can infer that Calico Bush is the 14th Read-Aloud to be read and Carry On.. is the 7th.

Thanks so much for mention of those groups - I had no idea there were secular groups to discuss those curriculi. I'm off to search.

I read 30 min in the am to the 6 and 8yo upon waking (we're working through the Oz books right now) and then another 30-60 min in the afternoon (more Oz and another book - right now it is Ginger Pye). I read for an hour to the boys (12 and 14) in the evening (right now Animal Farm, Shadow Spinner, Arabs in the Golden Age and A Glorious Age in Africa) so I guess I'm doing the bare minimum of 2.5 hours. We're not doing any academics right now though; just reading books, boys are doing Teaching Textbooks (don't need me to read anything there) and we're writing.

We pretty much spend May through October inside and the rest of the year outside. Just WAY too hot to be out and about during the summer. We start the A/C in February and turn it off in November. But then we shiver when it gets down to 80F. I'm wearing a sweatshirt and it is 81F (inside A/C).

I am going to be doing the K-3 book with a 14, 12, 8 and 6yo. No idea what grades those ages should be. I had the 12 and 14yo look at the book and they both decided they wanted to start with K-3. I also got 4-6 book 2 incase they decide they like that also. It is a little difficult for kids to evaluate curriculum from the computer. I think that this will give us a good 6 months's worth of material and as we start to use the books we can evaluate better if we'll need Jr High or K-3 book 2. Since you're in the US, it is quite easy for you to simply order another book, so I'd go with just K-3 book 1.

If this unschooling atheist can use Sonlight, you can too. :) I use Sonlight for the base of all our purchases, and wouldn't do grammar this young. But at 8, he really NEEDS one on one time. If you don't feel you can devote time to "teaching", why not simply read good literature to him, encourage him to play in the mud and with Legos? Sounds like a well-rounded year to me. You can always push the academics when your youngest will tolerate it and your 8yo will be better able to dedicate attention.

I am so jealous of those of you with UPS or even mail delivery. AFter a good long week, I finally found a mule to bring the CD's of TT 7 to us. Everything else is en route to our mail service until we can find someone to bring it to us. I haven't actually purchased everything below, just finally made the list of WHAT to purchase. :) (re-reading, I have no idea why all we ex-pats call these people mules, but we do and they don't mind it - basically, it is someone who will bring you stuff you can't get where you're living (either by mail or in a store)). I've decided on 14 and 12yo's (boys) TT 7 Life of Fred Fractions and Decimals Writing Strands 4, we'll see if they like it Writer's Jungle (already doing it) writing spurred by The Lively Art of Writing Sonlight Core 6 some books from Ambelside (is that right?) Online 6 and HO Level 2 Ancients Latin Prep I Artistic Pursuits K-3 book 1 and 4-1 book 2 I'm getting JAG but not sure I'll use it A number of TOPS experiments 8yo and 6yo (girls) Singapore 1A and 1B (also have 2A and 2B on hand just incase) Artistic Pursuits K-3 book 1, thinking about getting K-3 book 2 too Sonlight 1+2 Core (have it from last year, plus they'll listen in on the Core 6) Explode The Code 1-6 (we'll see how much and many they want to do) Writing Strands 2 maybe, we'll see A number of TOPS experiments (we'll do with the boys) Oh, and I never purchase until late in the year (I'm very EARLY this year) because the snowbirds and mules don't start coming down until October, so we have no chance to get stuff until then. We're planning a stock up trip in November or so and that is when I usually do my purchasing.

Congratulations! I just figured out what exactly I'm going to purchase. Now the buying can begin.

I agree with everyone else to back off. My 14yo now reads at a 12th grade level. He started to read at 7.5. My 12yo reads at a 6th grade level. He started to read at 10. My 8yo reads but doesn't yet admit it. My 6yo is not reading. I did NO teaching with them. We read (and still read) a LOT. I still read out loud to the 14yo - about an hour each night. They all started writing at 5-6 - captions for their drawings, stories, notes, etc. They started inventive spelling around 8. The 12yo and 14yo now spell correctly WITHOUT ANY testing or curricula. Really, they'll GET it without rigorous training. I think if you continue to push the reading she will learn to hate it. As reading is so much the basis of all learning, I believe it is vital to allow them to develop a love of reading so they will continue to grown into curious, learning adults. My kids are VERY average and not the least bit "gifted" and had no problem learning to read (I'm sure the 6yo will be reading soon - she is very like the 14yo) without me teaching them a thing. You have some excellent advice in this thread so I won't repeat it but did want to reassure you that you don't need to push reading on a kid for them to learn to read.

I LOVE Math and have gone through Calculus and Statistics on my own just because I like it. My 14yo was HATING math. I just couldn't get ideas across to him - it was lie a brick wall was between us. I found TT and while he doesn't exactly LOVE math, he is quite happy to do the TT lessons. He has never done any formal math study and is breezing through Math 7. He is being introduced to concepts I TRIED to explain to him and really *getting* it. So for us, it is a huge positive.

One of the reasons we never did school was the horrid schedule. HAVING to get up at an awful hour to shuttle the kids - gives me shivers just thinking about it. My DH and I get up around 8-9am, the 8yo around 10am, the 6yo between 10am-noon and the 12yo and 14yo are getting up early these days - they are trying for 2pm. I read to the 8 and 6yo when they get up for 30 minutes or so and then we get breakfast (I'm usually starving by this time as I've had nothing but coffee since I woke) around noon or 1pm. After breakfast the girls help cleanup or play. By 3pm we head out to the beach and snorkel or go to the pool and check the turtle nests on the beach. We spend much of the day between 1pm until 5pm or so inside because of the heat. The boys start their "school" day around 6pm or so and usually go to bed around 3am or so. In the winter, when it dips to the 70F's, we'll come back to more daytime activity. So, the boys will generally eat, have some outside time and exercise and then head inside to "work" and have no enforced schedule.

When we lived in the US the kids took occasional art classes and then we did nothing formal for a long time (though the kids do crafts and draw daily on their own). This year we're doing Artistic Pursuits and personally, I can't wait!

I don't get what the deal is here. You can download from Project Gutenberg (I'm reading the Oz series right now) and many other sites - why do you need membership with this one (which is apparently free for now)? What does this give you that other sites do not?

This is an old thread and the OP had a child with LD's, but here is our experience. My eldest learned to read around 7. He started with Dr. Suess. My 2nd learned to read - it really CLICKED for him, around 10. My 8yo is, i think, on the verge of reading. My 6yo wants to read but isn't yet ready. We do NOTHING in the way of teaching. We read a LOT of good literature to them. My 2nd (who clicked with reading at 10) finally learned to read with Runescape. I make sure they can see the letters and recognize them and as long as they are writing by 8, I don't worry about the reading part. They all went through a stage from 5-7 where they wrote all kinds of stuff down - and as long as they generally got the letters correct (my 14yo just recently stopped writing his "j"'s and "s"'s backwards due to copywork - he never had the practice beforehand - I don't worry about LDs.

We are starting this one today!

Here is the correct link for old fashioned curriculum but it doesn't seem to be working right now: http://oldfashionededucation.com/fullcurriculum.htm Grammar: http://home.att.net/~mikejaqua/may-june-00.html The "bringing up learners" site is MAHHHVELOUS!

Wow! Thank you so much! I'm looking at Cambridge links and The New Millennium right now.