TPS English 1 has a large grammar component including diagramming, etc.

My 12yo 6th grader just finished his first semester with WW as well. We were recommended Ms. Corrin and love her. She's great. My son is a very reluctant writer and has grown beyond my expectations already this year. I plan on having all of my children do writing with TPS at this point.

While there's absolutely nothing wrong with ditching it and trying something else I personally think I would buy not only the mp3 cd of the book (and listen to it not only when she reads the book but later during a rest time, in the car, on the iPod, etc.) as well as get the full class multimedia cd that goes through each lesson.

My kids have forgotten all sorts of amazing things we've done lol. My mom is still upset they don't remember her spending a fortune to take them to Disney World when they were younger hehe. BUT my opinion is that who they are is a culmination of all the life experiences that they have whether they remember them or not. The feeling of it, the confidence gained doing new things, time spent with mom, seeing new things, etc. etc. all work to form who they are. Whether they remember it vividly or not doesn't really matter to me. The experiences still matter regardless.

My 4yo has tracing shapes, puzzles, books with paper and crayons to draw pictures from the books, papers that have printed numbers on them and a bag of colored pompoms (he puts the right amount of pompoms by each number), things like that. I'm slowly adding more and more to my stash of stuff to put in. I'm eying these bags of letter shaped beads at the parent teacher store, things like that too add and start using.

Sequential Speller is amazing for those who are NOT natural spellers! My oldest would have been bored to tears with SS while my daughter thrives on it. If it's not needed, ditch it!

Not in my opinion :)

I correct and they do corrections same day. I have a time for each child a day (4 in total!) where I meet with them and do one-on-one work. So with my oldest we do First Form Latin, do history questions/discussion, I correct his math, he redoes it and if need be I help him learn anything he might have clearly struggled with. I do that with all my kids. They all have to correct their math same day so we are 100% ready to move on to the next lesson the next day.

I've never heard anyone call it NEW tell ah. I guess I automatically assumed that since hazelNUT is a NUT it would be NUT ellah.

We already had WWE 4 so I tried it with my 10 year old a few weeks ago. While she did manage that exact passage, it took longer than 3 readings. We are going to do WWE 3 as soon as I can afford it (anyone have it super cheap and want to sell it? LOL)

I'd give my left arm for that timeline to be part of the sale lol.

Have you looked at Sonlight? It doesn't have loads of writing but has loads of reading. It has Bible but isn't the focus like some other curriculum. Core F or Core G http://www.sonlight.com/portal.html?type=core&core=F http://www.sonlight.com/portal.html?type=core&core=G

The 1/2s are for if your child needs more reinforcement of certain things. So 1 1/2 I think is short vowel sounds. If by the end of book 1 they don't have their short vowel sounds, do 1/2. If they do, skip it. So far we haven't need to do a 1/2 but I like knowing that they're there if I need them.

My just turned 4yo can do his totally independently. He has a timer that is set for 15 minutes. I have the start/stop button circled. He pulls out his mat, pulls out a drawer from his workboxes and presses start on his timer. When it goes off, he presses stop, puts everything back in his workbox, puts it back in the slot and gets out another drawer. He hits the timer again and does it all over again. He could have done this last year, maybe more at 3 1/2 but then again maybe at 3.

Workboxes work great for large families! I have 4 school aged children (2 currently in workboxes and 1 who is begging me to get workboxes instead of doing her list). In a handful of years I'll have 4 in workboxes. In our family each child has a tall stack of plastic drawers. It doesn't take up much space honestly since they stack vertically. Each child starts at the top and works down through each drawer until they're done. My 4yo will sit for 2 hours and go through his workboxes! I can't imagine life without them. So my 7yo starts at the top (which has his math pages from MUS ripped out and put in his box with a pencil). He has a flashcard box where he works on Latin and math flash cards. He has a box that is "mom time" and has FLL, Prima Latina, etc. in it. Copywork is in another with his cursive book. He also has a box that has a card that says to do his typing, etc. Sometimes I shake it up and put a snack in one :) There are often a random fun thing like "Math War" with a card that says "play for 15 minutes with your older sister. But my 7yo can sit and go through a day's work pretty independently and on subjects he needs me he has "mom time" boxes that are scheduled in our days. Best of both worlds! My 10yo wants workboxes instead of a list as she loves the visual aspect of it (as well as a more organized storage system which suits her personality). I like the aspect that the boxes start teaching them time management for their subjects at a young age. My youngers know that if they dilly dally they take forever to get through their boxes. Since starting them my 7yo works SO much faster. It should transition pretty seamlessly when he's older into a list to work through. Adding that I could see it working amazing well even if we had 10 children with workboxes. It would streamline everything, not create chaos. It's already made our school days SO much better.

I agree there are lots of reasons like money but I don't agree with the notion of young pastors being in charge of the youth. In fact I think it should be the opposite. But at the same time I disagree 100% with the common youth ministry model that encourages entertainment over discipleship, deep theological study and service.

100% allergens. It's not always just milk. I did a full major allergen elimination diet with my son who had HORRIBLE colic and eczema. I cut wheat, soy, dairy, eggs, sesame, nuts, corn, hmm... what else? a couple more things. Turns out it was dairy, eggs, and sesame. He stopped almost immediately and had 100% of his eczema go away.

Not yet.

I'm doing a 6th grader, 4th grader, 2nd grader, and PreK (well and 2yo to wrangle!) My children either have workboxes or a schedule of sorts that allows me to alternate when they have "mom time". It works like this: - First we do "table time" which does Bible/devotions, bible memorization, hymn work, any other memorization, map tracing, etc. all together as a family. - Next I work with my 4yo and 2yo with their PreK work (map, songs, letters, etc.) while the olders do their subjects and my 2nd grader works through his workboxes. - My 4yo then moves to doing his workboxes for 1 1/2 - 2 hours by himself. - My 4th grader then has mom time where we do WWE, Sequential Spelling, correct math pages, etc. At the end of her time we do Latin which she does with her 2nd grade brother so we do that together. - After Latin my 4th grader goes back to her schedule. I then do mom time with my 2nd grader where we do FLL, etc. - Next is lunch - After lunch while my 4yo and 2yo nap, and my 2nd grader has quiet reading time I do mom time with my 6th grader where we correct Math and English, check his assignments in general, do First Form Latin, go over his long memory work, talk about his writing assignment, etc. - Olders finish up work, my 2nd grader finishes any workboxes he hasn't finished, they all do their more fun work like task cards, typing, Rosetta Stone, etc. - And we're done. And yet it's a LOOOONG day. It looks so short like that LOL.

A big part of our decision was looking at a couple forums for reviews of Potter's School teachers. I chose based on those recommendations.

I'm a big Potter's School fan.

Bwahahaha. I could have written your post! And that Memoria Press. They kill me with their professional looking stuff sucking me in. I didn't think I was going to do Latin this year until I got that MP catalog and ended up getting FFL for my 6th grader. So now I'm doing FFL with my 6th grader and Prima with my 1st and 3rd grader. And YES I've second guessed it. I'm pushing forward anyways but don't think for a minute I haven't totally second guessed my Latin choices, or even the choice to do it at all LOL.

Schoolhouse Rock videos. My kids LOVE them.

Like everyone else said, you not only can but SHOULD.

Restructure. That reading out of 8 million books at once made my kids crazy. I'd try doing a book at a time but keeping on a schedule that has all three books done at the same time they would have been done doing a few pages out of this and that each day.