I do think that is too young to be worried about differences. Also something else I have done is use the same materials for the most part but used them radically differently or a year ahead for one and a year behind for another. So what one is doing in any given grade is different from what a sibling did in the same grade, but using many materials that one has used before. Maybe I add a lot more manipulatives to math and spelling for one than the other. Maybe I read more of the same novels one read to herself aloud the next one, as she reads just as often as the other, but doesn't cover as much material in the same amount of time. One starts latin a year earlier than another, etc. Of course, I have found somethings here and there that are a better fit and have switched them up when needed. But I haven't felt the need to revamp everything, just to change the way I use things that I already like a lot of the time.

I switched to doing this after doing years without the worksheets. My dds do the worksheets on the days that there is one. Not every lesson has one. If there isn't one, we do the oral drills, and I may or may not assign written work from the book. We switched to doing this several years ago- probably around the 5th grade book for my odd.

In a co-op I would probably do the same for the logic stage in the co-op time allotted. I would do maps, discussion, and a project. Are you wanting to assign what they do at home as well? In that case you could assign writing on the books they read or research writing on the time period or places being studied. You could allow for some presentation time in the class periods. If you are wanting to assign what they read at home, you could divy up any history program or encyclopedia and assign their reading to go with the class time. I like the blog, The Classical House of Learning Literature for logic stage for something else to look at. She does all of the scheduling and planning and has logic stage lesson plans for ancients, medieval, and early moderns. It schedules out readings from good books and schedules out SOTW and a history encyclopedia for you. It has some kind of project for each unit. Like after reading about ancient Egypt my dd made a travel poster and brochure about Egypt. The ones I am talking about are the older files if you are interested. Blog isn't active anymore, but you can still download the files. It schedules 16 books a year. Neither of my children have been able to keep that schedule during the school year, but we do a selection of them. You can pick and choose. Assign them to read the book at home, do a project at co-op. Look at maps or find blank maps online for them to fill out, or have them draw their own each class period or something. Assign written summaries occasionally or use the project ideas from the lesson plans. I actually am thinking about doing something like this next year for our co-op. I will give the reading books as suggested reading and a list of the matching SOTW chapters and encyclopedia match ups out at the beginning of class for interested parents, or the kids can just research for projects in their own resources or online and learn in class time.

For little kids I used Rod and Staff's music workbooks for some beginning theory along with the What Your X Grader Needs to Know music sections as an outline of what to study each year. So we would read a section, do any activities it suggested, pick up books and videos and Cds at the library on the subjects (orchestra, instruments, composers, types of music, etc.) and enjoy them. We learned the songs in the WYXGNTK using WeeSings CDs as most are on one of them. Now there is YouTube and each song could probably easily be found online.

I consign children's stuff at a JBF sale twice a year. I have been doing it for over 10 years, and I have a set amount of hours that I work on preparing as much as I can and that is it. Because it is part of my yearly routine, and during the year I have a system for where I put stuff that I am going to try to sell, it isn't a huge deal. I mean it is a lot of work, but it's like Christmas. I know it is coming. I simplify, plan, etc. In that way I can sell a certain amount of stuff, clean out some stuff, and have $ while there to buy what my toddler needs for the next season. My older kids have outgrown any clothing and most toys, but occasionally I find things they can use in room decor or books or school books still. So it is some out, some in, and I make a tiny bit of $ after. I could make a lot more, but I don't have any more time to put into than I do. And that is ok. So a lot of clothes that could sell still get handed down to someone else or just taken to goodwill. Anything else around here goes straight to goodwill. Things I wouldn't use anymore they might. So I let them make that distinction. Small bits of broken things of course go in the trash. But I learned from a Goodwell worker who talked at our scout meeting that they even want single shoes and torn clothing because ours has a facility that makes them into rags. So at this point I take most stuff there. If it is trash to them ok. But I want to give them the opportunity to recycle it if they can. Sometimes though, as I am cleaning out a drawer, I will just toss something. In the case of your stuff. I would add the SS stuff to my consignment sale stuff since I already have that habit. The rest would go to goodwill.

I think I say it. I am not southern, but close, lol. :)

We are working these into our school days. We are classical WTM schoolers, but my dds, one in particular, are motivated by these. She has a set time in her day to work in her journal. She picked what she was going to study in it from my choices. She had to pick a science topic, a Bible book, a poetry book, and a novel. She got to pick a set of videos to go with her science topic. And the rest we work with from those books or our other curriculum. Right now this is only an hour of her day, and it is in addition to all of her other work. Except we did pick up one of their spelling books instead of her old spelling because it actually works a lot better for her. But she loves her journal so much that she willingly does better work. She had refused to do cursive before this year except for the years that I gave cursive worksheets. Now all of a sudden she wants her journal to look nice and is practicing cursive in it. Today her journal page was one of the menu pages. She is using her girl scout Cadette handbook for the menu pages and is doing her New Cuisines badge. So she had to research a regional food. She chose to look up what is the difference between Tex Mex and Mexican. She learned about that (included keyboarding skills on computer, reading, and copying and pasting to Word,and printint it out, all skills she needs practice in,) and then she drew the pictures and wrote her menu choices into the menu page. She will tomorrow copy the recipe into the next page which is the free writing page. She will gladly outline from her chosen science topic into that journal on a freewriting page when I assign it. There is something about that book that she loves. She looks forward to this journal time everyday. Also changed this year, she is doing Spanish on EasyPeasy. She loves the daily video games, and we listen to immersion CDs in the car while we are driving. She has had very little grammar with it. She does Latin with grammar and English too, so we will get to specific Spanish grammar later. But these were big differences for us this year. I already got a Thinking Tree journal (matching ones) for all of us next year. The three of us are going to do a page together each morning, using a different source for each page to get all of our morning work like poetry, read alouds, videos, and such in together. I want to start the day with this time. I will let them pick some of the reading choices for their reading pages. But on the days they have a coloring page, we will all listen to a book on CD or a Music Composer while we color during that time. Having a set time in the day for the journal is really amazing for us.

and I HATE journeys. I try to do the main stuff in two sessions and then include a craft and a project along with planning the take action project. But in general. They are awful. But we have to do them for the bronze, silver, and golds, so we do.

We are in a mixed level troop, always have been. In the one we are in, we have one main leader who does all administrative work, trainings, money, and cookie stuff. Then each level has a leader that does all of the work with the girls. We have one mom that does camp plannings. Our main leader is doing the daisy badges this year, and it is about to kill her. If nobody steps up next year I am going to try to convince her to do the one mom one month, one mom the next thing. I have done that in other troops, and it works well. Once a semester we moms that are the level leaders and the main leader get together to plan the dates of things and topics and camps and such. It is too much for one person.

We move into WTM's logic stage, but what that means for each is different. One had grammar down and was fine to start some logic, more writing, researching, reading and had been transitioning into WTM's history when using SOTW4 anyway. We did all of the outlining and timelining with it. Moving into logic history starting over with ancients and the KHE, library books, new timeline book, and the notebook with all of the dividers and just writing summaries worked well. She had been gradually getting there anyway. For the next child, we started the history over with the WTM logic style notebooks, timeline, outlining, summaries, etc. but with a lot more handholding and a lot less outlines. Her skill work was still in the grammar stage, so we worked with her on that. We didn't pursue Latin quite as hard on the grammar with her at first and she wasn't ready for a logic study at all. So we moved more slowly into the logic phase, but there was a jump, just more gradual.

We have one dining area in the house, no formal. We do all school and eat all meals at this table. I do use a tablecloth. Yes, it is a lot of washing. But here is my reason. When I don't have a tablecloth and a centerpiece on the table, it becomes a dumping ground. It just does. When the table looks nice between meals, people put things away, me included. So it is worth the extra washing. And I use vinyl cloths a lot too that can be just wiped down for day to day, and just put a cloth one on for company. Sometimes. But vinyl wears out and gets thrown away. And inbetween buying a new one, I just use cloth. I use cloth napkins, cloth diapers, etc. so I constantly have a load going. It isn't a big deal to me. It is just my habit.

On Thursday I learned quite a bit. With my kids I learned about Perseus and the stories associated with him. I learned about gerundives in Latin and how to use them. In my mom's group that night I learned some scrapbooking/card making techniques and how to use some of those tools. Seems like an expensive, time consuming hobby. But it was fun to do with someone's else's instructions for one night~

I never though of buying the CDs they sell for the ones I miss. That is a good idea. I know myself at home that I never get time to listen to them. But I use the car to listen to stuff for the kids' school and sometimes to listen to a good sermon. I totally blanked on listening to a good hsing talk. I am going to do that this year. Thanks!

I am just adding. The notebooking would definitely add time to the reading aloud part. My kids take time to do that stuff, longer than you would think. And the car is perfect for audiobooks. We listen to long ones on roadtrips, shorter ones for the 3 year old going around to activities for the big kids, and for foreign language practice CDs, listening to our music selections, etc. They also work great for bedtimes. It does look to me like you have too much with the actual time frame that the written work times will take in a day. You have a long day scheduled. But you can always get started and adjust and use resources in other ways like the car or spread out over the summer or over two years if needed.

We used a text from the late sixties for our state history last year. It is just one we had picked up from a book sale somewhere. My dh has a big collection of those that he just likes to read from before we even had kids. So I never know what I can find in his old stuff. I have seen this particular one still on shelf at the library too when looking for other state history books. It definitely had the language issues. It used terms that aren't acceptable now. I didn't use it as our main text. But for certain times in history it was actually very precise in what it taught vs. what I could find on library shelves in books aimed at my kids' ages. Ours was a college level I think. So I used it for specific info on battles and things that aren't that in depth in books for teen's books. And it saved me having to buy an expensive new text that wouldn't have been as thorough, since I wasn't going to shell out for a college text. So yes I used it, but it was in conjunction with a lot of other books. Certain chapter we used in full. Other topics were covered by many other things more readily from library shelves and field trips. I wouldn't have used that particular book as our main spine. But it was a useful addition.

I agree with it would be worth it if you were attending workshops. I always (usually) go to workshops alone. I mean our convention is very close to me, so lots of people I know are there, and sometimes I end up in the same workshop with a friend. But I plan what I am going to hear based on what I want to learn. I go every year (again, because it's close. No travel expenses, thankfully,) even though I could order all of my books from Amazon and publishers or from bookstores. I know what I am going to use. I don't even buy a lot from ours. Sometimes I look at things, and go think about it, and order later. So I do see curriculum too. But it's more about the encouragement and workshops for me. I look forward to it. If I had to pay a good deal to travel I would do it once in awhile as a mom retreat/planning weekend, even if I went alone!

This is so much like how I do, but I wasn't as good at explaining it. :)

When I talked to MP about the exams last year, they said you can take the same level more than once, though the NLE won't particularly tell you that. MP told me this when I was deciding whether to put my 8th grader into the intro or level 1 last year. I was leaning towards intro since she had 4 years ahead of her to take the others, and I wanted her to be very successful. But they told me, no, try for the level 1 to get a gold. If she doesn't get a gold, I could still give her level 1 the next year or have a year built in for any year that she didn't get a gold, and she would have a chance at getting 4 golds. In the end, mine got the gold for level 1, so she is moving on to level 2 this year for 9th, so I haven't actually tried to enroll her in the same level. But that is what MP told me anyway.

We are chippers, lol. Although I have a strict schedule for the day to day (with flexibility of course.) My kids know what order to do their work in and at what times throughout the day. But "writing" in the writing hour comes from many sources. If they have an assignment to write a speech for a co-op class, I may have them write it at that time. If there aren't any outside assignments I have a writing program we work through. Sometimes I am working on journaling or creative writing with them when I see the need. I use that time to accomplish the specific goals I have at the time. Some subjects are easy to get through and have a pretty straightforward pace. We planned logic for the first semester. We finished the course by watching very carefully the weeks and lessons and making sure we stuck to it. There were weeks that things came up or that we needed an extra week, but I had built some time into the schedule. And of course outside courses have a strict schedule. But with the rest we meet goals, we chip away. We do the subject in the time I allot for a day, but what gets in done in that hour varies. I have a vague plan, but things happen. I haven't taught each new grade before and don't have experience with what works in a school year like a teacher who teaches 8th grade history each year. That teacher has experience with how much can reasonably get done around the testing dates, vacations, and such with that textbook. As a homeschooler, it's all new every year. I do year round for some things, and my kids reach the goals I set out, but maybe it takes a bit longer than I thought or maybe they don't finish the whole text while still getting most of it done before moving on to the next. I do teach a couple of co-op classes. I know how much we can get done in the year, and even it is chipping away in that class. They have to complete the work on their own to finish the entire text. I have so many weeks to get the bulk of the info into them, and that is all I can do. So that is up to each family how they do that.

We do R&S through 8th here. Love it.

I agree with just saying sorry. My first child passed away as an infant. There isn't anything you can say. One thing I remember is that after a bit people quit mentioning the child. They figure the child was young, the family will move on. But the grief is the same with losing an infant as with losing anyone. 20 plus years later, I still have a child missing, a missing place in our family pictures. I do know she is in a better place. But that doesn't mean I don't grieve not getting to know her and raise her here. I have one cousin that has sent a card, called, or texted every year for 23 years on her birthday. Not one other person, even my own mother has remembered her like that. And it means a lot. Just the fact that she remembers her and talks about her is amazing.

Yes, and I love the special buys that aren't just foods either. You never know what they will have from pillow pets to rubber boots to fruit trees to patio furniture. But if they get it, the price is spectacular. I try to buy bday presents and such there. Last month had these pretty coloring book journals that my girls love for $5. I bought like 8 of them. Some are for their Easter baskets and the rest are for bday presents for their friends. They are very good quality paper and covers, and I have seen them sold for so much more other places.

I buy everything at Aldi that I can get. We use their paper products, laundry soap, etc. as well as use all foods. I have had some trouble with the bananas. I find if they are green that they never ripen at all. They pick them too soon or something I guess, lol. So I don't buy them. Other than that, we use it all.

Agree.

I rotate the subjects I teach and how I teach them so that they are fun for my middle schooler. We have to do math. We start the day with that. Then she does Spanish, which is EasyPeasyAllInOne homeschool, so online and mostly videos, games, etc. So that is fun. Then she has her morning journal time which gets her writing and reading, but she has control over what. She loves this time. I required that she pick a science topic/books/videos for the year, a book of poetry, something for Bible, and then any novels of her choice. She does notebook pages, reads, writes, watches videos from her choices for 45 minutes a day with exercises that improve her spelling and reading from her Do It Yourself Thinking Tree Journal. She draws, colors, does nature study, watches the video series she chose for the year, a little each day. So that is really fun for her. I would say she kind of created her own unit study here because she does spelling words, drawing, video learning, reading about her science topic. But not totally a unit because she still does Bible and young adult literature and poetry copywork and such too. But she got to pick what she works from. Then we do Latin. Not a super fun subject. This point in the day is just grammar in the workbooks. We do the learning together twice a week with friends, so this part of day is box checking. Then she does her spelling book which she really loves this year. And then we do English together because she needs hand holding with it. That is her morning. Back and forth between box checking subjects for her and ones she enjoys. In the afternoons we do all things together and fun- read alouds, art and art projects, outside classes, music practice, science experiments. We cover most of history through read alouds and projects for outside classes, but when we don't have something in particular going on, we will spend a month working on timeline books and outlining and writing summaries. Then she has required reading of her assigned literature book at some point in the day. We take outside classes that they enjoy in afternoons. They are both involved in several days a week in their sport. Several activities a month with scouts. Volunteering. And a day a week with co-op plus field trips, study groups, extra kid day once a month with that group. So a lot of the fun stuff comes on those days or in those classes after their morning box checking is done. For us, we have found this to be one of her best school years ever for my dd12. She is motivated. She is checking boxes and getting the things done that I require. But we found a way to work things in that she loves. So she is motivated to get through the subjects that she needs to study. I do think it is more enjoyable now that I have found the things that motivate her. And I consider the arts to be a big part of both of my girls' educations. Both dance, one plays piano, both do a lot of art, one really enjoys it, and one follows along because it is important to the rest of us, lol. So the fact that after our afternoon readings the rest of the afternoon/early evenings are dedicated to the arts in some way either at home or in outside classes is fine with me.