Ok, I need advice. I used to hs my kids. Now they are in a classical school. The school made changes in their Latin curriculum that I'm struggling with. I need some people to either tell me how wrong I am or back my suspicions. Last year, my son was in 4th grade and did Latina Christiana I. They did it in a "VERY" low key way, not fully completely following the book's progression, specifically with the conjugating and case endings. They "touched" on it in the last few weeks, but that's it. Now he's in 5th grade and the new Latin teacher decided to have them do 2nd Form Latin. Is this a ridiculous jump for them, or am I being too easy on him???? Any advice is welcomed. Thanks, Jen

Thank you for the suggestions. I had looked at Biblioplan in the past. It just didn't appeal to me for the same reasons as SOTW and others. Thank you Hunter. It's soooooooo nice to know I'm not alone in my frustrations. I will check out your suggestions. I love your quotes. They sum up my new take on hsing. I believe in TWTM suggestions and curriculum, but they don't always fit with my ability to teach combined with my kiddos' ability to learn. If they aren't learning, then I'm wasting time and energy as are they. I'm learning the art of saying, "it's ok that that amazing, highly recommended curriculum doesn't work for us. "SIGH"!!!! I am definitely looking at Veritas Press. I had looked at them right before posting, but hadn't seen the detail that averyhappymama had posted links to. A BIG THANK YOU for that! It just may be what I need.

It seems that God may be leading us to hs again. When we home schooled in the past, I always got stuck with a history curriculum that either didn't fit my kids' needs or didn't fit mine. I've tried SOTW several times. My kids just stare at me like a deer in the headlights and quite frankly remember very little of what I read to them. They do fine with me reading books to them, but they had little to no interest in listening to a history lesson. We've tried My Father's World. It had the same effect as SOTW. I'm looking for something that is chronological. I want tests and work sheets. I know some people don't think that they are necessary, but they are in our house. I've looked at Mystery of History, but there seems to be a lot of me reading with them again. I guess in my perfect world I would like something that is laid out like Abeka or Bob Jones, but taught chronologically. I've also looked at History Odyssey, but it doesn't look like it has any testing. I am all :bigear:! Thanks, Jen

Sorry, I forgot about sports. The only town that I think allows hser's to play in the ps sports is Carmel, and they are very pricey as far as house prices. There are a ton of leagues open to the public. Swimming, basketball, soccor, tennis, gymnastics etc. Indy had about 3 or 4 Olympic divers last summer with an Olympic dive coach from one of our local schools and a couple of gymnists too! THat's kind of exciting!

I'm not sure about you're actuall area. We've only lived in Indy for the past 3 years. I still LOVE the Children's Museum. Homeschooling in IN is EASY. You don't have to report to anyone. The only thing we do is keep track of how many days taht we hs. It is suppose to be 180 days a year. We don't even give this to anyone. We just have it just in case someone asks. There are a lot of unschoolers that don't even come close to doing this much school (not that I recommend that:001_huh:)!!! (As you can tell I"m not a fan of that, but it's just my humble opinion.) I'm just pointing out that it is a very easy state as far as homeschooling laws! There are groups everywhere. There are secular and religious, and many to choose from. We personally don't go to any. I just don't have enough time in the day to add another thing. If you check out http://www.homeschoolclassifieds.com they have a page where you can locate some of the groups. I think the HSLDA also has a listing. HTH, Jen

One more thing, I did go back to Abeka grammar after 2nd grade. It just fit us better than anything else at the time. I've never tried FLL 3 or 4 since they weren't around when we chose my daughter's curriculum. I just didn't like how Abeka made them write so much so soon in 1st grade. They can learn a lot without writing it all down at that age. I also didn't like that a lot of things seemed like busy work in Lang 1 and 2 instead of real grammar lessons.

I always teach the phonics portion of the lesson. Depending on the grammar portion, I'll teach it. For example, I don't think it's over kill to teach that a sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a period. I only use the Letters and Sounds 1 workbook. The Lang 1 book has too much writing for my little guy. He's one of those boys who is taking a little longer to write. He's doing better these days, but has little patience with writing sentences over and over. FLL is sooooooo easy to implement with our lessons. I try to do 3 lessons a week. If there is a longer phonics lesson, we just skip FLL for that day. FLL only takes minutes a day, so it isn't overwhelming at all. My son is what Cathy Duffy calls a "wiggly willy" and is doing very well with it! He actually asks to do it everyday, which is a true blessing!

:iagree::iagree::iagree::iagree: You nailed it! We went with Saxon this year and just yesterday went back to Abeka. My daughter, who is generally really good at math, was not retaining anything. I know some kids get things after seeing it for the first time, but some need that extra "something" that Saxon is not giving.

Nope! You'll be fine. By then you are trying to get them reading well, reading with more fluency, and reading with more speed. It's not as phonics based as K and 1st grade. We only did a few 2nd grade readers and then I let her just start picking things from the library. My daughter lost interest in the readers and got hooked onto other things like Magic Tree House and American Girl books. I just made sure that she was picking things that were challenging enough to widen her horizons, but easy enough that she would enjoy them. I own all the 2nd grade readers, but they just didn't appeal to her. I thought it more important that she be reading than to stick with what Abeka assigned. I know our local Christian school here is a strict Abeka user. I just found out that they don't use the 4th grade readers as scheduled in the TM's for book reports. THey are using other great childrens' novels instead! They still have to use all the phonics rules in books that aren't Abeka. The only thing that I did like about Abeka's reader schedule is how they they picked out harder words for her to sound out beforehand with me. It was a good practice session for sounding out big words, along with a small vocab lesson from time to time. But, she would come up to me when she didn't get something or couldn't sound it out in one of her library books. So either way we ended up working it out together. HTH!

Why not? Abeka has handwriting for 4yr olds and they teach cursive! They do printing too, but they rather people start with cursive. Or, you can do "Handwriting Without Tears." They have a pre-k book. It's really simple to teach it. I have one that just knew how to write the letters based on their shapes. He would constantly love to copy things down for me. Now he's 5 and he makes little love notes for me:001_wub:

It's a great book. I own a copy that I'm trying to sell if you are interested. It didn't work for my daughter. She needed the extra drill of phonics rules. She would learn the rule and then read the words on the page, but would forget the next day. I needed flashcards and a daily review for her. Abeka phonics was her match. I know lots of people that it has worked wonders for. My son did ok with it, but by then we just went all Abeka. It's cheap to try out. If it doesn't work, then go with something else. Spelling....well, I personally like to have a spelling program. You could use the book and do spelling words with the rules that you already learned. You could make up practice things or even enter your weekly list onto http://www.spellingcity.com (my favorite spelling website!). HTH, Jen

You've hit many great points! I might need to print this to show hubby why we may need to switch! Abeka just updated their 4th grade material and none of it is compatable with earlier editions:glare: That's why it's so expensive. In all of our past years of buying I have always bought the TM's used. THat's half the cost right there!

It's both concepts and calculations (due to speeding through) and copying! I found someone selling their abeka package for a great price. I might convince hubby that we need it tonight. He's not real happy with me since we had to buy Abeka for grammar recently. I should have just bit the bullet and bought both at the same time. Live and learn!

You girls are great! Just to clarify, she's gotten a 57% the last 2 days. I would say that she mostly gets a 70 to 75% on homework (about 40% of the time), but more and more often gets in the 60's. (Again, this never happened with Abeka!:confused1:) I get the whole grading thing. I understand why some would and/or would not grade. We do just because I want that level of responsibility for her. You're suggestions are great!

I do go over all of her mistakes with her. If it's a concept that seemed to be misunderstood, then I do it with her. If it is addition and subtraction errors or copying errors I circle it and have her redo it by herself. What I need help "getting" with the grading thing is that is it ok if she gets almost half the work wrong? That just seems wrong.

I had to hold my ds7 back last year. After doing the first half of Abeka 1 phonics with ease, he just stopped learning. He cried, I cried! It was all horrible! After talking with a teacher friend, she suggested that I hold him back a year. He's a boy and needed a little extra time to grow into the curriculum. It made a world of difference! He is doing things really well this year! I had a copy of last years worksheets and held them up to this years, and it was like looking at the work of a different kid! When we talked about holding him back, the conclusion we came to is that we wanted him to be able to climb a climbable mountain and not have keep climbing up a muddy, slippery slope. It worked for us to hold him back. It's now his favorite subject! HTH

I'm soooooo stressed! What's worse is my daughter is in the same boat. We've had some issues that she has never had before. Let's start from the beginning......I started hsing her in 2nd grade. We did Saxon 2 for math, and she did great! I was given Abeka Arithmetic 3 for free so we went ahead and did that last year, again, without any issues. In fact, we both fell in love with Abeka. However, we started MFW this year and had to trim the budget in order to afford it. I tried to go back to Saxon 54 for her so that we could save the $50. I'm afraid that I made a HUGE mistake. She went from really getting math, to just barely surviving this year. Last year, tests went extremly well. She was about a B+ to an A student in math. This year is not going well at all! This year it's all a big struggle. One reason is the copying down of things. She has the worst time with copying things down the right way. THe other seems to be the lack of drill that Saxon has. I find myself pulling out all of the Abeka concept cards to drill her everyday. They tell her how to do 3 different things in one day, and then expect her to know what she is doing and how to differenciate between them. (for example area verses perimeter) We also had this problem with grammar. I changed over to R&S instead of Abeka this year, again, to save some $. Yes, it was a little harder and required a bit more work, but we were doing fine. But little by little her grade started dropping. She got a 55% on her review work the day before a test. How could I give her the test when that happens? We went ahead and bought Abeka grammar that day. She and I are very happy about the move. I'm just wondering about math though. I've analyzed the whole thing over and over. She isn't having any behavioral issues. We've been getting along very well. I've made sure to limit her distractions. (brothers and sister and anything else that I thought might be a problem) I've tried to be as encouraging as I can. Although, that is tested when you get grades like these! I'm sorry, I think I'm rambling now! My question is do you think I should just bite the bullet and get Abeka math? Or am I just experiencing a situation that where we need to just hunker down and plow through it as best we can? I'm struggling to find that balance of pushing through or just switching to a different curriculum. i don't want to quit just because it's hard, but I can't accept a 57% on homework either. I also don't want to keep switching. I do believe that you shouldn't switch to just switch. We just couldn't afford to get everything we wanted last spring, especially since Abeka has updated their editions at the same grade level my daughter is at. We'd have to buy everything brand new. I tried to do what was said to be similar, but it's not working! HELP!!!!! Any advice, prayers, and love is appreciated! :bigear: Ps If I had to buy Abeka math, then we'd find the $! I just don't want to jump the gun without getting some sound advice.

We got them for our church nursery workers. I think we got them at Office Depot or Staples. The only thing I don't know about is if they can be bought separatly or not. I think we bought them by the pack. Jen

Mine have to listen too, but my oldest dd9 gets more out of it when she does above and beyond by herself. She really does well with book basket time. She loves reading things on her own. She gets to pick from the basket. It's her choice from the choices that i provide. This gives her the direction that I want her to have and the freedom she desires.

What about songs? I still remember the skip counting songs from third grade. The jingle might help the memorization. I know Math-u-see has a CD. And here are some from RR: http://rainbowresource.com/search.php?sid=1255744751-2094681 HTh

What about getting the CD's for SOTW? The eighth grader should definately be old enough to read it and receive assignments from you. THe 5th grader may or may not be. My SIL has her 4th grader reading along with the CD's. She has a listening station in her homeschool room with a stereo with headphones. She then does review with mom and if all is well she's free to go, but if she isn't she has to do it over. Just a suggestion. I do feel your pain though. We do our science and history in the afternoons too, and it is a STRUGGLE!!!!! The best days are when we start on time. I have had thoughts of doing our history and science in the morning when we are most motivated to do school. The core subjects are easy for me to be motivated about for some reason. For instance, even though we took the day off today, I had no problem teaching a math lesson this afternoon because we were a little behind with it. It didn't seem as daunting as history might be. I think this makes sense:tongue_smilie:

Abeka Lang arts: phonics, grammar, and spelling, are my fav's! We tried switching some of our grammar to a cheaper program this year, but just went right back to Abeka. I know some people don't like them, but I love them! They are so far great for the learning styles in my house and great for my teaching style. I love their math too!

Yeah, we've had some issues with MFW too. I love the idea too, but the science book that they have for ECC 2nd edition is driving me bonkers. I read it and my kids look at me with the biggest blank stares. They used something else up until last year and switched to make it a Christian version, but it's horrible! I've decided to just read ahead by myself and go to the library to teach the things that need to be hit on from other resources. History and Science has been a struggle for me to teach, and i thought MFW would be the answer. I don't know. For next year I might just go back to SOTW and Apologia. It would be a heck of a lot cheaper if anything. I would miss the Bible portion though. That is pretty awesome. I do love some parts, but some just aren't what I wanted. Grrrrrr!

When there are tears (from teacher and student), heads banging on walls and tables, hair being lost, books being thrown or close to being thrown, it's time! Well let's see... I just went against TWTM and dropped Rod and Staff for grammar after lesson 40. My daughter got a 57% on her review homework. How could I give her a test after that? We just ran back to Abeka. I switched to save $ and thought it might work since it was so highly recommended. I just know that I know it was the right decision. Even my daughter is relieved. SHe loves Abeka. I'm very close to dropping Saxon too. We, again, switched for the $ on this one. It's just not filling all our needs acedemically. It has all the concepts we need, but just not taught as well as I like them to be. We are also on lesson 34 for this one. I'm giving it another week or two. Unless something starts clicking, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and switch back to Abeka for math too! At least I now know what works for us now. I know it because of all the subjects and all the levels that I teach, it seems that all the Abeka ones are the going the smoothest. Here me when I say that it's not that Abeka is the main reason. It's more that it fits my teaching style AND the kids' learning styles. In my house we are all happier with it than with out. I know some have run from it, and I'm sure for them it was with good reason. I'm just sayin' is all!:lol:

:iagree: Just say "no" I have too many things on my plate right now and I need to stick with the ministry and prioities that God has given me. " Your ministry and priorities are your family. You can reassure her (even though at the end of the day it's not her business) that you let God fill you in your time with Him and that this is not a necessity that you have right now. Maybe someday when things are at a different pace (kids are doing their own things) you will have more time for extras. Honey, I'm a pastor's wife and I don't have time for a bible study right now. (I know! I'm a heathen!) I get my strength from Him and that's all I can do right now. God gave me my priorities and I have no guilt that I'm doing what He's called me to do and nothing else. I especially wouldn't feel bad if you have a check in your spirit about something that's being taught. Why give yourself the stress? If God wanted you to be there, then you would have a peace when you were there not a war going on inside of you! HTH