:iagree: Your oldest is nearing the "outgrowing" years for Little House, while your 4 year old is right at the beginning stages of loving Laura and her life. Chronicles of Narnia next... then Anne. Anne is a good book when you're really young - but it is a beautiful coming-of-age story when you're just-the-right-age. :) FWIW, my older girls read Anne when they were 13 and 11 and are as in love with her as I was...

Oh, that time shift means dd might be able to do this! Will check into the details and talk with her and PM you soon...

I'd read through this thread - lots of options and answers here: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/showthread.php?t=411510 And here is the official Wheelock's site - they have a ton of helps! http://www.wheelockslatin.com/index.shtml

Yes! PM me and I can tell you the various ways we've done our book club over the past several years! :) (I'm typing on my tablet right now andit would take me a year to type it all out on this thing... so PM me so I won't forget and I'll reply when I'm on a real computer...) :)

Some of the things make me roll my eyes a bit, but I actually find it quaint and cute. Versus my head-banging frustration with BJU materials or some of the Apologia books. Something about the R&S books seems "honest," if that makes sense - like for the Mennonite company to NOT mention "Brother John" or Samuel in the context of the grammar text, it would be wrong somehow...? :p It's easy to see from the illustrations that the people related to this book directly aren't like our family, so the kids don't give it much thought. Sort of how some people view Henle Latin - of course Father Henle would think we all wanted to translate sentences about the saints, or whatever... It IS a reason we skip the writing instruction, though. That, and I like writing to move in one continuous stream (so I can plan "X" amount of minutes for grammar... when a writing assignment pops up, we never seemed to have the time, so I schedule writing separately and it works beautifully for us) - but the writing instructions with R&S are frequently Bible based and my kids aren't familiar enough with certain stories to write well about them. But - the grammar instruction? Is awesome. :D Well worth the mild eye rolling every now and again. (fwiw, we are a Christian family, but not "religious")

I use MCT to supplement R&S English for my youngest - it's nice to hear concepts explained in a different manner sometimes, just to change it up. I will use R&S forever, though - My oldest (9th) has been using R&S since 2nd grade and that kid is *solid* at grammar. She can pick anything out of a sentence and know its purpose in that sentence & it's made learning foreign languages SO much easier for her because she doesn't have to stop and think "What is a past participle?" or whatever it is at the time... (We don't use the writing lessons with R&S, we use other writing programs) That's as solid a recommendation as I can give anything - that I continue using it through the years with each of my kids. :) Love the layout of MCT, but it's just a supplement here.

Yes! most of my friends while I was in high school were guys. I did date some of them first, though, but we wound up friends afterwards. I had a lot of good breakups, lol. Others were just friends from day one, and while at various times there may have been attraction from one party or the other, the value of the friendships were such that we didn't want to mess it up. So, we didn't... :) ...most of the time. :blushing: Those were usually the ugly breakups. :sad: And I certainly hope it's still possible today. One of my dds has a couple of guy-friends and I hope, hope they are forever-friends - these boys are great kids and we are great friends with their families. So, I hope the boy/girl thing just never rears its complicated head. (Hoping that it helps that they've known each other since they were like 7 or 8 years old... hopefully that will keep them from seeing each other as "the opposite sex" for many, many years to come!) Although - if they make it to adulthood without complications, I sure wouldn't mind a change of heart after college! (like I said, I adore them & their families.... :lol:)

My science-loving oldest did the General Science text in 7th. She could have *easily* done it in 6th grade... but she did not love the text. I have another 7th grader this year, and we are not using it. :) (Couldn't you still use the Anatomy elementary book for 6th grade? It's tougher than the other elementary books and sooooo much more interesting than the General Science text! :D)

:iagree: Yes - the stress this year is enormous. It's all or nothing (unless she is fond of the idea of taking remedial summer school courses to fill in the perceived "gaps" the state will assume she has). So, even though I feel really confident about our decision to hs, AND dd has an incredible list of courses this year that we're both really excited about, AND we have a really good TIME homeschooling together and spending so much time together... ...it has been REALLY hard to see friends' freshman being accepted into these awesome-sounding magnet schools, or taking "officially labeled" AP and Honors courses (which I know we have access to online, or sending in course plans, but I haven't been able to make the time necessary to do that at the right time)... ...seeing the sports the other kids are active in, the academic contests, the awards and certificates being doled out, the band/dance opportunities... (which, again, my kids also have access to, but it sure costs me a lot more to make it happen & then they don't have access to all of the competitions and academic opportunities in our state to try to gain those certificates and awards!!!) And - in the same breath - I am so happy for my friends' kids! They've all done awesome things in their young lives and I'm incredibly happy. But, also worried over my decision to keep mine home. Even though I think it's the best decision. And, honestly, we're both really happy with it. I just sometimes long for "outside validation." My parents knew I was "really doing well" in school because I would bring home awards and medals each semester that validated that in their minds. So, it's hard for me to on one hand, know she's getting a solid education, but not have anyone else vouch for me. lol All I have are upcoming "serious" tests like the PSAT or ACT - and those feel like Mom's Report Cards and that just causes the self-doubt to raise its ugly head again. Grass is greener syndrome is hitting hard this time of year for me and I'm hoping that, now that we've "officially started" 9th grade, I won't have these doubts. stressing. out. DD is blissfully unaware of all my inner turmoil. lol I want to live in her bubble for just a little while! :lol:

Dds first full day is today! Her schedule: - English I (IEW, LL British Lit, Excellence in Literature, and others, R&S9) 1cr - Algebra II (Saxon) 1cr - Biology (Bob Jones and Miller-Levine - with labs) 1cr - World History (History of the Medieval World & MOH2 with younger siblings) 1cr - French 2 (Bob Jones) 1cr - Latin I (Wheelock's) 1cr - electives: Creative Writing and Publishing (½cr) and we are deciding between a few options for the 2nd semester ½cr She also has several extracurriculars (band, scouts) she's involved in this year. :)

We've done this on busy days and it is awesome! It saves us soooooo much time. I don't do it all the time, because the kids clear through the leftovers during lunchtime on those days... but when I know we need every minute we can squeeze out of a day... packed lunches save us a ton of time- both in the prep time and in the time it takes for them to eat.

We started with half our subjects last week to sort of ease into things. Tomorrow is our first full, official day. Cannot wait to get started!!! :)

We're using: Saxon 8/7 Life Science Rod & Staff English 7 Caesar's English (finishing I and starting II) IEW SWI-B Bob Jones French 2 MOH 2 and SOTW 2 (along with WTM history outlining suggestions) And she's in band and guitar lessons

There is a music Cd... but I can't remember its exact name... google little house on the prairie music on amazon and I bet it'll show up. We did the Prairie Primer years ago and absolutely loved it and the kids loved that cd. The audiobook versions are wonderful. I've been on the fence about ds this year... because of this thread, I think I'm going to drag the Pr.Primer out of storage and give it a look over. He was so young our first go-round that he remembers nothing about the books. There is also a Little House crafts book that we used quite a bit. The cookbook was excellent. Other than that, we just got everything from the library as needed.

I cannot wait for my girls to read Austen! I think we're going to start with Emma, then Sense and Sensibility... but probably not until 10th or 11th grade. They'd get it... but they wouldn't "get" it, kwim? Not yet. I think at least one of my girls would have the issue discussed above of preferring Wickham to Darcy. lol I still have issues sometimes while reading Mansfield Park - something in me is convinced that Henry would've been good if Fanny would have married him, poor soul... I always find myself rooting for him over the stuffy always-right Edmund. :p

I changed my last name, but wish dh and I made up our own new last name together. I will encourage my daughters to think long and hard about changing their last name... they're pretty attached to their maiden names as of now, so I will make sure they are aware they don't "have to" change it. It would have been bordering on scandalous if I'd kept my name.