Thank you! Your post really spoke to me. ? Yeah when they were all under 10, reading together was sooo wonderful. I guess I've tried to hang on to that, even when it was no longer the reality. ? My oldest two kids (13&11 this school year) are tired of waiting for me, for the younger ones... They want to get started already. They are both good readers and enjoy reading their own books. And it does feel like all the work, the food prep, the laundry, the housework, etc... It all just exploded after #4 was born. LOL. I've been having hard talks with myself lately about being realistic about my energy levels. I'm not a high energy person. I need to accept I can't do everything and pick and choose.

Haha. Layers of Learning was what I HAD planned to do this year, back in February. I even bought the year 3 books. But when I sat down to plan... I was not excited about it. And I realized I SO do not want to plan anymore! For the past 7 years I have enjoyed planning school, but now? I am just done. ?

This is actually what I did last year after watching BW videos about how to combine kids. I love it in theory, but it just didn't work that great for our current family dynamics. ?

Yes this has been vital! ?

Yeah the work book thing had more to do with the craziness going on with my parents that I had to deal with. And I'm being very loose with my work book designation. My 1st grader did beast academy 2a the second half of the year, instead of right start. My boys used spelling you see instead of something like AAS. My oldest used writing Strands instead of brave writer. Tho we did do EM daily science, definitely a workbook! OTOH, I did learn that my daughter prefers workbooks. I think it's the consistency she likes. And she's not interested in doing something real creative.

I have been transitioning my older two to less mom intense stuff... Definitely more workbooks going on then I ever thought I'd use in the beginning. Lol. Last year they even used workbooks for science. And then family emergencies dictated some things got changed or dropped for the second half of the year, the older two were basically set free with workbooks and a stack of books. And that was what made me realize how much work I put into keeping everyone combined. My middle two are close in abilities, but do NOT work well together at all. I do want to keep the youngest two together for a little longer. Tho maybe that's just me hanging onto my early ideals. They are 3 years apart, and far apart in abilities, but they are very close. The youngest will only be TK this year, so we will see what happens. I am hoping to be able to add brave writer back in this year, but more as a supplement. If the big kids read their own books, then it's really just a twice a week with me, once for discussion of the passage/book and once for dictation. And the once a month writing activity.

I have four kids and up till now combining them in things like history and science kept me sane. But the past year or two, things have changed... It's become very stressful for me to try and teach or read aloud to all four at once. There's too much noise, too much commotion, too large of an age gap (8 years) to keep everyone's attention at once. My oldest is tired of having to wait for me or the younger kids to do stuff he already knows. Everyone mentally wanders off when it's not their turn and I'm tired of dragging them back all the time. My middle two kids... The older one is a slower learner, the younger a fast learner. I'm having issues with the slower learner not even trying because not wanting to be shown up by a younger brother. So. This year I need to separate everyone. But I'm worried about how long my day will be. Now I'll be doing THREE different brave writer arrows each month. Granted my oldest two will be reading all their own books, and it'll be great for them having it tailored to their interests and ability level, BUT will it be more work than I can handle??? I just don't know. My fingers are crossed that it'll be about equal to the amount of time I spent corralling and prodding everyone. And a whole lot less stressful. Anyone with 4 or more kids and not combine, how do you manage it? Is it better than I think? Lol

Trying to write up a read this chapter this day schedule is making me realize that that is NOT going to work. LOL. We need flexibility. So I'm contemplating ways of making do the next thing work... Maybe even just having a master list for me with each book broken down into chunks? Which I can fill in on his weeks schedule as we go. Or it may be time I force him to start doing a little organizing himself. Give him his blank schedule for 1-2 weeks and say you have to read this much in these books, figure it out and write it down. Output... He will be notebooking about each mini topic as he finishes it, ie: pilgrims, George Washington, etc, and adding it to his book of centuries. Edited to add: this kid has done better in the past with specific assignments, then he knows he doesn't get to stop till he gets X done. Yeah he still procrastinates at times, but his work is trackable and he does eventually buckle down and do it. This year, with just assigning work on it for X amount of time then I struggled with knowing how much he really got read. Until I realize it's taking months to read a book. LOL

Well I like a do the next thing plan, but it doesn't work for this kid. He just procrastinates everything

Nm

Can one of you experienced ladies look over my 7th grade reading schedule and tell me if this is too much or too little? I'm trying to plan, but am going cross eyed sorting through options. ? I'm planning an introduction to American history year for my 7th grade son. I looked at book shark 7 trying to get a feel for how much to assign, but I'm just confused. For reference, book shark 7 week 3 assigns: Each day in week 3 has: Half a SOTW 3 chapter 1-2 pages in kingfisher encyclopedia (tho week 1 had more) 10-15 pages in a historical fiction 2-3 chapters in another historical fiction book My week 3 has: 1 day reading 2 pages in kingfisher The other days reading 3 (short) chapters in historical fiction 30 pages in a second book 1 chapter in a third book I only scheduled reading for 4 days each week

The pages are perforated, so I pulled the answers out, stapled them, and keep them elsewhere to prevent that. ? ?

I think I'm going to start with LOE, even just having something specific to teach/look for will either help him or help me see that he needs more help.

If you could use it five times and still adore it, that's saying something! I use AAR twice and couldn't stand it by the end and didn't finish. Lol.

I've been thinking this over... I do understand him most of the time, because his speech is correct most of the time. Occasionally there is a word I don't. Most of his mispronunciation is stuff like "dat is dayngous". I guess I need to listen to him and take note of the words he struggles with. It's always buried in the middle of a sentence where everything else is understandable, there'll just be one word I don't. It must be admitted here, that being a 4th kid he doesn't get the same attention that the older kids did and some of my not understanding him is because my mind is usually half on something else. Lol

We understand him 95% of the time. There's an occasional word that I never do figure out. The other kids can usually tell me tho. Lol

My original plan for teaching my 4th kid to read was to just go super simple, Explode the Code and BOB books. But now I'm looking at LOE because 1) this kid's pronunciation is terrible. I mean I've had three older kids and nobody was as hard to understand as this kid. He's 4 and he sounds like he's 2. It's not his hearing, because if you repeat what he says he can hear the difference and gets mad. It seems like LOE actually teaches them how to make the letter sounds? I'm thinking he may need that. And 2) he's a wiggly little boy who has had way more screen time then any of my others and the fun and games aspect would probably go over much better than the workbook method. So my questions are 1) will LOE help him with his pronunciation? And 2) do I need to use their handwriting workbook? I used HWOT with his older brother, he liked it, and the directions were much more wiggly boy friendly than the stuff I used with my older kids. So if possible, is like to continue with HWOT.

My youngest DS will be 5 in November and this will be his preK year. I came looking for ideas to get motivated to do this for the fourth time. Teaching phonics had definitely lost its bloom. Lol. So far I'm planning just real open and go stuff, stuff that's easy to fit in around the big kids lessons. Right Start 2e level A Developing the early learner Continue AAR pre level HWOT preK Possibly move into get set for the code if he's ready Classic picture books ***I'm considering using LOE because he has trouble making various letter sounds. Much more so than any of my other kids had.***

This is something I've been thinking about a lot recently too... I spent a lot of time on history and science with my oldest two kids, was it worth it? IDK... I know I'm not doing it with my younger two. :O

He's been doing the PW projects, but after I introduce the project to everybody he writes his on his own. I need to look at it with an eye to whether he could read the directions himself, my impression was that they were very chatty, very directed at the teacher. Maybe that changes in FO? I do have FO, but haven't looked at it yet. I'm combining four kids. 12/10/7/4. That's why we alternate. He still really enjoys Charlotte's Web and Mr poppers penguins even though he's reading treasure island and Sherlock Holmes on his own. He is not in any hurry to grow up, lol, so he doesn't look down at little kid books. But next year I was going to have him start doing Pouch books the months I do Quiver with the other kids. And not worry about the grammar and copywork in the arrow guides? He's going to be doing Fix It grammar, so that can just be his copywork and grammar. I would just need to work on the having big juicy conversations part...

I will have to look at the classes again. I was wanting to do the Brave Writer online, but that is a class for the parent. He did do the arrow class last month and the movie club this month, I can't say that I feel like he's really engaging in it so far. But that may just take time.

Thank you for sharing your schedule, that's very helpful.

Well it's not hands off because I'm combining all my kids in BW. We're using Partnership Writing and alternating between Arrow and Quiver. I'm going to have to give this some thought, about how to have him do it on his own...

I'm looking for writing program for my 12 year old. This year we've been doing Brave writer and it's the first time he has enjoyed writing, but we've had a bunch of family emergencies come up and it's just not getting done. So I'm looking for something that would appeal to him but be a little more independent. I'm not looking for completely hands off but it needs to be something that's not totally mom driven either. Last spring we tried IEW SWI-B, but while he enjoyed Andrew Pudewa's sense of humor, the writing process itself was torturous. I have writing strands, but have never tried it. Is that what I'm looking for? The recent thread on CAPs writing and rhetoric has peaked my interest as well. Something like IEW or WWS would not suit this kid at all, but I do need open and go so that it actually gets done.

Ooh! I love kon tiki and this looks great