Great feedback from everyone. I absolutely agree that he is learning to be negative from me (which makes me hate myself a little more. Wheee!) Anyway, I hope to start therapy again in about two weeks. Maybe I can find out if there is a school counselor he can see for free. The main thing I'm getting is, maybe instead of just freaking out about what he tells me, I can find out how much of it is accurate and then work to change the things I don't like. I don't really know how much tv they watch or in what capacity. I don't really know how often they lose recess. I just need to find a way to talk to the people at the school without being accusatory or alarmist or just plain rude. I think I'll make a list of all the things he says that are bothering me. Then I'll try to find out how much of it is true and his much of it is my son's negative filter. Maybe I can volunteer at the school. I'll try talking to his teacher and maybe the school counselor. And as far as after schooling, he had already agreed to do additional grammar work. And I bet if I added history, he'd be psyched. Thank you for the support. Any additional ideas are welcome!

I need advice. I can't seem to get this whole education thing right. I started to homeschool my son in K because he was very far ahead of the school in our area. K went well. 1st was ok, and started getting harder near the end. I was pregnant with my third then, and was due in August. (one year ago). I took two months off after she was born, and then we began again for 2nd grade. And it was torture. I was very depressed. He hated everything. He complained about school all the time. I went through three different spelling programs and two RLA's, and started doing history just how he wanted. No improvement. I was spending all day fighting with him and trying to get him to do anything. Finally in February I enrolled him in public school, the same local one I knew was deficient. But I didn't care. I couldn't be around him all day everyday any more. (Note: we were in a co-op one day a week, but because I spent it in the nursery with my dd3 and ddbaby and a bunch of other such littles, it was not all that much of a break.) We cannot afford private school. The public schools in my area do not work with homeschoolers at all. We live in OK, and unlike people I know in other states, we do not have the option to attend part time public school. There is a blended school in our area, but they did not accept us based on our religion differing from theirs (long story). We are on the waiting list at the only charter school in the area that is any better than our local school. So, here we are, with DS8 enrolled in 3rd and DD4 SO EXCITED to get to go to half day pre-K. And yet.... It's day three, and already I am face to face with all the reasons we quit. 1. our school is weirdly ok with TV in the classroom. Way too much for my taste. (Though when they stay home, I often let them over watch, so maybe this is something I just need to accept.) 2. Group punishments. My son said they all missed lunch recess two days in a row (the second and third days of school!) because some people were talking. Heaven forbid they SOCIALIZE at school. 3. They only get ONE recess a day! They're there from 8:30-3:30, and they get one half hour recess. 4. Sub-standard education. Obviously. Now, I know a lot of this is my fault. My dislike of public school was very apparent when my son was in K, and he absorbed the attitude. I think he may also be depressed, just like me, because he is very negative most of the time. This is one of the reasons I sent him to school. Reasons I sent him to school: 1. I was spending all day yelling at him. He was driving me crazy. 2. He was way behind in his work. (Mind you, this was still ahead of the schools in our area, but he was not getting work done on his own level.) 3. I am still depressed. I'm on medication, seeking a therapist who works with me, but it's slow going. I thought being away from me might be healthier for him. 4. He is so social. He wants me to be with him ALL THE TIME. I thought he would enjoy being with other kids. (So far, he hasn't really. But at the end of last year, he did get more into this aspect.) 5. He wants to play team sports. He is on the school football team now, and he loves it. SO, now that he complains about school everyday, what do I do? Because he complained about school everyday when he was homeschooled, too. Most likely he needs some other kind of teaching that I don't know how to give. He is very energetic, possibly undiagnosed ADHD or something. He loves to do things out loud, whereas I need to write everything down. He hates sitting at a desk and "focusing," whereas I can't get anything done without it. I know public school (and a very mediocre one at that) isn't really solving all these problems. BUT WHAT WILL???? In other news, my daughter is so smart. She reads one vowel words and taught herself to write. She is so unlike my crazy off the wall son. I feel I could homeschool her no problem. But she really wants to go to school because she loves to play with other kids. So for now, half day is great. She plays for two and a half hours, comes home, and I teach her things. Not sure what will happen next year. If you actually read all this, you must be either really bored or...I can't think of another reason you would read all this. ;) But if you did, for the love, what should I do?

I'm looking for suggestions for great read aloud books for my second grade son. What have you loved to read with your kids?

I'm glad I'm getting input on this. I hadn't realized it was so teacher intensive. I'm having a baby in August, so maybe this is not the right time to switch to something that might actually make my life a little harder. Does anyone have anything good to say about Saxon? I personally like it, but I'm really not a math person, so I expect math to be dry and repetitive. The way they teach makes sense to me. I'm afraid that if I change to RightStart, I'll be in over my head. It seems totally different from what I'm used to. But I would like him to have a more solid foundation. Sounds like I could learn from it too. But with a newborn and a three year old....idk if I can do it!

Has anyone tried RightStart math? Who loves it? Why? I'm agonizing over whether to try RightStart C next year instead of Saxon 3. (I picked C instead of B based on the site's recommendation.) It's not that my DS7 has a big problem with Saxon. He does fine and doesn't complain most of the time. But he doesn't have that mythical "love of math" I've heard so much about. Maybe because I don't have that, it's hard for me to imagine, but if it's real, I'd like him to have a chance to develop it. And Saxon isn't really inspiring. I would describe it as thorough and adequate, but it's not making anyone around here EAGER for math. So, I took a few learning style quizzes on behalf of my son, and he is mainly auditory, and secondly kinesthetic. So I thought RightStart seemed to fit well with that. Is there another math I MUST investigate? I need something complete...I don't want to have to piecemeal it. Any suggestions?

If I were to start Right start, bluedarling, where would I begin? I feel like it's so different I would need to start at the very beginning.

I'm currently using Saxon Math 2 for my ds7. He doesn't love it, he doesn't hate it. He says he wants to be an engineer and build things when he grows up, and I've read that Saxon is not good for that path. I recently took a few learning type quizzes and they reported that he is primarily an auditory learner, and secondarily a kinesthetic learner. So I've been investigating different math curriculums, and Math U See and Rightstart seemed like something my son might like. Math U See seems similar to Saxon but with more manipulatives, which I like. Rightstart seems to come from left field with its abacus and subitizing... But I feel like it might be more mathematically minded, just confusing to me because I didn't learn it that way. Does anyone have input on these two math curriculums, or on what would be good for and auditory kinesthetic learner?

Nasdaq, I'm using Rod and Staff Phonics at the second grade level. He thinks it's boring, which it kind of is, but the material is so vital. He's also doing Saxon Math 2, which someone asked about earlier. OhElizabeth, you're a genius. I love the idea of setting time slots, and letting him have free time until the next thing if he finishes early. I will start that next week. I will also read about VSL learners. (Is that what he is if he likes to do things orally?) I don't know what BJU is, but I'll figure it out. He is not typing yet. He wants to, but at the school where I used to work, we didn't start them until 4th grade, supposedly because their hands are too small. He's really tall, though, so maybe he can do it now. He really wants to do chemistry, so maybe instead of telling him he has to wait until 3rd grade as per SWB, I'll be crazy and let him do it next year. Oooh, I'm so wild. I'll check out those science things, too. When I asked him what he wanted to do instead of video games, he said "build something." Dad usually comes home late, and I'm hammer-impaired (I hate Lego's and puzzles, he loves both), but maybe I'll just get him some wood, hammer, nails, wire, pliers, etc, and let him figure something out!

Wow, I'm totally overwhelmed (in a good way) by all your responses! Thank you for all your great advice. And I must say, some of you are either psychic or psychologists. I am very black and white. You've found me out! I talked to my son, and he said he most dislikes math, spelling, phonics and science. I feel terrible that science was on the list. I've been having him read a few pages in a DK encyclopedia and write one page about it. It was so easy for me. I didn't realize he hated it so much, since he never complained about it before. So this week I read the pages with him, and today we're going to do a science experiment, which at this level is only slightly more work. Hopefully he'll start to love science again. He suggested we only do phonics on MWF, which I agreed to. I've ordered Spelling Power for spelling because it advertises lots of games, so hopefully he'll like it. As far as math, I told him for now that he just needs to do it because sometimes you have to do things you don't like. A lot of you have suggested getting away from Saxon. I have another secret... I taught in a private school for seven years. I'm very tied to what we did there, which included Saxon. I love it! But... DS doesn't seem to... So what math should we try? The only other I have looked into was Singapore. Is Miquon a whole curriculum, or more of a supplement? I would love some specific input on math. What else is there? I'd like it to be in book form (not online) if possible. Aaaaand as far as screen time goes..., that's a really hard one around here. My husband is a gamer. Still. And while he plays less than he once did, he still does fire up his Xbox quite often. He's made video games cool to my son. Also, letting him play video games after quiet time while DD3 naps is the only way can ensure I get a long enough rest.... So for now, I'll have to keep working on that one! The other thing many of you commented on was the length of our day... I'm still scratching my head on that one, too. We are certainly not doing six hours of school. It just takes him three times as long as it should to do things because he has to stop and complain so often. Getting stated earlier would help, and being less distracted myself would probably help too. If we both focus, I bet we could knock out his seat work in an hour. Thanks again for all your support, and keep it coming! I've enjoyed reading the replies in my email for the past two days. It's been very uplifting.

If you add the time we are actually sitting and doing school, it isn't more than 2-3 hours, sometimes less. It does seem to take us all day to get through it. Sometimes I'm alright with that, because if we finish everything by, say, 3 pm, he just wants to play video games and watch TV the rest of the day, since he's not allowed until he finishes school. So if we don't finish until 6 pm, his screen time is less. That said, I would like to find a way to get through everything in a timely fashion and with a smile on everyone's face. And he actually does carry the one now, but it took me a few days to figure out how to prove to him that it was necessary and good.

My son was in Kindergarten for six weeks before I pulled him out and started homeschooling him. Now we're mired in first grade, trying to get all of our Saxon math done before I have a baby in August, and he comes out with "I hate school." WHAT? I mean....WHAT? I have spent hours, days and weeks researching, agonizing over and planning his education over the past year and a half so I would never have to hear that again. So it wouldn't be true. So he would be happy and whole and well. And now...now this. He loves being home. He has no desire to go back to public school. But he doesn't want to complete his phonics pages or his math fact sheets or write science reports or practice his handwriting. He doesn't want to learn the basic things he needs to know before he can get to the more complicated things that sound interesting to him but that he won't be able to grasp without the proper foundations. He doesn't want to do things the way I know and love: methodical, logical, in order. I thrived in public school. I loved being told I was good and smart and getting an A and following steps. I love following steps. Recipes, algorithms that have predictable outcomes, formulas. I actually struggle with any math above algebra, but I seem to constantly search for formulas for everything nevertheless. I write fiction, a creative process, right? But I have to outline everything and follows seven steps and use a spreadsheet before I write the thing to make sure I know where I'm headed, because if I don't I'm too afraid of where I'll end up to ever start. *DEEP BREATH* So back to my child. He loves reading. He'll try anything, but mostly he likes Garfield comics and horrible junk like Captain Underpants and his ilk. He wants to do addition without carrying the one, despite how often he gets the wrong answer and can clearly not handle the problem without writing that little one in the ten's column. He wants to do all his spelling and phonics orally despite the fact that you remember things so much better when you write them down, and that unless someone yells to him, "How do you spell Wednesday?" the application of the practice will be WRITTEN. He wants to spend all day drawing stick figures in his steno notebook, and then explaining the picture to me with sound effects. He wants to play video games. He wants to do all sorts of things that are great and fun but are just NOT SCHOOL. And because I don't roll with the punches very well, and because I can't drop the weekly lesson plan and say, "Sure, today let's just throw the plastic coins everywhere and sing, "I'm swimming in money" instead of doing the math lesson," I get, "I hate school." (Side note: I did let him swim in money. I even took a video. Then I made him clean it up and sit at the table and learn how to represent a number pictorially. I even added things to his steno-notebook pictures, an activity he dubbed, "fun art.") He doesn't say it everyday. He doesn't say it all day long. It's mostly only whining about things he doesn't want to write down. But it makes me question everything I am doing and everything I have done for the past 2 years. I obviously don't know my child well enough if this is where his education is taking him. I should somehow become different, and learn to unschool *shudder* and step away from my plans of how it will all work out so nice and neat. But I can't. Or I haven't been able to yet. That's not who I am. So what am I supposed to do?

So my DS6 is a curious little guy, and I'm sure he'd love to be able to Google the things he is curious about. But I'm not ready to teach him how to use a search engine and open him to the wide world of anything that can get past our family protection software. So I was thinking about getting World Book installed on our computer. I found it online for only $40. (I tried to copy and paste the link, but this forum won't ever let me paste anything I've copied.) I was thinking it would be nice to have a way that he could research things on his computer without actually being online. The CD is a 2013 edition of World Book, and claims to have articles "from Arab Spring to the Hunger Games, from Jack Black to Whitney Houston." So, now I'm worried that there will be STILL be crap on there I don't want him accessing, like Britney Spears videos or something. Am I being paranoid? Does anyone have any experience with this or something similar?

I though they updated automatically based on how many posts you had made...

I'm trying to find the threads I've started to see peoples' answers, and only three will show up. I've tried changing every option I can see, but I can't get the others to appear. Can anyone help? Admin? Person smarter than I am? Thanks!

I wouldn't take the summer months off per se. I was thinking December, April and August. We already took most of December off, so we're on track!

My son is in 1st grade. Right now we are trying to do A LOT everyday. Our day is: Scripture study spelling phonics math writing (WWE) book report/story writing computers TTH memorization, grammar TTH history/science music- recorder practice We have a hard time fitting it all in, and we're often rushing through the fun stuff at the end of the day. I've been thinking of switching to a MWF/TTH schedule, something like math and LA on MWF and history, science, computers and art on TTH. BUT How can I get through a whole year's worth of math only doing three lessons a week? Saxon has 130-something lessons. If we only do three per week, taking three months off during the year (whenever those months happen to be) that would leave, at best, 40 weeks of school, which would get me 120 lessons of math IF I never missed a day (HA!). So, I know there are people who don't do math everyday, or phonics, or however you swap it, I know there are people who are not doing everything everyday. So what's the secret? Do you skip lessons? Do you do two in one day? Do you just not finish a grade level every year and not care about it? (NOTE: the latter is not an option for us. My son is in a state program that buys all our books in exchange for taking standardized tests four times a year and quarterly check ups with a teacher. Ick, I know, but, hey, free books of my choice!) How can I adjust our schedule so that the "fun" subjects get more time, but the "vital" subjects are still happening and getting done?

The rules based approach has worked for him. He's a good speller so far. I'm just having to make up my own lists each week. I'd like a real curriculum, I just haven't seen one I loved. I like Rod and Staff phonics but their spelling is weird.

When do you start a formal logic curriculum and what do you use? I have a first grader right now, and he's never done any logic before.

I have always liked rule-based spelling and phonics, but I've had a hard time finding a curriculum I love. I've read that several people here love Sequential Spelling, but I was turned off by it's opposition to rules. Can someone argue for or against it? To me, drop the e when you add ing makes a lot of sense, but it seems not everyone feels that way. Thoughts?

Good input everyone. He would love it if I would let him erase it and fix it rather than me circling it. Come to think of it, why don't I do that? I used to work at a private school, and circling mistakes is just what we did. That way, you could remember you needed to work on it. It wasn't a big deal. But to my son it is. Sometimes I think my time working in a school is my biggest roadblock to being a better homeschooler.

My DS6 wants more hands-on science. I'm following WTM curriculum suggestions for 1st grade. We usually read a few pages and then he writes a one page summary, and sometimes draws a picture. It's ok. He doesn't fight me, but he's not super-pumped about it. I'm wondering how I can make biology more hands-on at this level. When I think of hands-on science, I go straight to baking soda volcanoes, and other simple chemical reactions which would be chemistry, and not used in WTM till later (3rd or 4th, I forget...) or physics topics like heat transfer and magnets, etc. I don't think he's ready for dissection and microscopes and other hands-on biology things that I did in high school. Does anyone have a suggestion?

My DS6, 1st grade, sometimes spazzes when he is corrected. This happens mainly in spelling and math facts. When he misses a math fact or spells something wrong in his phonics book, he gets very angry and shuts down. He refuses to see it as an opportunity to learn. I don't pressure him to get everything right, and I don't get upset when he makes mistakes. I don't feel like this is something I've done to him, but some pressure he puts on himself. My question is: what can I do about it? I don't feel like I can just not circle it when he answers 7+5 with 13. Math is math, it's black and white, right or wrong. If I wanted him to learn fuzzy math I would have left him in public school. He's in Saxon math 2 right now, and does well with it. Except that when he misses facts on the fact sheet, he gets mad. I don't try to time him on them; that leads to a day-ruining meltdown. I want to be understanding. I want to do what is right for him. But what can I do? If he gets something wrong, I circle it, and we talk about it, and go over the spelling rule he forgot or the fact family he seems to need to practice. I feel like I'm very gentle about it. I don't think it's right to not correct his mistakes and let him develop lifelong poor spelling. I pulled him from school to give him a better education, not a worse one. So can anyone suggest a way to get him through Saxon's math fact pages in peace? About how to practice missed spelling words or forgotten rules without the sky falling? I don't even want to think about how this attitude will affect him when we start diagramming sentences or editing his writing. Help!

Oh, wow. Logic of English Essentials looks like an awesome program. I wish it had more levels. As far as I can tell it has just 40 lessons. I wish they continued through all the grades.

BatmansWife, thank you for your thoroughness. I have to learn sometime!

I'm currently using WWE and FLL, both level one for my first grader who is an advanced reader. I'm not in love with it. I find it too slow and not challenging in the least. I've thought of just skipping a level, but I'm concerned it's never going to be what I want. For second grade, I'd like: diagramming parts of speech sentences and paragraphs I feel that the Peace Hill Press curriculum is just so much copy work. SO MUCH. He doesn't mind all that much, but I want to see more improvement in his own writing, which I don't see a lot of with this curriculum, since it requires no independent writing. As for spelling, I tried Rod and Staff spelling 2, as I love their phonics book, but I didn't care for the spelling. And as for Literature, it is non-existent. We read a lot of superhero books and Ninjago. Gag, I know. Help! Can anyone recommend grammar, literature or spelling curriculums, and tell me a little about it? I am overwhelmed with the number of choices out there, and not sure which ones are worth checking out. Also, if you could, please avoid using abbreviations. I just used the only ones I know. :D