We do daily lists, right now, in 7th. We use just a spiral notebook. I want to move to weekly lists next year. It will be up to her to create her daily schedule from that. End goal is have her using a class syllabus before I graduate her. I had never seen a syllabus when I got to college, and that was a problem. Professors don't give daily assignments!

No, it was not a factor, but I am happy that they are home with me when any safety situation arises. We had "snowpocalypse" here in the Atlanta area last year. I was thankful my kids were home and not stuck on a bus on the side of the road or at the school overnight. They played outside in it while I watched the madness on tv. This year we had tornado warnings. The neighbor girl spent an hour in the hallway with her head between her knees, and they released school late because of it. Again, I was glad my babies were home with me. I know the teachers would do everything they could to keep the kids safe, but when there is one teacher per 20+ kids, that's hard to do. They are better off with me.

The only problem is the child's reaction to it. We pulled my oldest after 5th grade, and even though she understood why, she had and still has trouble with it. She misses the group atmosphere, and an hour here and there at coop doesn't replace it. My youngest had completed 1st grade, and she also makes noise but not nearly as much about returning to ps. If I had it to do over, I would have never sent them at all so that they wouldn't have had to deal with the transition. You might want to look at private middle school instead of homeschooling if the only issue you have is the middle school rating.

We taper off just like we ramp up. We finish our various curricula at differet times so the load becomes lighter and lighter. We test the last week of June. We'll take a week off for 4th of July then start ramping up for an official start date of August 3.

We do BrainPop, Minecraft, Xtramath, Khan Academy, and Code.org. My dd8 would like some more online school options, but I haven't found anything else I like. We tried scratch, but it was a little to wide-open for her yet.

I just got really tired of fighting with the school to get my kids what they needed. I have one accelerated, one a bit behind, and one with ants in her pants. When I finally threw my hands up, dh started going to the school. It didn't take long for him to understand what I had been going through and give in to my request to pull them out. Now, dd13 has made some noise about going back, and he's the one adament (sp?) about keeping them home. We've found soooo may reasons to keep them home other than the ones that brought them home to begin with. I worry sometimes because our path has become so different from ps, but then we get together with ps friends and I realize that no we're good. I found this board because everytime I googled a question I had, this site came up with the answers. I stopped googling and joined in.

We are finishing up Writing & Rhetoric Fable. I've liked it, but it's not a great hit with my girls. I'm looking at IEW possibly for next year.

I think it can wait for what it's worth. If she can write a strong paragraph in her voice, that's great. Formal academic writing can wait until middle school. My goal for end of 3rd was for my girls to be able to write a 3-5 sentence paragraph with a beginning, middle, and end. I'm still working on our goals for 4th.

I am doing the 36 folders idea someone posted about last year. I just bought 36 cheap 2 pocket folders for each kid. They chose their color. Cut the spines off all workbooks and divided the lessons up. One side is to do and the other is done. They, also, have spiral notebooks for each subject. Its worked very nicely for my 3rd and 4th graders, but not so much for my 7th grader. For some reason, her workbooks have her referring back to previous lessons so we have to go digging through her folders to find which week they are in. I really like it because if we take a trip or just go to coop, they can take their weekly folder instead of 3 or 4 different workbooks, kwim? Books we did this with that worked well. Writing and Rhetoric Explode the Code SpellWell Math Mammoth Books that it did not work well with. Analytical Grammar Vocabulary from Classical Roots Writing With Skill

I'm agnostic and dd13 has declared herself atheist, and we're homeschooling in the Bible Belt. We participate with a Christian music coop, but no statement of faith was required. We're just respectful of their beliefs. We recently found a secular coop and plan to join for next year. I think it depends where in the Bible Belt you are on how successful you can be finding non-Christian groups. We're just outside Atlanta, and it's hard but they do exist. We probably wouldn't be as lucky in a more rural area.

I'd say about 75%. We school year round so I guess that makes us on track. Lol

This is totally subject to change. math: MM/xtramath/LoF L.A.: W&R , ETC , SpellWell, FLL (considering IEW instead of W&R) History: SotW2 and supplemental readings Science: Physical Science (Intelligo) PE: Cross Country Technology: Mini-Mod design with Minecraft

I don't know how "motivated" my soon to be 8th grader is but here are our basic plans. lol Math: finish AOPS Pre-A and start AOPS Intro to Alg. She has asked for the next LoF books, too. L.A.: WWS2, Killgallon Paragraphs, Vocab, AG Review books Lit: WtW/TTC combo or EiL (I had originally thought EiL, but I am second guessing myself) Science: Physical Science ( we're looking at a coop at her request, but if not, we'll probably use GAVS) History: The Medieval World series and supplemental reading Foreign Lang: German (GAVS) PE: Cross Country/Dancing Grits/Archery Music: Concert Band (flute)

So I posted a couple of weeks ago about dd8 balking at MM3 suddenly. She wanted to do Khan Academy and LoF as her entire curriculum. I gave her a week to use it letting her know that is was a trial period, and put MM away for the time being. After her week was up, I let her know that I didn't think it was a complete math curriculum, and we needed to use MM but could use LoF and KA, too, just not by themselves. Then asked her what she thought. She said ok and suggested that maybe we just do 5 pages of MM a week this week so she could choose each day what she wanted as long as it was done by the end of the week, and then next week add 5 more MM pages. I told her that sounded like a great plan. Yesterday, she did LoF and KA. Today, she did 2 pages of MM and KA. I heard no complaining, and she's actually getting more math in daily than before. Fingers crossed that this keeps up. I guess she just needed more variety? or a little break from MM?

The same happened with my middle daughter. When I first took her out of ps, she would cry if I even mentioned reading. Through lots of patience and insistence, she is now reading an hour a day easily on her own and is excited to tell me what happened when she is done. Love love love it! Time and energy so very well spent. Glad it worked for you, too.

I think it's great for review as others have said. DD8 & 10 are using it for 3rd grade, right now, and I am about to put dd13 on it for pre-algebra. They all hate the videos but like it otherwise. I would be nervous to use it as a full curriculum, though. My dd8 wants to and is mad at me because I won't let her. My reasons being that she can figure out some of the answers without really knowing why and because she tries to do everything in her head or with their scratch pad instead of putting pencil to paper which often takes twice as long and leads to a wrong answer.

My 10 year old has discovered the Warrior series and loves it. My 8 year old loves Judy Moody books. The Wizard of Oz, Julie of the Wolves, and The Incredible Journey have been hits here, as well. We are planning to read the Narnia series next year.

I wouldn't do SOTW with that age, but maybe, that is just me. We use OUP The World in Ancient Times, right now and will be using the Medieval World next year. Supplemental books we have used are The Hitiite Warrior, The Bronze Bow, Black Ships Before Troy, The Wanderings of Odysseus, Aeneas, The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor. Books we plan to use are The Shakespeare Stealer, The Midwife's Apprentice, Robin Hood, Beowulf, A Single Shard, Bound. There is a biography series that we tried, but my daughter didn't care for it. Your son might like it though... Wicked History. I'm still looking for some good biographies.

I usually say, "Sure you CAN. You just don't want to, and that's ok. It's not for everyone." Probably, won't win me any popularity awards, but it's true.

Yeah, this sounds awesome, but so wouldn't work with my kiddos. :(

Oh, I like those. I wonder if it has extra note sheets? I'm gonna have to run out and check those out.

Sounds good to me! If you want, you could even work on handicrafts... needle point, crochet, knitting, sewing, baking, etc..., but only if you are into that sort of thing.

I think it is working for her just fine. She just doesn't like it. I don't want her to hate math, but I don't want to let her skate, either. Ughhh... why couldn't I have at least one child who likes math?

So math has become an argument with my 8 year old. We've used MM2 and 3 up to now. She wants to use LoF and Khan Academy as her whole curriculum (things we have used for "fun" math occasionally). I have reservations about it being complete and rigorous. I offered to get BA to try and see if that worked better for her, but she balked at the looks of it and the placement test. I think now I should have just gotten it and had her try instead of showing it to her, but I really thought she would like the looks. Ugghhh... thoughts or opinions on what to do? Do I take a "suck it up buttercup" approach to MM or BA or let her use LoF and KA only. I'm kinda stuck on how to move forward, right now. I let her do the LoF and KA today, and she just zipped through 2 chapters (LoF) and 10 problems (KA). Ughhh...

I agree with previous posters. This is a High School and above level read. I would recommend it but only to adults.