I apologize in advance if someone has already asked this question (as well as some others that I have asked recently!). I'm planning on homeschooling next year when my oldest enters sixth grade. I am weighing out which math curriculum we should go with. I already own some used Saxon Math textbooks, but I have heard great things about Teaching Textbooks. I am wondering what your opinion is on which is "better" (a subjective term, I know). Side note: I picked up copy of Teaching Textbooks 6 today at a used curriculum fair. When I showed my daughter, she told me she already learned everything in listed in the Table of Contents this year. Did I get the wrong grade level? Thanks in advance!

My rising 4th-grader dislikes writing. He dictates well, and is skilled at creating a coherent thought-flow with good detail. He is a great at teach-back. I think most of the trouble is with the mechanics of writing itself. Sometimes he will type his answers, which he prefers to handwriting, but he says he still doesn't like it. He says it's hard for him to remember his thoughts while trying to get it down on paper in one way or the other. I am looking for suggestions that can help him work out these mechanics, both with handwriting and the writing process in general. Thanks in advance.

My kids have been in public school in the past. I absolutely hate common core math, but I was impressed with the common core writing requirements. PS are no longer accepting that kids are entering high school without a knowledge of how to write coherently, and my older kids actually learned basic essay-style writing in 3rd and 4th grades. Now that we are homeschooling, I would like to keep up with a rigorous but age-appropriate writing curriculum. Can anyone recommend such a program? Thanks!

Thank you for these ideas! I love the idea of subject tickets, and will be implementing this! I was also thinking that block scheduling will work best rather than a strict hourly schedule each day. Our city has a co-op, but I'm not sure the cost is doable for us. Especially since now all my kids are expressing interest in homeschooling, not just my oldest. One thing that I have to consider in weighing out whether or not to homeschool is that I am about to complete my master's degree at the end of the summer, and I was planning on going to work when my youngest goes to kinder. Considering homeschooling means I probably won't be working, which also means we will be staying with our current income and I won't have much extra cash to spend on things like co-op. But I hate to think that I have to choose a job over my family. One of my biggest regrets is missing out on some family activities and outings over the last three years, because I've had to stay behind and do homework instead. My family is more important to me than building a career. I guess that is another question I have. How do you all afford the extras for your kids, like co-op and music lessons? I think that for the most part prices are reasonable for one kid, but for four kids it just puts thing out of reach. Thanks again!

Hello All! I would like to introduce myself (again), as a long-time reader of this forum and long-time waffler from taking my kids out of public school. Homeschooling has been something that I have always wanted for my kids (rising K, 2, 4, and 6th graders). Circumstances have kept my kids where they are, which I am blessed to say really has been a great school. My oldest is going into middle school next year, and it seems like a good time to pull her out (while leaving everyone else in ps for the time being). We can't afford private school, and my only other option is to send her to the school she has been assigned, which in my experience is downright awful. My daughter is brilliant, qualifies for "highly capable," and is a born leader. She sang in an audition-only choir, as well as played cello with the 5th grade orchestra this year. I have some questions about making this transition, should we go through with it. Thank you in advance for your ear and your kind advice. My first question is about what subjects you include, and how you schedule it all in. I know that Math, Language Arts, Science, and History are indispensable. Also at this age, I would like to implement a theology or apologetics-based logic work (my own educational background is in these fields). I don't want to take away music, but I don't know how to do it without the public school system at a reasonable cost. Does anyone have experience with an online music program that goes beyond the basics and really teaches the instrument? We already have PE taken care of with taekwondo lessons. Can you tell me what else you consider essential? Do you find that with your own kids, doing each of the essential subjects each day works schedule-wise, or do you rotate through them as the week progresses? Also, where in the four-year cycle of TWTM should we begin, since we are starting in 6th grade? My second question is about socialization. I know full well that homeschooling does not mean I am isolating my child or failing to socialize her. My concern is that she is such a leader, I don't want her to feel isolated or without an outlet for that gift. How can I foster her leadership skills in a homeschool setting? I'm sure I will have more questions in the future, but I think I should start with these. Thanks again for your help!

Continuing to wet my feet by asking questions about curriculum, as I will be pulling my kids out of public school next year: Can I please hear your recommendations for math? I hear Saxon is most like a public school textbook. My soon-to-be 5th grader works at grade level, but was frustrated to tears the first time she saw long division at the beginning of the year. (She seems to have it covered now :)). My soon-to-be 3rd grader does math in his head (including times tables since first grade!) and hates to have to write out his work. Suggestions? I think I'll probably need two different programs for these two. :lurk5:

Ravi Zacharias's ASK curriculum On Guard by William Lane Craig More Than A Carpenter by Josh McDowell The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis I am partial to More Than a Carpenter and The Case for Christ because these two books played a huge role in me coming to faith in my late teens. Ravi Zacharias' Let My People Think podcasts grew my love for apologetics more than any other resource. Also pray hard! This is a spiritual battle more than it is intellectual. And, be gentle and open rather not harsh and defensive when answering his questions. 1 Peter 3:15-16. I am a Christian not because of some blind faith, but because God reached into my life and touch it. This is only possible because God is real and Christianity is true, and I assure you it can be shown to be so. Faith and reason are not enemies. God has called us to love him with all of our minds. Be encouraged!

I have an old Brother printer/copier/scanner. It only does black and white, but it is a workhorse. The toner is expensive, but can be found for cheaper online. My last toner cartridge lasted me three years of heavy use before I needed to replace it. I am looking into buying a new color one for next year.

Following.

Thank you for your suggestion. I will look into this resource. One question I have from looking at the WTM store: Are these books graded? My son will be in 3rd Grade next year, but should I start with Book 1?

Hello! I hope I am not too late to jump in here. I would like to encourage you by saying that science and faith are not mutually exclusive. It is not like we check our brains out at the door when we go to church. I do like Reasons to Believe, as well as Answer in Genesis and the Institute of Creation Research (although these vary a bit on their position on the age of the universe, with AIG being a top-notch Youth Earth resource). Also, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries has some great resources for young people. I think that a study in apologetics is beneficial to every student, because it applies everything else that has been learned about logic to the topics of faith. (I am currently working on my MDiv in Apologetics, so I admit I am a bit biased about its importance.). With all that being said, I don't think that you necessarily have to go secular to advance in science. I would like to encourage you to read up on the subject of faith and reason. Perhaps a bit advanced for a high schooler, but great for us parents, one of the first books I was assigned to read on this topic was Reason Within the Bounds of Religion by Nicholas Wolterstorff. William Lane Craig's On Guard was written specifically with young people in mind, as was RZIM's ASK curriculum. If you do choose to go with a secular curriculum, I would like to encourage you to study a Christian textbook alongside it, and use apologetics to sift the valid from the fallacious.

Hello! I am just wetting my feet and I have a lot of questions. I am taking my kids out of public school next year. My son, who is currently in 2nd grade, hates writing. His current teacher used to teach middle school, and that, coupled with Common Core, has forced him to write essays (!!) at this level, before he has learned to form his letters neatly or correctly. Now he hates writing. His teacher has allowed me to write for him as he dictates, because if I don't, he won't even start his homework. I think he is really discouraged by all the writing. So next year, I hope to get him writing on his own, but I want to do it without pressuring him or pushing him too fast. He is brilliant and articulate, knows how to explain himself, and dictates well. I need suggestions for writing curriculum for him. I would like to get him working on some grammar and proper sentence structure at least by the end of the year, but I think he needs to catch up with penmanship first. I could really use some suggestions. Thanks in advance!

Hi there. My name is Krista, and I am entering the homeschool world after several years of having my kids in the public school system. My kids will be in 5th, 3rd, 1st, and Pre-K next year. I just wanted to introduce myself. I am a longtime admirer of TWTM and the classic method of homeschooling. I actually tried to homeschool my step-kids for two years, but it didn't work well for our family. When we decided to send them back to public school, Smartie was going into 1st Grade that year, and wanted to "go to school" too. She has done well, but I really want to give her more than the public school has to offer. She is brilliant and has an unquenchable curiosity. Exuberant is equally curious, but is bored to death at school and hates doing homework. Joyful is also doing well but is also bored of the homework. I have a lot of questions about making this work for my kids, which I hope to ask on the forums. I am looking forward to networking and getting to know you all. :lurk5:

My five year old is a lefty, and most of the time she writes her name (and just about everything else) backwards, like a mirror image (just like DaVinci, I've read!). It seems that if she gets the first letter right she will write the rest of the letters correctly. How can I help her remember which was is the right way to write? Thanks for your ideas! :bigear:

We just finished our first year homeschooling (4th, 6th and 7th grades). I started of the year with Rod and Staff English, but we scrapped it because it was way too advanced for them. The public school system didn't teach them grammar, and they barely knew a noun from a verb. I'm looking for a complete English curriculum (grammar and writing if possible) that is good for older kids who have little background in grammar. I plan on using Rod and Staff for my younger ones, who I am able to homeschool from the beginning, but it's just too much for the older ones. Any suggestions? Thanks!

This was my first year homeschooling my three stepchildren (just finished 7th, 6th and 4th grade), and together we have children ages 5, 3 and 1. I'm not sure how helpful my advice will be because my children are younger than my stepchildren, but all the same, we did math and English separately in the mornings and history and science together in the afternoons. More children doesn't mean it has to be more difficult on the subjects that are together. It was a bit of a stretch to do all the maths at the same time, but I think that was more because it was my stepkids' first year out of public school and they needed to adjust to working at home. I'm not sure that it is necessary to do the whole Ancients again next year (the kids will see them again), but maybe it would be helpful to do a review for the first month to get the gist of what happened, and then move on to the middle ages for the rest of the year? Or else let the stepkids do ancients and allow yours to move on at their own pace? Sorry I can't be of more help. If anything I just want to throw myself out there as another woman who is homeschooling her stepkids. We learned a lot this year. We will be making adjustments next year. But even with the ups and downs of the family dynamic, I love homeschooling, and I'm pretty sure the kids love it too :)

Wish I saw that yesterday! I found version 9 for $25 on Amazon. It looks like a good option.

This is our first year homeschooling. My ds12 is extremely bright and absorbs most of what he hears... but really hates writing. Up to this point he has tolerated the writing assignments with everyone else in history and science, writing a paragraph or two about what we have talked about, etc. I really want to have him enjoy regurgitating what he knows, because he really does love to speak back what he has learned, and loves to continue in the conversation asking questions. So I was thinking that if I could find a computer program that would allow him to speak into it and the program would type what he is saying, this would be helpful. I don't want to hinder his learning because he is taking forever writing down a few sentences about something I know he could teach back to me with spoken words. Can anyone recommend a good (FREE) computer program that is good for dictation? Thank you so much! :bigear:

:lol: I'm laughing so hard at these Laughed so hard I woke up the baby sleeping next to me :001_huh: ... back to sleep now :)

I'm also glad that you've talked it over and worked out a plan of action. I just wanted to encourage you with some words from Philippians 4: 4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Does the college offer a great education? If so, I wouldn't transfer for the sake of socializing. If you have got this far as a homeschooler then this truth should already be evident. School isn't the only place to make friends. I applaud her for standing out from the crowd. She is not a cookie-cutter individual, the same as everyone else. and that's okay. You have always been there for her, and she is continuing with her relationship with you as it always has been. Why should she suddenly stop being in relation with you simply because she is in college? Perhaps you can set a time of day to talk - say, after supper, daily. Maybe a good morning call too, and that's it. Then she can talk to you about her plans for the day in the morning, and what she did with her day after supper. Set a "date" time, say twice a week for coffee and supper on Sundays, or whatever works for you. Let her know that you are still supportive of her and want to be communicating with her. She needs this assurance as she is out on her own. I hope this is helpful. Hang in there.

We are in STOW 1 and reading about the Roman Empire - or just getting back into it, having just finished the chapters on India and China. Can anyone recommend a good read-aloud for 4th, 6th and 7th graders? (We read a children's version of The Iliad and The Odyssey when we were learning about the Greeks). Thanks!

I don't do the meeting book, and I spend little time teaching the actual lesson. I answer questions throughout the work time. I think one probably is that having pulled them out of public school I have noticed that sometimes they don't know how to comprehend what they are reading, how to find the steps to answer the problem or how to reason their way to a conclusion. If I explain the question to them in another way they'll get it, but the words on the page don't make sense. Or they don't know how to reason yet, which I think is partly to do with stages of growth. But my 4th grader still has trouble figuring out if she's supposed to add or subtract when doing a word problem. Yet she is picking up her multiplication facts faster than I expected her to. So I dunno... part ages and stages, part learning how to reason, part unlearning back public school habits, part learning how to work independently. Truth is we have very little "independent" work at this time, but I'm trying to increase this. Today actually wasn't too bad. We took an early lunch so we could go outside and play in the snow storm :D (Eastern Washington gets very little snow, and rarely at this magnitude!) Everyone's about to come in for some hot chocolate. Thanks for your input everyone!

My 4th and 6th graders attempt the whole lesson (which according to Saxon should take an hour). My 7th grade might do 6 or 8 (if he finishes these he gets to work on something of his choosing, like Greek or Theology).

We don't do homework. The day is the total amount of time we have. My husband works long hours and wants the evening time to be family time and unwind time (and I agree :)) So unfortunately I don't have a "do it later" time. I'm wanting to get more done in our day but we're spending so much time on math... My pre-alegebra guy doesn't even do all the questions. I think he would do better with Singapore but we just don't have the budget to get a new book for him. So he works on the questions directly related to the day's lesson (usually only a few), and then moves on to the next lesson and does a couple questions there. He doesn't need a spiral method like my other two do (doing the same types of questions day after day to learn them). He is very math smart, gets it right away, and even does a lot of work in his head (and gets the right answer, which I have to reach on paper!) Yes, some days they dawdle, but we're getting much better at this. It is quiet right now as they work :) I hope to be done by 11 so I can give them some map time. I have been doing a "geography challenge" with them, giving them lists of places and having them mark them on a map (list of mountains and deserts, list of rivers and lakes, etc). They enjoy this :) I want school to be fun, even though it is work!