I’m trying to figure out if the monthly audible cost is worth it. How does having an audible account differ from just using Overdrive provided by the library? I know with audible you own the book and with Overdrive you obviously don’t, but what other benefits are there to becoming an audible subscriber? Thanks so much in advance to all who take the time to respond! :)

Thank you for this explanation! I'm thinking I'd like to start them with Spanish. Other than Duolingo, can you recommend any other books/curriculum/resources to use? Thank you so much!

I ended up going with GSWL. I figured it was an inexpensive start and hopefully a good place to begin and eventually branch out from. Thank you to all of you for your help!

I am looking for some help in choosing which Foreign Language to begin with my 10 and 8 year old. They have had no prior foreign language and neither myself nor my husband speak any language other than English. I wasn't sure if one was better to start with over the other, or if it was all just basically personal preference. I'm also looking for program/curriculum recommendations as well. Thanks so much!

She is currently reading Famous Men of Greece and Story of the Greeks. Would that mess her up too much? I'd like to take it a bit slower since we haven't done any latin in the past. She has been working on Grammar though, so that won't be too foreign for her. Would you still recommend LC, or would FF be a better fit? Thank you so much for your help!

Thank you so much for this detailed reply. It has been very helpful. I will do as you suggest and have my daughter look over the samples and then go from there. I hadn't realized there was a less expensive package. That is one reason I kinda turned away from this particular curriculum...the price. Thanks for letting me know there is a less expensive option.

I'm trying to decide on a Latin curriculum for my 10 year old. I was recommended Memoria Press, Visual Latin, and Getting Started with Latin. Obviously, out of the three, GSL is the cheapest option, but I'm looking for opinions on it, as well as the other two. This will be her first year studying Latin. Thank you!

Has anyone purchased and or used the curriculum titled A Gentle Feast? It looks pretty good, but I'm having a hard time finding any reviews, manly because it is newer. Hoping to get some answers here. Thank you!

I'm already feeling overwhelmed and burned out, and we are only finishing up week 3! I know I must be doing something wrong, but I'm not sure what! Im hoping to get some advice/suggestions on what I can do differently. I have a 4 th grader who is reading well, but struggles a lot with her spelling. So, independently, she does math (everyday), ELTL (4 days), and her independent reading (Everyday). I do not have her do the dictation yet, because of her spelling, but she narrates to me what she's read and she does the Copywork assigned in ELTL. I also use RLTL with her 4 days a week to help with her spelling. My 7 year old son is not reading yet, so all he does on his own is Math (everyday). Then he and I go through his ELTL lesson together (more reading for me) and I'm also using RLTL with him to teach reading/spelling. I try to have both my kids together for the RLTL lessons, but sometimes I work with each one separately. I'm using Wayfarers and Quark, so I spend 1 1/2 - 2 hours every morning reading through all the readings, including our Scripture readings, geography, and depending on what day it is, Shakespeare and poetry. I'm usually exhausted by this time and we have yet to start a "just for fun" read aloud for the year...and I have sooo many great books on my shelf waiting to be read that I bought specifically for read aloud times. Plus, I'm wanting my kids to want to choose reading as their quiet time activity, or their "I'm bored activity", but I think they are feeling just as burned out as I am, so this never happens. I know not all the readings are suggested in Wayfareres, and I do not even do them all, so that's why I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed at what I could be doing wrong. I also have a 4 year old that I am trying to spend some one on one time with reading to (more reading for me) and helping her with her letters and numbers. I would love to have my oldest daughter work more independently, but I'm not sure how to do this with my son not yet reading on his own. I know i must be doing something wrong, or is RLTL/ELTL/Wayfareres/Quark really this teacher intense? (this is our first year using all of it) Thanks so much in advance for any help!

Yes, I definitely want to go with his interests...especially at this young age. I want to keep learning fun! Thanks for your encouragement.

We are on our third week of our new homeschool year. We started using Wayfarers Ancients this year and I have no complaints about the curriculum and the book choices, however, my son is already disappointed and asking for more recent history, like George Washington and Abe Lincoln recent. He always has a lot of questions regarding American History and I'm wondering if I made a bad decision starting with a four year history rotation this way. I already purchased everything we need for term 1, so I really don't want to change everything up just yet. I'm wondering how best to handle his disappointment and disinterest. Should I just carry on and hope something peaks his interest soon? Maybe switch after the first term is over to American History? Or, I was thinking of adding some light reading of American History to our Morning Basket, while continuing with the wayfarers ancients during our normal history time, but wasn't sure if that would get confusing for my kids at all. If this third option is a good idea, can anyone recommend any books that would be a good fit for a 7 and 9 year old? Thank you!

I have several questions that I am hoping to get some help/clarification with.I apologize in advance if this post becomes too long. This is our first year using ELTL. I am using Level 1 with my 7 year old son who is still learning to read and Level 4 with my 9 year old daughter who is a fluent reader, but terrible speller. I am also using RLTL Level 1 with both...for my son to learn to read and my daughter to help with her spelling. We are only on our second week using it and I'm just wondering if I am using the program correctly. With my so, I sit with him and read the assigned literature (for ELTL) reading, then talk him through each example. We then read the poem and fable, if there is one, and then he does the copywork. My question is, he does not enjoy most of the fables and always asks me why we are reading a poem everyday. Am I supposed to have him doing something with the poems and fables? Or just reading them to him daily, then having him narrate on the lessons that it says to do so? Does anyone skip reading the fables/poems, and if so, what do you do instead? Now, for my daughter, she does most of her ELTL lesson herself. She reads her literature assignment, does the exercises and writes in her commonplace book. My question for her is, when it comes to dictation and the condensed narrative, since she is a pretty poor speller, how would you go about doing both? So far, I've just been skipping the dictation and today, for the condensed narrative lesson, I had her just narrate to me instead of writing it all down. Is this ok to do until her spelling becomes stronger, or should I be doing something else? With RLTL, we are still just learning the phonograms. I've been going over 4 new ones a day with them both, having them review the ones we'e already learned each day, and writing them in their notebooks. And that's been it so far. It just feels like I'm missing something. Has anyone used RLTL with a struggling speller successfully, or should I supplement with a spelling program? If so, which program would you suggest? Again, I apologize for the length of the post, but appreciate any help you can offer.

My oldest daughter is 9 years old. We will be using ELTL for the first time this year. This past school year, we were using R&S for Grammar and Spelling. She loves to write stories and does pretty good forming sentences and paragraphs. However, her spelling needs a lot of work. So, my questions are, should I be using a writing program as well, or will ELTL be sufficient? And, should I give ELTL a chance before supplementing with a spelling program, or should I do a little extra in this area since I know it's already a problem that needs addressed? Thanks in advance!

Do I need a separate book for each child, or since we are combined for our history lessons, will one book be enough? And, what do you all use? Do you make your own? Purchase one already made? Thanks in advance!

I have so many titles that I want to get to this year like The Silver Chair, Little Britches, The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, just to name a few. These are in addition to the titles we will be reading for our LA and History. (We are also doing Wayfarers and ELTL) I'm just not wanting to overwhelm myself or my kids, so I'm trying to be intentional with the planning now.

If you have a morning time/basket, what do you include in it? Do you try to get to everything in it everyday, or use a loop schedule? Thanks in advance!

I'm in full blown planning mode and I'm really striving to have this be our best year yet and that starts with me trying to get as organized as I possibly can. So, that being said, I'm wondering how do you organize your read alouds for the year? Do you just pick from a list and read ones that sound interesting, try to read a certain amount each month/year, count what you are reading for history as your read aloud? In previous years I've always just picked something off our shelf, but I'm wondering if I should be more intentional about this. Thank you!

I've never done any type of nature study with my kids. No journals, no nature walks, nothing. And I'm sad about it. I really want to add nature study to our homeschool this year and I'm wondering how best to fit it in. We are studying Botany this year with Quark Chronicles for science. Would I make our nature study separate from this, or include it as one? If I did it as something separate, how many days a week would we devote to it? I also purchased awhile back Lynn Seddon's Exploring Nature with Children that I planned on using for nature study at some point.

I'm looking for some Handwriting Lesson suggestions. My kids are 9, 7, and 4. My 9 and 7 year old both have terrible handwriting. My 4 year old isn't really writing yet. What would you all recommend I use, especially with my older two, to help them with neater handwriting practices?

Thank you, everyone, for your responses. Our co-op meets every Friday from 9-2, so I’m pretty sure I won’t do any other “school†that day other than our reading in the evening after dinner as usual. I was able to pick the classes my kids get to take, so I chose classes that wouldn’t interfere with what I was teaching at home. For example, I didn’t choose the science classes because none of them line up with what we will be studying this year and I didn’t want to overwhelm myself, or my kids. The classes I chose are Bible quizzing, PE, crochet for my daughter, cooking with Little House for my daughter, a Lego class for my son, a watercolor class for my daughter, baseball for my son, an American history class for my son, and a math games class. I basically wanted to join a co-op for the social aspect of it. Also, the nice thing about it is it starts in September, two classes of which we will be missing because of vacation, and ends at the beginning of November. So, if by then I realize it really isn’t for us, I won’t go back after Christmas. However, I know my kids are going to love it! I think I’ll go ahead and spend the rest of this week going through my curriculum and fitting it into simply 4 days. I’m not real concerned with not finishing everything by years end. Our state requires 180 days, so I will work with that. I’m actually considering trying out a sabbath schedule and schooling year round. However, I’m also wanting to start back on Monday, so…I have a lot of work a head of me. I might just have to push our start day back a week. Thanks again for taking the time to respond. 🙂

We joined a co-op for the upcoming school year for the first time. I’m excited to give it a try, but stressing a bit about fitting everything into a 4 day work week. Those of you who are part of a weekly co-op, or have been a part of one in the past, any advice or tips to share on making it work successfully?

Yes, they play with Legos, draw, color, puzzles, etc. I've had several people recommend Thinking Putty to me. I think it's time I get some! ;)

The Narnia books are, surprisingly, the ones they both enjoyed the most. They didn't like the Green Ember or the Little House books that we read. I haven't read the Boxcar children to them yet, but have several on my shelf to choose from. I'm really enjoying The BFG and am so excited to see the movie! ;)

I think I'll start with only reading a chapter a day and see how that helps. And yes, they do color or build puzzles, Legos, etc. My daughter ends up, usually, just sitting next to me on the couch and my son is the one who always has to be doing something else while Im reading to them.

I just purchased Calpurnia Tate on my Kindle...maybe I'll give that a try with my daughter. I have asked them what they would like for me to read to them and they alway say they don't know and what are their choices and then I'm always stumped and pulling titles from various booklists...I'm probably making this a lot harder than it needs to be, but I want this to be a treasured, fun, memorable part of their homeschooling years.