I've really wanted to like Lively Latin but it feels very disorganized to me. Does someone have a predictable schedule they have developed for it- something like "Learn new vocabulary Monday", "Introduce Lesson Tuesday", "Complete exercises Wednesday "... The instructions in the book are just "go through in order". And moving the pages from the big stack into a binder as you go along seems nutty to me. There are other odd things. Sometimes the exercises are before the lessons and I don't feel like the vocabulary is introduced at regular intervals. This program just doesn't jive with my linear thinking. Should I just switch to Memoria Press? Their materials are very predictable, but slightly boring. I've already purchased the Big Book though. I already have the Latina Christiana teaching DVDs and Teacher's Manual, but it is the third edition and the only student books I can find are the fourth edition, which I understand is much different. Please help! I really want to get Latin done with my kids this year! I don't want to spend a lot more money, though, on new materials. I've spent too much already for this year.

I felt like you too, at one point in my journey. I came to a point where I really wanted to experience Christianity as the first Christians did, not through the lens of a 20th century interpretation of Christianity. So, I went further and further back in Church history. Up until then, my experience of Christianity was through a modern cultural lens. Once I found myself really examining the first Christians, I realized that the central shared expression of faith was not actually the bible, because it had not been compiled yet, but it was the Eucharistic meal. That is is the simple explanation of what lead me to Catholicism in my search for the authentic faith of the first Christians.

I remember one day visiting a beautiful Catholic Church in Vienna as a girl and encountering the Holy Spirit there. I was very surprised and thought, "wow, maybe Catholics really are Christians!" Of course through the years, I was dutifully coached in all the ways Catholics were theologically incorrect and couldn't possibly actually be saved, so I was temporarily disabused of that silly notion. I was taught to always "witness" to the Catholics I would meet. Through the years of high school youth group and Campus Crusade for Christ I witnessed to lots of "unsaved" Catholics and other members of "dead" Protestant denominations (mainline denominations). I sure had it all figured out! Fast forward 18 years and here I sit, a happy Roman Catholic, working out her salvation with fear and trembling. God sure has a sense of humor!

Well, I would love to have the experience of customizing my children's homeschool experience and materials. It is my romantic ideal of homeschooling and maybe even the best way of homeschooling. But some of us have constraints on what we can do. I work and it is really a miracle that I am able to homeschool (like Jesus multiplying the bread and fish, but for me the miraculous multiplication is that of my time). I use a couple of curriculum providers with my kids and "grade level" is pretty clear cut. I have a fourth grader who is "behind" in his work with the curriculum provider I use. He is obviously and comfortably working at a third grade level. I think he is going to need the extra year before he will be ready for the high school program I intend to use for him. Depending on your circumstances, grade level is not merely some arbitrary label.

I am very comfortable with homeschooling the early years now and I think the early years are pretty much looking the same with each of my kiddos. (I think I stopped reading the Lynch stuff because, though very interesting, it is focused on the earlier years.) I have been at this for 10 years now. I think where I have ADD is from middle school and older. My views keep changing when I read something new. Maybe it will be the same with my older children... maybe eventually I will discover my groove with them as I have discovered my groove with the primary grades. Actually, I have come to the conclusion that I need to focus on my own education and not read so much on educational philosophy any more. I think my older children will benefit the most from that.

I agree Erin. The "rigor" doesn't kick in here until 5th grade. K-3rd for us is what I described in my prior post and 4th is a transitional year, focusing on self discipline and good study habits. We do academic lessons in k-3rd, but they are short and CM-ish.

According to what evidence is it better to start academics early? Classical education doesn't mean skills to me. Skills are tools. Classical education is much more than a rigorous education- ultimately it is about educating the heart and mind of the child and tying everything together so that the child knows what it is to be human and how he relates to God. I don't push academics early because I don't feel it is academically appropriate and I don't want my boys to hate learning. In the early years we concentrate mostly on nursery rhymes, fairy tales and good literature, lots of nature walks and fun exposure to Latin. My oldest is 16 and I have changed a lot through the years in how I am educating my children. This is the place I have arrived at and it seems right and makes the most sense. I am starting to see some fruits, too.

I just finished reading the excellent Ella Frances Lynch thread. I started reading her bio and her articles. But, whoa! Do I really have time to study yet another educator and her ideas on education?I love reading about education and I love implementing new thoughts, methods and ideas (new to me, but usually from educators from past generations). As home educators, we are blessed that we are not tied to bureaucracies, school boards, textbooks publishers, etc. We can innovate with our own children and individualize their education. But I can't help but wonder if my children would benefit from more consistency. I want to study and grow as an educator, but my study leads me to change things every year. I've been from unschooling to Montessori to Charlotte Mason to neo-classical to screw-it-buy-a-curriculum and back again. Am I the only one? Is it because I have a certain personality/temperament? How can I grow, learn and improve in my teaching without giving my children educational whiplash?

I am thinking about using Evernote more this year. My thought is that if you are going to have multiple accounts, then paying for the Premium membership would be a good idea so you can see everyone's notebooks at once without having to keep logging in and out.

I have nothing substantive to add to this conversation. But, keep talking like that and my engineer husband might decide that reading this board is worth his time!

I received a response. It is "Primer Apples Font", found here: http://www.1001freefonts.com/primer_apples.font

It does look like D'Nealian, but it doesn't have a slant. This is driving me nuts! I did email, but haven't heard back yet.

I did. I will post the response when I get it if someone doesn't reply here first!

What font does Song School Latin use for the tracing/handwriting assignments? I can't find the answer on their website. My kids love it and want to use it for their handwriting assignments. TIA!

Have you considered Classically Catholic Memory? http://ccmemory.com/

The Bible is not a science book, it is our salvation story. Edit: oops, sorry. Didn't notice that this thread is old.

I know you said "exploring the mountains", but we really enjoy the Denver Art Museum and it has a free day the first Sat of the month (I think). You do have to pay for the special exhibit, but it is usually the best. The Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception is beautiful and it has the most stained glass windows of any church in America. We live in the mountains of northern New Mexico, so we like Colorado for city stuff, which is kind of opposite of most people!

I am not a schedule person, but I think one is necessary if you are homeschooling and have a large family. The self discipline can be hard for some of us (ahem, me), but it really does help. I have five- homeschooling three with a little tagging along and the biggest going to the public high school. I don't schedule exact times, but I block schedule. A book called Mother's Rule of Life really helped me. It contains advice about scheduling, but it has you identify your spiritual and relational priorities first. The schedule is a tool.

I've had no trouble with potty training or teaching to read, but I wait until they are ready. My current 8 year old was slow to make progress in reading, but he is taking off now. I haven't pushed him, but have adopted a slow and steady pace. Potty training at 3 and reading at 6 is the experience I've had with 5 boys. (The youngest is 4, so we'll see how reading goes with him).

To offer a slightly different perspective.... just today I was thinking that my 4th is now reading and I am sad that I only have one more to teach to read. The days are long but the years are short.

What is a little funny about this thread is that my anecdotal story about my dad's perspective on homeschool students is dismissed because it is anectodal (it is) and because there are "no reliable statistics" about homeschoolers. Yet most of the disparaging posts about IRL homeschoolers start off something like "well, a third or a half, or most of the homeschoolers I know"- insert disparaging comment here. Most of the homeschoolers I know are academically minded and it would seem they are doing a much better job than the public schools.

I must say that I am a bit perplexed by the disdain and low opinion for "IRL homeschoolers" in this thread. My dad taught at a university for a time and he and other professors I have spoken with have felt that former homeschoolers were the best students. It seems that most of you believe that most of the homeschoolers you have met are not very academically oriented. How do you know what goes on in their homes? Why do national statistics not bear this non-academic homeschooler trend out?

My oldest son goes to a public high school and he failed a fake word phonics reading test. He is an excellent reader, an A English student and will be taking AP English next year. They wanted to out him in some sort of a remedial class based on this. I was livid. Luckily the principal recognized the idiocy and put the kabosh on the idea. Actually, I think he failed because he thought it was a joke.

And a bit of irony... in the preface of School Composition I read, "The selections from Burroughs, Bryant, Dana, Fiske, Hawthorne, Holmes, Lucy Larcom, Longfellow, Sill, Warner, and Whittier are published by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., authorized publishers of their works." Hmmm, I think that Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. need to get back to their roots!

... how thankful I am for this board? My fifth grader needs a little help with writing and I don't feel that narration and dictation has been doing enough. I have been thinking about investing in IEW, but I don't feel this is the right time to start with it (variety of things including some financial constraints). So, I was looking for something I could get started with quickly and inexpensively to use until the fall. I have access to textbooks from a school that closed, so I grabbed a Houghton Mifflin English 5. I thought that surely it would give me some help in teaching and at least be good enough for a few months. Writing units. Pure. Garbage. So, based on recommendations from some threads I searched here, I decided to download Maxwell's School Composition from Google Books. I am so happy I could almost cry. It is so lovely and the quality is night and day from the Mifflin texbook. Really, what has happened to education? I am not always of the belief that older is better, but the vintage texbooks are so often just so lovely, amazing quality and they do what they are supposed to... teach.