I love that your son will go run! I keep trying to get mine to enjoy it, but he doesn't. He plays basketball several times each week (he's there now) and we've had unseasonably warm temps until just recently, so they've been able to play outside. Dad was a math major in college, so while I do most of the schooling, he fills in when I get stuck with math! He also coaches all of their sports, so he's involved...just not in the day to day school. I know I was venting today, but ds doesn't complain that much. Usually only on Mondays (don't we all?)!! He just doesn't appear to have any passion for anything (other than minecraft). He's just very clear that he prefers to just do school and be done. He will read what I tell him to and do what I say (although writing is a very reluctant subject), but he isn't enjoying the lose schedule or the books he chose from the library. For example, he enjoyed the kids cookbook he selected and spent a lot of time with it learning about kitchen equipment, etc., but he hated the WW2 book he picked out. After looking at the book his brother picked, he decided today that he would prefer non-fiction history in that form. When I say he's difficult, it's that he does like to challenge "new" stuff. He's always been like that...changes don't go over well. I thought this would be a fun and easy change to our school day, but it backfired. We had a good talk today and I went over the expectations I have for what needs to be done (he has a checklist, but I was giving him a lot of free choice) and I think tomorrow will be better. I was wondering if a more "literature-based" approach would be better for us and make school less boring. I still don't know, but what I have learned is that he likes a written schedule and boxes to check off. Momto2Ns, that is interesting what you said about not wanting school to infringe on their interests! I didn't really think about it that way. Also, I am in a state that doesn't have too many restrictions, but my county was always over-reaching and asking for written documentation of work in 8 subjects done weekly. I had no problem meeting their requests, but I stressed about it. This semester, I joined an umbrella that is much more lenient with written documentation of work, so I had hoped we could ALL relax a little. I guess I'm also a little disappointed that this "less-stressful" schedule didn't go over as well as I had hoped. Does that make sense? So, I had my hopes up, it crashed and burned with one kid, and I was definitely upset. Anyway, thanks again for your support. I appreciate it!

Thank you all for your help and encouragement! You've all really made me feel better. I think I was just having a bad day coming back from break and he picked today to have a meltdown himself! We'll take a deep breath and move forward. :)

I should add that I think *I* struggle with trying to find the best way to homeschool for my kids and in year 2, I still don't have it figured out. I think that's why I get so upset when I try something that just blows up. I like classical, but that may not be what works for my kids. They may learn better from a unit study or literature based approach...I just keep tweaking and hitting road blocks, but I also think my roadblock just doesn't like change. He just wants to do it and be done. Coming back from holiday break is not helping either.

Yes, they both want to be homeschooled. The little one is easy. He loves everything! LOL! The older one starts a teen/tween co-op tomorrow. I'm hoping he'll be inspired by the other kids and a different teacher. They are "fun classes (mystery books, etc.) He does take a class at the local homeschool community center, but he doesn't like it. Really, I signed him up just to get him out of the house to meet other kids. (He does play sports, but I want him to meet homeschooled kids, too.) I introduced to a girl in the class who was reading a book that he loved. They hit it off, but then we went on holiday break. (He's only had 2 classes so far b/c it was a mini session) He starts up there again next week. This is a kid that's been a tough nut from infancy. He's always been hard. Our relationship has really grown since we started homeschooling and we both love that, but I just love learning and he's not there yet.

Thank you. I think that the "12" and his attitude are big problems. I feel positive that tomorrow will be better! Thank you all for your support. I really do feel better. I think my talk with him calmed down after we had some space and I could vent. :)

I think this is it. He just doesn't like any of it. I don't think he needs to enjoy it all, but like someone else mentioned, I want to ignite a love of learning...and that is what is upsetting me. I did have a good talk with after we both calmed down. I told him that at least for this short time of "finding ourselves," I don't care WHAT he is learning...only that he IS learning. So, with that, he is building a pagoda on minecraft (on xbox and not with friends!), but he had to look it up on the internet and he can tell me what they are/were used for and WHY they are built as they are. To me, on this day, that is ok. I told him that this leniency won't go on forever, but I want us to find something that works.

No, I wasn't afterschooling. I don't know if he thinks that... We're sitting here now trying to figure out what kind of books would be more appealing...it seems the ones my 8yo picked out are more appealing!

I just sat down to chat with him over lunch. Told him I was frustrated and I don't know what to do with school for him. Yes, I think it makes sense to learn history from the beginning and chronologically, but nobody said that is how it has to be. If he's interested in wars, lets learn about them! He said he's interested in WW2. I pointed out that he checked out 2 books about WW2 from the library, but didn't read one and hated the other and didn't give it a chance...grrr!! He likes dogs...do you want to learn about dogs? No. I agree...maybe approaching it as "how would you do school if you could?" is a better conversation.

Hello. I have 2 kids (8 and 12), both boys (this is mostly a rant on my 12yo). Last year was our first year homeschooling. For the most part, it went well, but I feel like my oldest just goes through the motions and doesn't really "care" about any topic. He's a smart kid, pulled him out b/c he was bored in school and school took away all G/T classes when they implemented the CCSS. I felt like last year was "boring," so I attempted to change things up a bit this year...I also want to push him so he's moving forward and not being stagnant. This year, I completely changed science to be "fun" and full of experiments. He hates that b/c now science "takes too long." Well, sometimes, experiments do take time! Last year, with Noeo, he could read the selection, take the notes, and be done on his own pace. Now, the hands on stuff takes time and that frustrates him. I switched from SOTW to MOH. He likes MOH, but he moans through the lessons and I honestly think the readings are too long for my youngest. I honestly wish I didn't switch, but we did. Anyway, the whole first semester was just "getting through school." No one seemed to be enjoying things unless it was a game we were playing. They do like read-alouds, but don't want more than a chapter at a time (that's fine, but it's the only thing they like!). At a Christmas party, a fellow homeschooler was listening to my story and suggested I just chill. Check out a bunch of books from the library and just let them read, I read, we all hang out and find our interests. "If they are reading, they are learning," she said. So, I talked to the boys and told them our plan to play games and read. I told them that math needed to be done daily, but the books would be the rest of our "curriculum." We're on day 2 and oldest hates it. I hate these books (he picked them out), I hate reading (he stays up all night reading fiction of his choosing), I liked the way it was before. My younger one just said, "I like this reading thing. It's fun!" Ugh.... My oldest is allowed an hour on his computer each day to play minecraft. I know he wants to finish "school" so he can do that and with the cold weather, that is the primary way he'll be seeing any "friends," so I don't want to completely take it away, but I hate his attitude. He hates EVERYTHING. And with this attitude, I don't feel like we'll make any progress or learn anything. I feel like I should let the younger one continue this way and just give the older one his schedule again, even though he didn't love that either. What do I do? I like the classical way of moving through topics, but the kids are bored. I try a literature type of low key thing for 2 days and one rebels. I'm just lost on how to motivate him and have him not hate school. Won't they learn more if they are interested?? He's not interested in anything. Sorry for the rant...I'm just very frustrated right now.

My son used The Sassafras series from Elemental Science in 2nd grade. It does cover a lot of animals and their habitats. It had a project for each week, notebook/journaling pages, and extra reading suggestions, which you can choose to do or skip. You can adjust how much you do easily. He loved it and my 5th grader at the time enjoyed listening in. That being said, it is kind of "light" on the science and some people don't like the novel itself. (I didn't like it, but my kids loved it.)

I've tried SW and Apples & Pears, but no experience with SSS. SW just seemed like a waste of time for my kids and I don't think it helped the spelling of either child. For this next semester, I'm switching to Building Spelling Skills, which seems similar to SW to me, but the rules are clearer and the worksheets are shorter, so not as much "busy work" for them. I haven't used it yet, but I like what I see from flipping through.

I asked on their FB page about substituting sciences. Everyone had commented that it was very simple to switch that out. I really like the looks of this, too. Honestly, I think my kids will like a break from the normal history we've been doing. Ds has read some of the literature selections, but the FB comments said those are easily switched, too.

I'm following b/c I've been closely looking at BYL for 7th grade next year. I really like the 7th grade plans, but then I wonder what I'll do with my 4th grader since they usually do history and science together.

Is there a reason you cannot go back to IEW? If he was doing well with it, I'd go back to that.

Goodness! 6.5! He's doing fabulous! :)

Well, I know this is an old thread, but I have 100% enjoyed reading through it! My ds is almost 12 and in 6th grade. He had little writing instruction in public school, did a combo of IEW and CAP last year, but he disliked both and is a very reluctant writer. This is his week 14/d4 writing: Mars is the fourth planet from the sun. Mars has a diameter of 4,200 miles. A Martian year is 686 days and every day is twenty-four hours and 37 minutes almost like Earth. Mars’ dusty atmosphere is made out of nearly all carbon dioxide. Mars is very different from Earth. You will see the red cold surface of Mars is covered in huge red dust clouds. In the North, Pole there is hard, blue frozen ice about two kilometers thick. That’s a long way down! The cold gets through your shoes and makes your feet freeze. Dust gets in your eyes and stings really bad making it very hard to see. The wind and dust is blowing past at over 40 miles per hour. It stinks like iron all over because the dust is made out of iron oxide. There are huge craters over 3 miles deep. Volcanos erupt spraying lava that atleast makes you warm. Mars is a cold planet. The weather on Mars is like a four season snow globe changing all the time. So much that at summer it can reach up too 78.8 degrees Fahrenheit but in winter almost -230.8 Fahrenheit that is cold enough to nearly kill you and it can easily give you frost bite in a matter of minutes. He is very resistant to feedback from me, so if anyone still reads this thread and would like to offer him some feedback, I would appreciate that. Thanks.

How old is he? I thought he did a very good job since you are saying he's a "beginner." He wrote a lot! His handwriting is very neat. My 8yo writes large, too and it's a struggle to get him to write smaller, but I assume it will come with time.

I'm looking at the lengthy literature list in WTM for 7th grade and wondering which books/poems we should absolutely not skip. A little background of where we are: This is my 2nd year homeschooling. This year, ds has done some of the 6th grade reading list (Beowulf, Shakespeare, Canterbury Tales, King Arthur), but we have skipped a lot of the sources because I included some other good books for his age (A Wrinkle in Time, Tuck Everlasting). For next year, I want to make sure we get the classics on the schedule, but I know there are a lot of other good books to be read in middle school. We also enjoy adding some historical fiction and hero tales to our read aloud time. So, I guess my big question is, "How do I fit it all in??" There are 20 books on SWB's list! What can be skipped? Which ones are the most important? We will be covering 1600-1850 time period. Thanks. Michelle

My 6th grader is doing WWS1. We use R&S grammar 5 (he was new to R&S this year, so we were advised to start here) and TWTM for literature. We use the book lists in TWTM and some other sources (Sonlight, HOD, etc.), but we discuss the books using the guidelines in TWTM. We also do R&S mostly orally. I have him write answers one time each week, but I choose just one section to be completed on paper. We also skip the writing lessons, so we are moving along at 3x/week and I think we'll finish up by the end of the year.

I can only speak to Hake and level 5. It is open and go. I let my son write in the workbook and it was no problem. It did have diagramming, was easy to teach, and he completed it mostly independently. I only used it for one kid, but I can't imagine it would be hard to use with many. I switched from Hake only because it was a lot of writing for each lesson (for my kid-he was taking shortcuts) and I wasn't using the "writing" portion. He learned a lot in the one year we used it though! I'm actually leaning towards CLE next year b/c I want to go back to the workbook style. My younger son is using CLE for math and we've loved the format. I know LA will be different, but overall, I like the way the Lightunits work.

I just thought I'd bump this up for you... I have not used Winter Promise at all, but I have looked at it several times. I think the cost ends up keeping me away, but I'd be interested in responses to your question.

I'm thinking of changing spelling and adding in some logic and Spanish. We started Spanish last week and the kids are thrilled with it. Still deciding on the logic and spelling materials. I'm definitely making some changes for next YEAR, but for now, it is too expensive to change what I want to change. :)

Thanks! I'm using R&S, but not the writing, so I guess if I really wanted additional writing help, I could just use that! LOL! I appreciate your feedback about EIW.

I've been looking at samples of EIW and noticed that the earlier levels include a LOT of grammar instruction. Two questions: Is it *enough* grammar to stand alone without grammar supplements? Is it easy to skip? We already use a grammar program, so I don't want to overdo it. Thanks!

yes, that's the one. I thought there was more discussion somewhere... :confused1: Someone here must have more info. Sorry!