I'm starting to really consider sending my daughter to public school because I just don't know if I can teach her anymore. She just turned 10 and we have been homeschooling since 2nd grade, so this is our 3rd year. The first year was good, just the usually first year kinks to work through but I was happy with her progress and most of the time she was agreeable and easy to work with. Last year was OK but definitely noticed a decline in her willingness to work and it was hard to get her through an hours worth of work. This year has been even worse. She screams and hollers like a 2 year old having a tantrum whenever I call her to the table for school work and has such a bad attitude towards it that I worry she isn't retaining anything. She is a would be 4th grader so I try to give her work that I KNOW she can figure out solo but she hates this and unless I am sitting right next to her holding her hand through each problem she melts into a pile of negative goo and claims she doesn't understand and can't do it alone. She CAN do it alone though and is a really smart kid, I have seen it. She's a wiz at math and I never give her independent work she can't handle and I always tell her to do what she can and then ask for help that I am happy to give. I'm at a crossroads now. I WANT to homeschool my kids so much but I feel like I can't do this without at least a little help from her end. I can't get her to do anything without fight and tears and I know this isn't a good learning experience for her. I am not proud of it but i do threaten public school almost daily and this really gets her mad, she claims she HATES public school and never, ever wants to go back. She didn't have a negative experience there at all and is actually a pretty social kid who gets along with all kinds of people and makes friends quick so I don't know why she feels such a resistance to school but she does. Anyway I am thinking of sending her back for the rest of this year (after Christmas) thinking maybe it will snap her out of this funk she seems to be in and help her get back on track and maybe appreciate her homeschool a little more? I'm looking for experience and advice, does this sound like a bad idea? has anyone had to send kids back to school for a little wake up call and if so did it work!? Thanks for listening, I'm at my wits end at this point and don't know what to do next :(

I think I looked at almost every homeschool science curriculum available last night! ended up going with Elemental Science Biology for the logic stage, looks closest to what kind of program I wanted to try so hopefully it works out!

I'm sure there are posts similar to this question but wondering what other people like to use for a 10 yo who wants to do vet science! I'm thinking zoology would be a good place to start and wonder if anyone can recommend some good curriculum?

I second the Witch of Blackbird Pond, I just read it recently and enjoyed it. I plan to pass it along to have my kids read it at some point in the future.

Thank you for the input. My youngest who I would be getting RLTL for was recently tested for LD and though nothing was detected they found that he wasn't able to sound out words, something I notice too. Which is why I think this program would be good for him. I think I will take your advice and check into getting level 1 to start. He does enjoy ETC a lot so I'll probably stick to that as well. Is ELTL very similar to WWE?

Thank you, maybe I'll get level 2 and 3 for now and then if my oldest feels like it's too easy I'll get 4 but buying 3 wouldn't be a waste because I'll have it for when the youngest is ready. We have been slacking on any LA this past year so I think starting slow wouldn't be a bad idea :/

Thank you that looks perfect! I think ive heard of it but never really gave it a look, seems like a god fit at first glance

for my struggling 8 year old would be almost third grader! He just doesn't like math and fights me about it so hard he doesn't even try and forgets the simply things like addition to 10. I have him in MM 1 still but it just seems like this program isn't a fit for him. Have tried MUS a little (havent bought it just tried it from a friends workbook). I'm looking for a really basic program that will present him with easy concepts at first and really drive home some basic facts and then ease into the next step without him noticing that it gets harder! I am thinking I would get him right into a 2nd grade level on something, we are schooling through the summer (hopefully!). this is a long shot but has anyone used this program?- https://www.engageny.org/ I don't live in NY state but I have a teacher friend, also not teaching in NY, who says her school uses this program and that it was a good one. What's awesome is it's free and you can download all the materials it seems. It kind of seems like what I need, just wondering if anyone has seen it.

I have been looking at these two programs and they look like what I need in our homeschool right now. I have a 9 1/2 year old who would be going into 4th grade, reads very well and loves grammar (for some reason that is beyond me!) I was thinking level 4 but have noticed some people go down a level on these programs. For my 8 year old would be going into 3rd grader, I was thinking of getting the level 2 ELTL and then level 3 RLTL. He reads OK but definitely needs a program to help him out. He is doing ETC book 3 now and reads at about an early 2nd grade level if I had to guess? I thought level two looked to easy for him but maybe im missing something there.

This looks great! Anyone know how to see a sample of it though? The website says scroll down for a free sample but I dont see a link or anything when I scroll?? Also I recommend Horse Lovers Math. I bought it for my daughter who is 9 1/2 yo and a horse fanatic and she loves it. I wouldn't say it's a stand alone math program but she likes doing it here and there when she wants a break from her Beast Academy books. So far she has done the first chapter which is a lot of money problems. I think just the idea that it's called Horse Lovers Math has her sold!

C-rods, hands down! such a great visual for my struggling math student

We plan to use it for our homeschool, just looking at things we find :) my kids are 8 and 9 and we have a small scope that I had when I was their age that they love using but we could use an upgrade!

I was looking at the AmScope M100C-LED. It's a compound scope and only 70$ right now on Amazon marked down from 450$. It's quite a sale so I was a little skeptical that maybe there was something wrong with it but all the reviews on Amazon seem really great!

Does anyone have any recommendations for good microscopes to get for kids? I am looking on Amazon right now and have an AmScope microscope in my cart ready to buy buy thought I'd just come on here real quick and see if anyone has any microscope they really love and would recommend :)

Yep! I wrote a similar post here once on this topic. My kids went to public school and HATE the thought of going back but I constantly have to remind them of what it could be like instead and how nice it is to be able to play for most of the day and just do a couple hours of work (with me holding their hand through most of it!). In fact I just ended school for today when I caught my 9 year old daughter mocking me with the old blah, blah, blah hand motion while I explained her Beast Academy lesson to her! OK I said- "I'm done!" I do give them a talking to almost daily reminding them I'm doing A LOT of extra work to give them this (I'm also a single parent supporting them financially 100%) so hopefully one day it sinks in and I get a big old "thanks Mom!" but for know I just keep trucking and reminding myself how thankful I am I get to homeschool my sweet children ;) haha

I've never really looked into it but there has to be a website that you can borrow books from right? I'm looking for easy reader books for my son specifically. My local libraries are small and far away as we live in a rural area so i'm thinking it might be easier to get some books in the mail. Anyone have a site they have used?

My 9 1/2 year old daughter is working on WWE 2. She would be considered a 3rd grader this year but does some 4th grade stuff too. I haven't looked at WWE 3 so im not sure what the difference is. I'm sure we will continue this program and eventually get to book 3. I do sometimes skip through the lessons and have skipped whole weeks of the book if I find that she has a good grasp on a concept and doesn't need repetition on it. I thought about getting right into book 3 this year but didn't want to miss anything

The books I currently take the time to copy are the Beast Academy workbooks and WWE. I copy these because I feel like these have a higher value to me, I like these materials and want to reuse them :) As a side note, I like to buy as many ebooks as I can because I feel like this is a easier way to reuse material.

Thanks for the replies. I went ahead and ordered this book making words for now as it seemed a less expensive way to try out letter tiles. I was able to find out the set of letters for the first lesson in this book by previewing the table of contents so I tried it out with him today. We have along way to go and I'm hoping this book will help me give him the guidance he needs!

Thank you for the replies. What does RSO stand for? I don't think I've seen it on here before so I'm not familiar with the abbreviation? I was trying to think back to when I started regular science and math in my schooling (public school) and it seems like it was 4-5th grade. I think that is when i will start with my kids. We did pick up Adventures in America for a little while but they just seemed to not be interested and really didn't seem to be getting anything out of it. We also tried a science program but same results. Seems like just an exposure and interest lead approach at this age is a good way to go.

I'm looking for a reading program that uses letter tiles to make words. My son is almost 8 and having a hard time reading and spelling. He recently had an evaluation at the local school and the specialist he tested with recommended that I use letter tiles so that he has to see and sound out each letter in a word. She mentioned the program Making Words and that looks good but I want to explore other programs also as I am sure there are a few out there that use letter tiles. Any recommendations?

I've sort of done history and science with my kids but honestly it's taken a back seat to math and LA in our 2 year homeschool journey. I'm just wondering when everyone else really starts doing these subjects as a part of the everyday curriculum? Also what have you used?

Thanks for the replies. Very helpful stuff here. It's hard for our family to have a routine so I am guessing that is where most of the trouble lies. My work schedule doesn't get handed to me until usually late Wednesday and it contains the hours I'll be working for the coming week starting that Friday. It's always different, some weeks I work every single day others I will work only one shift! It is somewhat predictable in that it is usually nights but this means my kids are off to my parents for the night and then I go pick them up in the morning and they have to transition from chilling at mimi's house to coming home to cram in some school time before going back to mimi's for another night. It's hard and I don't blame them for getting a little out of whack at times. I wish it could be different but it is what it is right now. I'm going to at least try and give them a little more of a heads up on how the coming day is going to play out. A lot of times I just get busy trying to figure it out myself and end up just giving them 10 minutes to get in the car and then no real warning about whats happening next in our day. Some days I don't even have time to get in any lessons and don't even tell them we aren't going to be doing school this day. Then the next day I all of a sudden will tell them it's school time. Yeah, I can see how this would be confusing and met with resistance :/

Oh I know. I did my fair share of complaining when I was in school myself! :) I just know that they wouldn't be so hard on someone else trying to get them to do work and that's where I get doubting whether or not I should continue trying to be their teacher and get frustrated. I think mostly I need a better LA approach. I like WWE but feel like they both need more then just that. They both have climbing to good english but are both really not huge fans of that and put up a big fuss when they have to do a page in those books. I'd like something to go along with WWE that covers everything else kids need in LA and is easy to implement.

So I've been homeschooling my two kids for 2 years now. They are 9 and 8. Every single time we sit down to do school work they complain. We don't do much, we are boardline unschooling at this point. they each do math for about 20-30 minutes with me, never independently because they wont do it if im not sitting there with them. They also each do WWE and my youngest does ETC and my oldest does cursive with HWT. Both also have the CTGE books but hate those books so much they shriek and hide when I bring them out! Collectively they probably do about an hour of work each on the days we do school work. There are days we take off because I work full time, mostly nights and weekends, but sometimes my work schedule makes it so they spend the day with my mom so I can work during daytime hours. I have told them over and over that homeschooling cannot work if they dont stop complaining and put forth some effort. I sacrifice a lot to do this, I'm working fulltime and all my extra time goes into giving them this. It is beyond frustrating to hear them whine everyday and half ass their way through a lesson and obtain nothing from it. My son was just tested because I thought his extreme resistance to anything school work related might be a learning disability. Nope, nothing was found. He scored well below his grade level but the results came back with no signs of a learning disability. So he's behind his peers, so what I'm not too worried about grade level, isnt that the beauty of HSing? kids get to learn at their pace, right? BUT what if they dont even want to learn? what if they pitch a fit every time you declare it "school time" and ask them to sit for 30 minutes and learn how to add! Ugh, sorry this is all over the place but im at my wits end. I'm so ready to send them packing to the nearest elementary school some days but I SO want to give them this that it's mostly an empty threat :/ They both love homeschooling, and why wouldnt they, they get to play all day minus an hour when they whine their way though a few math problems and a little writing! Do I need to try all new curriculum? Do I need to send them back to school? I'm so willing to be their teacher but how can I do it when they make it impossible! Any advice or experience is appreciated :)