I would break it up into manageable chucks.

Ok. Sorry. I actually didn't mean to imply that others were shutting down their kids' inspired insights and not allowing any discussion at all. I guess we all approach things differently and I was reacting more from a personal perspective about a child that I am so thankful still wants to read with us. Sorry to come across as critical of others.

Yes. Yes. And triple Yes. Even my 17yo was doing this yesterday as we read because she was engaged and inspired by the concepts being read. Boy oh boy...that stuff is priceless. How could I ever shut that down???

Agreeing with above. I have my kids work on whatever writing/LA program they are doing 3x a week, and the other 2 days are for free writing. This has been great - my natural writers absolutely love having the opportunity to just write, create novels etc.

Oh, and READ-ALOUDS. Lots and lots of read-alouds. My 21yo college student who is living at home still joins us for read-alouds because she loves it. So much learning happens and family culture is built right there.

I agree with you about finding something and adjusting it to the kid if necessary rather than starting new things for each child. I use Sonlight and, after about 14 years, am still loving it. I have two younger girls who are at the beginning of their 'official' schooling and I was thinking about new starts and whether to do things differently this time - you know, being all retrospective. So, I asked my eldest dd what she got the most out of and remembered the best from her schooling. Her answer was 'Anything Sonlight'. So, that sealed it again for me. We are doing SL again with the little ones and loving it again. 😊

We just finished Seven Daughters and Seven Sons. Now reading Mary Slessor: Forward into Calabar, and Redwall.

These are our dishes rules: - dishwasher from night before is unpacked before breakfast so that there is space for new dirty dishes. NO BREAKFAST BEFORE THIS IS DONE. Extra dishes from last night's snack/drinks are washed up by me before bed and left to air dry so they also get put away before breakfast. - breakfast dishes go straight to dishwasher and two kids are on kitchen clean-up after breakfast which includes any extra dishes. - three kids wash and dry lunch dishes (one is a little). - one child unpacks dishwasher before dinner so it's available for dinner dishes. - After dinner, two kids are rostered on dinner clean up which involves packing dishwasher, washing and drying extra dishes. There are ALWAYS extra dishes here. - I wash up post-dinner dishes before bed so they can be put away before breakfast next morning. So, we need to do dishes after every. single. meal. to stay on top of things. If someone does baking in between meals then they are responsible for that clean - they can run an extra dishwasher load if they want. -

Sorry. Double post.

My 6th grade son is using SL Science E and he is really liking it. It's a lot about magnetism and electricity which involves lots of work with batteries and circuits etc. Yesterday he was building a mini model engine. Going great.

Yes. It is good to revise every now and then, but YES.

In regards to Life of Fred, I think Fractions would be a great start for your 7th grader - especially if he isn't a massive fan of math already ;) . I did it with my last-year's 7th grader (who is not a lover of math) and she enjoyed it while learning a lot. Fred looks at concepts from a different angle (pun intended ;)) and helps the kids really think about their math. If he does happen to find it easy then he can move through it quickly and move on - guaranteed he would still learn something.

I combined two of mine for some math last year using Life of Fred. It was great for combining and they learnt a lot. Having said that though, they still had their own level math as well but just didn't do as much of it as they would have if we weren't doing Fred too. if you wanted to combine you could start at LOF Apples and work through together. Because of the fun storyline it doesn't feel so much like they are competing.

K is world-ish. B and C do the whole sweep of world history using Child's History of the World but..... I would use SOTW along with it and stretch it out. That way you can skip American cores and come back in on Core F further down the track. That's what I've done in the past and will do again with my next lot of kids. I really like SOTW for that younger age group and it ties in nicely.

Another vote for Our Mother Tongue. I have my all my high schoolers do it as their 'wrap-up grammar program.

Have a look at Layers of Learning. It can be used with all ages for content studies then you just add stage appropriate math and LA. www.layers-of-learning.com (Sorry, can't figure out how to post a link from my new phone...)

I think I would do either B or C with older two combined. I know 10 is older than the age given for those cores but I've done it with an older kid and it was fine - just do a higher LA package with ds10 or even just give him harder books to read and have him do writing from the same as dd8. Definitely p4/5 with 5yo. I'm doing it at the moment with my misses 4 and just-turned-6 and it's great. My 6yo is doing LAk as well but the LA in p4/5 is gentle and is great for a child not reading yet. Also, for what it's worth, being an Aussie mum too, I don't intend to do cores D&E with my younger two so I plan on taking my time with cores K, B and C and interspersing them with Aus history along the way. I will still do the D and E readers though as they are great 😉.

I alternate days for my kids to do the different elements of LA. They do spelling and an English workbook on Mon, Wed and Fri, with grammar and (sometimes) dictation in between on Tues and Thurs. Also, for composition we use a program on 3 days and have free writing on the other two. This allows us to not have everything every day while maintaining an element of consistency. I tend to think that the skill subjects need to be done pretty consistently or you can lose momentum and jeopardise progress. The block schedule would work great with content subjects though.

My 13yo read HF for 'fun'. She just decided she was going to read it because it was part of a set of classics she was given. She thought it was pretty terrible but insisted on finishing it anyway just so she could say she did, I think. 😉 I know she wouldn't be impressed if I tried to get her to read it for school ðŸ˜.

All-in-one-homeschool is a great online curriculum and it is totally free. I use parts of it but not all because I don't like everything being computer based but, if that was what you were wanting, it would be great. Check it out.... https://allinonehomeschool.com/ PS: The author is Christian but you could just not do the Bible portions.

Yes, they need to be purchased from the PHP store but they are only $3.99 (I think) each. Totally worth it.

SWB's audio lectures on how to teach writing at elementary, middle grades, and high school levels are fantastic. They are all about method and how to build skills in your child - not about particular curricular. Highly recommend :)

I'm doing Sonlight P4/5 with my 4 and 5 year olds. We really love it. They are learning lots of 'sciencey' things, character traits, Bible verses, community/social studies aspects, and we are reading great stories together. We get out the map and find countries that the stories come from. Sometimes we look that country up in the atlas. There are great little activities that go along with some of the readings, and also some skills development activities like cutting, skipping, etc. It's a perfect program for this age IMHO. HTH

https://allinonehomeschool.com/getting-ready-1/ I'm using Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool with my 4yo for reading. She loves it. It's low key and has printable activities. You can choose Getting Ready 1 which is single sounds. Or skip forward to McGuffy Primer which introduces sight words. Or...Getting Ready 2 which incorporates learning to read with phonics.

The Piano Guys are extremely popular here...