We are in CC and honestly we are in it and stay due to all of our friends in the program. For my oldest she's very social and having her friends around her and seeing all the kids doing the work encourages her and she needs it. My second daughter is advanced in academics and I actually think challenge wouldn't challenge her enough. I think one could easily surpass the program offered in challenge on your own. Join a debate team, take Lukeion for latin, buy roman roads for high school history. Challenge type classes could be done for much cheaper including 1 or 2 online classes and online classes where you would have an actual teacher who knows the material they are teaching.

I like the picture. It feels calm and serene. In fact I wish I could stroll there with the peasants after my crazy day with sick kids. I've always loved the 1800's, or at least I love my romantic idea's of the time period.

This is my first year of teaching my twins. I teach them math and phonics separately. In math one twin does MM1 and the other RSA which I did to help them not realize one was a little advanced in math. I actually do school from 7-8 with my early bird twin and then 8-9 with the other. It helps to get them done first thing in the morning.

We use MM as a spine and one dd does LoF and the other BA as a supplement. MM is 2 pages a day. It takes between 30-60 min depending on the day (and kid my youngest workes quicker). We have a seperate math time with each DD. LoF is 2 chapters a day and BA is every other problem 6 pages. It takes another 20-30 min to get through the extra math time. It's helped tremendously to have that additional time especially for my oldest. LoF gives her more review with a gental approach. I should add I allot 1 hour math time for our spine. When they finish their MM work quickly we use the extra time to do their suppliment math other wise it is done at the end of the day. I find more than an hour of math and my oldest gets frustrated and doesn't think through it as well.

I completely agree with this. I like having my older kids read books to the younger kids. It helps me and they get read aloud practice. My older kids are in 5th and 6th grade.

I had a Sept birthday so I started school at 4 turning 5. I never really thought about it until high school. I hated having to wait to get my permit. All my 18yo senior friends could sign their own notes for school, I couldn't. All my friends turned 21 before me so they got into bars earlier. Age really isn't a big factor when homeschooling though. Homeschooled kids generally are taught by ability not age. I have twins in TK(by state cutoff) and one twin is in kinder math, the other 1st grade and both are only half way through their kinder phonics curriculum. We move up based on what they are academically ready for not because of a birthday. Most homeschoolers I know enroll in dual credit classes jr year of high school. The classes are free until you graduate so it's almost to good to pass up.

We are using Lightening Lit 7. We went through figuratively speaking this year and we might go back through it again.

We've just read books. I do pick certain books I want them to read. This year we did Figuratively Speaking but it was very informal. We went through the pages together and talked about all the different literary terms. Next year my rising 6th grader will be doing Lightening Literature 7. I had Mosdos Press two years ago. My kids didn't like the stories and the workbook felt like a lot of busy work. I also tried a few different guides that year and my kids hated all of them. We tossed them and just focused on reading. We are in a homeschooling charter that requires yearly testing. Their scores on comprehension skills and vocabulary skills were a little bit low when we were doing the guides. The last two years without using anything their scores have gone way up. I don't know if that was age related but it helped reassure me the guides were not doing us any good and we have done fine without them.

We bounced around a bit in the beginning but once we found math mammoth we stuck with it. We've used MM grade 2-6.

My daughter's scalp is very sensitive. I bought a wet brush and I give it to her when she is taking a shower. She shampoos and then when the conditioner is in her hair she brushed the knots out. It is the only way I can get her hair brushed.

I guess I should keep my girls in their Robotics class. My oldest will be in 7th grade next year and I've been thinking about this also. Mostly I'm spending more time researching everything and poking around on the high school board. I like the idea of exploring subjects and picking the right school vs picking a school and aiming at that. Even if your Ds picks a career there's no guarantee he will want that career in another 4 years. Many kids change majors in college so even by college not all kids know. My oldesest is not a very motivated kid so I will probably spend more time giving her some sort of direction but my younger dd wants to be an engineer and is loving robotics so we will probably stick to that.

I really liked the show. I was a troubled teen and a lot of stuff in the show hit home. As an adult who had somewhat forgotten many of those issues it was a great reminder of how all encompassing these problems can be. As an adult a lot of problems seem so trivial but as a teen any one of the 13 reasons could make them feels as if their entire world is over. I'm a mom of 2 girls 11 and 12 and I appreciated the reminder of the culture these kids live in. It also made me happy that we homeschool. I should add I think it is a great show for adults and well adjusted teens to see how actions that you may not put a lot of thought into can really affect people, I don't see it as being a great show for mentally distressed teens. I can see it adding to the feeling of hopelessness.

I considered dumping MM after 4th grade for my oldest. We stuck with it and she's did a little better 5th grade and now in 6th I really feel like she got it. I am really glad we stuck it out. Seeing her get math after years of struggling was so worth it. This year we added life of fred for a gentle review. She likes the stories and I like her getting extra practice on decimals, fractions and percents.

What worked - Reading eggs, love this program! It helps me give my boys some reading practice when we are busy Analytical Grammar - Still a fav, I'm actually sad we are done with it Math Mammoth - Finally I feel like I see the fruit of the last 3 year with this program with my oldest Beast Academy - gives my younger daughter the challenge that she needs Latin Book One - I love this program! So good! I wish it had a teachers guide though What didn't work - Logic of English foundations - I may go back to this over the summer but it moved to fast Latin Alive - I have realized I am not a fan of classical academic press products I don't like the way they organize their products. I need programs to be a little more structured. All in all I've had to learn to be flexible and to not try and cram so much work in. We started the year with a ton of programs but teaching 4 kids at home is harder than I thought and it's forced some independence on my older kids and forced me to let go.

DD 11 just started the Anne of Green Gables 2 days ago and is halfway through it. I held off starting the series with her because it held such a special place in my heart as a kid. I'm so happy she's loving it. DD 12 is reading Sherlock Holmes.

We are with a charter and my plan is to pull my kids out when they reach high school. I'm still researching college requirement since it seems they all have different qualifications. Most homeschoolers (not with a charter) I know go the jr college route which eliminates the need for A-G classes and saves money. I do know a few families who went straight to private universities without any problems. I've been told the universities have different requirement for homeschoolers so it would be a benefit to not be with a charter since a charter student's application shows as just a public school student so you need all of the A-G requirements. None of my friends kids have gone straight to a public university though so I have yet to see that firsthand. Another reason a lot of homeschoolers go to jr college first is because in CA duel enrollment at jr college is free aside from the cost of books. Duel enrollment kids don't get first priority when picking classes though and our jr colleges tend to be overcrowded. I homeschool for flexibility with schooling and if I stay with the charter I lose that flexibility. I also feel I can provide a better education without the charter for high school than I can within the charter guidlines.

My twins are technically K next year but are all over the place academically Math - Twin A Right Start B Twin B Math Mammoth 2 w/ BA2 if it's out Phonics- Logic of English B and C History - US using layers of learning Science - CC Extra - stem class and MP Enrichment 1st

My DD says the same thing and we are using the same curriculum. We currently use both MM and BA. In BA we skip problems. At the most half of the page sometimes just one problem a page and we go through about 8 pages a day. I think it's a great curriculum though and it's written in a language that dd understands. We are zooming through it just for my peace of mind so that I know we cover every topic but I think once math gets challenging it will be a little more fun. Then again maybe not. Math was always easy for me but I never loved it. It was just an easy A class. My goal with DD is to push her to her full potential without burning her out. I would push your DD through the easy parts skipping questions and when you get to a section where she doesn't easily answer the questions let her do more problems. My rule for BA is as long as she can answer the questions without my help we will continue skipping problems but if she needs help we go back and add the problems we skipped.

Math - pre algebra not sure which one yet Grammar - Analytical Grammar Reinforcement and Review Writing - WWS 2 Literature - not sure maybe lightening literature? Vocabulary- Wordly Wise Science - Stem Center Robotics and Engineering class History - unsure Latin - Latin Book 2 Extra - Piano, Competition Dance, Crossfit Kids

Math - AoPs Pre-Algebra Writing - WWS 2 Grammar - Analytical Grammar Review and Reinforcement Science - Local Stem Center Robotic and Engineering class Latin - Latin Book Two History - not sure she's requesting SoTW 3 with a minecraft class Literature - lightening literature 7 Extra: Piano and Crossfit kids

I do have MM6. That might be a good idea. If nothing else, it will help me not feel like I'm throwing her into something she's not ready for. I let her try a couple problems on alcamus today and she did fine.

If you are currently working in BA5 what are you plans next year? Most sequences hit pre-algebra 7th grade but BA seems to go into pre-algebra after BA5. I'm not sure if I should skip 6th grade math for DD. She's a very strong math student but I'm worried about missing something by skipping a year. We use MM also so we will have finished BA5 (as long as 5D is published before the end of the year) and MM5.

My daughter is ADHD, SPD and is doing MM and BA. I have her do only every other problem in BA.She is currently working through 4C ad 4D. We do about 8 pages a day and are planning on slowing down a bit once we get to 5A. My goal with BA is to get her to think outside of the box with BA. She really zooms through MM with no problem at all and BA provides puzzles that really get her to think. My daughter tends to slow down with simple math facts (addition, multiplication etc) but she understands algebraic idea's very easily. BA is the only thing that I've found to really get her to think about the problem. We do 2 pages a day also of MM. I have her do pretty much all the problems in MM. I really love the combination of the two programs for her.

We have LOE and my twins were not doing so good with blending. I grabbed a cheap book I bought last year but never used called the reading lessons teach your child to read in 20 lessons and they have thrived. It's a large books so the 20 lessons is a little deceiving. We use about 2-3 pages a day and they are blending so well now. I've found just working every day 15 mins a day does wonders. I don't have a lot of time to work with my twins since my older girls take up so much of the day but a little daily goes a long way. I will have them sound out the word themselves but if I can see they aren't hearing it I sound it out with them and they seem to hear it when I sound it out. The farther we get the less I've had to help them. It's crazy that a $16 book is working so much better than the expensive book with all the bells and whistles was working for them although we will probably eventually go back to LOE since we already have it.

We are doing mapping the world through art this year. I like it but it's more of a cartography class. My kids like drawing so it's been fine but I also think we could have skipped it. I pulled together some worksheets to cover different types of maps (physical, political, climate etc) just because I feel map reading is a skill many kids don't learn anymore because of phones and technology, of course you could argue they don't need to know it because of phones and technology. I do think generally these are easy skills to learn and most kids will be able to figure out how to figure out a map on their own but I felt like I should cover it so I did.