Roadrunner - He can write a paragraph, after pre planning/overthinking every detail with me, and some clarifications and occasional spelling as he goes. He might opt to finish it in multiple sittings depending on how his day is going. Not independently, and not on grade level. He is a sweet summer child who tends to take it personally if I craft an assignment that feels difficult. Both of us working together to get through something a curriculum assigned works best. We do have to change the topics occasionally since they're not aimed at his age. Lewelma - Thank you. ❤️ That is overwhelming but so, so good. I've read them through a few times and I'm digesting. Your posts were nearly all I found when searching the board. That spinning wheels comment pulled out by Porridge really hits home. The time amounts are hard to cope with. 😐 I need to sit with that. He has always detested making up stories, but he does have lots of things to say on many topics, and he's sharp at backing up his viewpoints. Social justice, sportsmanship, bit of politics, etc are more his thing. Spelling resonates. He used Writing Road to Reading which is also very technical. Now it's Megawords, technical rules taught explicitly. I've heard the spell check thing so many times. I've also heard my kid say "Google can't figure me out. How does ___ start?" even more. Punctuation is curious. He picks up punctuation and grammar like a pro in a grammar book. It feels like busywork. It just doesn't cross to his writing. My goal for this season was hitting paragraphs harder, but we've taken a hard detour to outlining. Organizing. We started building them orally in the car. Math! I want to unpack that but I need to do other things right now. Teaching him to write like the typical method instead of the method in his head is a lightbulb moment.

Any tips or btdt? How did you adapt a typical high school course of study? What would your 8th grade goals be? Reality checks for me? The goal posts obviously aren't going to move, but even with speech to text he simply won't make it through all the curriculum the older kids did before he graduates. 🤷‍♀️ He might be ready to start a modified and slowed down WWS 1 in 8th this fall. He is college bound and aiming at a dance career.

My current 7th grader is using most of the lit/readers and geography spines from Build Your Library level 7 this year. We're skipping the rest of the level. (I'm not familiar with Notgrass at all.)

My youngest did an evolution and prehistory year and it was hands down one of my favorites. ❤️ If you're looking for some more books or ideas our list is on this link. 6th Extinction has a young reader now too.

Logic and politics are very complimentary. 😂 For my older kids (graduated now) I made a Twitter/Xitter account and just followed political figures, blue and red, local and national. We had more fodder for fallacy practice than we could ever hope to analyze. 😄

There's a placement test for WWE that I'd definitely use first, but with an older kid you might find the hardcover instructor text might be more useful? It has all the teaching steps explained well and you'd need to pick your own excerpts to use. It's a little more work for you as the teacher, but it would let you hit their problem areas and move through it faster. For that 11yo though, I'd lean toward Writing With Skill level 1, Megawords spelling, and maybe Junior Analytical Grammar or Growing With Grammar.

That's a big jump. I would not. It appears what you're currently doing is working well. The only problem appears to be the comfort level with the child's age? Arithmetic being rock solid for success in algebra is far more important than the age they start algebra. If the child can genuinely move faster and still do as well I'd consider just moving faster, but if less review makes their scores dip I'd keep plodding at their pace. I agree with a possible change for a 7th or 8th grader. I might consider switching to Learn Math Fast for a teen.

If all mine were little I might agree with the clothing assessment. With three teenage boys my clothing budget would absolutely need to be bigger if they all went to public school. Currently they don't need to regularly have 5-6 days of "out all day" clothes with enough variety to not look like they're wearing the same thing week after week, so they don't have that much. They do have more dance class clothes than streetwear, but their dancewear needs won't decline regardless of where they're educated, and they're not about to start wearing leggings to high school. 😄

$50 a month for gas sounds ridiculously cheap. That would assume a good school very near my home, which is not our reality. One more district down the road crosses a magical line that means no bus option. One of mine would not be able to eat school lunches and would need to bring his own. His health would depend on other families following the no nuts policy and we'd definitely need more epi pens. The not homegrown kid (who has gone to public) hated the lunch line chaos and would only eat if I sent it with him. That leaves the very picky eater who'd much rather bring his own, so I'm 3:3 not getting free/cheap lunches. Then there are fees for performing arts, sports, etc. They'd all need more streetwear clothing than they own now. I didn't include the extracurriculars they'd be doing regardless. I could potentially earn more than I do now but I'd still be working from home. What we spend on curriculum isn't that bad in comparison. 🤷‍♀️😄

I've used that level. For 9th grade I'd break it up like this. English: I'd add literature guides for a handful of the lit titles. Only basic comprehension questions and a list of vocab words are included; no analysis work at all. It has report style writing assignments but no actual writing instructions and I don't remember any essays. (High school English is generally half literature and half writing.) Social studies: western civ history of science Science: general or physical science if you add better labs Math: nothing, that math book is just a fun history supplement and doesn't require any calculations Fwiw BYL 9 is also a general science year but a little more mature.

Literary Lessons from the Lord of the Rings. It's an intro lit analysis course that went through the trilogy and had units for other works as well. Not secular. If I recall correctly, if you don't mind skipping religious bits it wasn't difficult to do so. Best for strong 7th or average 8th-9th grades. The last kid I used it with has graduated so memories may be rusty. 🙃

Fwiw, I pulled in a basic Holt McDougal literature textbook this year and it doesn't suck. 🤷‍♀️ It's definitely secular and has far more lessons than we'd ever get through in a year, but it's not like I ever finished one when I was in school. 😄 But it has all the little things like poetry, speeches, short stories, etc that I might overlook, there were even Own Voices stories for minorities, and most of the correlated writing assignments were solid and worthwhile. I've added more modern/diverse authors on the side and cherry picked sections from the textbook. It's kept me on track and my 10th grader has had a solid year. 🙂

I saved that one to use with my youngest. When the time came he was horrified by the idea and his interest level was in the negatives. Less than zero. 🙃😂 My youngest kids have been so different from the older ones. I can pretty much bank on it not working for them if all the big kids loved it. 🤐

Tried poking around Teachers Pay Teachers? Either for full lit years or individual titles. It's like Etsy for educational materials, so do check out the reviews and most sellers offer small freebies so you can get a feel for quality. I can usually find individual guides for modern titles there easier than anywhere else.

We used lots of the Science in Ancient ____ books in elementary too. Build Your Library level 8 (roughly 8th grade) uses the Hakim science books if you're looking for ideas. Fwiw those books and that level are super eurocentric; if you want more than western civ science you'll want to supplement.