I ordered a used McGuffey 4 reader. I didn't realize there were so many different editions! Is it worth the money to buy new (so I can be sure the edition) to get the Wiley revision?

Yeah I am in that group. It doesn't offer much.

Yeah I am in that group. It doesn't offer much.

Thanks for the recommendation. DS is 9 and going through a big growth spurt and emotions are high. I want a book to cover the physical changes, and sex. We will just work through it as needed. And probably a different book covering maturity (responsibility, work, emotions, etc.)

What are some of your favorite books for boys concerning puberty and growing into manhood? Preferably from a Christian perspective.

We are entering our fifth year of homeschooling. So much of the resources out there (books, blogs, etc) focus on those in countries where homeschooling is a thing. I am reaching the point where I am feeling like homeschooling is limiting DS friendships. People don't homeschool here, so there are no groups to join. BUT homeschooling gives us the ability to travel so much. We get to learn history and go see the places where it all happened. And we can personalize DS education. I really enjoy homeschooling and the opportunities it gives us. Anyways, any resources or books for those who live overseas and homeschool? I feel like I have asked this before. There has to be something out there of people who have gone before and how they handled it all.

Memorizing is important, but it must be relevant and needed. We do a lot of memory work in our homeschool, but it is always connected to what we are learning or needed. We also memorize a lot of poetry and Scripture. From what I have seen CC does memorization for memorization's sake in the early years. It is disconnected to what each child is needing at the moment and just a program to work through. And then they try to use what was disconnected in the next two levels. I have seen a lot of friends leave CC during the middle school years. I think people then see that the memory work didn't produce anything.

Rod and Staff has clearer and more mathematically correct explanations. CLE takes many lessons (even splitting between workbooks) to fully explain one concept. I really don't think (after 4th in R&S) that there is much difference in how they are able to be independent. Rod and Staff does have a lot of review built in. But you could also type up or use a whiteboard and put the review the TM has for each lesson. We found CLE to be too much variety in a day's work. And it moved too slowly.

My 9 year old only listens to around 20 to 30 minutes. We do read aloud a several times a day. So it adds up to most days being an hour or and hour and a half. When he was preschool ages he wanted to hear the same stories over and over again. It was the best thing we ever did. That is how his vocabulary grew. He heard the same words used in the same stories so often that those words became his. We only owned 120 books from the ages of 3 to 6. And we rotated through them daily. (We lived overseas then and that was all we brought with us. We still live overseas, now in a different country, but have brought more and different books with us here). Rereading is a necessary step in development.

Great job!

Looks like a great resource. Thanks for sharing.

Right!?! I have been here six years, and have a lot of posts. But compared to others it looks like I never post.

I agree with the recommendation for Phonics Pathways. It is very easy to use. The book can also double for spelling too.

At home we rotate from NIV and ESV DS has a memory book he is working through from our home church back in the States in ESV. So we have been doing a lot with that recently. Some of our school work has KJV. I don't like to have so much different, but DS seems to handle it fine. I grew up with the NIV. That is what I memorized with growing up. We have a bunch of Bibles at home KJV, ESV, NIV, NASB, NLT.

Our lockdowns had too many negative effects on my family. My son became so unhealthy. We won't lockdown again by choice. And if we have the ability we will leave the country we live in to avoid what we experienced. (We don't live in the States, so our experience was vastly different). My family, including my DS who was 8 at the time, all had COVID and recovered. The fear he went through was far worse for him than the virus itself. We are going to parks, and spending lots of time playing outside. We have 6 months where we couldn't even be outside! Not again. Fresh air, sun, exercise are all too important.

100% agree

Ah ok thanks. That will make searching easier.

Thanks everyone. I don't feel so alone now. 😂 I just never know if I am babying Ds or not. I think we will be fine tucking him in until he says otherwise. It works for now and is a great time to have purposeful connection. We spend so much time together that sometimes we aren't purposeful in our time.

I can't find samples of History Odyssey online. Am I missing it somewhere? It is different than what is on Pandia Press correct?

We have a bedtime routine that we have done since DS was born. DS is now 9. He gets PJs on brushes teeth. Then we both go in and pray, give the blessing and hugs and kisses. We just spent a few nights with friends. Their youngest is 10. They just sent their kids to bed. And it got me thinking. What age did you stop praying, and trucking your kid in bed, and just started having them put themselves to bed?

We do Latin 3 days a week and Greek (just the alphabet right now)2 days a week. I set a timer for 30 min. with Latin and 15 for Greek. That is working well so far. We also have a local language that ds has a tutor for. He started with 3 hours a day for 3 months and is now doing 2 hours 3 days a week. This gives a lot of time on language, but DS loves it and it is important to him and me.

Lots and lots of kids lose languages they are fluent in. My son has lost one since we moved. He was fluent (for his age, so did not have adult vocabulary, but had what other 5 year olds had). It has nothing to do with connection, but all to do with the brain. The brain is still in the age of forming any language. Which means it also can lose language.

Writing Strands I haven't seen the new one put out by Master books. But the old edition was written to the student.

Awful and sad.

It was in California