I am still struggling to decide history options. We will finish Veritas Press history cycle in the next two months. I want to start a three year cycle as we don't know what our plans for high school are as of now (homeschooling or sending to a school). I have many field trips planned for ancient history. So I want something that provides depth, but isn't so overwhelming with reading that we get behind while doing projects and field trips. I have narrowed it down some. I want a spine text that is narrative in style. I like adding historical fiction, and biographies to round our readings out. So right now I am looking at Memoria Press' Dorothy Mills' books. Looking at past threads people say these are middle school level books, but MP uses some in HS. These also look long. Are they too long to finish two in a school year? There also isn't a book for modern history so I would need to find something else for that. Are these books too much detail and info? Beautiful Feet intermediate history. This looks like a good mix of using a spine and lots of other books to round it out. There are 4 years that I can find. Would it be too much to combine the last two into one year? K12 History Odyssey seems like a great series. The samples I looked at seem like it feels very textbook like though. Does the reading feel more narrative? Does it give depth? Enough to follow rabbit trails? Does it spend enough time on ancient history to also add in a lot of literature and field trips? Thanks for your thoughts on comparing these curriculums.

I didn't know there were YouTube videos. We have used the recordings from the website and commentary. DS likes to use the recordings.

Great time to start Latin! We have really enjoyed Getting Started with Latin and following up with Keep Going with Latin. The program is very easy to use and explains concepts well.

DS reads around an hour each day. Usually that is a chapter or two of whatever novel he is reading. During the school year he has an added half hour of an assigned book.

We have a lot of books that cover these things. I was thinking of having him do some art projects drawing the architecture we see. And maybe making a model.

That book looks great! Thanks. Crete is on our possible list as of now. We plan four days at each site totalling 8 places we visit. I have looked into it before and Turkey doesn't have options for assisting digs unless you are in university. I have to look at what Greece has.

1 hour long for 8 classes in a level. During summer the 8 classes are done in 2 weeks, during the school year the options are twice a week for a month or once a week for two months.

We will be spending a month between many ancient ruins now that travel has opened back up. We will be studying ancient/greek history to coincide with our travel. We have visited many ancient ruins in the past (and returning to some we have already been to) so my DS is past just looking and walking through the ruins. But we will be taking a whole month of travel to focus on sites that are of interest to us. I need help brainstorming projects/assignments DS can do. He will be 11. I plan to read a retelling of Troy while we visit Troy. And possibly have him create a map of the excavation and then match up with events from the story. We are already very familiar with the Greek Myths. What else can we do?

I'm looking for video or streaming options for elective classes. I was talking to my DS about my middle school experience and remembered all the variety of electives I was able to take. I'm thinking of photography, art, home ec., P.E., handicrafts, etc. Anyone know of places that offer electives in video or streaming? Or self paced books?

You can use any printing of the books. Except the books that are translations. Those will need to be that specific translation.

It will depend on a lot of things. Will visual memory tricks work? There are a lot of math programs and supplements thst are visually based. For Latin, Getting Started with Latin would be easy to start with. It breaks everything down well. Learning one word or concept a lesson. Make some flash cards to help the vocabulary stick. But Latin might be very frustrating for someone struggling with memory. It could be held off for a few years too. To figure out reading. Do some read alouds and have child narrate. That will tell you a lot. Then have the child read aloud then narrate. Then have child read silently and narrate. That should give you a clear idea if there is a weakness in understanding, or reading, or if the child needs to hear themselves reading.

For the most part you need to wait until your child is school age amd see how best they learn. It will take a year or two to find your groove. For both teacher and children to find what resources and methods work for you both. Robinson was appealing to me before we started schooling. But that method doesn't work here for us. Remember it was a dad having to find something that worked for his family after his wife passed. His older ones were not schooled that way the whole way through. What works for one family won't work for all no matter how well a person can sell their ideas. The best things to do now is to read aloud, play, and do fine and gross motor activities. These things will give you a lot of insight into the type of learner you have. My ds could remember books I read aloud so well, and he still is an audio learner.

The elementary books for math and LA have been around for a while. Written by a homeschooling mom. She just partnered with MB as a publisher several years ago. Her stuff was free on her own site for a time. If I am remembering correctly she does not have a math background. The math is very weak in my opinion. I looked at it when it was free. I am sure some changes were made with the change to MB but from what I read it doesn't seem like much changed.

Level 2 would be far too young for those ages. 4 or 5 would be a good jumping in point. Getting through 6 or 7 is a very solid foundation in English. So, don't look at it like you need to get through book 8 if you step back.

I just flew internationally two weeks ago and masks were required on all my flights.

Sorry to hear about your rough patch. Glad things are working out a little better. Welcome back.

We live in the Middle East as well. We have enjoyed learning Latin as an academic subject. It has helped with grammar and talking through languages. That way our living language can be just that and doesn't need to be analyzed. We started Greek Alphabet this year and have found it to be a fun addition. But my son loves languages.

It does get confusing! 😁

Do you think the Kingfisher has enough alone to be the spine or would I need to supplement with the topic encyclopedias from Usborne too? I feel like the Kingfisher would give us a good overview. Or maybe adding in documentaries would make it enough?

I did look at the samples before asking here. But you just never get a good feel for it from just samples. And we spend a lot in shipping so I just like to be sure. I am glad they are more informational than you remember. I think I will get them just to have as the history and biography aspect since we don't have a library. Is the science Kingfisher like the history one? I like the amount of information the history one has. Any other spine you would suggest? We are fine with Christian or secular (we do plan to teach evolution during middle school and again in high school).

Thanks. I do like having downloadable options as we are overseas. So I will look at those. I haven't seen the Tiner books in person. But from what you said they probably won't fit our needs then. I was hoping they offered more scientific info on the topic not just biography.

I have been looking at science for middle school. I looked at Apologia, but I think it looks dry (we could make it work, but I feel it is a lot to invest right now and would rather wait until high school). And I was looking at Sonlight. I like the looks of Sonlight science for middle school. However, after looking at Sonlight I looked more at TOPScience. I feel like these would really be perfect for DS. So would it be enough to have three or so TOPS units, a corresponding Tiner book, and the Kingfisher Science encyclopedia? Would that make a well rounded science for middle school? And would it be enough? I would have DS write throughout the units.

The chapter explanations are the best I have used. But each practice set of sentences, each poem used, and examples are full of Bible verses or Christian related content. If you are willing to do work before the beginning of the year you probably could provide other sentences to use in the exercises.

Progeny Press is religious. There are questions where you look up a Bible verse and then apply it to what you have read. But those questions are easily skipped. I found there were too many questions per chapter that I went through and skipped several. But they don't have religion throughout the guides, it is just found in some application questions. And then some character focus when the books lead to that type of response.

No, I don't think you can.