I left CC to do TOG. It's not that CC isn't great. It's a lot of work. TOG is also a lot of work. Just keep in mind that you cannot do everything well. Both are expensive and time-consuming. IMO, I would feel that I had wasted my time and money on one or the other. The two programs have completely different aims in mind and both are rigorous. I wrote about the switch in my blog, and wrote about the co-op that we formed and pursued hard for a year ( and consequently burnt out ). This year we have settled into a lovely TOG year with a partial co-op. It has been the perfect pace for our family. Simple analogy - It's never a good idea to go to a buffet and try to eat everything, no matter how gourmet. After a while nothing tastes good.

I want to say this... "I teach him at home to have good manners and be kind to people so that he can put up with people like you when he is in public. That's what we do for socialization. What do you do? I mean, it must be hard to un-teach all the bad stuff they are learning from the other kids at school." ...but I don't.

I'm all for being nice to my husband, but maybe it's your choice of words that is a turn-off. I have seen so many good, Christian women "encouraged" by other Christian women to serve their husbands, but it became synonymous with "submit and shut-up." It causes my stomach to go into knots when I hear things like that... I take pride in the fact that my husband considers me his best friend, loves to come home to us at night, desires to spend time with me, cooks dinner alongside me, appreciates the fact that I taught his kids all day, etc. We work side by side and share the stresses and joys of life equally. I take all this as evidence that I have done my part of being married to him well. "not stressing him out when he gets home???" Do wives do that? It just sounds as though you have him set upon some pedestal and you are dancing around him strewing flowers...I think it's just how it comes across. I'm sure that you have a lovely marriage and things are very well-distributed. I don't doubt that he loves you completely. I just think that the language is a bit hard to swallow.

Because my dd7 heard those 40-some lessons on common and proper nouns when her brother was doing FLL1 / 2, I did not use it with her. I was really tired of the format, but I will use FLL 3 directly with her next year. I will not use anything additional with it.

We have found Analytical Grammar to be an excellent next step in grammar study. If you have done FLL through 4 you could go straight to the regular AG.

This. This is exactly what we do.

I have not felt excluded by anyone in our huge homeschooling community, even though I felt I was being exclusive by not wanting to join some that wanted me to. I have good friends on both sides of the hs-ing philosophy and religion spectrum. I, too, would be too liberal for many Christians and too conservative for most liberals. I try to just be myself. I think a lot of not feeling excluded comes with maturity, if you are speaking about it personally, but where kids are involved, I imagine it would be very, very difficult emotionally to have a child who does not fit a social norm, causing rejection. That kind of rejection breaks a mom's heart. My heart goes out to those moms. I try to help my children understand kids who do not adjust well or are socially awkward and not to exclude them. That said, I also try not to lay an excessive burden upon them to the point that it would drain them emotionally. I want my kids to have boundaries, but also to have empathy and compassion so that they can deal with everyone in a healthy way. But isn't this the glory of homeschooling? I can put my children in situations where they will be put to the test and learn how to be kind and compassionate with those who need it, and guide them gently out of a situation when their childish emotions and coping mechanisms are tapped out.

grrr...I just wrote a long response and it didn't post. Suffice it to say that Megan has cited a lot of experiences that are completely extraneous to CC and not typical of the average CC community. I would also say that maybe it isn't fair to the other kids for her kids to remain in the class as she seems so unhappy with the program. Just sayin... That aside, I wrote extensively about our experiences at CC which were largely positive--it is what you make of it. I found it too expensive to be a supplement to our studies, and I wanted to slow things down. Here you can read my blog posts about the switch I made. We chose TOG, but that is not why I am posting here. I am just sharing our CC experiences. Try it--it may be just the thing! If you don't love it, there are tons of other options.

sorry...double post.

In order for TOG to work you have to spend some time planning ahead. I don't know much about SL, but from my understanding, it is pretty well laid out. I am one who does not do well teaching from someone else's plan. It might be the best plan in the world, but if it is not mine, it won't get done. Therefore, TOG fits well with my m.o. since it provides options and guidance, but I get to write the final plan for my family.

I won't be ditching TOG any time soon...I can't sell or return any of it. I might as well use as little or as much of it as I can! :bored: It is not all meant to be used at once. I have considered switching for next year when we do the ancients, but I really cannot see another curriculum that is as thorough without being text-booky. It seems a waste to spend all that money on something that is designed for all levels and then not use it for as long as possible.

My DS 11 is really enjoying Phonetic Zoo. We used AAS two years ago to patch up his spelling which was atrocious. It worked. He now actually likes PZ, and it is completely independent. It applies the same principles of learning phongrams and exceptions. ETA I should point out that despite the name "phonetic zoo" it is not written for little kids. The illustrations are pen-ink type and the zoo theme comes from the spelling rules being based on animal names that have that particular phonogram or rule used in their spelling. It is very appropriate for students through middle and even high school if they needed some spelling remediation.

Somehow my son continues to blow me away with what he knows. The only problem is that most of what he knows is not what I have taught him but what he has picked up on his own, sometimes (but not always) inspired by school subjects. Most of what I know is not what I was taught either. I tend to remember things that interest me, that I seek out on my own and study of my own volition. Teach them to read, write and do math. I think the rest falls into place.

It seems sleepovers are becoming as ubiquitous as candy at Sunday School. I have two families with whom my kids are allowed sleepovers, and that is because they have the same sleeping (if not dietary) standards as we have. Kids get to stay up about an hour later and must sleep. They always have a wonderful time and recover quickly, though they may be a little tired the next day. We have had some really awful sleepover experiences and one in particular where kids were allowed to stay up unsupervised and then fed chocolate pancakes for b-fast the next morning. UGH! That was the worst, and the end. These same families are allowed to stay here as well, and it is always a positive experience.

this post was put here just to introduce a bit of stupid humor to the op's day. Now she has all these women sitting in front of their monitors saying "pink...peenk...that's weird...pink...peenk?...ink, sink, wink, pink...peenk?" I've been used... who cares, anyway? it is pronounced however you say it, and it's short i by the way.

It used to be that literacy was a privilege preserved within the ranks of nobility and those who could afford the time to learn. Though we have come to the place where most people are functionally literate, the privilege now is the opportunity to think as a free and independent beings--the luxury of self-determination. Liberty of the mind is a privilege of those who can afford it...which is the ultimate literacy. So really, nothing has changed, has it?

I have written a mission statement and goals out 5 years. We are three years into that five-year projection, and I need to sit down with it and modify a bit, but for the most part we are on track. The thing has helped the most is the mission statement. The finer details nearly always work themselves out, but it helps to see that we are moving closer to fulfilling the vision that we set out to achieve.

We are currently doing the Anatomy / Physiology with the notebooking journals, Jr. for my dd 7 and the regular one for ds11. They have been a real asset to the experience. We have thoroughly enjoyed them. I wouldn't do both the lap books and the notebook journals have lap-book style activities in them as well as copywork, vocabulary review, study questions, etc. for each lesson.

Let me tell you about boring--I have been invited by an old friend that I met in my wild, traveling days to meet for dinner this week. She is British, lives overseas, is married to a restauranteur and is a reporter for NPR, has a nanny for her two children, and yet still finds time to take them travelling around the world to see all sorts of interesting things. I don't think I own a pair of black pants, other than my workout pants. I wear jeans and sweaters and stay home almost every day. I don't watch the news so as not to be depressed, I don't know any of the cool new music, I am a fashion failure, I need a haircut badly, and I play and learn with my kids and get really excited when I try out a new recipe. I have no clue what to talk about, so I plan on listening a lot. What I need is a list of the right questions to ask her to keep her talking. I feel absolutely boring. I love, love, love my life. Why is it though, when we are confronted with what seems more glamorous or appears to be more exciting, we suddenly feel intimidated?

We have just hung up OPGTR and have now begun using AAS for her continued phonics. She (dd7 that is) can read very well, now, but she has trouble with words with more than three syllables and unusual combinations such as gh, ph, or kn. She knows them, but they just hang her up in multi-syllable words, so I am working more with her on spelling to just have her working with the letters, words and combinations slowly and thoughtfully. It is going very well. I highly recommend AAS--I think it lays a very solid foundation, and the multi-sensory approach is very effective. Both my dd7 and my ds11 have done very well with it. Ds 11 isn't doing it now, but we used it when he was about 9 to "repair" his "spelling" (if you could call it that!) By the end of book 2 he was a different kid in terms of his spelling and writing.

unless there are older siblings, I would not start TOG until upper grammar stage at least, or even dialectic. My 2nd grader does TOG with my dialectic son, but if I were only doing her track I feel it would be a waste of my money. I think the ideal History program is to start SOTW in 1st grade, go through 4th, then start TOG after that.

my bff has her son in a UM school and it works well for him. He is a very high-need child and she runs a family business. The one drawback I have noticed is that you lose a great deal of flexibility in what you can teach your kids, as you are basically doing their homework with them on their off days.

Have you looked at Pop Quiz? It has great questions and may be just enough...They are more discussion starters than accountability questions, and may facilitate that aspect of your history time.

Oh my goodness, yes! Our Audible subscription is our most-used homeschool tool. We have covered so much great literature together over lunch. It is one of our favorite things to do together.

One of the things I have loved the most about homeschooling is that I am present far more often to help a child work through a socially difficult situation in the moment. I think it is far harder for a kid to go through the difficulty of being alone or with a teacher or classmates who obviously do not love him / her as much and feel the shame and anxiety of dealing alone. This is not to say that I rescue my kids from every situation. Not in the least. Rather, I can honestly observe situations, help the child to recognize how / why he needs to change his behavior, talk about it afterwards in private, or intervene if necessary. They feel secure and supported.