I have the third edition, do I NEED the fourth? What is new in the fourth edition that I may be missing out on?

I have my ten year old write review for books all the time and post them on my Amazon account. I review them first to make sure that they are good reviews (and that she doesn’t reveal any spoilers). She likes that she may be helping other kids decide to read her favorite books!

My 8yo does math worksheets and reading on her own, but I’m usually nearby in case she has questions. We have a very regular daily school routine, so we don’t use checklists for school, but she does have one for chores. She can be a bit flighty, so I can see a checklist being a problem. She hasn’t really tried typing on a computer yet, but is allowed to use her older sister’s computer for games after school sometimes. We’re doing cursive until 5th grade, and then she will take a typing course. For fun, she loves to play with our vast Lego collection, Playmobile, coding robots (Ozobots), dolls, and reading. For chores, she helps prepare lunches like sandwiches, feeds and brushes dogs, straightens up rooms, wipes and dusts tables and shelves, sorts and folds laundry, vacuums using a lightweight stick vacuum, sweeps, light cleaning in bathrooms, and she helps with outdoor chores like shoveling snow and trimming bushes. She can get her own breakfast in the morning and is always dressed and ready for the day when I get up. She’s better at some of these chores than others, but she usually enjoys pitching in around the house.

My 8 year old loves Peter Pan with a passion. She’s my most imaginative kiddo, so the whimsy and magic of the book speaks to her. My 10 year old who loves horses picked up Black Beauty, but although she tried, she couldn’t get into it. Treasure Island is on our read aloud list for this year. I’m looking forward to it: I loved the book as a kid. Our informal theme for literature this year is “adventure,†and this book fits the bill. But I don’t know that any of the three are “must reads.â€

I have no experience with Writing & Rhetoric, but my 10 year old loves WWS. She is right next to me right now, so I asked what she likes about it and she says it explains things well and teaches everything step-by-step. She really enjoys the story excerpts too and is always asking if we can get the whole book. It does a good job covering narration and her skills have increased dramatically. I also like that it provides a lot of guidance and practice about creating outlines. She now routinely uses outlines to help her take notes in other classes. Honestly, I thought she’d hate the book when it first arrived because there was a lot of reading in the first few weeks. She can be a bit scatterbrained and if something doesn’t capture her attention immediately she’ll spend the day gazing out the window. But she really looks forward to her WWS lessons.

My 5th grader is also an avid writer, and she LOVES The Creative Writer. It has really helped her fine tune her skills. This week her assignment was to “eavesdrop†on conversations and record the dialogue, and she had a blast following her sisters around the house with a notepad. We rotated between TCW1 and WWS1, so one week she works on creative writing and the next week on more academic writing. Both have been a hit. I haven’t looked at many other creative writing curricula, but I haven’t needed to.

We don’t do a formal vocabulary program, but we do read a ton of books aloud. All said and done, my kids are read to by me or my husband for about 2 hours a day. They are always welcome to stop us and ask for the definition of a word. My 10 year old always has a dictionary nearby so she can look up unfamiliar words while reading. Reading (or hearing) words in context seems to be the best way to teach vocabulary in our household. All of my kids have a pretty advanced vocabulary, particularly my 8 year old who is my most avid reader. She recently used the words “delirious†and “exhilarating†in a simple writing assignment.

I discovered that my 3rd grade DD loved stories about little creatures, so this year she has read The Borrowers, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, The Indian in the Cupboard, and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh. Pretty much anything with tiny characters. She’s also read Charlotte’s Web, Alice in Wonderland, and a few of the Anne of Green Gables and Little House books. Currently during her free time, she is reading the Harry Potter series.

My 7 and 8 year olds get wiggly after sitting still and reading for a while, so our independent reading time is only 30 minutes (though the 10 year old would read all day if she could). During that time, they must read a book that I have approved, but if they absolutely hate a particular book after a few chapters, I don’t force it. I’m more lenient with book selections for my 7 year old because she is just becoming a fluent reader and I don’t want to turn her off to reading. After they finish a book, they get to do a cool project (like a lapbook or poster or newspaper article detailing the climax of the story, etc.), which they see as a reward, so they try to get through books quickly. They are allowed and encouraged to read whatever they want after school hours and we often make “emergency†trips to the library to get the next book in a series. Even if I don’t think that their afterschool book choices have much value, I’ll do almost anything to support their enthusiasm for reading. We do literature as a read aloud. Actually, my husband reads to us all for about 45 minutes every night from a good book and we discuss it as a family. This may not be the most effective literature curriculum, but it is a nice way to bond as a family and include my husband in our school life.

For science, my kids love to watch the Planet Earth series, and apparently Planet Earth II premieres next month. Cosmos is also a good one. For older kids, we love watching Crash Course videos on You Tube. They are short, but cover a number of topics (history, biology, psychology). My 10 year old has watched every episode of the Crash Course World History series more times than I can count (although they are targeted to middle/high school students).

I had never heard of the website, but now that I’ve looked through it, I’ve found some classes that my 10 year old would adore. She loves drawing comics and is a talented writer, and there happens to be a comics and graphic novels lab that I think she’d really enjoy. How does it work? She’s never done a class online before.

I’m not familiar with any veterinarian specific resources, but is there a zoo in your area? Our local zoo has a ton of programs for kids, and even a “junior zookeeper†program in the summer for older kids where they get to help care for the animals. My youngest also wants to be a veterinarian, so we study a lot of biology and delve down rabbit holes whenever we can.

We moved a few months ago, so I feel your pain. It can be challenging to get back into the swing of things. I trust my 10 year old to grade her own work if it is something that is easily graded, like math or science worksheets. She is pretty trustworthy and will let me know what she got incorrect and if she understood why it was wrong. In more subjective subjects, like writing, I don’t formally go over all of their work every single day. All of my kids will read their writing assignments aloud to me and their siblings as soon as they have completed it and we’ll give feedback, but I only actually look over it and make corrections about once a week. Then we’ll go over issues together. Some weeks I’m better at this than others and sometimes we throw all written work out the window (except for math) and just read aloud and discuss topics together. When I really need a break and the kids are still motivated, I’ll give them a project to work on together. My oldest will help the others research a topic relevant to what we are learning, and they’ll make a poster or a short presentation. Like other posters, I also go over new content with the kids and then they do the worksheets or quizzes or whatever independently. I’m not familiar with CLE, but I think there are some ways where you can still give your kids a great education while also lightening your load. Like some others have mentioned, I don’t have a formal reading curriculum for my 8 or 10 year olds; they choose a book with my approval and then spend at least 30 minutes a day reading on their own (they usually read more though). My oldest will write a book report for each book, and my 8 year old just writes a paragraph or two about interesting parts of the story. My husband reads aloud to the kids most evenings from good books and then we discuss, so that is our literature curriculum for now. It takes some work off of my plate and gives him something academic to share with the kids. And lastly, if you need to take break for a few weeks to relax and get caught up on bookkeeping, take a break. Last year I didn’t plan to take time off for spring break, but suddenly I was so burnt out that I needed a few days off. So we took a week off and went hiking, read books, watched good movies, slept in and just had fun. Once we started school again I was reenergized and we hit the ground running.

My 3rd grader is doing two lessons a day of WWE3 right now, and it’s not too much of a stretch. The dictation and copywork lessons don’t take too long anyway, so breaking it up so that you are doing one narration and one dictation/copywork shouldn’t burn him out. My daughter also likes it because not as many days lapse between passages from the same story, so it’s still fresh in her mind when we read the second passage of each “weekâ€.

I think it is fine to drop a formal writing program for now, as long as they are getting in lots of practice in other areas (like written narration on history). If they are writing often in other subjects, you could provide feedback on those assignments rather than focusing on a designated writing program. I second doing away with grammar first. I dropped grammar with my oldest two weeks after school started this year, and we just focus on how she uses it in context. If I notice a problem area, we spend a few days on grammar and then go back to her writing curriculum.

I’m actually doing FLL3&4 again with my fifth grader to keep her fresh even though she just finished 4 last year. I’ve tried a few other grammar programs but nothing was as simple for the parent and intuitive for the student as FLL. I’m looking forward to using the new Advanced Language Lessons books once they are available.

It’s nice to see somebody else who homeschools stepkids! Although my ex husband (father of my older two) and my husband’s ex wife (mother of my youngest) are reasonably supportive of our decision to homeschool, I feel more “protected†if I have documentation. I use Scholaric to make a schedule, record grades, and document what topics we have covered. It allows you to print out reports and official looking report cards. I think the reports that show what we covered are more meaningful than the actual grades. That way, if they question whether or not a certain topic was covered, you have documentation showing the exact date. For grades, I usually have a basic set of standards that must be met (a point off for a punctuation error, for example). For more subjective assignments, I’ll discuss ways to improve, but stick to the basic standards when I input a grade. I usually don’t pick apart and “grade†elementary writing assignments for content or creativity, just for mechanics. I also keep a spreadsheet that lists all of the basic resources that we use for each child to show that we follow a basic curriculum (although we do deviate often). None of this is required in my state, but it gives me an easy way to look back at the work we’ve done and I can easily generate a report if one of the “other parents†requests one. We also do standardized tests each year, and I send a copy of the scores to the other parent. Five years after being divorced, my ex and I are finally on decent terms, so last week when I was reviewing our progress for the first half of the year, I shot him an email detailing each of his kids’ strengths and progress. I also told him a little bit about our plans for the second half of the year. He appreciated the update and asked a few questions. I also send an annual report card at the end of the year when the exes come to pick up the kids for the summer. I know my ex isn’t totally on board with homeschooling because he worries about the kids’ “socialization,†but I think his doubts about me teaching them have finally faded.

My DD7&8 are able to straighten up and surface clean bathrooms, wipe and dust tables ,desks, and shelves, help with meal prep and clean up, feeding dogs, weeding flower beds, and vacuuming using a lightweight stick vacuum. It’s usually less than 10 minutes worth of chores, but it goes a long way in helping me out! And it gives them a sense of responsibility for contributing to the family. DD10 also brushes the dogs and prepares their freeze-dried food, dishes, laundry, making simple meals, mopping, and trimming bushes and general yard work. And when we moved, I found out that she is also super good at helping assemble furniture! I think 7-8 is a perfect age to start doing chores with your child. They are young enough to think it is fun and old enough to actually help out, even if you need to supervise for a while. I wouldn’t expect a 3 year old to be too helpful, but you can start by having him straighten up toys or help fold easy laundry like washcloths and hand towels.

We end the school day with chores, that way they clean any messes they made throughout the day. They aren’t officially “released†from school and allowed to do as they please until their chores have been completed. My oldest (10) is kind of on call for some of her chores though, such as helping with laundry or cooking and other random stuff that isn’t always necessary right after school. When we lived in a house with tile in the room we use for school, I did have my oldest sweep and mop it on Friday mornings before school. That was because Friday was our fun day, and we often played games on the floor and if we didn’t clean it first we’d be covered in dog hair.

I felt guilty when I took my kids out of PS too. They had some amazing teachers, and I felt like by pulling them out of school, I was “dissing†their teachers. But, it’s not personal; it’s about doing what is right for your children and your family. If you feel that PS is not serving your son’s needs, then it’s not doing him any good to keep him there. I would take him out during the holiday break. I took my kids out of PS during the holidays too, and it was a good time to start transitioning them to being home.

In my house, I read literature books aloud to the kids and ask questions as we go along. We discuss the themes or connections or I just ask the kids for a verbal narration of what is currently going on in the book. I pick books that are above the kids’ reading level or that has unfamiliar language, so that they can familiarize themselves with different writing styles before tackling them themselves. After we complete a book, we work on a fun project together to cement the themes or vocabulary. I took my kids out of PS after they had a solid phonics background, so I can’t speak to that aspect (other than the fact that my youngest needs reminders here and there). For reading, I have my kids pick from books that I think have value that are at or slightly above their current reading level. Now they are at an age where they can all read silently, but I stay close so they can ask for help with difficult words or if they don’t understand something. I ask questions about the story every day, and they usually write a short book report or do a little project at the end of a book. During non-school time I make sure that they always have plenty of books available and I let them read whatever they want, no matter the level or content. For example, my 5th grader is super into the Warrior Cats series and I encourage her to read them often, but I don’t count those for school. I think the best thing that you can do is expose your kid(s) to books early and often. It’s not uncommon for our family to spend 2-3 hours reading a day. I read aloud for literature, the kids read independently for school, and my husband reads aloud to the family every evening. My older kids both have books that they read for fun before falling asleep at night, and my youngest is starting to catch the bug too. We’ve made reading a part of our family culture, and it’s paid off by not only improving their reading skills, but also their vocabularies and writing abilities.

I pulled my kids out of public school during holiday break too. I don’t have any advice on where to start your son, but it is important that once you decide on what you want to use that you don’t try to get it all done in half a year. I bought shiny new books and wanted to get through them quickly so that we could start fresh the following year at the beginning of each grade level—but I was pushing my kids to do too much too quickly. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you complete a program by the end of the year, or if you have to pick it back up the following year. After I realized I needed to slow down and not try to get a year’s worth of work done in five months, we were all much happier. I started at the beginning of books, so that I could get a feel for each kids’ ability level. It was also great review on the basics, since the terminology and methods used in PS is probably a little different than we’d be using at home.

My 10-year-old fifth grader is an avid writer. She spends her downtime writing elaborate stories and comic books. She can knock a five-paragraph research paper out in a morning, with very few, if any, errors. Right now, she is working her way through both WWS1 and TCW1 with ease. How do I support her natural talent and help her expand on her skills? I feel like I’ve hit a wall with what I can teach her without overwhelming her, but I know that there is still room to grow. Should I just continue to encourage her to write, or should I find more ways to challenge her to develop her skills?

SOTW works great with my 3rd and 2nd grader. I like that we can adapt it to our moods and interest, so when we have time we can expand on a topic, but if it’s a busy day we can just do the read aloud and oral narration. The activity book is easily adaptable so you can pick and choose the projects that would appeal to your kids and omit the rest.

Two of my kids went through K and 1st in public school. While they did do more independent writing in first grade, it wasn’t excessive. My third grader, who is habitually behind in writing, did fine in K and 1st (her only years in PS) despite her challenges in writing. When you talk to the school, bring some samples of his work. You may find that his work is within the range of other first graders. Kid’s abilities vary so much at that age. Whatever you decide, talking to the school will help ease your mind.