Thank you so much, everyone. I bought the Singapore books, and we're going to give it a whirl. I feel a lot better about the whole thing! Thanks again 😊

It sounds like I need to increase the drills in a fun way. I'll try to look into that. I have looked at Teaching Textbooks, Singapore, and briefly at Beast Academy. I might need to just modify Saxon to make it more fun instead of switching curriculum again. I'm so bad at modifying. I struggle with supplementing because that means time away from the book, and I always get scared we'll get behind. If I have a plan, I do well, but I'm rotten at winging it.

Thank you- sounds like good advice.

She could figure out a way to multiply most things, so five times six might be counting by fives six times. Other ones were more complicated, but she could figure it out in a way I wouldn't have expected. She just didn't have anything memorized and could never recall anything that she'd worked out before. The bigger problems we had with RightStart were that I was pulling my hair out trying to teach it, and the games didn't get played often enough because the lesson took too long. I had a hard time understanding the lesson on the fly because I was constantly being interrupted by the younger ones. It took a lot of mental effort for me, and I never could get organized enough to prepare a lesson well. I wondered if having the second edition would have helped. Or if I could have adapted lessons better to suit her? Overall, I just burned out really badly and wanted something open and go. I'm revisiting it all right now.

Yes- we were doing RightStart when she liked Math. We jumped ship during third grade in level C. She could understand how to multiply based on what it meant and then spend thirty minutes trying to work out 5x6. She never could add or subtract quickly, either. She liked the games and the fact that it was a lot of mental math and just answering questions out loud but there was very little writing or drills (her least favorites).

My daughter is in 5th grade, and I'm looking for math curriculum suggestions. We did RightStart for three years then switched to Saxon. She loved RightStart, but I found it exhausting to teach. I also noticed that she was falling way behind on her basic math skills. She understood concepts flawlessly but spent ages trying to work out basic math problems. Switching to Saxon took care of this. She benefited tremendously from the constant repetition and really is doing well in math overall. We have two major problems, though. She hates it, and a lesson takes her forever. She has ADHD, and is extraordinarily inattentive (not at all hyperactive), and even having her do only evens or odds or shortcutting through a lesson in some other way, it still takes all morning. The bigger problem is that she hates math now. She thinks it's not Saxon but just math, but I remember when she liked math! I want to get back to that. I don't think it would take so long if she just liked it. She loves computer work, but I don't let her do much of anything on the computer since I want her learning with real pen and paper. I've considered letting her do math, though, since it could be motivating. She absolutely loves reading, for whatever that's worth. I have five kids, our youngest being medically fragile, and I'm now in my third trimester with #6. We are moving out of state in four months. I can't do anything teacher intensive, unfortunately! Any ideas??

Thank you for your reply. I'm thinking specifically of work that requires writing. He has to sit to do handwriting, spelling, and math just because it requires writing. He's fine with me reading to him or asking him questions. He loves sitting with me and talking about things. He just doesn't want to sit and write ever.

Wendyroo, thank you so much for your input and putting in the effort to share all the details. ADHD has been a huge struggle for me to deal with. It was the first thing to bring home the reality of how homeschooling isn't about me and what I want- it's about my kids and what they need. I still don't know if I have figured out what helps things go smoothly. I would say the fact that my children don't transition well from one thing to another is hard for me to know how to handle. I need to have complete consistency, but I burn myself out fast, and then we take breaks, and then we don't get back to it without an enormous amount of resistance. I also have no idea how to make school more enjoyable for everyone. My son hates it, and I think it's just because he has to sit still. I'm sure I could be more creative or fun, but I can't imagine how. I spent months of this past year in the hospital with the baby, so life has just been nuts. I'm so nervous about even starting school. Anyway, thanks again!

Okay, guys. I really need some help! To paint a picture of our family situation right now, my oldest is going into fifth grade, my second is going into second grade, and my third will be in kindergarten this year. I will have a three year old in tow (who does pretty well with being distracted with coloring books, busy toys, etc.), and my youngest just turned one. My one year old has a genetic condition that makes him medically fragile, significantly delayed, and very small for his age (in other words, even though he's a year, he's only rolling around in a small space right now, but he needs feeds, meds, flushes, etc, through his feeding tube). I also just found out that I'm pregnant. So far, I have done every subject separately with my two school aged children. That was okay for the last two years. Now, though, I'm adding a third kid into the school mix, and I really don't have enough time to keep doing it the way I've been doing it. I know that there are people doing at least a few subjects together with multiple grades, but I don't know how they are doing it exactly. I would think religion, history, and science could be together, but I am seriously struggling to figure out exactly how. I know we'll be doing American history this school year, but other than that, I don't know specifics. I have a History textbook that I'd like my 5th grader to do (From Sea to Shining Sea), but it would be too in depth for the others. We do Horizons for math for my 2nd grader and Saxon for my fifth grader. I don't have a clue what I'll do for my kindergartner. I've always just pieced together our curriculum, but I'm floundering a bit right now. My fifth grader has ADHD, inattentive. My second grader has ADHD, very hyperactive. My kindergartner is a completely traditional, straightforward kind of kid. I know there are plenty of moms who can just wing it and make things work, but I definitely cannot. I need to have a plan going in, or we just eventually stop doing school. Any advice is welcome. Thank you!!!

Thank you so much, everyone! I feel like I have a better handle on what's available. I appreciate it!

Janeway, thank you for taking the time to write all that out for me. That is extremely helpful information, and I will take it all into consideration!

Thank you all so much for the input. That's similar to what I've hear about Saxon in the lower levels- thank you for the input. I have not looked into Rod and Staff, so I will check that out! Thanks for the insight into Singapore. I do understand that I'm going to have to teach, I just need it to be a type of teaching that is simple and straightforward rather than something that takes a whole lot of brain power (like RightStart). I'm guessing that part of that is because it is teaching math in a way that is so dissimilar to the way I learned it. Thank you for weighing in! Glad to hear a positive experience with Horizons, and it's good to know the terminology for the differences (mastery vs spiral, etc.). I will keep that in mind. No, I have not- I don't know the first thing about Math Mammoth, but I will definitely check it out. I'm glad to hear more about Horizons. Can you tell me why you liked Horizons better than Abeka? Also, do you mind explaining the acronyms for me? I'm not sure what CWP, MiF, or HOE are. Sorry! And thank you!

Calbear- thank you so much for your response! I didn't mention Saxon only because I've never heard it recommended for the younger grades and don't know anyone personally who has used it for their littles. My understanding was that it is a different program for K-3 than it is for 4th and above. I've only used the fourth grade book, so I don't know anything about the younger grades. I thought it was more teacher intensive and manipulative heavy. Is that incorrect? Thank you for the link- I will check that out!

Hello, everyone. Here's just a little backstory to my question: I have two school-aged children plus a preschooler (3 yrs old) and an almost 2 year old. I am due with our fifth in about a month. I have been using RightStart Math with my daughter (levels A-D), until I finally switched to Saxon at the end of this school year. I started my son with RightStart A in kindergarten this year. I felt like RightStart was a great choice for my daughter since she has ADHD and really needed a hands-on, out of the box approach. She learned the concepts really well and her mental math was impressive to me. I finally stopped using it when her conceptual understanding became significantly better than her ability to "just do the math" so to speak. In other words, she could grasp concepts that were at a very high level, but any number of simple subtraction facts would stall her for hours. She could multiply by "figuring it out" but not by remembering any facts of any kind, so it would take a VERY long time. What finally did me in, though, was the intensity of teaching RightStart. I just don't have it in me! Not with the little ones all around demanding my attention, etc. Once we switched to Saxon, her ability to use her concepts to actually do the drills went up exponentially. She's filling in the gaps and doing really well in math overall. So that is the long version of my experience teaching math thus far. So my question is for my son. We are finishing up his kindergarten year, and I have not felt like RightStart was as good a fit for him. I already kind of hate teaching it (such strong words!), but it seems, if anything, too out of the box for him. He's a traditional sort of fellow and all the manipulatives and tally marks, etc. seem to round about for him. He just wants to get to the adding, subtracting, and using actual numbers already. He also enjoys sitting down and using workbooks (which my daughter couldn't do at his age). All that to say, I've looked at Abeka and Horizons which seem similar in their approach (is that right??), and I've looked at Singapore. Singapore seems to enjoy a great reputation that I'm not sure the others share, and all three seem to be a sit-down workbook type of program. Can anyone tell me anything more in detail about working with these programs? Singapore is pretty darn confusing with their myriad of textbook options. I feel like I should go with them since I keep hearing about it being better, but I'm not sure if it really is and if it is also a more "out of the box" kind of curriculum or not. My two goals are to find something that is really easy to use and something that doesn't re-invent the wheel but gives a rock solid math foundation. Since I'm just spinning in circles at this point, I would love it if someone could give me some advice from their own experience! Thank you so much!!!

We are also Catholic and concerned about many of the same things. We couldn't handle SOTW, so I switched us to The Human Odyssey by k12 (bought used on Amazon). It was MUCH better for us. I am also pregnant (due in August) and have three children, and I really can't do a lot of extra, but we felt that the book itself was engaging enough that we didn't need anything else. My plan was simply to read about five pages aloud and then ask a few questions (whatever I felt were the main points) and then let her dictate or write out the answers in her notebook. I always let her draw on her whiteboard while she listens since this helps her listen better :). Every now and then we'd grab some complimentary books from the library, but not often. We liked having real pictures instead of sparse drawings, and the text was engaging. I felt that it handled church history really well- it was certainly not Anti-Catholic, and it taught about Jesus, the apostles, saints, and even monks factually and favorably. I did skip some parts that I knew we could cover in our reading of the New Testament better than in the history book. Since I haven't come across anything that I like better, we'll be moving on to the next volume this year. I will say that it's intended for 8th graders, so I read aloud with the goal of adapting a bit more to her level as I go. I hope this helps!

My daughter is finishing up 2nd grade, and our English grammar was kind of a bust this year. FLL had us bored to tears last year, and the other two grammar textbooks that I tried this year just really didn't work for us either. She understands grammar easily enough, but I decided to just scrap it this year (we stopped about halfway through the year in our second attempt) and I'll try again next year. What I'm wondering is if I should introduce Latin next school year or wait until we've got our grammar foundation a bit more solidly underneath us. I am not sure how much detailed grammar terminology they need to know before being able to introduce Latin. I'm leaning toward Prima Latina at the moment, for whatever that's worth. And my plan for grammar is Michael Clay Thompson's Grammar Island. I'm also due to have a baby (our fourth) in the middle of August, and we're in the process of adopting as well. So I'm wondering if I'm biting off more than I can chew anyway- maybe starting Latin in 4th grade is just as good? Any thoughts? Thanks so much in advance!

I second putting them on the free table or something similar. I know that I would appreciate it because I like to have a chance to see any textbooks/curriculum in person. I really enjoy being able to actually have a book in hand to know whether I'd order it or not. Of course, if it's nothing fancy, just run of the mill workbook, I agree with the idea of letting little ones scribble on it or just recycling/composting it. No guilt either way.

aaplank- thank you so much!! That's super helpful- I've never heard of that curriculum before. I'll definitely enjoy looking through their book choices.

Faithr, I really appreciate your reply, and I think you're right. It's not in my hands, and I do have to be open-minded. I think journaling might be a great way to go about getting perspective while keeping a record. It might be a great excuse to go get a brand new journal too :). Wintermom, thank you for weighing in. I think that what's happening is that I'm letting a few extreme examples taint the whole bunch. I know families that homeschool that are very laid back, and their children are older yet still struggle with basic reading and handwriting and are at a much lower level than they would be in public school. I'm not at all minimizing their own struggles or sitting on my high horse judging them- it just really scared me! It scared me into feeling like I can't stop and catch my breath or everything might fall apart and my children will be behind too. I'm sure you're right, though, that I should just keep an open mind and not rely on first impressions. Kiara, thank you- I am going to start mulling over my personal objectives, and I think that will help me a lot to make a big difference in my ability to start relaxing. I'm realizing that I am wanting some way of measuring her success just so I can feel more comfortable pumping the brakes and taking more time to have more fun. Like if we're not covering the basics thoroughly enough, than I can't take time out of the schedule to take a field trip or do crafts or something. Now that I can see that, I'm going to do my best to seek a more balanced approach from the beginning. I definitely don't want to kill her love of learning. She really does LOVE school. As for the social stuff, I think my problem is that I am really introverted and every social encounter is so draining. So much so, that I easily give up simply because I feel like I can't handle anything that depletes my already so limited energy supply. This has more to do with just having had my third baby than school. I've always struggled with figuring out how to navigate the social scene since becoming a mother. I just don't know where I fit in, and since we've moved to this city, I've yet to meet anyone that seems more familiar. My husband and I have moved a lot, and it's hard not to feel like a fish out of water. I'm not sure if that makes any sense. But I'm certainly going to do my best to remedy the situation. Does anyone have any input on how long it might take to get a feel for a group before calling it quits? If I really give it a fair chance, what does that look like? Thanks again, everyone, for letting me put myself out there in talking about all this. Everyone has really helped me gain perspective, and I'm going to do my best to make some changes for all of our sakes :).

Thank all of you so much!!! I realize now just how anxious I sound, and it really isn't as bad as I've made it sound. I've just felt like I really need someone to see what we're doing and tell me it is working. I have a very hard time with the fact that I don't have clear learning objectives for a year or a subject. It's like if the only goal for a subject is to finish a book, then I'm a slave to that book or if we get through it quickly, where do I go from there? It just seems like I find myself comparing to public school objectives just to give me something concrete, but they just don't correlate when our methodology is so different (and what would be the point of homeschooling if they did?). I just keep feeling like I'd be feeling more successful if I knew what I am working toward in each subject. If there's nothing I can do about that, than that's okay, I just felt like it was worth asking about :). I won't worry so much about record-keeping except to make sure I've written down our subjects and book choices for the year and anything else that I don't want to forget. The social stuff and group advice is helpful. And just for the record, I don't have any problem with hanging out with other homeschoolers who don't share our beliefs, I think the problem comes from me trying to get all my curriculum advice, emotional support needs, and my daughter's social needs met in the exact same group. (thanks Kiara for helping me see that!) I am easily overwhelmed with the idea of going places since I'm still new to having three little ones, so I've been feeling the pressure to make every outing count :). I can lighten up on that end. Thank you Faithr and Mother Goose for the Catholic input. I think I will go back to the Catholic group and see how it goes. Faithr, I actually just finishing reading that book! I realize it probably sounds like I missed the point, but I really did enjoy it, and in my daily life, I am dealing with the obstacles thrown at me much better. Our daily school experience is really enjoyable for everyone, I think, I just keep circling back to the same two problems of "what are we working toward/are we succeeding?" and "how do we make friends/get support?" I'm not so much anxious as I am tired of thinking about these same things obsessively without getting anywhere :). Thank you all again from the bottom of my heart! I really appreciate the encouragement and the "I can relate"s. I feel like I will be able to lighten up and move forward much better now :).

I am relatively new to homeschooling, although I was homeschooled myself. I'm finding myself on the brink of burnout on a near-constant basis. I'm desperate and hoping that if I can give an overview of what we currently do and then list some of my issues in a bullet-proof fashion maybe someone can throw some hope and encouragement my way! My daughter is 6 years old, and we are doing first grade. If she were in public school, she would have missed the cutoff by a month and would be in kindergarten, but I felt she was ready last year to start kindergarten. We have done The Ordinary Parent's Guide for her phonics, but we stopped when it got tedious and she was reading more fluently. I figured if she has any trouble with a rule, we'll just go over that particular lesson. She reads for 30 minutes a day to herself, and I read aloud more challenging books each day (usually 4th or 5th grade or above). Her reading fluency has gotten much better. A friend told me to look up books using the accelerated reader bookfind site, and according to that, she's able to read books at a fifth grade level, but I think her comprehension isn't at that level. I think maybe third or fourth grade?? I had high hopes for using the book suggestions for reading and history that are listed in The Well-Trained Mind, but our library has so few of them and when I've tried to use inter-library loan, it can take anywhere from a week to over a month to get a book, so the timing never correlates to what we're covering in History at the time. We are doing Spelling Workout A and copywork for writing because she got very tired of the Zaner Bloser book, so we just copy passages of books and write letters to family. We also do First Language Lessons although this has gotten crazy redundant since she seems to pick up on grammar pretty easily, but we're still plugging away at it. We use RightStart Math Level A. We did Math U See last year, which she liked, but when her brother tested as color-blind, I decided to switch to a program that isn't dependent on colors for learning (Math U See blocks are color based), and I'm glad it worked out the way it did since she LOVES math and is getting really quick with the abacus and having fun. I worry that about the fact that it's Level A since that seems like kindergarten, but Math U See didn't cover nearly all that RightStart does, so I didn't think she could handle Level B. For History, we're reading Story of the World and for the life of me, we never seem to get to History. We've covered the first 8 or 9 chapters since we started school in August, and I never ever get to any of the "fun stuff" as far as activities and whatnot. We were doing Art, but I got totally overwhelmed with doing so many subjects. So Art and Music are not happening. I've thought about just doing Art during the summer when there's nothing else going on. Here are my problems/questions: Does this sound like a solid program even if I'm struggling to get to History and I've dropped other subjects? And we aren't reading amazing books?? How do I find better books if the library doesn't have the ones I'm looking for? I have no contact with anyone else that homeschools that is doing a similar style of homeschooling. To be more specific, I have found several homeschool families in my area that I know through friends, but they all have what I would consider to be a disturbingly lackadaisical attitude about school. So much so that if I were to seek advice about something overwhelming me, I'm sure their advice would be to just drop the subject until my child is older or stop worrying because it will all work out in the end, etc. My other problem is that there is such a strong religious component to homeschooling, that I can't quite figure out where I fit into the mix. We're Catholic, so I am not interested in teaching Creationism, for example, but I most definitely believe in God (and science!). I get nervous about professions of faith by protestants but even more nervous about secularism. There is a Catholic homeschool group at our Parish, but everyone there seemed so strange I was nervous that I wouldn't fit in and they required volunteer hours which sounded overwhelming (maybe this is childish? premature after only one visit?). I am in the most need of social interaction and I don't know how to find purely social functions. It's like I need a dummies guide to homeschool support groups! My daughter is very social and has zero friends because we have zero outside activities. We are planning on enrolling her in ballet classes in the fall, but for now, she only has her younger brothers to play with. This isn't so much about activities, though, as it is actual friendship. How do I help her make friends?? I have three friends that we currently get together with periodically, and they all have boys and she only has brothers. I feel like she is getting to an age where she would really enjoy playing with another girl but I don't know where to begin. I am seriously lacking in confidence because I do not understand how to measure her progress or her level at any subject (how do I know if she's performing at a first grade level??). Reading is a great example of this. She picked up a book that I'd been reading to her and read a chapter (which was maybe three or four pages). She read it within several minutes and only asked about a few big words that she had trouble sounding out, but when I asked if she had understood what it was about she said "not really." So I'm guessing that that is above her reading level? I'm really hoping someone can tell me in some concrete terms how to determine levels or goals. I feel so aimless when I don't know what we're working toward! How do I know if I'm succeeding?? I don't understand how to quickly and succinctly keep a record of her work (for my own information since I have more children to school after her). Do I need to be giving her tests or quizzes? When do grades start?? If those things don't matter, why? Is there some underlying understanding that someone can give me? My daughter is 6, but I also have a son that just turned 3 a few weeks ago and a 4 month old baby boy. I'm kind of losing my mind trying to keep her focused and me focused with the constant stream of interruptions. I've found a billion things on pinterest and the like that give ideas for how to keep a toddler busy but none of them seem to understand that my school-age child will immediately lose interest in school if I'm letting my preschooler do some awesome-ly fun activity that no one ever gets to do. Where are the somewhat ordinary activity ideas?? I'm so lost on what to do with my son while we do school, and he is clamoring for my attention constantly- either by climbing onto my lap or by getting into serious mischief. My biggest problem of all, though, is that I feel SO ALONE. I'm crying out to the internet for help tonight. I've never posted anything to this forum, so I apologize if I'm doing it all wrong! Any help that anyone can give me on any of these things would be greatly appreciated!!