I learned it in preschool in Michigan and have passed it on to my homeschooled kids (who love it!)

We do something similar to a freedom ranger: they are good sized birds (maybe slightly smaller than a Cornish cross, 5-6 lbs I'm guessing) and don't have an odd/game-y taste. Maybe he's processing earlier than we are if they are so small (I think we process around 12 weeks)? Or maybe it was a different breed than the one he currently has listed on his website?

We combine for science until 7th grade and then they are independent. Instead of history for my 7th grader I'm having him do geography independently (he researches the history of a country), but the rest of my kids do history together (my 5th grader has some independent reading to do in addition to me reading). The rest are doing the same country/region as the oldest, but do their geography separately. On Fridays (our light and fun day) I read Life of Fred as our math to my 2nd and 5th grader. Bible and memory work is always together. My 5th and 7th grader are reading the same book (and I'm having them do a lit guide), but they prefer to do it independently...although as I type this I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to do it with me...might help them get done faster. If it helps, it doesn't seem like there's enough of me to go around either 😕 I try to find as many independent things as I can, even though I treasure the time that we work together. The younger ones definitely get more one on one time than the older ones, but their school doesn't take nearly as long.

Have you read any Holling C Holling books? Those are packed with history. Tree in the Trail is about westward expansion. Eta: Oh, nevermind, I see Lori included it in her list 😉

We loved those too, but I think they take place in England. Matchlock Gun, Witch of Blackbird Pond, Sign of the Beaver.

We started going to storytime at the library. My big kids have a couple of activities, but my Pre-K doesn't so it is good for him. I've been trying to be better about reading at least a couple of books to him each day too. They sure do love books at that age.

We like Teach Your Monster to Read. Not phonics or numbers related, but we also like The Bible App for Kids.

My oldest will be in 8th next year so I'm starting to lay out some tentative high school plans. Looking at history and rereading the well trained mind section on that leaves me with some questions: 1) my state doesn't have any set graduation requirements, but following the public school list it is: Civics, Personal Finance and Economics, American History, World History. Let's say I start the well trained mind method for 9th and decide it isn't a good fit. Would it be impossible to switch to the traditional method? 2) If I wanted to keep the public school list on his transcripts, how would that work? I can see making the credit for American and world history fit, but would I have to do totally separate classes for the Civics/Econ? Are those classes something colleges would be looking for on transcripts or would I be ok to just call the classes something like history I-IV and not do civics/econ? 3) does anyone do the well trained mind method for history? How much work is it to put together? I've got 4 other kids and I'm worried about putting together an entire curriculum, especially for high school. Will I include enough writing assignments? What if I don't understand things in the book he's assigned? Etc. I think he would prefer reading through the great books as opposed to a textbook, but I am not very confident I can do this.

We start back tomorrow. Ds 2nd finished OPGTR right before break so now we can just read books (host!!). We might start with The Velveteen Rabbit. I started using flash cards with our daily math. He is always counting up with addition and doesn't seem to be memorizing. He wants to do typing with his older brothers. I'm torn. On one hand I don't care but on the other I don't think he's paying attention to finger placement and I'm not sure if that will cause bad habits. Anyone have an opinion about that? I've decided that we're doing something different during the hardest homeschool month: Feb. We're going to put aside several subjects, learn state history, and complete some kind of project (I'll let them choose a state related subject to research). I'll probably assign my oldest at least a paper, maybe a poster. Next ds I might do a shorter paper and a diorama (I think he would like that). Ds 2nd... I'm not sure what to have him do yet.

Hmm-no, I wasn't trying to lay the blame totally on the hosting people. There's a verse in the Bible about being salt -I've always understood that to mean that those that are salt preserve the meat from going rotten. So, I think I view all of culture as heading towards selfishness but if there's something I can do to prevent a small amount of that from happening, I should do it joyfully. I often recognize, in myself, that when I try to withdraw from doing good-that-is-not-reciprocated it is for selfish reasons. It's just a small amount of good I can do to help preserve a culture that is turning, frankly, rotten.

We have a large family so no longer really get invited by couples without kids or with grown kids, even though we invite them. That is fine-it's the season of our life and I understand. We have a few families who we reciprocate back and forth with-those are great friendships for which I'm thankful. When there's not a reciprocation for multiple invites I tend to think that the other family is not really interested in establishing a deep relationship with us. That's fine and doesn't necessarily mean that I will stop inviting them, just that my relationship expectation is shallower. Every relationship needs someone who will take the first step to do the inviting: I've seen some people decide that since it's never reciprocate they will just never invite anyone again; I think that's a shame and is leading our culture in a direction of selfishness.

When we were using Rod & Staff I used to pick the ones that were hardest and assign about 10 problems. Now that he's using Saxon I just started assigning evens, which works out to 15. He's thrilled because some of them are easier...even though it's more problems 🤷‍♀️. I find that if I assign the evens he hits all the review stuff every few days and it seems to work out fine.

Are there consequences if he doesn't (assuming he understands what you've asked him to do)? Especially if he isn't doing any probably at all. Re: feeling overwhelmed: I started having my 12 yo just do math for one hour (which includes instruction time). If he gets done, great! If not, put it aside to work on something else and then come back to it at the end of the day. I'm also only assigning the evens (we use a different curriculum, so not sure that's an option with yours).

We did a co-op one year. We didn't make any friends, which was the only reason we joined. The following year I opened my house up and taught an art class. It was a subject that was easy to put off without that weekly accountability and it provided a weekly social opportunity for my kids. That has been a great fit for us. If we didn't have that, there are a couple of homeschool groups that do field trips and weekly playground meet ups that we would probably join. I've also had to kind of make peace with the fact that my kids might make friends somewhere but I might not-I have to suck it up and be ok with that.

I was coming on here to say the same thing. Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson. Owl Moon by Yolen. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Frost (we have a lovely picture book by Susan Jeffers).

From a Christian perspective: I very much relate to what you're saying. I am a people pleaser and that trickles down to wanting to please my children. Which leaves me frazzled because there are so many of them and they don't want to be pleased with the things that are good for them. They want to just play and even then aren't usually totally pleased. I constantly find myself asking them dumb questions like "did you enjoy your math today?" or "ready for school?". I know the answers and I know I shouldn't ask those questions, but it's hard to stop myself! The solution 100% of the time for me is going back to the Lord: 1. Remember who He is. He is the One in control. He sees me and still loves me. He knows my children and what they need - I can go to Him with problems and I can trust Him. 2. Remember what my God given roll is. I am to love them - that means caring about (but not submitting myself to) their current happiness. But it means wanting their good in the future much more than caring about the present. That gives me a lot more confidence to say "no" to fun things. It also means that sometimes I say "yes" to fun things and put school work off for another day. Sometimes those side things happening are really important - even if they're not "school". Constantly reminding myself who God is and checking to see if I'm where God would want me to be is incredibly helpful. It shifts my focus and brings me instant peace and confidence. Otherwise I'm feeling overwhelmed and stressed and ready to just throw in the towel.

I'm like you and get up early. But, as soon as I get up I feel like I need to be doing things and would feel lazy reading (although here I sit on my phone and do not feel that way...feelings are complex!). The kids go down 1-2 hours before dh and I go to bed, so that is my ideal reading time (not that I always use my time wisely). Kind of a "done with my tasks and now winding down for bed" type of thing. Maybe you could read for a little while and then read something lighter if the initial reading gets you too keyed up. 🤷‍♀️

We used R&S through book 6 and then switched to Saxon 8/7 without any trouble. I can't speak to the writing in the book question because we have siblings coming up so try to keep it clean. I never assign all the questions, though -probably not even half.

I count instrument practice for my 7th grader because it is not something he would do himself. I don't count family reading time-he doesn't have to sit through those, but it is his favorite thing to do, I think. My goal is around 5.5 hours of work (he lengthens it out to 7 and I'm working on seeing what I can combine or get rid of). So, probably 5 hours of undirected time?

You guys, this is so helpful! That was a very long post and I appreciate you all taking the time to read it and offer suggestions. One of the issues is I'm expecting things without giving clear directions - Geography was pretty opened ended (which I thought he would like, but I think it was too wide open). Yesterday I worked on making more defined things to research each day including where to find the information (books, specific sites - I found a couple without a ton of ads) (I forgot to mention @8filltheheart that I do have a Geography book - one that @Lori D. had recommended - there are just some things that it doesn't include, like current information [written in the 90's]). So I'm going to be having him make a book for each country rather than write a paper - it will have clearly defined areas (like History, Arts, Food and Etiquette), with much less writing than a paper. I made an example for him, and he thought it would be a good change. I asked him about Latin and he wants to keep it. 🤷‍♀️ I also asked him about putting the religions book to the side until high school but he wants to continue. @SilverMoon good reminder to make the curriculum work for us. I'll start breaking the religions book into bite sized reading each day, for starters, and not try to do a chapter a week. I was aiming for discussion of the chapter on Thursdays, but there is no reason to not just discuss it when we're done - whether it takes a week or two or three. I still need to think through writing. Up until this point I have really liked Writing Strands. But, looking ahead to high school makes me wonder if this curriculum will prepare him for high school writing. I'll be looking at that today. One thing that I think will help is making sure he's doing the daily assignments in Writing Strands rather than trying to complete the paper by a given date - again, bite sized pieces. I guess I was hoping that he could figure out how to break things into bite sized pieces himself, but maybe 7th grade is too early to expect that. Maybe I can alternate spelling with figurately speaking. I really don't think he needs spelling every day (dh wanted to keep spelling this year if we can) - my next child, however, may need spelling up through 12th... We're starting figuratively speaking this week, so I'll see how it goes. And I'll think more on piano. I really hate to have him give it up because it was so good for me, but I know he's a different person... Thanks again, everyone (including those I didn't mention by name). I'll be rereading the suggestions many more times.

@caffeineandbooks thank you for the commiseration. It does help to know I'm not alone. And helpful to know you're not doing spelling or grammar-maybe those are things I can remove too.

I see these "feeling overwhelmed" topics pop up periodically and haven't really ever paid much attention to them. Up to this point in our homeschool journey I have been pretty confident (with periods of uncertainty that resolve themselves). But, this year it's my turn to type up one of these topics: with my 7th grade I am feeling increasingly anxious that I am messing this up. Highschool is just around the corner. I am feeling like there are major holes and that I just don't have time to work one on one with him for everything. He's pretty independent, but he doesn't know what he doesn't know, ykwim? He is a slow worker, so I know that's part of the problem, but he's smart and compliant and any issues that we're having I think have to be rooted with me. But, I also have other kids that I'm trying to do school with too. School takes him from 8:30-4 most days and some of the output is, frankly, not good. He knows the material if I sit down with him, but his output (tests, papers, math homework) is just not at the point I think it should be. I just feel like the year is rushing forward and I can't get my feet under me to stop and help him understand anything -it's always "on to the next thing" and we just leave the poorly done assignments in the dust behind us. Any veterans want to chime in with ideas or encouragement? And thanks in advance for reading yet another one of these topics! Here's a typical M-Th weekly schedule (we try to use Friday as our catch up and to do a couple of more fun things): LA -Reading good books. I require 30 min a day, but he often reads more than that. Reading is a subject I'm not worried about. I also purchased a Progeny Press guide for one of the books we're doing this year. I thought it might be good to work through one of those. -Spelling. Takes about 15 min and we're doing Dictation Day by Day. No complaints here - this seems to be working well. I may stop doing it next year since he's a pretty good speller. -Grammar: 15-20 min/day in theory. Analytical Grammar. We just finished year 2 of the 3 year cycle. We'll be doing the reinforcements once every 3/4 weeks. I plan to fill our grammar time with Figuratively Speaking - it will get us talking about some of these terms and reading some short stories and poetry, which we haven't done much of up to this point. -Writing: my nemesis... He loves to write, in theory. We're doing the old Writing Strands level 6. He does pretty good with that. I've also started this week reading through Essay Voyage (MCT) with him because the essays that he's done in other subjects have been pretty bad. I don't plan to assign any of the writing from the book, just read through it together. I'm aiming for about 20 min of WS a day. However, he usually waits until the day before a WS paper is due and then spends all day doing it. Math: Saxon 8/7. I go over things that he got wrong the previous day and the new lesson for 10-15 min and then assign the evens. I think it's a good system. His scores aren't great, but it's mostly minor mistakes. I think we're going in a fine direction with this. Logic: We're reading through part of World Religions and Cults together. He reads a chapter a week and we discuss. No output required. It's a little advanced for him...I'm thinking about putting it aside until high school and doing a more traditional logic course. He is just really interested in other religions, so I thought it would be fun to do together, but it is a lot of extra reading each week. Science: We're doing Berean Builders, a chapter every 2 weeks as recommended. I make him take notes and assign him a test at the end of the chapter. We're starting to get into the habit of taking notes and seeing why it's important. Language: We're doing greek 2 days a week for 15 min and Latin 2 days a week for 15 min. It's slow progress, but that's fine with me. I think he enjoys it and it doesn't take much time. My high school plan is to have him use his greek knowledge to translate for his Bible study. I don't have thoughts on using Latin for high school - it may just be a good base for studying a modern language. History: We're doing a geography year - a new country every 2 weeks. This is another area I'm struggling with. I want him to research the country on his own (our library is terrible so it's mostly online research) for several days and write a paper. (We're also labeling a map, writing some general information about each country we study (major religion, leader's name, currency, etc), looking up recipes from the country (and cooking them with a friend), and playing a game from the area.) This has potential to be such a fun experience, but the 45 min of daily research is yielding very little in notes and his papers are not good. Online resources are hard to find and many of them have ads which is very distracting to him. I've been trying to sit with him during the research part of this but, again, 4 other kids... Piano: 30 min of practice. This may be the last year that I "make" him do piano - I think he would like to not be required to practice every day. What can I cut out? Is this too much? Not enough? Is this going to figure itself out like all of our past problems have?

We don't have family near so have never had any issue with too many visitors. I definitely don't want any visitors a few hours after the birth: trying to figure out b feeding, all the yuck from post birth, etc-I barely want my husband there. But, after that time, I would welcome short visits from some people. I guess it depends on how much family is around- having visitors all the time is exhausting and especially when you're trying to figure out a new baby. But if they could all be short visits and not too many it wouldn't be a problem.

Just jumping in this thread to agree. I've been homeschooling for 7 years and am gradually becoming more confident. But, I needed some kind of curriculum, even in the early years to boost my confidence, give me ideas, show me what not to do, etc. And sometimes using curriculum is me not recreating the wheel: if it is a good curriculum and will prevent me from having to work hours to develop something, it is probably worth it to me right now. BUT, just because I use a curriculum doesn't mean I'm not teaching to each individual child. We spend a lot of time discussing things together. Sometimes I feel like I'm not very intelligent being on this forum because I don't create (or even know how to create) all my own curriculum. OP: have you tried looking at individual subjects rather than looking at an entire curriculum set (like MP, Bob Jones, etc)? That has worked well for us. For example, for language arts we use: -FLL 1/2, then some other resources, then Analytical Grammar for grammar -Dictation Day by Day for spelling -Writing Strands (and occasional papers that I assign in other subjects) -I've just purchased a Progeny Press for a book I've assigned a couple kids to read. Mostly we just read good books based on many book lists I've found through the years.

I'm sorry-that is frustrating. I offer relatively inexpensive art classes and, for the most part, people have been very appreciative. I did ask this year that people let me know as soon as they can if they would not be in class (it is frustrating when you have prepped a bunch of stuff only to have the kids not show up). If attendance was an issue with the majority I would be very honest: "it is important that your student is in class at least x number of times a month". I've had a few flakey moms that just stopped showing up half way through the year. If they had asked to sign up this year I would not have allowed them to join again. I've found it helpful to just be very very clear about expectations-even expectations that you would think would be no-brainers. Every year I fine tune how I word things so that it's clear. I blame social media-it's easy to just leave groups or forums without giving a reason-seems like people are applying that to actual life too. I think calling people out on it can be a wake up call to them.