Have you seen this article? https://welltrainedmind.com/a/older-child/ Also, here's the link to articles/videos: https://welltrainedmind.com/articles-videos/ You would be using Story of the World for the 4th grader - not History of the World (that one is for adults). The 7th grader could listen to Story of the World also, but you're right, you have to supplement with other readings. Here's an article on Great Books (but, honestly, don't feel confined to that list - we read just about anything that's considered great literature): https://welltrainedmind.com/academic-excellence-5-8-history-and-great-books-recommendation/ https://welltrainedmind.com/a/the-great-books-history-as-literature/ Good luck!!

My homeschooled daughter just started full-time college 3 weeks ago and she absolutely loves it. She already has 45 extra credit points in her art history class and she says her professors know her by name, because she sits in the front and answers questions. I was so worried I had ruined her with this homeschooling thing! She had never done dual enrollment or anything - just jumped right into college. Lol

Throw them in the trash! They made our cats really sick, too (!!) - a Turkish Van and a calico. We have 3 cats. The third is a Siamese and the treats didn't affect her at all, but the other two were having all kinds of digestive problems. Once we stopped feeding them the treats, all the symptoms went away. And they were like drugs for the cats. The Siamese was constantly opening our cabinet doors looking for them and she got to where she wouldn't eat her food or other treats - just the Temptations. OP, I'm so sorry about your cats! We are huge cat people in this house....we love kitty cats...that would upset us, too.

You have to be careful with Thames & Kosmos. Home Science Tools has some really good science kits, though. The MicroChem Kit is very good so far (we're working through that one right now). The Intro to Chemistry kit is really good. All of the chemistry kits for homeschoolers are just really expensive, unfortunately.

I don't know what your budget is, but we really liked the Intro to Chemistry kit at Home Science Tools. I think there are two kits - one for just the chemicals and one that's all the lab equipment with the chemicals. I'm working through it a second time with a 12 year-old. Most of the chemicals have lasted through two rounds of experiments - I think most of the chemicals would easily last a third, too, honestly.

Stereotypes are interesting...but it's such an enormous country - and the population is literally from all over the world. It would impossible to stereotype Americans. If you looked at a picture of my Syrian neighbors or my Korean husband, you wouldn't immediately associate American stereotypes with their pictures. But, they're American, too. Also, people traveling overseas are usually a certain demographic. First, they can afford to fly to another country and stay there. Um, we can't. And neither can our neighbors. Second, they're usually older and aren't bringing 6 kids with them. Third, they're usually over-the-top excited. I mean, they're on vacation in another country. They don't have to go to work on Monday. I do live in a major tourist city in the US and the tourists from other countries are obnoxious here, too. They throw rocks/sticks at the animal enclosures in the zoo to get the animal to move. My family gets hysterically upset when they see that - but we see it every time we go to the zoo here. I need to keep zoo security on speed dial or something. They can also be rude and block sidewalks, walk REALLY slow and in the way, etc. Also, it feels like they're only nice to you when they want something. They also assume that because you're American, you have a ton of money. Either way, living with tourists in your area can just be rough, no matter what country you're in. I think you could replace the name of my tourist city in the US with a city in another country and the complaints about tourists would be the same.

Somewhere on these forums from about 3-4 years ago....we used Ambleside Online and I was trying to use the Charlotte Mason method in our homeschool. We loved everything about it, except I couldn't wrap my brain around how to schedule everything without schooling 6 days a week....and I couldn't wrap my brain around how to assign high school credits using the CM method. I started some threads about it at the time as we were struggling. *sigh*. I actually regret giving up on Ambleside and Charlotte Mason. Have you seen this blog? https://ourhabitathome.com/try-something-new-in-your-homeschool-an-introduction-to-loop-scheduling/ I'm spending some time reading the posts. There are multiple posts about the loop schedule on there.

This is kinda what's been happening the last two weeks. And we actually have made a lot of progress with what I've wanted to accomplish. I think I'm so used to homeschooling with the daily checklist/independent work routine that my new schedule feels very inefficient and it's making me insecure. I wonder if I just made a weekly checklist for myself and then just worked on things over the week as we felt like it - if that would make me feel better.

So, for some reason....the MicroChem labs really wear me out. I don't know what my problem is. I don't think I could do more than one of these per day. The Intro to Chemistry kit labs are much lighter and I'm able to do a couple in a day. So, I'll probably have to keep chemistry in the loop somewhere.

Ok, I actually had to think about this for two days for me to figure out what this would look like. Thank-you!! I'm going to try something like this.

and I've tried this once before, but I just feel like I'm spinning my wheels or something?? I feel disorganized. Do I just have too many subjects? Am I accomplishing more than I think I am? We started Morning Basket and it's been wonderful ? but I feel like we're not making much progress throughout the week. Maybe my expectations are too high for how much we should be getting done during the week. My kids are actually enjoying everything - a lot. Does anyone do a Loop Schedule? Do you have any tips? This is only our second week with our new stuff, so I feel disoriented anyway. Also, one kid graduated high school and another started Kindergarten, so my brain is just really confused. It's hard for my brain to switch from teaching 12th grade to teaching Kindergarten. Does anyone want to see our schedule? Kindergartener is doing Morning Basket + My Father's World. But, he's not the problem. Older kids are doing: Daily: Morning Basket (read-aloud, composer study, artist study, geography, hymn study) Math Then, here's our Loop: Bible Literature Writing Grammar/Spelling Science Biography Chemistry German and/or Latin Art Fridays we do PE and music. Why do I feel so disorganized and disjointed with the Loop Schedule?? Part of the problem may be Chemistry. It takes us forever..... I'm running two chemistry kits at once - the Intro to Chemistry kit (for the 12 year-old) and the MicroChem Kit (for the teens) from Home Science Tools. The MicroChem labs take a lot of time. We spent two hours just on the chromatography lab last week. I think I stupidly expected to get through these chemistry labs in about 8 weeks and now I think it's unrealistic. The Intro kit has 27 labs and the MicroChem kit has 17 labs, so that's almost 50 labs that I'm running in 8 weeks. Maybe I'm being unrealistic. Thanks for any advice/tips on the Loop Schedule thing. I don't understand why I'm never able to pull this off!

Me, neither. I just don't have the time and patience for that.

Yeah, we're nature journaling failures here, too. At the park, I'm like, "Huh. There's a tree." None of us have any idea what kind of tree it is....or the patience to draw a picture of it in a notebook. Then, the kids will ask, "Can we get tacos for lunch?" And then nature time is over.

Honestly, we're not the best with history/geography (and ironically, because this is the WTM forums). We've always been very math and science oriented. Also, a lot of the history curricula out there (especially at the high school level) just looks very dry and boring. We've not been very good with music, either. I've tried. This is also ironic, because until age 16, my plan was to be a professional musician. My parents actually perform and tour with their own group they started. My uncle had a degree in music. And...I'm distantly related to Elvis. I mean, you would THINK (for crying out loud!) we could pull off music in our homeschool!! Nope. I've failed in that department. I am making more of an effort with art this year, though. I even have the high schoolers doing art - which they are enjoying.

There are some review problems - especially if you do the later lettered workbook pages (like C-E). My son is working through Algebra 2 right now. I don't know if it's my imagination, but there seems to be a big jump in difficulty from algebra 1.

You're looking for spelling and grammar specifically. We like All About Spelling and the Easy Grammar series. For older kids, we use Sequential Spelling (after AAS). For math, we've had good experiences with Dimensions Math and Mathusee. Those aren't the only ones out there - just listing the ones we like. We use living books in our homeschool - mostly no textbooks (we do use Apologia sometimes and I consider those textbooks....). We're probably more like unit study homeschoolers, but I use a lot of ideas from CM. Anyway, how I plan is - I make a list of all the subjects I want to cover like: science history literature poetry art music geography Latin/German (we do both) Then, I will research topics for each category - like we're working on chemistry right now for science. I'll google "living books for chemistry" or start looking around on Amazon. If I find "Mystery of the Periodic Table", it leads to more books that are similar or that other homeschoolers have bought. For science, I'll also go on Home Science Tools and just browse all the different lab kits, etc. I list anything that looks interesting. And it's ok if I only have "Where the Red Fern Grows" for literature. I don't need to plan some massive booklist, because I know I'll think of something after that book and be like 'hey, this looks like fun!' So, don't panic if your plans don't cover an entire school year. You can look at different kinds of schedules, too. Some people do certain subjects on certain days. Some people do loop scheduling - where they have a list of subjects and just work through them in a loop. At this point, I'm just picking every day what we feel like doing. You could also do a schedule where you cover math, language arts and one other subject for a few weeks. We've done that before when they were little. Then, you switch the subject for something else at the end of the 8 weeks or whatever. Good luck with your planning!

Heck, chapter TWO was hard. lol. She and I worked on the book together. It sounds silly, but we read the book together at the table and worked the problems. I was there to "help" her, but usually she understood things a little quicker and had to explain everything to me.

My daughter did Life of Fred Statistics her last year of high school. When she took the college placement test, she tested into the highest math possible. They told her that even if she answered more questions right, she couldn't test into a higher class. She only has to take one math class for her Bachelor's degree - ironically....Statistics. Lol. She's taking it this semester to get it over with. But a warning on LOF Statistics - we weren't able to completely finish it. It was HARD. Edited to add: And I before I bought it, I couldn't find reviews on it or anyone IRL who ever used it. I couldn't find any homeschool statistics curriculum besides LOF.

Oh my goodness...we've had/witnessed so many bad experiences now with screens/social media. One of the boys in our extended family is actually failing Kindergarten because of a screen addiction. *sigh* It's just unbelievable....and the parents are really trying, but it's a mess. One of my teens was bullied by a group of teenagers (from a CHURCH- of all places, people!?!) on a group chat. It became so serious that I noticed behavior changes and my teen started showing signs of depression. It took way too long for me to get to the bottom of it and figure out what exactly was happening. Ugh. I went out to check our mail a couple of weeks ago and my neighbor's big screen TV was sitting out at the trash. The screen was just smashed. I saw the neighbor's kid outside and I asked 'dude, what happened to your TV?' Well, apparently.....the boys next door were playing Fortnite (not even sure if that's how it's spelled)...they were supposed to be taking turns and the kid who had the controller didn't want to take turns. A huge physical brawl broke out in their living room and the kid with the controller decided that if he couldn't play, NO ONE could. So, he ran over to the TV and smashed the screen to pieces. YEP. What the heck??

I wonder if 10 years from now, we'll do 180s on our 180s. Lol

Most of the people who volunteer with us are very low income (just a shot in the dark - I'm going to say maybe 70%). Our family is heavily involved with an animal rescue and some of the volunteers actually live on the property (they don't have their own place to live). There have been people who were homeless who lived/volunteered/worked on property. It's definitely not upper income people. A LOT of older people, too - wherever we volunteer. My teens are always the only teens. Heck, even I'm always one of the youngest....

I'm not saying we can't ever use it and we have to live like it's 1827. Have you read Glow Kids? THAT'S what I'm talking about. Not your dyslexic kid watching a video. And look around at people the next time you're at a restaurant. Everyone is constantly on their phones. Psychologists are starting to write articles about what parents being on their phones is having on our kids - like they're not making eye contact with their toddlers/babies - stuff like that.

I'm definitely someone who went from "the most liberal person in the world" (that would've been my description of myself in college) to pretty conservative. That's just been from decades of dealing with people and all of the experiences I've had. I've also become VERY anti-technology, anti-screens, anti-social media.....after years of watching its effects on people. It's addictive, it ruins relationships, it causes developmental problems in our kids, it keeps people from making eye contact with their kids, it keeps people from having meaningful conversations, anytime screens are used in education - it makes the learning a bunch of shallow junk, it prevents people's brains from taking a break to look out a window....I mean, I could go on and on. I appreciate all things minimalism - keeping things as simple as possible - doing things intentionally - enjoying the moment.....keeping our possessions in the house at a minimum....being careful with our time. Everyone around me is just nuts. Both parents work 60 hours a week...the kids are constantly on screens....constantly screaming.....they're always buying junk/demanding junk....rushing everywhere...NO ONE is healthy.... I'm just disturbed by what I see around me (and I live in a huge city, so that might be skewing my perceptions, too). I've written off the government as useless and I think we need to go back to fixing/running things as a community. Our family does an enormous amount of volunteer work. So, I'm around groups of people who basically spend their lives working for free to make the community around us better. It's amazing and it really has changed the way I see our area and it's introduced me to this entire subculture of people who are volunteering because they care about someone besides themselves. And they are more effective than our local government. I'm done with the anonymous herd mentality when I'm out in public (and keep in mind I'm in a huge city). Most people just walk on past when someone needs help. They cut in lines...they're ignorant and rude to customer service people. I stop and help older people reach the eggs out of the cooler at the grocery store...or help the lady down the street change her tire...I hold open doors for people... I'm tired of rudeness and people acting like anonymous herd animals. I started doing in-depth Bible reading/Bible studies. Yeah, ten years ago, I would've told you that was weird. I'm in the process right now of reading the Bible from cover to cover, slowly, over the year. I've also become less enthusiastic about organized churches, ironically. I'm interested in the idea of informal home churches. I also worry more about younger people, our very unbalanced society, current events, etc. No kid should have to go to school and worry about a school shooter. You should be able to take your family to Walmart or church or post office and not have to worry about some mentally-unhinged lunatic attacking the building like in a Bruce Willis movie. Just....sigh....

Also, almost every single new homeschooler out there mentions they want outside accountability for their kid, which is why they are looking for a "virtual school" or something like an online charter school. OK, there is like an adjustment period when you first start homeschooling, but they become accountable to you, as a parent. And it takes awhile for everyone to get used to that. But, they do! Does that make any sense?

Can you tell us why you think homeschooling classically would be expensive? What are you picturing exactly? (And I'm being serious, not sarcastic)