I love how Ace PACES have goal cards for weekly work and a progress chart for the year. It helps to keep the student on track and know exactly what is expected. However, I do not like the work in the PACES. I much prefer to custom design our own homeschool. But, we are struggling to keep up and know what to do next, I need a system like the goal cards/progress chart but customised to our curriculum. I nearly switched us over to PACES earlier this week for this exact reason alone. Please send me your suggestions or pictures of what you use. Thanks so much

I am looking for books to read with my children and for them to read independently, regarding death, or grief and loss. My best friend passed away just after Christmas, and we a huge living books, literature loving family. My girls are 13, 11 and 9. Thanks :)

Thanks! Hugs to you too! Yes I do need to choose something for her for writing. Any suggestions for a good, mostly independent, program? This child loves to write :)

Any suggestions for LA? Or does my plan look okay?

Thanks Melissa! Thank you for your suggestions, I really all the assistance I can get at the moment. I am going to put together a reading list for my girls from Sonlight/All through the Ages/ Ambleside Online. They usually read for an hour each day, half of that being from assigned reading that will come from these lists. So putting those lists together and sourcing the books is on my to do list. They are doing a 6 week pottery class starting tomorrow. Then I was thinking we would use Draw through history weekly or fortnightly to go with our history studies. My girls usually craft/knit on their own. I don't want to spend a lot of money on foreign language since I have several already. Perhaps they could use Duolingo, we haven't used that program in over a year. They do have Skoldo so could use that for French. Logic? I haven't done anything for that before. Any ideas?

My closest friend passed away a couple of days after Christmas. One option for her children was that I assist with the continuing homeschooling. So now that my friends children will be attending public school, I need to organise our school year. Here in Australia, our new school year began yesterday. I usually organise our year right after Christmas, but as my friend passed away and I have spent the past four weeks assisting her family, we are not ready to begin. My girls are quite keen to get started actually, especially since their friends are at school. I think I need to streamline our subjects and choose curriculum that is fairly independent, especially for this first term, 10 weeks, in case there are days that I just cannot teach them. Grade 8 Maths - Saxon 8/7 English/LA - AAS7; EG Plus Science - Apologia General Science History - Ancients - group MOH1/SOTW1 Grade 6 Maths - Singapore 6A/B English/LA - AAS5/6; Winston Grammar Science - Science in the Beginning/ Abeka Science Grade 7 History - Ancients - group MOH1/SOTW1 Grade 4 Maths - Singapore 4A/B English/LA - AAS3/4; ARFH Cursive; LLATL Yellow/Orange Science - Science in the Beginning/ Abeka Science Grade 4 History - Ancients - group MOH1/SOTW1 I'm actually thinking of having all my girls do LLATL, so the days I don't get to do work with them, they can still do LA independently. My youngest is about half way through LLATL yellow, that is the only level my girls have used. I love AAS so still want to keep progressing with that curriculum, but if I don't get to do it each day, it's no big deal. Is there something else I should consider for LA? My older two do their grammar programs on their own anyway. I'm not sure what to do for Foreign language ATM. My oldest was working on French, my youngest really wants to do German, we have tried a few different ones. My older two had been doing Latin, but not sure how to do that this year. I really needed to change up how we approached Latin but never got around to working that out. Is there something I'm missing? We usually have a very full workload, but I'm trying to keep to the basics and independent options where possible. I usually spend about 5 hours teaching each day, including lots of read alouds, but just don't know how that is going to go this year. I'm also struggling to think clearly and make decisions so I would really appreciate any assistance. Thanks in advance

Thanks again everyone, really appreciate your responses :) Just an update, the father has decided to send the children to public school. That all takes place this week. Now I need to organise what my children will be doing, I'll start another thread regarding that.

Thanks again everyone, really appreciate your responses :) Just an update, the father has decided to send the children to public school. That all takes place this week. Now I need to organise what my children will be doing, I'll start another thread regarding that.

Wow! Thank you so so much! I am overwhelmed by the love and support here. It has been a really difficult almost 3 weeks. We haven't had internet for the past 5 days, so I have just logged on now to read all your wonderful responses. Just a brief update, the 15yo boy has chosen to go to a school. He had discussed this with his mother in December and she was preparing the paperwork for it. So that is underway. The father is very grateful for our offer of helping out 2 days a week, so we are in the process of seeing how that is going to work. I will come back to each of your responses to assist in my planning. But it's looking as though it could be mainly the extras I will look after - history, science, and adding in the fun things our girls all like to do together. If we do this, we will evaluate in 6mths time or so to see how it is working out for us all. We are all aware that anything could change and we need to make the most of the time we have with the children and do what we can to support them during this initial stage. I'd love to write back to you all individually, but I just don't have the time right now. Thanks again so much for your support xx

My friend passed away 2 weeks ago due to complications after giving birth to her 6th child. She was a single parent and homeschooled her children. The children are now living with their father and he wants to make as few changes as possible, including continuing with homeschooling. He has no knowledge of how it works and needs help. I have schooled her children before on and off, including a 2 week stint while she travelled overseas. Looking at options for schooling, one possibility is that we could include them in our day twice a week, while he works. Then he has them the other three days. I guess the reason for my post is to hear ideas on how this could work. For me - teaching 7 girls (her oldest child is a nearly 16yo boy, whom I don't have a lot to do with, so not sure yet how he fits into the equation for education). How their children are going to adjust, I understand this could be a very difficult year for them and we may not get a whole lot done (they are aged 13 down to 6). And my own children (13 - 8). The 7 girls are best of friends and have been for a few years now (their mother and I were best friends too). Our home has been a second home to them and we feel like we are family. Before this tragedy happened, I had planned on using SOTW for my girls as a group RA and giving my older ones extra reading material. I had also planned on using Exploring creation as a group science, particularly with my younger two, and my oldest would begin with Apologia General Science. We would have had a maths hour each day and a LA hour each day, I would use that hour to work with whoever needed help, then they would work independently when they could. I'm thinking that the days I have the other girls, we could still do history and science as planned (altogether, expect possibly have to leave general science for now), then have a maths hour and LA hour, but obviously I wouldn't get through as much as I'm spreading myself between 7 children instead of 3. I would possibly need to forego languages, Latin, and all the other extras, just focusing on these main subjects. Can anyone please give me some insight into how this could work? I will still potentially have 3 days a week to work with my girls, but that may mean cutting back their extra curricula for a little while to be sure we have enough family and school time. I have never experienced the loss of someone close and dear to me, so I really have no idea how much to expect of myself, nor the children, in the coming weeks and months. We are on summer holidays here in Australia, and school is supposed to start back 22nd Jan. I doubt we will be ready though.

I really need to talk this through as I plan our upcoming year. DD9 is going into 4th grade - no previous Latin. I was actually contemplating using Easy Grammar 3 for her this year (since I have that already) to give her a basis in grammar before starting Latin in 5th grade. Is that a good idea or should begin with one of the following programs. DD11 going into grade 6 - completed Prima Latina in 6mths in grade 4 (which her and I both loved), then we began Latina Christiana this year and found it quite difficult, so switched to GSWL, which went well. We didn't finish it however. Not sure what to do for her this next year. DD13 - 8th grade. She completed GSWL in grade 5, Visual Latin 1 in grade 6 and attempted Visual Latin 2 this past year. She didn't enjoy Latin, but was required to finish VL1, so didn't retain a whole lot. I told her that once she finished her year of VL1, if she no longer wanted to do Latin, that was fine. However, she decided she wanted to continue so we proceeded with VL2 (it has not been completed though). After having a few weeks off and considering that we are studying Ancient history next year, DD13 approached me to say that she would like to do Latin as it may help with our history studies next year. But she does not want a fully rigid program or for it to be mandatory. This child is very linguistic and wants to go on to study languages and literature after completing grade 12, so I believe that Latin will be a real asset to her. Since I told her a year ago that it is up to her if she studies Latin (after she had dabbled with it for 2yrs), I want to find a way for her to do so without getting bogged down and hating Latin like she has in the past. I have wondered how teaching Latin to all 3 at the same time might work. I know I could do EFTRU altogether, but wonder if there is some other way of doing this. I have 5 weeks until we begin the new year and had planned on working through Henle myself, to give me a heads up on the language. I know I have not been the best teacher for Latin and not used the curricula correctly thus far. But I really want to rectify this and make it meaningful for my girls. I know I don't need to buy another program, but Lively Book of Latin looks like it could be fun for my younger two to work through, but I don't want to bog them down any more in their school day. If it's not best to do altogether, what is the best possible path for each of my girls individually? (Oldest just wants to read Latin, not bother with worksheets and busyness). I own the following Latin curriculum: English from the Roots Up GSWL Prima Latina Latina Christiana Visual Latin 1 Visual Latin 2 Henle Latin First Year Lingua Latina

I really need to talk this through as I plan our upcoming year. DD9 is going into 4th grade - no previous Latin. I was actually contemplating using Easy Grammar 3 for her this year (since I have that already) to give her a basis in grammar before starting Latin in 5th grade. Is that a good idea or should begin with one of the following programs. DD11 going into grade 6 - completed Prima Latina in 6mths in grade 4 (which her and I both loved), then we began Latina Christiana this year and found it quite difficult, so switched to GSWL, which went well. We didn't finish it however. Not sure what to do for her this next year. DD13 - 8th grade. She completed GSWL in grade 5, Visual Latin 1 in grade 6 and attempted Visual Latin 2 this past year. She didn't enjoy Latin, but was required to finish VL1, so didn't retain a whole lot. I told her that once she finished her year of VL1, if she no longer wanted to do Latin, that was fine. However, she decided she wanted to continue so we proceeded with VL2 (it has not been completed though). After having a few weeks off and considering that we are studying Ancient history next year, DD13 approached me to say that she would like to do Latin as it may help with our history studies next year. But she does not want a fully rigid program or for it to be mandatory. This child is very linguistic and wants to go on to study languages and literature after completing grade 12, so I believe that Latin will be a real asset to her. Since I told her a year ago that it is up to her if she studies Latin (after she had dabbled with it for 2yrs), I want to find a way for her to do so without getting bogged down and hating Latin like she has in the past. I have wondered how teaching Latin to all 3 at the same time might work. I know I could do EFTRU altogether, but wonder if there is some other way of doing this. I have 5 weeks until we begin the new year and had planned on working through Henle myself, to give me a heads up on the language. I know I have not been the best teacher for Latin and not used the curricula correctly thus far. But I really want to rectify this and make it meaningful for my girls. I know I don't need to buy another program, but Lively Book of Latin looks like it could be fun for my younger two to work through, but I don't want to bog them down any more in their school day. If it's not best to do altogether, what is the best possible path for each of my girls individually? (Oldest just wants to read Latin, not bother with worksheets and busyness). I own the following Latin curriculum: English from the Roots Up GSWL Prima Latina Latina Christiana Visual Latin 1 Visual Latin 2 Henle Latin First Year Lingua Latina

I have to admit, I've hardly looked at Wordsmith Apprentice. My daughter only used it for about 2 weeks and that was independently. She said she really liked what she covered during that time. I'll remember to look at the next two levels once she completes this one.

I need some advice on choosing a writing program for my 8th grader. Her favourite past time is reading and writing. Even though I have purchased a few writing programs over the years, she has never used a formal writing program. The main reason was that I believed the Charlotte Mason way for writing was best for the younger years, so she did lot of copywork, oral narration, and free writing at her choosing. We are on a break until February and just before we finished up for the year, I had purchased Wordsmith Apprentice. She began using this one and liked it. I am thinking though that I would possibly use that as a supplement. Since this child has a passion for the written word, I really want to use a great program for her. She needs to learn how to construct paragraphs and is very keen to learn how to write an essay. She dreams of studying English literature and language in college, and writing her own books. What writing program/curriculum would you recommend? We live in Australia, so that may cut some options out. ETA: This is the writing curriculum we have: Writing Strands 3 (dabbled in during 4th grade) Essentials in Writing 5 (got bogged down with all the workbookish grammar in grade 5) Wordsmith apprentice (only used for a week or two before we finished school this year, she really liked it) Jump In ( was given a copy but haven't used it) WWS (tried it beginning of grade 6, but came away feeling like her writing just wasn't good enough, perhaps I could use this one from a different approach, and she is two years older now) Creative Writer (haven't even looked at it) I will still have her prepare a written narration or two each week, but would really like to use a structured writing program that will teach her the mechanics of writing that I cannot.

Just wondering if anyone has used Foundations Bible Curriculum. And if you have, what you thought of it and how it worked in your household? Thanks in advance :)