Hey everyone! I need help. I've been perusing these forums since '13 & this is my first post. I've been homeschooling for 6 years, but have just recently read TWTM. Omg. I wish I had done that 6 yrs ago, it would've changed everything. I have been eclectic, using several of the curriculum mentioned across the forum & wanted terribly to tackle subjects like Latin & logic, not really realizing I was running parallel in my curriculum choices. Now that I've decided to jump all in, I'm not quite sure how to transition my upcoming 9th & 10th graders into TWTM method for history & lit when it's so different than what they know. I'm worried about transitioning into rhetoric (in general) without the foundation of grammar & logic, especially. This year we did Notgrass History, combining the history, lit & Bible. We love the primary documents, but there's no study of lit analysis. My gifted/ADHD 10th grader enjoys the reading & answering the questions, hates the projects. This doesn't bother me too much b/c he enjoys the writing, too. My 9th grader has worked through dysgraphia (still working), possibly dyslexia (at least the symptoms, but they're gone now) & hoooorid spelling. He is so bright, probably gifted as well. He did the lower level Notgrass this year, but pigs will fly before he will do all that writing in the upper level Notgrass. I've looked at SWB history books online, they don't seem like an option at all (tho they do love to read), but I looove the idea of the chronological history study. I have an upcoming 1st & 5th grader I intend to take through SOTW 1 & would love to have my 9th grader start with Ancients as well. My 10th grader could do Medieval. I've read about every history thread I could find, but really don't know where to start. Any advice on transitioning into classical/ WTM in general during rhetoric is coveted as well. TIA!!

I am not a confident "literature" teacher, so don't tell me, "You can figure this out," please! I've chosen 4 books to go deeper into and I'd like very simple guides that have only DEEP questions. I can do the simple questions and basic discussion myself. It is the dig deeper questions that I have a hard time with. I'd almost like a guide that just had 10 essay starters per book. I don't think that exists, but I certainly don't need/want vocab and literary structures exercises. Is there something this simple and yet deep? Maybe I can do it myself - after doing three books well with someone else guiding me! An example of a deep question (one my son asked last summer while reading Oliver Twist), "How do the street gangs of 19th century England compare to the street gangs of 21st century major American cities?" This does go beyond the scope of the literature... Maybe one for the Hobbit would be, "Why do you think Gandolf knew Bilbo would be of use to the dwarves?" - I think this is within the scope of the book (no outside research) but beyond what is explicitly stated in the book. Ideas? ETA: I have a stack of books about 16 deep and I'm going to choose four of them, so I don't need to be limited to which company has a certain guide. Thanks, Emily

I'm trying to decide between Mosdos and BJU Literature/reading for my 7th grader, 5th grader, and 3rd grader. Do you think one is superior over the other? Does one do a better job of encouraging deeper critical thinking? For either curriculum, do you use the reading book, Teacher's Guide, and workbook? Are the workbooks necessary? I'd love to hear your thoughts, comparisons, and experiences with either of these curricula. FWIW, while we've always read and discussed ample amounts of great literature in our homeschool, we've never used a formal program. I'm not able to teach the elements of literature without a lot of hand-holding help and need a laid-out-for-me curriculum. I'm currently listening to the Teaching the Classics DVDs, but am also looking for something structured for these grades. One more question - Is this too much for me to take on with these separate grade levels? Am I biting off more than I can chew time-wise? What are your estimates for time commitment from mom for this type of lit analysis and discussion with each kiddo? Thank you for any and all insight! :)

I have 3 kids, all strong personalities. A 7 year old who is a young 3rd grader this year, a 5 year old who is an old kindergartener this year, and a very active 2.5 year old who is very disruptive during schooltime. My 5 and 7 year olds are only 2 years and a few months apart but are 4 grade levels apart because they're each on the other side of the Sept 1 deadline for school. I am an engineer who didn't plan to homeschool but was not happy with the available school choices and I felt my daughter was too young (just turning 5) to start kindergarten. I wish she was in 2nd grade instead of 1st. Even though she does well with her schoolwork, I feel like she's doing too much for her age and that her peer group is too old for her when in activities. I grew up in private Christian school which was nearly exclusively Abeka with upper level Saxon math, and I had 2 years of correspondence Latin in highschool, and there was a lot of poetry memorization and Scripture verse memorization throughout K-12. I was nearly always bored in school, and I thought history was especial drudgery, but I think it was the presentation from Abeka. My children are part of a public correspondence school so we can get funding to cover some of our expenses if the curriculum is secular. So our curriculum... Both kids do Suzuki music, my daughter in violin for 4 years, and my son on cello for 2 years. Both kids take Spanish lessons weekly, and I review lesson content at home when I have time, and read them Spanish books and try to make at least half of our limited TV time in Spanish. I don't have a Spanish curriculum, and while I don't want them to be writing in Spanish yet, I would like a more structured plan. I began my daughter with Logic of English and did too much in the K year, level A, B, and C for my young kindergartener. Also in K, she did Rightstart Math A, and Bookshark Science. We liked Bookshark Science so much that we did Bookshark Science and History in grade 1, switched to Abeka math, which works well for my daughter, and repeated level C and did D for Logic of English. This past year (grade 2), I used Bookshark for Science, History, and Language Arts. I did this because I felt LOE Essentials was too far beyond my daughter with no graphics in the workbooks and the lessons just looked heavy. I also felt that we would save time on the reading since the LA reading was part of the history curriculum. We did continue to use the LOE flashcards and I had her do spelling with the letter tiles. I also got her a level D book to use through the year, but we actually just began D with her summer school and she was so happy to see it again and is actually asking to work in it. It's only about 50 lessons, so we'll probably finish before the main school year season and I was planning to begin LOE Essentials then. BTW, we hated the Bookshark language arts. My daughter hated the weekly writing assignments and could never think of anything to write. For Pre-K, my son was attentive to most of the history and science when graphics were involved. He only occasionally listened to A Child's History of the World. He was/is usually reluctant working through LOE book A (still not done!) but he's more interested now that he and his sister both have similar looking books as she's working in part D. Bookshark history reading was excellent, and my daughter really loved the reading and asks me to read to her. I also enjoyed the reading content, but my voice was usually hoarse every night with so much reading and talking all day long. I want good literature, but I just feel like I can't do the volume/schedule in Bookshark. I also know that I can't do two grade levels of Bookshark. My son won't be ready for level 3 (ages 8-11) and I don't really want to restart my daughter at level 1, though I've considered it. Bookshark science was good, had science kits with everything for experiements and a DVD to demonstrate. The reading was mostly good, I just didn't like one of the recent sections of the Usborne Book of Knowledge spine which had some pretty detailed machine workings which often were too wordy for my daughter. I really like the 4 day week schedule, which gave me some freedom on our lesson day. Abeka math is working well now that I know how to trim the classroom schedule. I also use some Rightstart manipulatives. We did not like Rightstart in K, but I've thought about trying Rightstart D to use with Abeka. A friend told me the early Rightstart was not as good as the later books. Abeka is good for us because I think my daughter needs to have worksheets to complete. She says she doesn't like math, but she does well with it. I also like to feel that she's doing real work and able to see progress. I'm planning to do year round school. I need to complete the regular year of courses on schedule for ease with our correspondence school's required progress reports. However, my kids need structured days, and I don't want them to forget what they've learned, so we're still doing school through the summer. It is fun school though, with days off for activities and art every day we do our light schoolwork. I'm not an art person but love Artistic Pursuits for the art history, but haven't had time in the past year, so we've restarted it. I would also like to start our regular school subjects earlier (maybe August 1) so that I can have some freedom throughout the year to take time off when needed. I've already ordered Abeka math 3 for my daughter and K for my son (I'll also add some Rightstart projects for him). I'm still debating getting Rightstart D for my daughter. My son may repeat LOE A. I haven't decided yet. He's only starting to read short vowel words and his handwriting could use some extra practice. My daughter will do what's left of D over the summer, and then I think we'll be getting Essentials for our Grammar. I don't like the LOE Essentials add-on Readers and writing program. It looks boring and writing isn't from real literature. I have looked at IEW, Blackbird and am now looking at Cottage Press. IEW looks too time consuming with having to watch DVDs, and may be too much work for my daughter who hates to write. Blackbird looks much simpler, and we can buy one unit at a time to go at our own pace. Cottage Press Fable and Song looks like my daughter would enjoy it. We read through all the Aesop's Fables with Bookshark and always loved to hear them. I'm just worried that it's too much to do with LOE Essentials also. I've tried to keep with secular materials because our homeschool will not pay for faith based materials and I have to purchase them on my own. I would however like to establish more Biblical influence in their daily lives. I really want to try Science in the Beginning. It's structure appeals to me that it's chronological science series, has short lessons, and daily demonstrations. I think it might help to shorten our workload. It is also faith based, but only $40 for the year so not a budget problem. I'm having a problem with the classical writing programs being faith based so they will not be reimbursible. IEW would be reimbursible, but I'm just not convinced that it's right for us. I have been strongly recommended to use Story of the World for history. I like the sound of the program, but am kind of worried about delaying American history for my daughter for 4 more years. However, I guess we could supplement American History in the summer time. I was also thinking of supplementing Story of the World with Mystery of History CD (purchased myself) Someone loaned me a Book 2 to review and I disliked parts of it, although the Level 1 Old Testament history would probably be better for us, so I am still considering it. I'm now reading more about "classical" education and am thinking about including Latin next year. I've had my daughter in Spanish lessons for 3 years, and my son for 2 years. In school, I had Spanish, French, German, and Latin and cannot speak anything. I put my children into Spanish because I want them to speak well in a practical 2nd language. I now am reading all the classical method essays that Latin is better for children to understand grammar and I wonder if I had an advantage that I didn't realize because I had a bit of Latin in my education. Now, I'm thinking of adding it in, but where? Could I do Latin just 2 days a week? I don't really like to schedule that way, but I don't see how I can add another thing to do everything every day. I feel like I cannot stop Spanish before they've mastered it. I was really planning to add in Russian in 3 years so they have a different language type. I just feel that it broadens their minds. I'm also pretty passionate that music broadens the mind in the same way. Anyway, I'm sorry for the lengthy post but I was trying to present a full history. I posted a week ago, but didn't have all the info there and didn't respond because I didn't have a working computer and didn't want to type it up on my phone. I'm an engineer, not a teacher. I'm not even really a kid person, though I like my kids:) I'm a bit of a perfectionist and get stressed if things are not done the right way. I am reading online about Charlotte Mason, WTM, and classical education. I haven't read the books. I really feel lost in what to do. I guess I'm more classically minded. I think structure and memorization are good. I would like to do more poetry and Bible memorization. I feel guilty that we haven't done much at all, even though it was a big part of my childhood. We do memorize math facts and phonics. I like the idea of memorizing a history timeline, but I don't know how to do this or if it's included in Story of the World. I've read a lot about Classical Conversations, and though I like some things about it, other things won't work for us. I also seem kind of Mason minded in that I really want more literature to be used. I am even feeling like I should do bird studies. We do a bit of nature studies based on what we're doing outside. I love what I read on Ambleside that the CM method uses folk music! I love folk music and teach it to my kids, trying to teach them something new every month or so, and sing them at bedtime. With what I know of Waldorf, I am not inclined toward that method as it's not practical enough for me. I feel guilty that I do so much with my daughter and not enough with my K son. I really want to combine their history, science, and read alouds. Spanish is combined, and we could combine Latin if I'm brave enough. My other problem is that I'm really striving for a sense of balance. I realized this with music. It's consuming our life, and I don't want that for our kids. We practice daily, have weekly private lessons, weekly group lessons, monthly performance classes, semester recitals, more special performances, a yearly Suzuki insitute for 1 week, and a separate fiddle class for a week later in the summer. Our teacher is wonderful and so are her students, and my daughter plays beautifully. While I want her to do her best, I don't want to funnel her into being a music major in college. Yes, if that's what she wants, but I don't want her to feel that it's her only option. I'm a pianist, and music is important to me, and I want my kids to be competent musicians to be able to have fun playing with others and in church. I want them to love folk music, not just classical music. I also do not want them to be burned out and dislike music. Anyway, I'm seeking balance because of this awareness from music, but also in other areas. I'm trying to cut back a little on activities. They were in swimming lessons Saturdays until February, when I quit and it's been so nice to have free Saturdays. They ski on Monday nights, and I just hate Mondays, because it's violin lesson, Spanish lesson, and ski lesson. Such a long day. Speaking of balance, where do the mothers make time for themselves? I have no idea. I don't know. I'm trying to figure myself out. I know I can obsess with anything and go extreme on anything. So I'm trying to cut back and do less, but now I'm trying to add more in with Latin. Maybe it will be less if kids are working together with some subjects. I don't feel confident enough to build my own curriculum by collecting books and teaching my own lesson plans, though Ambleside will be a great resource for extras for us. Every new curriculum I hear about seems like the best and the one, until I read about the next one. I feel truly lost and out of my element nearly all the time. I feel like we are doing too much and need to cut back and then sometimes I panic that I'm not doing enough, and that I should have been doing things since K that I hadn't thought of until now, like Latin. So for next school year: Math - Abeka K and 3, and some Rightstart Grammar and Phonics - LOE Foundations and Essentials Grade 3 writing - Blackbird, Cottage Press or something else?? Story of the World Literature Read Alouds ?? Does Story of the World have a good literature reading list? I really wish it was packaged like Bookshark. I hate shopping. And I can't even see the list until buying the curriculum. Science in the Beginning Spanish - want to add more formal oral curriculum ? Latin - Song School 2 days a week? Artistic Pursuits - 1 day a week, also considered Atlier art, but it will probably be beyond our budget since we use all our extracurricular money on music. Suzuki Music I also just got a computer and tablet for my kids do some learning apps / games. We really limit screen time for kids, so this is a big deal for them. I do have Spanish Rosetta Stone from our school library (looking forward to trying this) but would really like any recommendations for any learning games or apps. Well, even if no one reads this very long post, it has at least been a form of therapy for me to type it out. Any suggestions would be wonderful!

Hello, I am putting together a class for my 9th grader (and some others) for next year to cover the core and standards of WA ELA. I am doing this though from a science perspective so that my student will in fact learn and engage with the course. I am combining Botany and Mythology together to meet said standards required. I am looking for suggestions or resources that are not costly that will help with this process. I have a microscope and a Intro to botany book on its way. The two areas separately are easy enough to teach, but putting them together is where I am having some questions. Any help appreciated. Thanks!

I've started putting together literature for the my 11 year old DS (grade 6--avid, strong reader) and my 9 year old DS (grade 4--average, reluctant reader). We will be covering the middle ages next year. While I have a very complete list of European/Western literature selections for both ages, I really prefer to have a more balanced selection--I try to avoid the 'predominately Eurocentric history/literature slant' and could use some suggestions for non-western literature (and history supplemental resources) for the middle ages. I've been searching the web but have only found a couple options. Any one have suggestions?

Looking ahead to start planning for high school - We hope to follow the WTM plan for combining History and Literature. In TWTM (2009), it says to make a realistic assessment of how many books the student will be able to cover, and then choose 8, or 12, or 18. Of course this will vary depending on the student's reading skills and length/difficulty of the books read. But how to choose which will make up the book list? The shortest, so you can read more? Whatever looks interesting? A sampling from different time periods? Without being familiar with many of these books, we are not sure what to use as a deciding factor. Also, anyone who has followed this plan - any thoughts, suggestions, things you wish you'd done differently or that worked well? Thanks for your help!

Just read this book to the kids. It was my first time reading it. So, youngest daughter of the family in the story. Polar bear comes in and sheds his coat and lies next to her each night. Kind of got weirded out and chuckled at that part of the story while reading it aloud to the kids. Does anyone else feel like pausing and having "awkward talks with Mom" in the middle of the school day? Lesson Today: Norwegian folk tale AND let's discuss sexuality and that you should 1. Never allow a grown man in your bed, kids 2. You have the right to say NO anytime when it comes to your body Anyone else on the poorly read side of things, and struggling through wanting to read a wide range of content w/your kids.... and just don't know what to say about young girls sleeping with grown up man polar bears? Being a little silly, but also, lacking knowledge of the cultural and historical practices of the day when it was written, feeling quite at a loss on how to discuss adequately w/the kids. Feeling quite unqualified! I'd love to hear books you might have read aloud to your kids, challenging content you read, and how you navigate conversations w/your kids. Especially if you have a range of ages. So many times I feel like I'm just kind of stumbling through this home school endeavor!

I guess I don't fully understand this and was hoping for input. The WTM has a list of literature that corresponds to the historical time period (for example, this year was ancients for us, so we have read a lot of Greek myths and books about Egypt so far). I have done some of those books as read alouds and some I assigned to my oldest for reading. How do you do this? Part of what I struggle with is that my youngest doesn't get assigned reading from the list yet due to reading level. So I don't want to make them all assigned reading because there are too many and because I want him to also benefit from it. However, trying to decide which I should read aloud versus assign can be hard for me. We are getting to the point where my oldest could almost read all of them without issue but his comprehension might be better on the lower lexiles, so I go for those. Honestly, though, I have no idea what I am doing. How do you all manage this? Suggestions??

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I am interested in if anyone else has had their high schooler(s) read Uhry's famous play, as I think I would like to include it next year as one of the two non-Shakespearean plays covered. We are Georgian's, my children are Jewish, and it has much historical importance (we recently visited The Temple, the synagogue which was bombed); not to mention, there's a great movie of it and a recent PBS stage production to be watched, too! I don't want to do any plays which cannot be watched either on stage, filmed on stage, or as a movie version. Thanks!

I'm trying to decide what will fit my daughter best for high school language arts and history. She completed Writing with Skill 1 and is halfway through Writing with Skill 2. In 9th grade she did MFW's Ancient History and Literature. Last year she di MFW's World History and Literature. She struggled both years to write the essays. I want her to finish WWS 2 and do WWS 3 over the next two years. She will do MFW's 11th grade program in the fall. It looks like she will be doing a lot of literature analysis and very little writing. Since WWS is considered middle school level, I'm wondering if I need to add a high school level writing program. I've been looking at IEW's Elegant Essays, Classical Rhetoric through Stucture and Style, U.S. History-Based Writing Lessons. I'm also looking at Beautiful Feet History through Literature for 11th and 12th grades.

I am starting with the lit list in the WTM, but I would like to balance/lighten it with other less heady but still relevant/worthwhile book selections, e.g. young adult historical fiction. Our history spines will be The History of Ancient World and Mystery of History. I would appreciate seeing other people's reading lists who are correlating literature with history for this time period. I am open to other curriculum suggestions as well. I am a last minute planner, so this is just my rough draft. Thanks!

I'm hoping for some feedback from those of you who have used easy abridged versions of the classics. We have several different versions available at our library, but not necessarily the ones recommended in TWTM. Are any of these worth our time? Calico illustrated classics Classic starts Eyewitness classics Stepping stone Classic starts Step into classics Great Illustrated classics Specifically interested in these titles: Robinson Crusoe Gulliver's Travels Pilgrim's Progress Hunchback of Notre Dame Les Miserables The Three Musketeers Man in the Iron Mask A Christmas Carol Great Expectations Oliver Twist Tow Sawyer The Last of the Mohicans 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Moby Dick I would rather not buy the specific recommended versions if what our library has is just as good.

I know this has been discussed before, so if anyone can direct me to a thread where it has been hashed out, that would be most welcome. I have 9th grade (yikes!) mostly planned, in concept: Geometry Biology Integrated Health & Fitness (OM) Spanish 2 But I'm not exactly sure how to manage credits for English and History. What I have planned feels like 3 distinct things, although each might not be a whole credit: English: Rhetoric & Composition English: Ancient Literature Ancient History Or, it could be 2 things, which is actually how many credits worth of work I want to do: Great Books - Ancient History & Literature - more than one credit's worth of work? English: Rhetoric & Composition - less than one credit's worth of work? How have people handled Great Books study, integrating English Lit and History? On the transcript? In practice? Do you count hours and then figure it out at the end? Do they spend equal amounts of time in the "english" and "history" pieces? Do you separate out the composition/rhetoric piece, or is it built in? I'd love to read how different people have handled this, both how you've actually done it, and how you have transcripted it. ETA: I should mention that creative writing is my dd's passion, so she will be doing that on her own time for sure, and it could easily be counted as an elective credit or packaged up with other writing stuff into a full English/Writing credit. I was trying to keep it down to 6 credits, though, to leave plenty of time for extracurricular writing and the other time consuming activities in which dd participates - theater and horseback riding.

I just wanted to recommend the Kaplan Sat Score Raising Classic series for those who still read hard copy books. These are popular literary classics with important vocabulary and definitions on the left hand side and the text on the right hand side. See Look Inside for an example. The vocabulary words are also bolded in the text. There is an index in the back of the book which shows all the vocabulary which has been defined in the text. Obviously, they don't define every word but I think they have selected appropriately challenging but not too obscure words. While it looks like these were originally devised to enhance vocab for the SAT specifically, I find these very useful for general vocabulary acquisition. I've used two of these with my ds and they really helped to reinforce vocabulary as ds's not the type to look up words on his own. We usually go through the words together before reading each chapter for familiarization, then while reading the text the definitions are easy to consult without interrupting the narrative flow. This might also be something useful for coop literature classes as it would alleviate the need to independently compile separate vocabulary lists for each chapter since it's built in to the text and they are reasonably priced. Here's a list of the ones I've found: Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, The Scarlet Letter, Wuthering Heights, The War of the Worlds, The Tales of Edgar Allen Poe. Some of the reviewers noted that the Frankenstein book is based on the less common 1918 edition of the novel and has some plot variations from the more commonly used later edition. In addition to these classics, there are a number of other vocabulary enhancement novels that were specifically written for the purpose of SAT vocabulary prep. I haven't tried any of these but they might be worthwhile.although I think the new SAT doesn't focus as much on vocab. as the old version.

I have in front of me pp. 494-497 of WTM with the high school reading list and it seems...ambitious for us. What would be your absolute minimum list of challenging Great Works of Literature that absolutely must be read in 4 years of high school? Canterbury Tales? Dante's Inferno? As a math science gal, I hardly know what's what. Thanks!

I just received an email from Essentials in Writing about how they are working on an Essentials in Literature program for middle and high schoolers. Using EIW and EIL together will make up a high school LA course. I can hardly wait! Hope it comes out by next school year! Edit to add: EIW says that Essentials in Literaure should be available by the spring of 2016.

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I am contemplating mixing up DS's output requirements for high school literature and social studies so that he isn't only writing essays. I think I've read either here and/ or on the hs2coll group that others have done the same e.g. apart from literary analysis via essays, someone's DC made a map of a fictional world, another wrote fan fiction, etc. I hope I didn't dream that I read this lol. Some of the ideas DS and I discussed were designing a card game based on a series of books by a favorite author, creating a short film, recording an audiobook, writing up alternative endings etc. He will also write essays but it will not be the only thing he does. Have you done something like this? Were you able to do this for history as well as literature?