New here & could use advice!

[Dairyqueen]

Hi All,

I am in the process of reading WTM (my second attempt) & am re-thinking my education strategy. It sounded good to me the first time that I looked at it, but then I got more involved with CM methods and started using Ambleside Online. I really thought that was the way to go, and love all of the classic literature, but am thinking that I am doing my boys a disservice by not being more structured/pushing them earlier. In all fairness to CM & AO I am not very organized & have not been consistent with my teaching, but I am feeling like classical/well-trained would help me get them more on-track & keep all of us more on-track.

A little background--I have 2 boys (9 and 7) with #3 on the way this summer. We also have our own business, a dairy farm, which is wonderful & awful at the same time! My 9yo does read, but not fluently, and has not really had any grammar instruction yet. My 7yo is still working on phonics, currently using Phonics Pathways. We are using Saxon math at grade level. History has been using the AO book list so far (again-love the books, but wish for a little more flow in time period).

I guess that my initial questions are: Do most of you use the resources from WTM? How should I handle my 9yo grammar/spelling, start w/something like FLL at an accelerated rate? Do you use SOTW & the activity books for history (I will be combining the boys I hope)?

Both of them do have experience with narration, have fabulous vocabularies, and they love to be read to, but I know that they are behind in other areas. If you've read this far, thank you! I hope to hear from some of you, and know that I will have more questions!

TIA,
Kris in MA

[Closeacademy]

There are quite a few people who follow the framework of TWTM and use AO. Rest assure that you are not doing your children a disservice. Some questions for you:

What do you want the focus of your homeschool to be?

We follow a LCC format and it is basically Latin, mathematics and composition. So this is our focus and everything else we do is supposed to be fun.

Do you want the focus to be skills? or books? or languages? or a combination of things?

What kind of education do you want them to have? Are you preparing them for college? Life? To be thinkers? Doers?

Think about these and evaluate your goals and dreams and it will help to give you more direction and make you feel good about what you are doing no matter what method you use: CM, TWTM, or a combination.

For your 9 year, find books for him that he enjoys reading even if it is a comic book or a magazine. Get him reading and enjoying it. Your 7 year old is fine, my child at this age is still doing phonics and my older child was doing phonics at this age too.

Sounds like you are doing a good job so far and I am sure there is a ton of learning opportunities on the farm. Good luck and good journey.:001_smile: