Whatever curriculum you are using to practice writing letters with your young children, my 4-year-old Maggie and I have found a way to make writing letters fun and happy. 

Our children tire of the hard work of writing letters after a while. Maggie loves it because as she begins to write each letter, I say in a high-pitched silly voice, "Draw me, please?" As if the letter is talking. Little girls especially love this game of turning things into people. Sometimes if her letter turns out too small she'll say that letter is a baby one and the mother will say, "Draw me please?" and she writes a bigger one. She laughs and delights in this. I've gotten her to write an entire page of letters this way, adding members to the family.

Math has to be one-on-one. I like and use Saxon but the lower grades K through 3 are so incredibly public school-ey that I actually offered to edit them for homeschoolers.

Saxon didn't take me up on it so I press on but it's kind of a nightmare the way they are trying to indoctrinate your child to public school, which is fine for public school, but they have stamped "homeschool version" on the cover. "Molly bought 3 pencils at the school store and 4 pens in the cafeteria line, how many utensils will she have in her lunch box on the bus ride home?" I mean it's really everywhere, on almost every page, situations that are foreign to homeschoolers and make them feel left out.

I told Saxon just changing "your class" to "your child" in their curriculum and calling it a homeschool version, is like teaching someone to water ski by going through a snow ski manual and changing all the words from "snow" to "water." They were not impressed. Oh well maybe someday I can have at it and clean it up for all of us.

Until then, I have stuck with Saxon because their books are really good academically, but I went through and changed most of the wording for my children. For example, I would change a subtraction problem about losing two dollars on the school playground (not that responsible ladies) to putting two dollars in the offering plate. They provide the math, I provide the content. The book is not in charge, people. Edit away for your own liking.

Starting with 5/4 all that public school indoctrination obnoxion is over. I've never changed a thing. We've had great success with 5/4 all the way through algebra, and our children are understanding the math and doing well on the lessons. I decided I would rather go for solid academics with math and add my own Biblical, homeschool spin on the content, rather than use a Christian curriculum that just isn't as solid academically. 

Lately I asked the Lord how to manage doing math with the older children while a one year old is in the house (raccoon). He gave me the idea to, instead of sitting at the dining room table, where Rebecca will hang on my legs and generally make a chaotic mess of everything, sit in her room and do math. Instead of having her come to us in a boring room in the house, we go to her in a fun room. The child I'm working with can concentrate a lot better that way because we have peace and quiet while she plays nearby.

We've been doing math four days a week lately instead of five because my heart's just not in it by Friday and that doesn't do anybody any good. If our daddy's deployed overseas, we take the whole time off or I do three days a week.

Speaking of daddy, he has completely taken over math with our high schooler. If I didn't have my husband to rely on, I would probably have my son doing an on-line math course. Next year he'll dual enroll in a local college and do some trig and calculus there. Better him than me.