if we only read what we are interested in and what is near to our lifestyle, we may not learn a whole lot from that reading. I know that in seasons of my life where I've been overwhelmed, what worked best for us was having workbooks for the basics (reading, math, spelling) and throwing in some good varied reading (mixture of read alouds and independent reading). I also think the TLP would work well here, with a math workbook added in. There were days I could not get a whole lot done, but they could *always* at least do a workbook page in each book. I really think there are times that is sufficient...for the younger ones, anyway. I honestly think that the high school age ones need to be studying something comparable to what their classes would be in public high school. You never know what they will want to do in the future, and it is better to be prepared and not need it than to realize later in life that you need it and don't have it.

Liana