Any suggestions? To brainstorm....I've toyed around with taking the manual away and acting as though I am the teacher again (not the book-- I do the "boxes" with her that are meant to be combined or together all ready). But, she's at an age where it would take much longer to accomplish school if I did all the independent boxes with her. My other dd is requiring my time right now more. I've considered half-time HOD manual with full-time math (she's a young 5th grader) but I'm afraid that will give into her lazy-ish
behavior and won't provide a strong enough learning time for her age. I've considered taking time off to just let her read, read, read and do math (she reads about a book a day for fun -- mostly books under her reading level though but she loves biographies) only for a month or two. I've considered enrolling her in a co-op class or two where she might have extrinsic motivation but that doesn't help get her work done at home. I guess the best help might be to learn how you start the day, how your attitude might be, I wish so much I had a homeschool mentor to watch!!! Please give me some honest help. I feel discouraged about starting up soon knowing that this will be an uphill battle. Lots of frowns and "I hate school" talk. She is a very social child and I believe that she would excel if she was extrinsically motivated by a larger group of kids but I really don't like academic co-op settings; besides, I like staying on track with HOD. School (public or private) isn't in the cards, we are very committed homeschoolers, so I need practical advice for bringing the joy back to our school.
Thank you!
Amy
The rest of his work I gave him a routine order to do his work in, and I planned 2 teacher block times. I started out with him when I began homeschooling for the day, so that was one of my teacher block times he knew he'd have each day. Then he finished out some semi-independent and independent work and handed these things in to me, open to what needed to be corrected on the counter. I checked them for errors, and I set them on the table for him to fix sometime before the next teaching block time. I then discussed anything I needed to from his previous work during the second teaching block time, helped him fix anything he still needed help with, and then finished out the rest of my teaching time with him. He then finished out the rest of his work independently, handed it in, and I quickly checked any few remaining things he'd just handed in, had him fix them, and he was then done. He liked knowing when he was with me, when he was on his own, and that I would not be interrupting his train of thought with corrections. 
Bryce takes usually 4-5 hours even with CTC and that is when he is on a roll!!!! EEP!
My degree is in English and writing always came naturally to me...as did spelling. My son is about the exact opposite! I have him write his narrations on white paper first. Then I help him make corrections and he re-writes it in his notebooking pages. I like him practicing the "rough draft" to "final draft" because I can't even begin to tell you how many "drafts" it took me to write the stuff I did in college and especially the few things I wrote professionally before ending my career to homeschool. But I do realize he is 12 and also will likely NOT be an English major in college. This is something I struggle with myself on because I know I push...sometimes too much. I almost expect "perfection" at times - I dont' expect every problem to be correct or every word to be spelled correctly...but I do expect there to be a good effort given and no huge, gross mistakes before he hands me something.