That's some good food for thought. I'll run the ezine idea by him. I'll have to think about how I might help him find some internal motivation. Writing seems so difficult because as a homeschooler he knows full well that he could communicate any information with me verbally much more easily than through writing. I'm imagine we'll figure this out. Thank you fellow "mother of many!"

I have a few children that really struggle to care about doing a good job on their school work. My 12 year old son in particular races through his work to move onto something more stimulating. His one and only goal is to get it done to a level that I will let him move on to something else. He acts like this with his chores too. I'm sure that this is normal for a lot of children but it seems to me that homeschooling makes this a little worse because a teacher's failing mark is worse than a mothers' and wondering if your peers will look down on you for a failing mark also discourages this. This can be particularly obvious with his writing. This boy oozes creativity from every pore. He writes stories for fun although they're horribly written because he just has to get the story out without pausing to think about grammar or spelling. He has stuff to say but forcing him to slow down and create a logical train of thought and then actually write it out in an engaging manner is like torture. Lately I've just been having him write letters about our life to the grand parents because at least that has the hope of a reply attached to it. But still it comes out something like this: His math suffers too but a little less so. At least with math it's a little easier to hold him accountable. Any thought?

Thanks!

That looks pretty good. Thanks.

Hey everybody. 👋 I haven't been around here in awhile but I always end up back here when I have a question. I have found myself more and more convinced that cutesy media is really not helpful for children. I hate trying to find early elementary resources that aren't sickeningly sweet or cutesy. I'm sure that some of it is the cheapness of producing digital animations that are cute vs. videos of actual people that are capable of giving an age appropriate presentation. Despite the great activities even Khan Academy Kids app annoys me (and my kids). The saccharine "KHAN ACADEMY KIDS!!!" in the introduction makes my hair rise. I feel like it belittles children and even sometimes humiliates them. I figured I might find some support here to find alternative resources. What I'm looking for are apps that are useful learning resources that have minimal cutesiness but are still able to engage young children. A few that I have found for young children that meet my requirements are GCompris, Tux Paint, and Scratch Jr. What do you use?

Hey all! I haven't been here for awhile but I always come back here when I need to find a resource because you all are the most knowledgeable people on the topic of homeschooling anywhere that I've seen on the internet. 💖 I have a very delayed 9yo boy and a very energetic 5yo girl that I would like to find a book to look at with that has some math question prompts. MEP's reception book is basically what I'm looking for but I need more than that. Any ideas?

Hey thanks! I actually just wanted a readable TOC anyways so this was perfect. I forgot about these. Perfect!

My son loves listening to SOTW while he does chores. He would really like a TOC for all four volumes. For some reason only V1 has descriptive chapter titles for the mp3 files. Would it be a copyright violation for someone to share with me the TOC?

Years ago I came upon a youtube channel that had a bunch of little old-school physics animations showing how forces, friction, etc. work. They were really simple line drawn animations made ages ago, maybe in the 60's. Does anyone know what I'm talking about or have a link for me?

I've never considered shorthand. I personally think that many handicrafts are way under valued. I think that some areas of Europe still intentionally teach handwork. Even if the child never takes off with knitting or woodwork at least they learn how to control their hands. I've tried to teach a few adults to knit but they just couldn't get their hands to obey. I suspect the lack of cursive practice is only going to exacerbate this problem. I was just looking into basket making with my children and came upon this old gem: https://archive.org/details/handworkitsplace00plai/page/n13/mode/2up

Interesting, I'm not sure. They do eat the chayote greens, watercress and parsley so I know that they're not adverse to eating greens. I'll have to look into that.

Thanks! That's been my main suspicion. I just don't like confirming plants by their leave with internet pictures.

Thanks! It's on my to-read list.

This is great! Bonus points for covering the other subjects too. 🙂

Thanks for these suggestions. I'm going to look into each one.