June 28.

Here's mine: Cityschooling

I work in sales for the cable company. Monday to Friday, 6pm-10pm. I love it. The hours are perfect, the money is great, and it's less than a 15-minute drive from my house.

My 10 y/o and I do academics from about 10:30am to about 12:30pm/1pm. Everything before and after that is his free time. It was that way with my girls, too. Worked out great. I can't imagine what "too much free time" even means. My kids almost always use their free time very productively. I wouldn't worry.

Our GT program was wonderful. It just wasn't a good fit for dd. She was 6 when she took the test. 25 elementary schools sent a total of about 600 first graders to test for 25 spots and dd made it in. Of course we all thought this was such a privilege and an honor as this was one of the best programs around. It's even called "The Academy for the Intellectually Gifted" :tongue_smilie: They offered so many enrichment programs: Art Studio, Science Lab, Piano Keyboard, Spanish, etc., for 2nd grade. Dd made a ton of friends but was bored with the academics. Over 2 years she'd lost her love of learning, her curiosity, her enthusiam, and all of a sudden had this I-don't-care attitude. The teachers thought she had ADHD and told me to get her tested and put her on medication "because it's so good for them and it worked so well for my own daughter..." :glare: . That's when we decided to homeschool. I really do think GTs can be fantastic for the child who can go with that kind of flow. My dd was more of an out of the box thinker, creative type who marched to her own drum. Homeschooling was what she needed. I'm glad I gave the program a chance, though. I think you should let her try it. You'll always wonder about it if you don't. Most kids do thrive in that kind of environment. You know you can always return to homeschooling if it ends up not being a good fit. No matter what, it's very exciting to be chosen. Congrats. p.s. She is now 14 and started going to school again - at another gifted school (with a 6% acceptance rate). This one is for both academics and performing arts. She LOVES it and is doing very well there.

In NYC it is the best thing. No one really uses it for large grocery shopping - usually everything we need is in walking distance. My family uses it to get to and from work, school, homeschool classes, field trips, visiting friends, etc. Dh and the girls use it at least 5 days a week. Ds and I use it around 2-3 times a week. The city gives all the kids free Metrocards so dh and I only pay for ourselves. $2.25 a ride. We still use a car for everything else, though.

Relaxed, secular CM.

We're on out 3rd year using Ambleside Online. I love the booklists and the schedules and we follow it as exact as we can. But... We do remove all the religious books (I keep homeschooling separate from our religious studies) and have no problem with removing any other books that ds just doesn't like (after giving it a good fighting chance). Buying the books on our own is great. I don't think I've spent more than $150 each year. I buy some new, some used, some on the Nook. The whole CM method is what drew me to it. I tried creating my own schedule based on CM, but it never seemed complete. Having a guideline like AO has been just what we needed. I love the reading schedules, but I really love the schedules for nature, poetry, artist, and composer. The AO website explains great ways to incorporate those subjects and my ds loves it all. There's nothing I dislike about it. One of the first things I read on the website was that we could tweak it if we needed to. That was important to me and doesn't take away the beauty and essence of the program. I chose a year below ds's grade level. We take our time with it. Ds is so busy with classes, trips, and activities all year, that academic seatwork may only get done 2-3x a week. It's an advanced and challenging curriculum. Ideally for ds, 1.5 Years behind his actual grade level seems to work best. So by the time he starts 5th grade in the fall, we should be about halfway through AO Year 3. (Math, Independent Reading, Writing, Spelling, Language Arts, and outside classes will be on or above actual grade level, though). It's so easy to add on other elements. In addition to AO, we use Teaching Textbooks 5, Spectrum Word Study & Phonics 4, Flash Kids Spelling Skills 4, Immersion Spanish, Writing Strands, Simply Grammar, and various workbooks, flash cards, websites, & CD Roms. Ds has mild dyslexia so adding a phonics and spelling program helps a lot, so does letting him choose his own independent reading book. Normally though, you don't have to supplement with anything more than what AO suggests.

My ds is doing TT5 and doesn't like using the CD Roms. He only likes the workbook and does all the work in the blank spaces on the page. :tongue_smilie:

We are currently doing 4th grade. We use: Math: Teaching Textbooks 5 Spelling/LA: Word Study & Phonics 4 (Spectrum), Spelling Skills 4 (Flash Kids) Spanish: Immersion Spanish And the Ambleside Online booklists and schedules for: History, Science, Geography, Biographies, Literature, Poetry, Artist Study, Composer Study, & Nature Study All readings (except AO's "free readings") are narrated (oral and written). We also include copywork, dictation exercises, history timelines, mapwork, and independent/silent reading. Math, Spelling, History, and Literature are about 3x a week. Everything else is once or twice a week. Ds's week also includes: CCD, Scouts, homeschool group co-ops/classes, field trips, art projects, & science experiments Academic seatwork takes about 2-3 hours each day (10-20 minutes per subject). Afternoons are free for classes, trips, nature study, and pursuing interests.

We did this and it was great. Regular old Chinese prefolds (I had both bleached & unbleached) and a bunch of covers. I remember my covers were about $8-$10 each and closed with snaps, some with velcro. Out of curiosity, I bought a couple of Fuzzibunz (loved these, so cute, no leaks, easy to wash), a wool Staccinator (wasn't that crazy about it), and 2 AIOs (didn't find these any easier than prefolds and covers). I remember having about 2-3 dozen prefolds and about 10 covers at any given time. I also bought a yard of fleece (really cheap) and cut it into rectangles to line the dipes with. Poop slid right off this and it kept the prefolds from staining. I used both pins and snappis. Washing is a breeze, btw. I would rinse out the prefold, wring, and toss into an empty 5-gallon bucket lined with a garbage bag. Every 2-3 days (no they didn't smell) I washed them in hot water, with my homemade detergent and AC vinegar in the second rinse to soften. Then dried on hot for 60 minutes. They came out beautiful. For the covers, I would rinse them out after each use and hang them up in the bathroom and use them again once they were dry. I washed these with the diapers every few days, then hung to dry. I loved cloth diapering. Ds never had a rash, looked adorable in them, and was fully potty trained at 2 1/2 years old.

I have a blog. Why did you start it? To document why we homeschool, what we do, what we use, & where we go What's its theme? What homeschooling is like in the big city Do you update it regularly? I try to. Usually once or twice a week Do you get paid to do it? No

Theoretically, the right sides should go together, but it still bothers me. I put the top sheet right-side-up, but when I fold down the top, I fold it up again once. This creates a narrower fold (which looks nice) and it's all uniform. :001_smile:

Oh that's great!

Les Mis is my favorite musical. Saw it 3x on Broadway. I always wanted to be Eponine, too, lol. The 25th anniversary was just on PBS and as usual I cried when Colm Wilkinson sang Bring Him Home.

My kids may choose to go to high school, but I find the best 3 (out of hundreds to choose from) - based on reviews, stats, friends' opinions, the kids' interests, etc - and they can pick from that.

Mine's in my sig. :001_smile:

We use Ambleside Online. Language Arts: Writing Strands, Spelling Skills 4, Simply Grammar Math: Teaching Textbooks 5 Science: AO Readings, Nature Study (Handbook of Nature Study, Outdoor Hour Challenge), various experiments, field trips, classes Spanish: Immersion Spanish And of course we do copywork, narration, dictation, lots of reading (classic literature mainly - using the AO booklists & schedules), artist study, composer study, book of centuries, history timelines, poetry, handicrafts, and lots of outdoor time.

We can do anything from 3 to 6 days a week out at something. Right now my 9y/o ds has: Sundays: CCD Tuesdays: Film class Wednesdays: Science class (starting in April) Thursdays: Homeschool Co-op (starting in April) Fridays: Music class (starting in March), Scouts Saturdays: Football And we try and do a few field trips and single classes each month. My dds who are in high school have their things throughout the week as well.

OMG. Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting from Martha's Country Bakery in Bayside, NY. They're about $5 for 2. I wouldn't even try attempting this at home.

Awesome! My son (10 in 2 weeks, mild-moderate dyslexia) hates reading. We're attempting A Cricket in Times Square and he slowly gets through 2 pages a day. I'll be celebrating too when he finishes it.

Wow. So sorry.

I gave my kids the choice. But only because we researched different high schools together and they only chose the top schools in the city (NYC has over 400 high schools to choose from. About 40 are excellent, with around 10 of those being for gifted/talented). If they were not accepted to what they chose, they would have continued to homeschool. Even if they choose to go to school, it's always reversible!

:001_wub: Thanks.

We use Ambleside Online. We are currently toward the end of Year 2. We started Year 1 in September of 2008 (yeah, we're taking our time with it, lol) so you can refer back to there in my blog if you like. Blog is in my sig.