Thanks everyone for the suggestions! My kids signed up for a life cycles co-op class to top it off, so we may just do earth and space this year after all! LOL If not, your suggestions all make a lot of sense.. I think I just freaked when I first saw it!

Ha. Semi-humorous, but we've called it "The Acorn school" (for little nuts) We don't need a name, but sometimes it's fun to put on forms...:)

My fave is the Contigo cups- they're amazing! Non-drip.. you just hold the button to sip. bpa free in plastic, or they have stainless. they even have some that are double-walled for insulation! I wash them in the top rack of the dishwasher- wouldn't use anything else! Even my 9 year old uses them!

Dressing as Barney and other characters for rich kids' birthday parties. Getting kicked, pinched, etc., while the parents laughed at their behavior since they felt entitled, since they were paying me. Oh, it was also summer. 90 lbs. of sweaty, smelly fur and foam. Almost passing out regularly. ugh. Also- walking ponies and horses at fairs and parties. Again, entitlement meant little Suzy was giggled at when she pulled the horses hair, etc. Ponies and horses get grumpy and like to bite when they get tired of kids grabbing or screaming. Add to that, their head is usually at breast level when they do. OUCH. Top that off with 90 degrees (again SUMMER), and mucking the stalls when I was done. Sandwich shop in a college town- 11pm-3am shift. Drunk, obnoxious, and sometimes frightening people. Alone at closing. FUN. Retail/mall/Christmas. Everyone who has done that one understands. ;) oooh.. and my "almosts": almost posed for an art class, chickened out at the last minute. and almost: got hired for massage "therapy" then got alll the details about "releasing" the clients. freaked out and ran. Then went to school and became a REAL Massage Therapist, so i'd never have to feel like that again.

I would rather do the vacations, since I'd live an rv if given the chance! But, I'd say buying over renting! I'd try and find a compromise- buy a fixer-upper, or slightly bigger but not too much!

Haven't started yet, but we're planning on 2 words a week, since it's an add-on to all our other stuff. 2 days, one word each day, followed by a quick review of all covered words on a third day. hopefully that will work!

I have one kid who adores math, the other (DD) hates it. Spent a year in K and still forgets what subtraction is. LA for her are off the charts amazing, though! We are starting with singapore. She needs simple, clear, non-spiraling, so singapore is the way for her. The other thing she loves is Time for Learning, which is colorful, playful and a game-like approach.

We did. What a mess we caused last year! My kids wanted to try school last year. Their best friends had gone back to school, they were lonely, had never tried school, and my health and patience were wearing thin. After a few mths of teasing and hating school, we pulled them out in October. A few months later, in May, we put them back in. I had a lack of patience and they were lonely, and we also weren't sure what we were doing. Fast-forward to this year, and we're hs again. The school is good, just not good enough. The teacher DS had last year was amazing, but the ones for next year, not so much. My DD was bored in K, so spent most of the time reading her brother's 2nd grade reading assignments. My DS said he liked school better since it was SO easy, and he didn't really have to work...grrr. They both liked having a lot more kids to play with- so we've joined a co-op, and made social endeavours a priority. I also promised I'd take them to the school playground at least 1-2 times a week after school so they could play with the kids they would miss.

It does, but the first lab in most of them is to go and get the darn things, explore where/how you found them, etc, which makes me think it will be a LOT of rearranging and rewriting. Darn, this was supposed to be my "open and go" curriculum. Probably just need to put my big girl panties on and get to work rescheduling. :) The main issue is that I wanted easy, and I'm not getting it.

http://www.secular-homeschooling.com/001/bitter_homeschooler.html I always love re-reading this whenever I get one of these comments!!!

This one galls me. I have never been given anything until last year, when my kids "tried" school. Then it was " here's some money for clothes and bookbags, etc" This year, I spoke up... I said "Wow, now that we're HS again, I need more money for school supplies than ever- they still wear clothes at home, and I need to buy so many more books!" Apparently, it never occurred to them! I ended up with a lot of money from the grandparents this year!!! :)

We've gotten... : "well, I like my kids to be exposed to more things than they would at home" Now, we live in a very small town, with a very small selection of people. We join HS groups where we are exposed to many more people, of many more religious persuasions, skin color, nationality, etc. In fact, the one year they were in school off and on, they only met maybe 3-5 nationalities, tops. "Aren't your kids weird enough?" yup. that's why we homeschool, after my kid got mocked for eating salad and being polite, and loving science and math. "Oh, but your kids are overeducated"... seriously? this one I just laughed at. I think she meant well, though...:)

GRRR. So frustrated. Had a bad year last year, so this year, I thought I'd go the easier route and buy curriculum that was more "done" for me. Purchased R.E.A.L. science, Life 1. Now, I'm trying to schedule the lessons. If I go in order, all these life studies that require live specimens are from November- March, which makes it impossible to obtain live samples the way you're supposed to (go out and collect them!). I'm thinking this might have been written for homeschoolers not on the east coast! :) Has anyone done this curriculum? How did you rearrange it so that it worked with a normal winter? Just looking for some ideas. My only plan is to order bugs and pay for them, or to postpone all the live studies for spring, which leaves me with a gaping 3-4 mth hole in my year of science! Thanks! :bigear:

I voted other. My daughter LOVES k in her PS, although I'm not enjoying the mainstreaming and major issues in her class. She's a highly social, talkative kid, and honestly, at home, she made me crazy. I am hoping to afterschool her starting next year, but she's highly resistant to me teaching her anything. She's bored with reading/LA in school, since she reads at about a 2nd grade level, but she is just getting by with the math (a subject she abhors and fights). My son is in 2nd. It's a tough call there. One reason we put him in PS, (he had been hs all along) was the fact that he is not a child with social skills. We've put him in hs classes, playgroups, etc. He's always been unfortable, and would rather just stay home with Mommy. Mommy is pretty burnt out. My son is having a fantastic time with writing, since it was something he hated/struggled with at home, and the teacher seems to be amazing at drawing it out of him. Science has been great, since the teacher is seriously hands on. Math is another issue...spiral math is killing me. The reading is not challenging him at all. I've decided I'm just not able to HS anymore, since I'm emotionally unable to deal with it. So, our choice is PS, or nothing. I have no $ for private, there are no charters anywhere near me. Looks like I'll be attempting afterschooling to supplement.

Well, we're reading Pippi Longstocking at the moment, and he loves it. Coloring alone doesn't cut it for the 5 year old, she insisted on having her own workbooks... and whipped through any k ones, has moved onto 1st grade ones. We've got clay and playdough and building toys and activity books, etc. She gets bored and needy and disruptive so quickly, though. On his own, he gets obsessive and delves, say into memorizing the entire encyclopedia of star wars, then discarding it, moving on, and never wanting to look at it again. He tends to obsess, master, then move on. He's had Captain Underpants phases (yes, it's twaddle, but it was free time reading), Had a 'books on tape" period with The Indian in the cupboard and all the sequels, etc. We actually have not done History yet this year. They went to school at the beginning, so we're just sliding slowly into hs again right now. Started light, math and reading and art, language arts. Next I'll add in history, followed by science.