dd has 6! :001_huh: She has Elizabeth and Felicity, Marie-Grace, Rebecca, Alice (her bitty baby), and Kate (her just like me doll). We like them though. DD takes an American Girl class at a local homeschool co-op. She's learned a ton of American History using the dolls as a base. Doesn't help we only live 45 minutes from the Atlanta store. :auto:

My son is 4 and does gymnastics. I can see where it ramps up in a fast an furious way. Next year we are looking at 4 hours a week versus the 1 hour a week now. My dd8 does not do gym but is involved heavily with drama. Same thing: started with a one hour a week class then skyrocketed to 10+ hours a week this year (between voice lessons, dance class, drama classes and productions). While reality states my ds may never be an olympic level gymnast and my dd may never make it into a movie, who knows????? As a homeschooling momma I am blessed with the time to allow my kids explore their interests. As long as they are having fun I will continue to let them participate in the activity. If they start to show signs of stress or boredom then I'll pull them in a heart beat. I would just go with the flow and enjoy the ride. If your dd gets tired or wants to do something else then let her. If not then be a happy momma that your dd is happy with her extracurricular activity. :grouphug:

This would be awesome!

Are you in the Atl. area. There are many outlets here where the kiddos can do classes like calc. and physics with a real teacher when they get to that age. We are in something called Timothy Ministry near where we live. It meets once a week and the kiddos take classes. All of the high school classes are pretty intensive and cover what the need to know. Plus they have all the appropriate lab stuff! My kiddos are 4 and 7 y.o. and already in the program. If it's the upper levels that are concerning you I wouldn't stress too much. There are resources you can use to have your kids taught by people who are strong in the areas where you may be afraid! :-)

We looked into it for this upcoming year and decided against it quickly. For us is was not a good fit as we like flexible scheduling. The GCA had us sticking to the school year. The rep I talked to even told me that since my vacation was planned during "school time" I would have to still log into the computer so DD could register her hours for the week. Ummm. No thanks! We were also told we could not accelerate dd. The books for reading they were going to send were a joke (dd's 7 and reading at a 6th + grade level). However, I know several people using it and several more using it this year. They are all thrilled. One of my friends just got her computer from the GCA and it was a mac! From my understanding of it after talking to a bunch of current GCA users, new users and reps I'll try to answer your questions: Is there homework? Sometimes. Depends on grade level. What percent of work is on the computer? Computer time increases as grade increases but you must log on and log work daily! How high is the parent time/involvement? Intensive in the younger years and diminishing as the kids get older. Also, for the GCA you do have mandatory field trips with your "group". You also will have times to "conference" with your child's teacher. What happens if we try it and decide to bail out mid year? Do we have to pay anything? Send the books back? You have send all back except consumables. If you continue homeschooling you will have to submit a DOI. With the GCA you are not a "homeschooler" you are public schooled so no DOI is needed. Do we have to go by the school calendar in our county? YES!!!! Or just get 180 days in? You can ask for time off but it's all up to your teacher!!! How do you choose which activities to not do? (That sounds time intensive for the parent.) You don't choose. It's school so all activities must be checked off. It's public school at home so you loose some of the flexibility of the homeschool aspect. Hope this helps. Were you able to attend an open house?

I will be doing K with DS this year. We are starting August 1 and this will be my second time through MFW K. He's 4.5 but is begging for school! Haha

I got most of what everyone else mentioned. Also, I hit up the $1 bin at Target for fun and cheap craft items. This time for K I am also investing in Legos. My son is VERY hands on; so these will be my math manipulatives. ;)

OOhhh!! I felt the same way. However, my daughter was itching to do a forensic unit this summer. So I got those books the next week. Hehe. Total distraction! LOL. It's great to know so many people will be doing ECC next year.

My dd loved the Safe Side video. We found it at the library. I think the lady who did the Baby Einstein videos made this one. The video got it's point across without scaring thebeejeebers out of my dd. :D

We went through that for a bit this Fall. Then we took a three week break. During the break we read and read. She read anything she wanted. I did not assign books to her. Then I read aloud, hard books. I also found some educational games on the computer for her. She learned in leaps and bounds. The thing was is she was not aware. When we started back to school after the new year, I was calm about everything.I also started back with 1 subject per day until we reached a full schedule. Now, I don't hear complaints. There's not been one argument. She's enjoying school again. I think I tend to forget she's just a kid and will go through phases. ;) I've just got to learn how to ride out the phases and make them as constructive as possible. :lol: Good luck

I tried to get a catalog in early December and was sent an email that they ran out and do not know if they are printing more. :glare: I make notes in the margins of catalogs so... I was drooling over sea and sky online but the negative customer service comments are rampant! Argh.

OK HOD users I need input. :001_smile: I am looking into HOD for my dd who will be 7 in the fall. She'll be at the third grade level for math and grammar, she's reading at a 5th grade + level and already knows cursive, she memorizes poems and bible verses quite easily already and she can independently look up passages in the bible (usually requiring little to no help). On the placement chart this showed she would be ready for Preparing. Would Preparing be OK for her? Would the concepts be too much. Just because she meets the check list I worry about placing her there. That would mean the following year we would be using CTC when she's 8!:confused: Any advice?

We just did this one today. I had dd6 copy the pronoun lists onto one sheet of paper as we went over the lists. She used this as her reference. I noticed at the start of the story she was constantly looking at her list. I would read one sentece at a time and she would yell "Stop!" if there was a pronoun in the sentence. By the end of the story She was able to tell me to stop without looking at the list. I truly think looking at the list so much helped her. Good luck!

Catholic guilt is real enough. I was born and raised catholic. I now worship in a protestant church. I was married once before and I'll admit I was young and stupid. My parents tried to talk me out of it. However, being young and stupid I didn't listen. I was catholic he was baptist. We got married in the catholic church. 3 months into the marriage I was being verbally abused. I left after one year of marriage. After leaving him and filing for divorce I had to obtain a restraining order against my ex husband (due to some scary threats to my life!). I went to see my priest about 6 months after the divorce to begin preparing for the annulment. Well.... I was told I needed to try to reconcile with him. Huh? THen when it was clear I was not going to do this (for my own well being) I was told that I would have to make a good effort to contact my ex to get him to the tribunal. I asked the priest if he truly realized what had happened and if he understood that I held a restraining order against this guy. He said he understood but it was my duty to clear this up with the catholic church and these were the steps to follow. Umm.... I left the church. I felt guilty for months until I realized that this is not what Jesus would have wanted for me. I have found peace with my relationship with Christ. But, yes catholic guilt is real.

When taking the blood test please remember that the blood is the last place Celiac's will show. I have autoimmune problems to begin with. I had hypo-thyroid with uncontrolled numbers even after a thyroidectomy. Plus I was borderline diabetic. The gluten free lifestyle has helped these problems as Celiac's is an autoimmune issue. I have also begun to loose the weight my thyroid problems caused me to gain. My daughter had every symptom in the book. Her stool test was borderline and the blood test was negative. Yet she could not make it through a meal without running into the bathroom. Once she was gluten free she began to enjoy eating! At 5 years old she was 31 pounds (with clothes on)! She has always been in the negative on the growth charts and has finally begun to gain some weight to creep into the positive percentiles. She is now almost 7 and at 38 pounds. Yea!! Go with your gut on this (no pun intended). There's a lot of discrepency with testing for celiac's.

Thanks guys. All of you gave me some great insight. ILL at my library is impossible from other systems. Within our own system it's possible but selection is extremely limited. Our system is in a rural area. I have done MFW K and did not realize the book list was copyrighted. :001_huh: I was hoping to peruse the list and pick what I needed/wanted (i.e. what the library does not have and what I would need to purchase. Possibly one book for each country). With two kiddos schooling next year I am getting my budget ready for the beginning fo the year so I can have everything by next fall. We budget for school at the start of each year so it's covered. Argh. All this and Christmas too. :lol: Lots to consider.

I am already in the process of looking at next year's curriculum choices. :D I really love the look of MFW ECC. My only hang up is that I cannot find a list of the books on the book basket list. Why can't I find this? This has been my one hang-up in choosing MFW over HOD or WP. With HOD and WP I know in advanced the books my kids will be reading through the year. Another reason I would like to find this information is for budgeting purposes. If I can put the cost of the books in my budget then we can plan for it and order them in a timely fashion (my library system here is HORRIBLE!!!). Thanks for any and all help in this. Amy

OK! Thanks ya'll. I must have been dreaming b/c when I looked back over the LU there was no overlap or redundancy. I swear my brain is failing. :blush:

We did MFW K a few years ago and LOVED it. It was my introduction into "thematic units". Later when I did a thematic unit on my own, I truly realized how much work it could be for the mom! ;) I remember spending maybe an hour a day if that on it. It was simple for me and my daughter loved it. I have been floundering since and am thinking about MFW for next year. We miss it. HTH

We have CLE's 2nd grade reading program (readers and light units). We also have FLL. Do you do both? I've noticed a lot of grammar concepts in the light units. Does this make for too much grammar for a 2nd grader if she is doing FLL? Thanks and I hope this makes sense. I've only had one cup of coffee this morning. ;)

Woo Hoo! Prayers to all who are starting this week! We began this morning and I think I underscheduled! After 2.5 hours we are almost done. It was mostly review though so we'll see how it goes the rest of the month! ;)

:grouphug: and prayers.

Awww. My Owen loves that DVD too! Lot's of Owen's these days. :001_smile: To the OP. I also loved word factory with my dd. We've lost that one so I'll have to get another. :glare:

Cool! I like it. We are trying this too this year. I looped fewer subjects because my kids are younger. We will do math, reading and journaling daily for DD6. DS3 will do his little workbooks each day he wants. It's a work in progress. :D

DS is 3 years and 3 months as we are just now potty trained in the day. He still wears pull-ups at night. I tried when he was younger and it was a battle. One day about a month ago he brought his undies to me when we were getting dressed and he said "I wear these now!". Then it was done and he only had one accident! I would wait until the child is ready. But that's my two pennies. ;) :grouphug: and good luck.