I've done only a little copywork and dictation with my daughter, but here are my ideas anyway. 1) Shorten the length of the copywork. If she has to write fewer words, she is less likely to rush through it just to get it done. Plus, it won't take as much time. 2) Point out any troublesome words, unfamiliar punctuation, and capitalization before she starts copying. If you draw her attention to it in the beginning, she is more likely to pay attention to it when copying. 3) Have her read the copywork before writing and again after writing it. Actually reading the words, not just recite from memory, will help her catch some of her own mistakes. 4) Insist that any mistakes, including sloppy handwritng, be corrected neatly. 5) Praise parts that are well done. For example, when my daugher writes something, I point to each word one at a time. If the word is correct, I say "perfect," "beautiful," or "you remembered...." If the word needs correcting, I say the correction. That way, she hears more praise than corrections. I hope some of these ideas work for you. If not, just ignore them as the ramblings of a newbie.

I suppose it depends on the age of the kid. Sheet protectors and dry or wet erase markers work fine when I'm using them, but my daughter (five years old) would always smear. Even the wet erase didn't dry quick enough. The other problem I had with sheet protectors was if the paper was smaller than than 8.5x11, it would shift in the sheet protector, and the answer would no longer line up with the worksheet properly. For her Kumon tracing pages, I cut off the binding, and laminated the pages. Then she uses a permenant marker to write on it. It dries instantly, so there is no smearing. When she is done, I use rubbing alcohol to erase it. She repeats each page many times, so although the laminating is expensive, it is worth it to me. I also tried using a China Marker (also called a Grease Pencil) with mixed results. The benefits of the China marker are that it goes on dry (no smearing) and my daughter could erase it by herself. However, after repeated use, the china marker wouldn't erase completely, and the pages would got cloudy.

Sounds like she is ready to learn how to blend letter sounds together to make words. Being able to blend as well as knowing the letter sounds is a base skill required for reading. You don't need a formal curriculum to teach blending - just continue with what you are doing with cvc words (and teaching new letters) until it 'clicks". If *you* want a formal curriculum, you could always try and see how it goes.

I used The Reading Lesson to teach my daughter to read. Can you tell what part of the lesson your daughter has trouble with? Can she blend sounds easily? Can she quickly and easiy recognize the letters? Does she have the sounds of each letter memorized? Does she have to sound out each individual word, instead of reading old words by sight? Does she have vision problems? Does she simply have no interest being able to read herself? If you know what sub-skill she is having trouble with, you can stop or slow down formal lessons to work on that sub-skill. Slowing down to 1 page, or even half a page is okay. Going back in the book and re-reading tought pages is also okay. Occassionally reminding her what sound a letter makes is also fine.

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I think that 5 is old enough to pick up a room, provided the kid can reach everything and is motivated. For DD5, motivation is the key. She knows where everything belongs, and she can reach everything. What motives her is movie or outside time. If she wants one of those things, she has to pick up *all* the toys first. At first I had to verbally guide her. However, now, I can just leave her and she can do it all by herself. Occassionally I have to inspect afterwards and point out hidden toys, but she does fairly well on her own. Now, if she isn't interested in the movie, all bets are off. I still can't get her to put away toys as soon as she's done with them either. DD2 also has gotten into the habit of just letting DD5 clean up everything for her. I'm trying to break that habit, but it's hard going.

I think the three requirements listed above are mutually exclusive. Cutting, pasting, coloring, prewriting, crafts, etc. are inherently consumable. If the supplies are included, you will not be able to reused them with the baby because the paper will be cut, pasted, colored, written on, etc. How about things like: Kumon workbooks Before Five in a Row / Five in a Row (http://www.fiarhq.com) Letter of the Week (http://www.letteroftheweek.com)

I have a 5 year old in and a 2 year old, and I just started homeschooling. I find it extremely difficult to do much with the 2 year old around. Setting up stations or special toys doesn't seem to work well, as DD2 would rather crawl between mommy and big sis and grab stuff. I'm wondering about conducting school at the mall play area after public school starts and the crowds thin out. DD2 could safely run around to her heart's content there, while I work with DD5. She might even wear herself out enough to take a good afternoon nap too. Anyone ever do this? Any drawbacks?

I used it to teach my older DD to read. We both enjoyed it and it worked for us. I liked how the type was very similar to the type in a normal book. I liked having new text to read every day, so there was no chance of DD simply memorizing the text without really reading. I liked how simple the pages are with no distracting instructions to the parent. I liked how it is all just one book. No flash cards, no chalkboard, no writing, no workbook, etc. After every lesson, I also had DD pick a book for me to read to her. A "You read to me, and now I'll read to you" bargin. -Kuovonne

Ditto on the handwriting. Also, how about readers - the books for your daughter to read, especially once she is done with The Reading Lesson. Phonics Pathways doesn't have the passages of text to read that The Reading Lesson has.

If you want something like Five In A Row, how about HomeschoolShare Units? http://www.homeschoolshare.com/ Like Five In A Row, they are unit studies built around picture books. You still need your own copy of the book or books (or borrow from the library), but the units themselves are all online. You will still have to do some picking and choosing among the units and activities, though. Here are the Kindergarten level units. http://www.homeschoolshare.com/Level2.php Out of curiosity, what is the "fun centerpiece" that you will be using?

Sounds like my 5 year old. She has a closet full of clothes, including t-shirts and pants, but she always dresses herself in dresses every day, with the occassional skirt thrown in. All of the dresses in her closet are play dresses, even though they are quite pretty and even appropriate for church. She likes them becase they have puffy sleeves, and full, long twirly skirts. I like them because she happily dresses herself each morning without my involvement, and they costed me less than $10 each. Any dresses that are difficult to wash or that she can't put on all by herself are kept in a different room that she doesn't have access to. She knows that they are only for special occasions. I also make sure that she has enough shorts to always have a pair of shorts under her dress. Most of her dresses have matching shorts, but some do not, so she just picks out a co-ordinating solid color pair of shorts for those. This system has worked for me ever since DD5 started dressing herself. Fortunately, we live where the climate is mild and I don't have to change out her wardrobe for the seasons. -Kuovonne

***Short answer*** Just get regular right-handed scissors for your daughter. Make sure that they are sharp and that the screw holding the parts together is tight. Let her decide which hand to use them in (left or right). ***Long answer*** I'm a lefty, DD5 is a lefty, and DD2 is a righty. We have only right-handed scissors in the house. I used right-handed scissors in my left hand to cut. DD5 also used right-handed scissors, usually in the left hand, but sometimes in the right hand. DD2 hasn't figured out how to use scissors yet. There are two different factors that can make a pair of scissors "left-handed" or "right-handed." (1) The holes for the thumb and fingers can be moulded to fit the shape of the thumb coming from one side or the other. Most scissors which are touted as working for either hand have the thumb hole shaped the same on both sides. (2) Open a pair of right-handed scissors, in your right hand, with your right thumb on top. Notice that your thumb controls the bottom blade, which is actually on the left. When you close the scissors, the thumb has a slight pushing action on the blades, which causes the blades to squeeze together. This is most noticable in really *loose* scissors. Take the same pair of *loose* scissors in your left hand. Close them with the same pushing pressure with your left thumb. Notice how the blades have a slight gap between them, and won't be able to cut properly? Now, with true left-handed scissors, the blades would be mirror image (not just flipped), and you wouldn't have that gap when pushing with the left thumb. I actually can't cut with true left-handed scissors because after years of using right-handed scissors, my left thumb has gotten used to doing a pulling action on the scissors. As she gets older, it will be increasingly difficult and more expensive to get left-handed scissors, and being able to use right-handed scissors will eventually become natural.

My daughter completed "The Reading Lesson" a few months ago, and here's what we did and are doing, for what it's worth. I relaced the 10-15 minutes a day that we spent on "The Reading "Lesson" with "shared reading" out of a real book. She reads a page, I read a page. I'd help her sound out any words she didn't know on her pages. We started with short books, and gradually worked up to simple chapter books. Then it started taking too long to read a chapter (not for DD5, but for DD2 who was "listening"), and I am looking for something else. We also do lots of library books, both picture books and "An I Can Read Book" type books. I let DD pick out as many books from the "easy reader" section of the library as she wants and make them freely available during the week. I don't require her to read any of them. I am also starting SWR. I choose SWR instead of something like Phonics Pathways because I think it is more complete, it provides handwriting practice, and it will serve as a spelling curriculum for years to come. Oh, and I still read to her and we talk about the books I read to her, as well as books that she reads to me. Now that she has the basics of decoding words down, I find that these things work together for reading fluency (shared reading & easy readers), decoding advanced words (SWR), and comprehension (book discusion).

I used The Reading Lesson with my daughter to teach her to read. We finished it a few months ago, and she is reading independantly very well now. We are starting Spell to Write and Read now to fill in missing phonics information and to teach spelling. My daughter was ready to learn to read far before her handwriting was ready for spelling, and I personally didn't want to use letter tiles. The Reading Lesson was a perfect fit for us. The main reason that I decided to start spelling now is because she is choosing to write more on her own, and I don't want to go through the invented spelling stage. If she had shown no interest in writing, or didn't read well, I probably wouldn't be doing spelling at this stage.

It's about a 20 hour trip to drive to the grandparents. On the most recent trip the girls were 4 and 1 1/2. We didn't bring any movies and only a little music. The only mid-day breaks we took were to get gas and eat meals. We brought lots and lots and lots of snacks, and handed them out more or less on request, but in super-tiny portions. We also brought several toys for each kid and set up the car so that all the toys were always within the kids' reach. Then I told the 4yo that she could reach everything herself, so she was in charge of entertaining herself. The biggest hit was color-wonder markers and a whole pad of blank color-wonder paper. Also good were a Leapster, little figurines like you get in a fast-food kids meal, a soft stuffed animal that doubled as a pillow, and a laminated map of our route. The next time we make the road trip, I am considering downloading a ton of books from librivox to my ipod and having us listen to them.

I'm interested in hearing what experienced parents have to say on this too, as I find the same issue with my daughter. She is five, like your Becca, but when she was still four, people would mistake her for a six or seven year old - she is tall and very articulate when she chooses to be. I find that I have to constantly re-adjust my expectations both up and down from day to day. Whenever I try something new with her, I never know if it will be totally easy and boring, or horribly, frustratingly difficult. Nothing is ever just right the first time. If I have to shelve something, I might try it again a few months later. As for curriculum choices, I'm avoiding "boxed" curriculum because I think they would be too difficult to match to her varying levels. I'm using Five In A Row because it can be easily adapted to be easier or more difficult from book to book and day to day. I'm using RightStart Math and Spell to Write and Read because I can progress through them sequentially, slowing down or speeding up as necessary without affecting any other subjects.

From reading the responses, it seems that the husbands who strip in the living room have no daughters, but that husbands with daughters change in the bedroom. Perhaps the key to getting a man to keep his pants on in the living room is to spend some time with him in the bedrom with the pants off (and hope for a girl) ;)

Well, I sometimes have to hide the reader from my DD. When we are done, she often wants to sneak a peak at the next bit, but I don't let her. That way she stays interested, she doesn't get burned out, and her brain has some time to absorb the info. If she were to "work ahead" I wouldn't let her off the hook for the next scheduled lesson. We'd just move on to the next thing. How much we do is determined by what I think she can handle that day rather than a set number of pages.

Hi, You have my deepest sympathy. We had to have our pet cat put down last month, and it was tough on the whole family. We knew it was coming, so we talked about it a lot. DH took out cat to the vet by himself, and then brought the body home for burial. Both girls got a chance to say goodbye. Mostly we have been very open about death in our family. (Both my parents are passed away, and I had to explain why to DD5). We talked about how doctors (and animal doctors) can't save everyone, and everyone dies eventually. We talked about neighbor's pets that have died. The hardest part was answering DD's question about what happened to the cat after he died (re: going to heaven).

I chose Sam's for our family. It is much closer, and I go there at least every other week. The Costco is nicer, but it is much farther away and the distance just isn't worth it for us.

Not much help, but some sympathy. My kids are 5 and 2. DD5 could do her work much more easily if DD2 didn't barge in, grab pencils, grab the book, turn pages, shove, etc. Usually I try to do most of the school work in the morning (B4FIAR, shared reading, copywork), and then save math for the afternoon during DD2's nap due to the massive number of math manipulatives. DD2 is either crowding in on the sofa, or laying on the floor sucking her finger looking forlorn. I'm hoping that with time she'll get used to the arrangement and go play by herself. After a few weeks, she finally (cross my fingers) stopped shreeking at the top of her voice during school time. I tried something new yesterday that seemed to work okay. We go to a church playgroup on Wednesday mornings, and we tried doing school at playgroup. DD2 ran around and played with the other kids. DD5 and I were able to get all our morning work done (except reading) fairly easily. DD2 was having fun without distracting DD5, and DD5 was motivated to get things done quickly so she could play. In the fall, DD2 will go to a MDO program, and I hope that I'll get more school work done then.

That's my DD who is also 5. She goes into spasims of giggles at the mention of any boy who is "handsome" and not "too old" or "too young". Boys from books, movies, neighbor boys, boys seen on stage, etc. She can't explain why some boys make her giggly, but she is very consistant in who tickles her fancy. So far most of the "boys" are fictional and she is too shy to talk to boys that aren't already good playmates, thank goodness.

That's too funny. It reminds me of my girls. DD5 started making DD2's bed and picking up her toys for her in the morning as a nice thing to do. It was really sweet. But then she started making it *every* day. Finally, I had to tell DD5 to stop being such a nice sister and leave DD2's bed messy so that DD2 could learn how to make her own bed and pick up her own toys. (BTW, the girls normally aren't anywhere near as angelic as this post makes them sound.)

How about looking up the stroller name/brand on the web and seeing if you can find reviews for it on a store web site that states if it takes a car seat? Also check if it needs any accessories to hold a car seat and make sure that they are included with the stroller for sale.