Swallows and Amazons! Got us a huge chunk of the way to Florida last year. :) Because of Winn Dixie Winnie the Pooh, etc Henry Huggins Collection And the entire Melendy series (The Saturdays, etc)

Yes, my cart did that too. I had to add something to cart and go immediately to checkout. It meant doing two separate transactions for my items.

I second this suggestion. My husband did a lot of headphone searching this fall and ended up buying a pair of these when the price dropped. He is very, very pleased with them. I can't speak to how well they hold up to kid usage, but they are excellent quality headphones.

My 2nd greater just took off with chapter books in the past year. She has enjoyed: Mrs. Piggle Wiggle The Courage of Sarah Noble The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Beverly Cleary The Boxcar Children! Usborne Greek Myths

I don't 'play' much with my kids at any age. We spend a lot of enjoyable, interactive time together, but I would say that imaginative play is mostly their domain. I'm an introvert too, and I don't even love playing board games for adults. :) I made a point to train my kids to amuse themselves independently. A few things I did to be involved in their play or introduce new toys and games: - I would 'set up' a new play, to get them engaged. I'll sit down and make a basic train track, for example, and drive the trains around it. It gets the child going and they often become engaged on their own from there. Other 'jump start' set ups might involve Playmobil, blocks, play kitchen/cooking, Mr Potato Head, little cars, etc. - I read a few board books and then leave them on the couch with a stack to explore. - I respond to their play 'invitations'. If they come into the kitchen and tell me they are making a tea party, I'll pretend to drink their tea. - I set them up with crayons and paper and maybe draw a princess or a tractor or two. They take it from there. Same with playdough. - Turn on kid songs and put play silks on the floor. Dance with them for a moment with the silks, then let them at it. These are all things I do to occupy my toddler while I school with the olders. As time goes by, the toddler/preschooler gets more and more comfortable with an activity and will explore on their own. Each of these things and more are tactile, imaginative learning opportunities and I would say they form a good chunk of 'early education'. Is that what you're looking for?

I'm using Growing With Grammar Level 2 with my 2nd grader and like it. It gets the concepts down with simple exercises and it seems to be sticking. It takes MAX 10 minutes. I think it's a good prep for starting Latin next year. I might wait until 3rd for grammar with my next child, though. She has a late birthday and I'm not stuck on having to do official grammar in the early grades.

I made a list of a few basic math concepts I wanted mine to know by the end of Gr.1 or so, drawn from a few resources. These included basic addition, subtraction, measuring, time to the hour, writing numbers, counting to 100, etc. I introduced them here and there, often using MUS blocks in play, which I bought without buying the rest of the program. We talked about math when it came up. We'd talk about sharing how many things with how many people, we'd play UNO, etc. It was part of life. We didn't "do math" even near every day. My oldest had no problem jumping into MM2. My 2nd is doing pieces of MM1, only because she strongly feels that she should be doing worksheets like her sister - I've edited it down to the very basics and she does one page a day, or less. My mom, who homeschooled 5 kids, had success with waiting until Gr.3 for an official math program and I can see why... the early topics loop around again and again without a lot of new info in early grades. All that to say... math doesn't HAVE to be time consuming and official in K, or even in Gr.1. It can be part of baking and talking and playing, etc, and most kids can move into 1 or 2 or even 3 work without much issue. Just a thought.

We combine much of LA for 1st and 2nd grade. Memory work (primarily Bible, some facts), read alouds, copywork and narration (I do this as part of a daily journal time, suggesting topics or assigning copywork, and working with each of them in turn, usually based off a group read aloud, etc). A lot of simple writing projects are combined... I use a mix of BraveWriter Jot It Down and Partnership Writing (mainly the former) and I find it simple to talk through those projects with them together, then provide individual input as they go along. BraveWriter has been excellent for combining LA, at least so far. It's so flexible - kids can run with a project idea and work at their own level. I do group art instruction. We also combine history and science. Math - they do different levels of MM, but if I'm explaining place value, regrouping in addition, etc. to one with blocks, I do it when the other can participate and we all discuss/review together. It helps that MM layers concepts each consecutive year, so they are hitting a lot of the same concepts. We also have a lot of general math conversations (often at meals, with jotting on the kitchen chalkboard). :) That leaves individual workbooks for HWT, ETC, and GWG. All of those are the most independent of our work, so it goes smoothly most of the time. Sometimes they switch off playing with the toddler, who is always a wild card. I'm pregnant, so...! Mine are closer in age than yours, though... YMMV.

I loved being homeschooled. :) The time flexibility in HS was very positive. I worked a lot at our local pool as a lifeguard and instructor and volunteered a great deal, at the local hospital, etc. I used Saxon math and met with a tutor once a week. She answered my questions about both math and chemistry topics and was a game-changer for those subjects. Apologia Bio and Chem. A lot of reading for history. Various essay/writing assignments, sometimes at our weekly co-op. I went away for four months in Gr.12 for a French immersion course, which was excellent. I also studied A&O Greek. I ended up studying languages and literature in University and the transition was very smooth. Independent work in HS prepared me for the university style of study very well. Hope that helps!

I was homeschooled without internet, so this does not sound like a problem to me! :) Things wouldn't look much different for us, even now... my biggest need would be a regular chunk of time for research and ordering materials online, etc. If I could have a monthly evening with internet access, I could do it. I'd still use PDF curricula, but since I print all of those anyway, I'd just use my time of internet access to order them printed and spiral bound from an online print shop and have them shipped to me. I think I'd just have to be more proactive in my teaching prep. My kids don't use the computer at all for school (or otherwise) so far and I plan to keep it that way for quite a while, so there wouldn't be an issue there.

I'm Canadian and all of those examples sound like normal speech in this area.

In our area, lots of people say, "Are you done your dinner?" That doesn't mean it's correct, but your DH isn't the only one. :)

I'm going to remember that one! Smart girl. :)

We've had good results with My First Piano Adventure series. It is followed by the Piano Adventure books. Clear progression, fun, but solid theory. It what my piabo-teacher SIL recommended. My two sisters are not piano teachers, but they are great pianists, so they have each had a time teaching my beginner. Those books have worked well for them.

Many thanks! I'm going to try that out.

I just looked at Simple Solutions and it looks excellent... I could see how it would work well with MM. How did you get ahold of it? The website says they only sell to schools and never to individual parents.

My 7-almost-8 yo has been playing piano for about 2 1/2 years (because of her insistent desire to learn). She loves piano, she doesn't love practicing. She now practices about 15 mins/day and it has become more of a habit to settle in and work on her songs without protest - she's starting to see the value, especially as the songs are more interesting. At 5, I had to tell her each thing she needed to practice (she was not a reader then) and it was max 10 mins, often 5. She still loves piano and I'm hoping to see the practice time and value slowly increase. For now, I let her work through the clear notes the teacher put in her book and just send her back to repeat if the practice sounded rushed or shortened. My newly 6 yo has mentioned wanting to start, but she's less obsessed with music and I'm holding her off until next year, at which point she will hopefully be a fairly solid reader... that helps with practices!

- The Search for Delicious (my 5+7yo are laughing so much and I love it!) - Homer Price - Winnie the Pooh - The Saturdays - Paddington

A.A. Milne is a big hit here. "If I were a bear and a big bear too" is a favorite.

I do a thumb wrap. I kind of wish I didn't, because my hand can ache when writing for long periods... but then, it aches worse when I use a proper grip, so that might just be my slightly arthritic hands. I had no problem with note taking in university, etc. Both my 2nd grader and 1st grader tend to thumb wrap. I make them grip properly during any handwriting instruction, etc (and they can do it), but I don't constantly monitor at other times because I don't want to make writing a battle ground and it hasn't really affected me negatively.

I grew up with Skip Count Kid songs (#2-10) and play them for my kids now. The album is on iTunes. The kids like them and they are catchy, so stick quickly. There is a regular version and a Bible version.

Many reasons! - Family closeness: time for developing strong bonds and passing on values in the formative years. And just because we like this lifestyle and quantity of time together! - Flexibility: my husband's career involves shiftwork and we wanted to be able flex with that so he could spend more time with our kids. We also wanted to be able to travel more flexibly, etc. - Academic approach: the ability to work directly with a child's individual growth to achieve personal excellence and foster a love of learning and exploration. - Real world socialization: involving kids in the community and teaching them how to interact well with a varied population, which is more representative of 'real life' than the majority of days spent with one age group. There are other reasons and perks, but those are the key ones. They are the reasons I was homeschooled and the fruit of it has been very positive for me. I hope to share that with my own kids.

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This. Pretty big assumptions to make about the fears, opinions, and motivations of homeschoolers in general.

I'm not sure why you think that HS parents send their kids to CC as a full-time alternative to public school, or that HS use CC because they think so much better of the students there than of high school students. I was homeschooled for my whole education, including high school, and am now deeply involved in my homeschool community with my own children. The only reason I've heard that people sent their kids for CC classes (or why my friends in highschool years took some courses) is because they wanted to take certain credits which would advance their academic goals. None of them, that I know of, have enrolled their children full-time in CC as an alternative to a local high school. My sister actually went to a local alternative school for two semesters - this is a branch of our public school board that helps adult or 'failed' students achieve individual courses that they need outside of the high school schedule. About 80% of those students are there because they 'failed' or dropped out of regular high schools, some are adults trying to get the credits they need to apply for a university later in life. Drugs and other issues are rampant. My sister went in for a couple of courses in order to complete them quickly and get the credits she needed for her university nursing application. She did her courses and left. This was not a 'replacement' for the high school environment and it was not her new social structure, it was a piece of the puzzle for completing her homeschool work in preparation for university. She was still a homeschooled student, spending the majority of her days in a homeschool environment. That is the way I see most people using CC courses - as selected pieces. A resource for credits and courses within the framework of a homeschool education. The CCs in our area encourage this. In Canada, it can be a very helpful addition to a homeschooler's university application. Where is this coming from, the idea that homeschoolers pull their kids from the 'foul' high school environment and immerse them in the 'somehow more sanitized but really not' CC environment? I just don't see that happening, at least in the region where I am homeschooling/have been homeschooled. For personal context, my husband works very closely with and often inside the local public schools, particularly the high priority ones, and I have no personal hatred bias against public high schools.