You mean after all the *traveling* that I want to do with my girlfriends? LOL I'm a 15 yr veteran dental hygienist doing occasional temp work, mostly on Saturdays. DH and I always assumed I'd continue that career after homeschooling. But it's really not my passion, so I'd like to explore other options for when the kids are older. I bought the book Zen and the Art of Making a Living. It has wonderful exercises to help narrow down "life work" choices. I haven't figured what mine will be, but it's fun to think about. I think nonprofit/public service is where I'm headed. I'd love to hear what other moms are planning to do as their life work. I wonder what careers are best suited to experienced homeschool moms? Would that be a different thread? :)

I stopped at two different farmstands on the way home from work today. I was bummed to find out that the second one imports much of it's stuff from FL!! (we're in NC) After reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I'm trying to hard to stick with local produce. We didn't join a CSA this year because they were all full by the time I went to sign up. Oh well! Next year......

I haven't seen an "outside activities" thread in awhile. I'm starting my schedule for next year, and I'm thinking of reducing our out-of-the-house days to two per week. Two main reasons: streamline our schoolwork routine(if we're home, we'll get more done, right?) and reduce gasoline consumption(it's killing our budget). Problem is: there is so much we want to do! Dd wants to volunteer at the SPCA, ds wants to hang with his friends as much as possible, I need to get groceries, get to the library etc. So I'm working on narrowing most activities into two days only. Also, I may add one day to have a playdate at our house or possibly start a small kids club at our house focusing on money and/or writing. (yes, I'm crazy) :tongue_smilie: My kids also do lots of science programs at the museum. I may limit those to once a month. Ds is in 4H but that's on 2 Saturdays per month so that can stay. AGGGHHH!! Does anyone else plan their schedule in this detail? And how do you decide what activities to fit in, how much friend-time is enough etc.?

http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/homeschooling/curricula/Secular.html This is a link that I've had in my favorites file for years. Not sure how many of these are still active, but it's a place to start. If you let me know what you're looking for, I may be able to help. Are you looking for specific subjects, all-in-one curriculum, or...? Yes, it's harder to find nonreligious resources, and the choices are more limited. But I've successfully used a few Christian programs over the years with just minor modifications. HTH!

I mostly read nonfiction books- there is always something new I want to learn about. If I'm at the beach, I'll have fiction and magazines with me. Oprah is my fave magazine- top notch contemporary writers.

We've had Verizon for 12 yrs now and haven't had any trouble at all. We seem to get the best range of all our friends, very rarely have dropped calls. I guess it depends where you live. We've used our cell phones all along the east coast with very few dead zones.

How funny that we're all in that boat. I used to post on the old board, but even then not very often. I've been visiting WTM forums since before my oldest was in K! Happy posting, ya'll. :)

Grew up in Mass. and only called them sneakers. Now I'm in NC and it seems everyone here says tennis shoes. Weird, cuz I haven't met anyone here who actually plays tennis! :lol:

Just finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and now I'm reading Omnivore's Dilemma. Yes, I love food. :) Also working thru Raising Lifelong Learners, wish I started it when the kids were younger! Oh well.

Hi there, We've been using Time4Learning since December and it's been great. The best part is that you can access one grade above and one grade below whatever grade your child is in. So if the unit on, let's say decimals, is too easy, you can bump up to the next level to get more in depth. Or if it's to hard, you can bump down a level to get more basic. Make sense? My 8yo dd, using 2nd grade, has made good progress with the LA, especially the phonics and fluency lessons. She is good at math and loves the interactive lessons. She is definitely retaining most of what she learns with T4L. 11yo ds is using 4th grade now. We started with 5th and he was struggling. He is progessing in baby steps but the retention has not been what I hoped. He does have some learning issues so this may not apply to more typical learners. Most math units have printable sheets to supplement the lessons. There is a writing section with nice variety and good instruction to be done offline or with their Odyssey Writer program. Unfortunately, it's not enough instrucion for ds who has had very little writing up til now. It'd be plenty for a student who has a solid background in LA. Also there are wonderful book studies with integrated LA, including writing. We have not started these yet as ds is not ready but we may tackle one this month. It has not become a struggle at all. In fact, my kiddos still love it and debate each day who gets to go first! (We now rotate days to avoid this argument :)) It's definitely self-paced, in that you choose which unit and what level. Lessons can be re-done or reviewed as many times as you want. Strengths: interactive and fun lessons, comprehensive scope and sequence, flexible levels, lots of assessment, printable reports with grades, can be done independantly, many lessons are read aloud to student by computer Weaknesses: upper level lessons have more reading to self (less by computer), similar to traditional school (maybe this is a strength to some people), harder for mastery-type learners, done almost completely online, cost- can't resell I would continue to use this for dd who is a typical learner. It has been just right for her. However, I am looking to switch things for next year due to ds's learning issues. I'm still trying to find the right mix for him. He would probably be fine continuing T4L but I think I need to spend more one-on-one with him to recover lots of basics he's missed over the years. Unfortunately, since I try to teach them together as much as possible, that may mean that dd stops T4L also. She will do fine either way. I'm so glad that we found T4L this year as it's really helped me get on track with scheduling, knowing what to expect from the kids, etc. I usually sit with each child for at least part of each lesson while they're working on T4L, and I've learned so much about how they learn best and how to present certain topics in that light. I know this has been a long and sort of mixed review. Overall, I love T4L and so do my kids. If it was best for ds, I'd stay with T4L as our core indefinitely. Please feel free to ask more questions. I hope I've helped a little and not confused you further! :)

Sorry to hijack this thread on you , Steph! I was just logging on to ask about LLATL also, so I figured I may as well combine my question with yours. Hope you don't mind. :) I haven't used R&S LA so I can't help you there, but I've heard that LLATL tends to be more "gentle." I think it'll work for us next year because I want to concentrate mostly on math and writing. I'd like the rest of our LA to be quick and painless. My question to add to yours is how necessary are the teacher guides for LLATL? Looking at the samples, they seem to be just reprints of the student book with answers in the margins? I'm hoping Dayle answers too because I know she's been using this for a while. :001_unsure:

My 8yo dd is still struggling too. But like you said, I'm glad that we are progressing. The thing that has helped her the most was getting the "book and audio kits" from the library. We put a boombox radio next to her bed. Before bed, she listens to the tape or CD and follows along with the book. This has increased her confidence and interest in reading tenfold. I read to her everyday and we listen to audiobooks in the car, but being in charge of her own reading has really helped. I know this isn't the formal program you were looking for but I thought it might help. I can also tell you that ds11 has just this year started to actually enjoy reading and will now read novels on his own. I never thought we'd see that day but it finally came after years of being patient. So don't be discouraged!

Hi Sue, I can so relate to this whole older-child-without-solid-phonics problem! DS used ETC thru level 5 and DD is finishing up 3.5 right now. What I have found is that the kids can easily bluff their way thru those books by noticing the patterns on the page, or copying words from a prior page, etc. I have noticed very little long term phonics retention with ETC. Of course, this is just my experience because I know many kids who ETC was just enough phonics for them. My kids definitely need the explicit phonics found in something like AAS. AAS has made the biggest difference I've seen so far. I think you should just wait to receive your AAS package and go from there. I know it's pricey, so why spend more $ now on something temporary, especially when each level of ETC has only a limited scope anyway. Just my 2 cents- best of luck to you! :)

DH and I identify as atheist, and I bring the kids to a UU Fellowship for a diverse religious education. DS is learning New Testament history in RE and DD's class is using Hide and Seek with God to explore all the various ways folks around the world use the term "god." I have the book at home too so we can read the stories and discuss them further. I also have What About Gods? and Humanism: What's That?. For prehistory, we've used the Born with a Bang series by Jennfier Morgan, Usborne IL Encyclopedia of World History, Early Humans(Eyewitness) and Usborne's Living in Prehistoric Times. For a wonderful variety of creation stories, I second the recommendation of In the Beginning. For evolution, so far I have Life On Earth and Darwin and Evolution for Kids. For my own education on parenting secularly, I've found Parenting Beyond Belief to be a wonderful resource. I also attended a workshop with the editor of that book and it was excellent!

I was one of the ones who recommended AAS. I have looked at SWR in the past and thought it looked complicated to use, but my memory is fuzzy. I'm not sure we've used AAS long enough (3 months) to give a definitive answer to your very relevant question. I can say that I've heard my 8yo actually repeat one of her spelling rules while reading in order to decode a word. But maybe that would've happened with any of the rule-based programs? I really think that the multi-sensory approach of AAS has helped with both my kids written expression- they are having no trouble with the AAS dictation and I'm thrilled!

This is an awesome discussion! It's like you both are in my head and saying the exact things that I've been waffling about for the past month! LOL It really can be quite a struggle when our kids aren't "on grade level" and we think they should be. I know that much of the beauty of homeschooling is that levels don't matter and yet somehow I keep coming back to: but they do matter in some respects, and they're hard to ignore completely since we do have to live and function in the same world as everyone else! (how's that for a run-on sentence? :)) Now I feel much more prepared to make a decision on writing for ds. I thank you both for helping to articulate the issues I'm having with all the pros and cons. Reading about your experiences is very helpful to me.

Thanks for your input, A.H.! Can you tell me more about the learning challenged child who you recommended it for? That may help because my son is 11 yo but struggling thru 4th grade math. He has always been a bit delayed academically, due to speech and hearing issues as a toddler. We have used many math programs over the years, which was a mistake. I'm afraid that switching yet again may just confuse matters and cause him to fall even further behind. One thing, since you've seen it, what was your impression of the system of 5-a-day and the lessons in general? My concern is that it will be very time consuming to implement, requiring much prep work for each lesson etc. Thanks again-

Now I'm really worried though! I should be concerned that the Writing Trails samples looked just about right, only slightly easy, for 11yo ds. I know he's a little behind- about a year based on testing. I have looked at CW many times and I freak out every time. I know that's WAY beyond his (and mine!) capability. Oh well, I'll keep searching for the right writing program for him. I know it's out there somewhere! :) Thanks again for your help.

I will Google Dianne Craft and the other maths you mentioned. Yes, I agree that Math on the Level seems very right-brained. That's why it seems perfect for my right-brained son. My fear is that this left-brained mom won't be able to adjust to that style. :) Thanks for your input!

I haven't found it to be time intensive at all, once I got the prep done. I used a paper cutter for all the cards too- highly recommend that! Most of level one we did one lesson per day, but then my kiddos were 7 and 10. It was review for the older one, but it never took more than 20 minutes per day for both. I'd spend a little extra time with my younger one if she needed it. Now in level two we'll probably take two days per lesson, but just to make sure it "sticks" for my now 8yo.

Thanks for your reply. I hadn't seen the post about starting with Writing Trails but that's good to know. I have to admit that now I'm a bit worried about using it with an 11yo though! I suppose that easier will be better for him since he's had so little writing in the past. Thanks again,

More questions today..... I know this is a relatively new program, but I'm hoping someone here is using this and can comment. It looks like a very logical approach to math that may make more sense to ds. He doesn't seem to be *understanding and internalizing* the math concepts, just going thru the motions and forgetting each topic as we move on to others. This may be common at this age, but I was hoping that basic operations especially would be more automatic by now. I did join the MOTL yahoogroup, but it's new with few members at this point.

After reading Michele's exciting post about IEW, I checked out the Fables link with curiosity. I've spent the past week searching for writing curriculum for ds 11 for next year. I know that eventually I'll end up using the IEW w/ TWSS and SWI, but it's not in our current budget. :) DS isn't into Fables so much, but since we're using SL core 3 for history next year, I thought maybe Writing Trails would work for us. Does anyone have any experience with this one? How about advice for choosing writing programs when ds has had minimal past writing instruction? I saw that Logos uses this for 4th grade, so I'm hopeful.

I tried Seq. Spelling with ds in the fall. He seems similar to your dd in that he has trouble "picturing" the word spelled correctly. I thought for sure it would be the answer to all his spelling problems after reading about it on these boards. It was not! He had absolutely zero retention while using SS. After he took the Woodcock-Johnston test this year, the tester recommended an explicit phonics programs to help with his spelling. I was thinking he should be beyond that at almost 11yo. But I did the research and found All About Spelling. I was hesitant to try it because of the price and with so many levels to purchase. But we started level 1 (yes level 1!!) back in February and have just begun level 2 this week. It has been wonderful! He finally is remembering based on the rules. I am thrilled with it and plan to continue with level 3 in the fall. Good luck with your decision.

Home Learning Year by Year- I bought this about 6 years ago and I still reference it to this day! Mostly just for supplemental booklists, but it's a great resource. Also the Sonlight catalog(free :)) for book ideas! Pam K in NC