Always when I'm stumped, I can come here and find answers! Love this board!:D You guys are awesome! I can't wait to check out all your suggestions!

I've decided that we'll focus on a particular character trait each month. During that month, we'll do a lesson related to the character trait maybe 3-5 times per week (depending on how much running around we are doing). I'm just pulling some things from Doorposts' Plants Grown Up, Shiver's Academy's Book of Virtues Project, and I'll be leaning very heavily on Kids of Integrity. Any other suggestions for ways to involve my preschooler? I think the KOI stuff will be a good fit for him, but not the rest. Are there any online resources, books, or bloggers who have focused on character training for the preschool ages?

I don't have any suggestions for teaching art, but I did see this book: Beautiful Oops! about how a paint spill, a hole in your page, a crumpled edge, etc can be turned into something beautiful. I saw that our local library has it, so I reserved it for my little perfectionist.

:bigear: My ds did one whole grade acceleration in ps and was slated for another one when we decided to homeschool. He's officially listed as 2nd grade (at age 6), but is doing anywhere from 3rd to 8th grade work depending on the subject. At some point, I suspect we'll be doing another grade skip. I love that we can individual hsing for our dc's abilities and needs! After all, that's why I'm homeschooling. Even so, I get overwhelmed when I look at ds's educational trajectory. It sounds like your child will be ready for college early. College scholarships are often reserved for full-time freshman students. If your child has too many college credits before they start full-time college, you may have to decide between a scholarship and not transferring credits earned or being disqualified from scholarship to keep credits. I know there are options however you choose to proceed. There are early entrance to college programs, gap year plans, distance learning, and mentoring that can work for you whether you choose to grade skip again or not. We recently did a big psychoeducation eval and the psychologist emphasized that it will be impossible to meet ds's needs without early college. (Ds is also PG.) We recently applied for the Young Scholars program, so I'll be interested in hearing their recommendations for how/when/why to grade skip. There is a Davidson forum that is open to the public, and they may have some good suggestions for you. I'm :bigear: in on this as well. There's a lot of experience and wisdom on this board!

We really enjoy GSWL! (I'm glad I clicked on this thread because the games mentioned by pp look fantastic!) With each lesson, there are a series of translations that are Latin-to-English. Each time we do a new lesson, I go about 10 lessons back and have ds give me the English-to-Latin translation as well. This seems to really seal the learning for him.

It's not open-and-go, but BFSU is an option. It's such a quality program that I can't help mentioning it.:D

Please help! I have a Powerpoint document (brochure/invitation) that I want to share on Facebook. What's the best way to do this? (Google docs? Convert it to a pic file and post it? Something else?)

Is it possible that he's not enjoying it because it's not interesting or challenging for him? I think that happens sometimes, and I would not want to sacrifice the love of learning or a natural talent just to fit in with what "every one else" is learning at a given age.

I really love Kids of Integrity by Focus on the Family, but I would only recommend it for younger kids. Have you seen The Book of Virtues Project by Shiver's Academy? It's 900+ pages for free download including printables and notebooking based on William Bennett's book. Both of these resources are free.

I buy a lot of books, and I'm sure that I'm not alone in that! Of course, there are homeschool books, but we buy books of all types. We love books! I've had success using Paperbackswap and Half.com. I have also used: Abebooks Dealoz Is there a name for these online used book warehouses? Are there other sites where you find good deals on used books?

We spent all summer at the pool (and I didn't wear sunscreen). I also take fish oil nearly every day and was on 2000IU every day. 5 years ago I was on Rx Vitamin D to boost my levels. Even so, I was *extremely* low in August so was put on Rx Vit D again while continuing the 2000IU daily. I'm still not to the bottom of the normal range. My dr suggested 10,000IU daily of non-Rx vitamin D3. I think it just takes a lot to get some people into the normal range. I think the plan is to test again after 3 months of my current regimen.

With the family history of gluten problems, I think it may be prudent to either do some testing through a GI or try a strict gluten free diet for 8-12 weeks.

Thanks for saying this! Even though my son is young, I can see that he is very capable of doing quality two-sentence narrations. One of my reasons for homeschooling is that I can individualize his instruction for his particular talents and challenges.

There's no reason to do memory master unless you are both very interested in it, and it doesn't sound like either of you particularly are. I find that certain pieces of the memory work are extremely valuable, and other parts of it are not what I would have chosen to memorize if I was doing the choosing. We put a lot of focus on the parts that are valuable and readily apply to other studies. CC is there to be a help to you, not a burden. I think it's like anything else in life--you take what you can from it and leave the rest. (Like you, I don't see a lot of benefit to all the English grammar and Latin. However, I have heard so many moms of children in Essentials say that the Foundations English grammar made a huge difference. So whether you focus a lot on the English may depend on how long you plan to stay in CC.)

:iagree: Honestly, it sounds like Rummy Roots is perfect for what you are wanting!

Can I just say that you guys are so awesome! I had no idea how to handle it, and you've presented me with so many ideas to choose from. This will be my go-to thread for a while whenever narrations are not working for us!:) It never even occurred to me to explain the purpose of narrations to ds, but I'm confident that will make a difference to him. I will do this and then maybe have him do copywork another day. If all else fails, I'll knuckle down on him a little harder, but hopefully it won't come to that.

Forgive me. I know I've read at least one thread about this issue before. After 20 minutes of searching, I'm still not finding it. Ds writes really wonderful sentences. He's able to hold long sentences in his head to get them down on paper. When he doesn't know he will be writing it down, he gives wonderful and rich content in a very articulate form. Then if I have him write it, I don't have to repeat it--he is capable of writing it all down from memory. When he is asked to give a narration that he knows he will be writing down, I can see him re-working it in his mind until he comes up with the shortest possible words and sentence(s). They are really sub-par when compared with his ability. I really feel that it boils down to laziness about writing. I never ask him to write more than two sentences, and I don't think that's excessive at all. By the end of the year, I'd like him to be writing paragraphs. Even more importantly, I would like him to take pride in his work and do his best instead of taking the easy way out. How do I handle this? Alternate having him write a narration with me writing it? (In which case, I am certain the narrations will be drastically different, and he still won't be giving his best effort each time.) Feel free to link previous threads. I just know I've seen this come up before.

I have lots of store-bought pasteurized apple cider, and I had considered making some of it into vinegar. When I Google it, the links consistently say not to use pasteurized cider. I assume that means that it work with pasteurized cider, right? Or should I try it anyway?

Proceed with caution. It's an inspiring site but can be a bit addicting too. ;) http://www.pinterest.com

It magically appeared again overnight, and the search is working!!:lol::lol::lol:

All day I've tried the search (looking for creative "party favor" ideas) and gotten error messages. Now the search field has completely disappeared! Anyone else having this issue?

Hummus and veggie tray?

Thank you! I see that I was misspelling it. No wonder I wasn't finding previous threads on it. I'll check out the links and do a search also. I appreciate it!:)

I was talking with another homeschooling mom who follows classical methods, and she mentioned the term "progymnasta" to me as a method for writing instruction. The way she described it reminded me of WWE. (Is that correct or am I missing something about how progymnasta works?) What other writing curriculums would fall under the progymnasta category?

Any ideas? I thought about getting the little guy a coloring book with a Bible theme, but I think he would tire of coloring every time we do a lesson. I also looked at Grapevine studies, but my youngest is still a bit young--and my oldest doesn't enjoy drawing at all. Hmmm. . . I'm starting to lean toward just going with the full BSFAA program.