This dress was actually a bridesmaid dress, but it was just what I was looking for... I chose 'champagne' color. It was a super-tiny wedding, but lots of fun!

You might also think not just about curriculum, but also about level as a way to encourage independent vs joint work.. I have my daughter working independently on math mammoth about a year below her actual level to reinforce arithmetic skills and just generally to feel successful (because she's convinced she's 'bad at math'), and also working with me on LOF which is about a year above what she's capable of on her own (and because she adores the story line and is super motivated). I think of it in the same way as with reading... kids have an 'independent' reading level that is different from an 'instructional' reading level (intended to be a stretch and involves learning new skills).

I've absolutely eaten candy off the kids gingerbread house when they go to bed... You're not alone in your badness!

I suspect content more than post-number counts... I've found that if you post thoughtful questions or useful advice about a topic that folks are interested in, they'll take you seriously. I certainly haven't felt (in my paltry number of posts or short time on the board) that I shouldn't be posting. And I certainly appreciate the views or questions of people with all number of posts.

I didn't get them for grade 2 and we're doing fine without. (That said, I could be missing out and just not know it!)

We've recently started using the Galore Park Jr. History books and my daughter really likes them. Here's what I can say: Book 1 covers history before the Greeks (actually... it's the only history textbook I know that starts with dinosaurs!). Book 2 is Greece and Rome Book 3 is Early Britain (from the Roman period to the middle ages) The books are not big -- more the size of a magazine, which makes them pretty accessible to younger kids... each book contains around 10 short chapters (around 5 pages of text each?). I don't know how they were originally intended, but I plan to use the three books together to make up one year of history. As for grade level, I'd guess they're aimed around 3rd grade reading level, but could be easily extended in either direction. My daughter actually likes to do it on her own, not reading with me. Questions and activities follow each chapter. We do one chapter per week (2-3 lessons/week)... the first day she reads the chapter and answers the comprehension questions, then she watches a documentary or brainpop video or something related to the chapter that I find for her and then she does one of the 'extension' activities (of her choice) at the end of the chapter. Overall, I'd recommend the series, but there are a few things to watch out for: If you do not believe in evolution, you'll want to stay away from the early chapters of book 1. My daughter thought it wasn't very nice that all people were referred to as 'he' and 'man' and 'mankind'. It was easy to change as we read. Also, the author refers to Australopithicus as "southern ape man" which I thought was weird... And I completely skipped the paragraph and map talking about the 'yellow' race and 'black' race and 'white' race. It wasn't intended to be offensive, just weird and inaccurate terminology and something an American editor would have removed. These might be British things, I don't know... Anyway, despite these issues (all of a page or two total), I think it's a friendly little series. And more importantly, my daughter thinks it's great. She likes the pictures and learns from the text and doesn't feel she's being talked down to. It gives a good little overview without getting bogged down in details. That said, given what you've written about wanting a book that covers the renaissance for a 10 yr old, I'd imagine the Jr. History series wouldn't be a good fit. I don't know much about their regular history books (not 'jr'), you might want to look into that? Or maybe look into k12 Human Odyssey vol 2? I don't know... I started a thread a little while ago on history books that had some good suggestions, http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138710&highlight=secular+history Good luck!

To be fair, Arthur seems like a pretty decent show for early school-aged kids, but the research was really about 4 year olds. I think the researchers had suggested that pre-schoolers may not be able to fully understand the 'resolution' of the social conflict.

That seems very... un-intuitive. I looked up the study that I think it's referring to and I have a feeling that the author of your book may not have been accurately describing the results. http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/~dgentile/pdfs/Ostrov_Gentile_Crick_in_press.pdf The point of their study was to look at whether violent vs educational media led to aggressive or positive behavior and whether that result was gender related. They found that actually watching more educational media was linked to an increase in pro-social behavior. "We found that in this study of relatively high SES and high functioning children, where most of the children were exposed to educational programming (i.e., PBS Kids), that amount of television viewing was associated with concurrent prosocial behavior. In addition, those children that were the most prosocial tended to watch television more than their peers." They also found that watching more violent television was linked with increased physical aggression in boys (and more verbal aggression in girls); and that watching more educational TV (they cite 'Arthur') is linked to higher relational aggression in girls, but not boys. So before you condemn educational television, I'd keep in mind a few things. The study showed positive pro-social effects for 'educational TV'. The study wasn't particularly big and wasn't very representative (38 girls, 39 boys of high social/economic status). Your idea of 'educational' might not be the same as the researcher... Finally, the entire idea that TV is influencing behavior may be backwards.. it could also be that boys with physically aggressive tendencies are drawn towards aggressive programs... and girls who are relationally aggressive (cliquey, snubbing others...) are drawn to programs which deal with these behaviors (i.e., Arthur).

How about "The Transitive Vampire" (for grammar), "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" (for mechanics/punctuation review) and "The Language Instinct" (for general information about language)? If you just want to have a little fun or have an aversion to reading, try the schoolhouse rock videos on the parts of speech and/or brainpop.com...

We're also going to be taking the plunge to homeschooling after the holiday break. Given that your son enjoys comics and graphic novels, he might also like the DK book "Take me back", which is an extremely visual history book (on sale right now: http://www.amazon.com/Take-Me-Back-DK-Publishing/dp/0756640903/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260660061&sr=8-1) Or he might also like "Horrible History", a British illustrated book series that always struck me as aimed at pre-teen boys. If you like online learning and haven't found http://www.brainpop.com yet, you're in for a treat! My daughter thinks it's awesome... We like to read a short chapter of history or science and then find a video on the same topic. Then do a quiz and activity on the topic... Anyway, good luck!

Math mammoth has really worked for us at that same point... It's not fancy or cute in any way, but that's okay. We are finishing up with Addition/Subtraction 2A for my math-hating girl and she likes it (or at least happily tolerates it). I think it was helpful to find material that was considerably easier than she could handle so that she could feel successful and just solidify those addition/subtraction facts in her brain. Next semester we'll switch over to the full Math Mammoth curriculum.

Has anyone used the can-do print or can-do cursive books published by HWOT? My 8 yr old has awful printing, has half-heartedly done the 2nd grade HWOT Printing Power (at school) and perceives handwriting textbooks as being too baby-ish. Would Can-do Print be an appropriate book? The 2 sample pages for the print book on the HWOT website are not very useful. Is this book nearly the same as the Can-Do Cursive book (where there are more pages in the PDF)? Also, what about the content of the book? Is it just a token vocabulary and grammar or is there a real focus on word and sentence structure? If not this book, do you have any other suggestions? She is also a leftie, which might add to some of her handwriting issues. Thanks!

We'll be moving from afterschooling my older daughter to homeschooling in January... We'll be moving up in levels in Math Mammoth and continuing with history (Galore Park Jr. History). We'll have finished our chemistry book and I think we'll start biology. Plus I'll add in some language arts (maybe MCT... still thinking). This website is an awesome resource for the new homeschooler!

:iagree: Kelly, I totally agree with you that academics should be the focus of school, but after that... you lost me. I don't think school is evil. My daughters' teachers are well-meaning people who enjoy working with children and want the best for them. They are funny, friendly, normal people. I have no idea what their political and religious beliefs are and I like it that way. I think my older daughter is not being challenged in any way, and I wish that wasn't the case, and I do my best to remedy it... but in no way would I ever allow my children to be enrolled in a 'brainwashing factory'. As for what goes on at school... My daughter has been exposed to a lot of early reading skills and TERC math (though she is years beyond this), lots of arts and crafts, a lot of singing, and a lot of field trips. They've pulled out invasive species of plants at the local pond, they've gone to a factory, they've gone to a nature park and a children's science museum. Although the syllabus isn't sent home, I'm fairly certain flag burning is not part of the second grade standards. So yes, it's a good quality, free daycare / summer camp type program. She's been exposed to school buses and coat closets and pencil sharpeners hung on walls and lots of recess and music class and school lunch. And except for the lack of academics, she likes it a lot.

My experience with my own kids is a bit different. They learned to read at 4 and 5 with no difficulty or crying. They thrived with super easy-readers (Bob books, etc...), starfall, between the lions. I added in a bit of an old EPS "primary phonics" workbook I had around the house. And they took off quickly... My philosophy has been that kids will learn things if presented with accessible material at a time that is developmentally appropriate. So I think that learning to read (or learning any skill) has a lot less to do with getting them through a specific textbook than it does with simply providing interesting text - at a level they can be successful at decoding - at a time when they are ready to do it. I would feel uncomfortable continuing a young child in a program that caused tears. Learning to read is so cool and there are so many different ways to get there. If what you're doing is not engaging your child, I'd back off and reconsider.

We're also in Oregon and also doing TERC... I need a support group for this. A month ago my second grader's homework for the entire week involved 'counting how many pockets' the family had. To be fair though, I'm starting to be happy about the lack of homework -- at least it allows us to pursue actual education in the evenings.

I find it very frustrating too! Not only is there no syllabus, but our local public school doesn't even use textbooks or send home homework, so I don't even have that to rely on. At this point, I'm fairly certain that my children are learning nothing academic at school. There are a lot of holiday units and songs and crafts. They like school... so I'm merely considering it to be a pleasant daycare situation while I work. Learning happens in the evening. So far, it's working okay for us... but (as a mother and a teacher and someone who genuinely likes learning) I'm awfully disappointed.

The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives site is free and online at http://nlvm.usu.edu/. I think you can download a desktop version if you want, but I just use it online. The spinners and clocks and master mind are our current favorites.

I'm in southern Oregon. Anybody else in the area?

I wouldn't panic... thelarche (the very start of growing breasts) absolutely can happen at age 7 and isn't all that unusual. Even premature thelarche (defined as breast development before age 6) isn't a particularly big deal in itself. Does she have any other signs of puberty? This article gives guidelines for what constitutes precocious puberty and says that age 7 (in white girls) and 6 (in African American girls) is still within the normal range for thelarche: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1070801/

I found that this was a useful little tool for subtracting/borrowing: http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/frames_asid_155_g_1_t_1.html?from=grade_g_1.html Spend a few minutes fooling around with it. If you move the blue (+) and red (-) cubes on top of each other they'll subtract... you can move the blocks from 100s to 10s to 1s... you can also build your own problems.

I don't really set a limit, but I do turn off the TV when I feel like it's enough. I have a higher tolerance for educational shows than entertainment shows... so if my 5 yr old wanted to watch multiple episodes of "Between the Lions" or my 7 yr old wanted to watch a couple history or science documentaries, I'd be fine with it. But after an hour of "Yo Gabba Gabba" or "Dora" (for the 5 yr old) or "Project Runway" or "Alton Brown" (for the 7 yr old), I feel it's enough for the day. And I do completely censor programs I don't like (like cartoon network) and I avoid watching the bloodier medical and crime shows in front of the kids.

"It's Perfectly Normal" is a fantastic book (and we'll be using it in a year or two), but you'll want to preview it first. Look at the reviews on Amazon. Most people love it, but those who hate it, seem to hate it passionately...

R.E.A.L science the same as 'Real Science 4 kids"? We have RS4K chemistry level 1 and it's okay. I use it, with brain pop and Bill Nye on youtube. I read a thread on this forum about whether or not it was secular. If that's an issue, I find no hint of religion in it!

Our Whirlpool does the job and does it better than the Kenmore we used to have. We don't have to be so careful at scraping/rinsing dishes any more.