My eldest is only 13, but I'll share what we do anyway. :D Most importantly, school is a privilege. The privilege of being a student can be lost and then the child becomes an apprentice (maid.) From then on the child's entire day must be devoted to cooking, cleaning, laundry and child care. That has never lasted more than one day. A bad attitude, laziness, carelessness, etc will result in the lose of student privileges. The rest comes down to incentives (aka bribes.) I have our school classes broken into three categories. The first are the classes that I feel are essential to the student moving up to the next grade level. All of the work for these classes must be completed each week. The only incentives for these classes are having the weekend off and maintaining a student status. Not completing work in these classes means spending the entire weekend on them until they are completed. If they are not completed by Monday the student becomes an apprentice and remains so until the classes are caught up (in the student's now very limited free time.) For us the essential classes are math and English. The next set of classes are the ones that I feel are most important following the essential classes. These classes earn the kids other privileges. The most desired privileges for my girls right now are new books and movie passes but, I vary what I give based on what the kids are interested in and what classes I value most. At the beginning of the year I mark the points in the curriculum where they can earn privileges. Classes I give privileges for are Latin, Greek, French, religion and geography. The third set of classes are content classes. For these the kids earn time off school. Generally they earn one hour of free time per "lesson" completed. This works for us because we have long days and the kids can afford to take off a few hours here and there. I also don't mind whether they actually finish a content class or not. Our content classes are science, history and humanities. Notes - a student cannot work all day on one subject. We do have a general daily schedule of when we do each subject. Also, each student has a weekly assignment list and when one subject has been completed for the week the student cannot move on to the next week's work unless the work for all subjects that week is complete. The downside to this is that the student may not move at the pace I would like in many subjects. However, it makes life much happier in our home. When school is over for the day it is over. I don't nag all the time or worry over where they are in their studies. I am very strict in enforcing the few school rules we have and make a point not to waver on them. And I know that the kids are at least making progress at all times in their other subjects. :)

I buy most of our batteries at dollar stores. I have family members that claim they won't last as long, but I've never found that to be true. :)

I just checked RR and they have Paths of Exploration for $119.95 and Paths of Settlement for $128.75. As a note - the CDs are in the back of the books. I mention it because I thought they forgot mine and called them only to have them ask me to double check inside the back covers of the books - and there they were. :blushing: I'll try and post a link: Trail Guides to Learning - RR

We are still on Paths of Exploration, but I'll share. As to the chronology issue, this program reminds me a lot of reading history books by Boorstin. People either really enjoy his books or simply can't stand them. He has a tendency to write in a sort of chronological way, but loves to follow a tangent forward and then have to backtrack before taking off on his next tangent. The Trail Guides are meant to follow a theme - the first is Exploration, the second Settlement and the third Progress. So it is a sort of chronological, sort of thematic program. :) I personally like that the program moves slowly, as we do two history cycles at the same time - world/American history and classical/ancient history. I am actually doing the Trail Guide at half speed - spending twelve weeks on each unit. As far as the price, I would try and find it used or discounted. I bought mine discounted (but new) at Rainbow Resource. I also bought all my books either at RR or Amazon. We are really enjoying the program. I have dds 13, 11 and 7 working through it now. I consider it the primary curriculum for dd7, but a secondary program for dds 13 and 11. All three girls consider it a favorite class. Unfortunately, I haven't really used it long enough to give a good review.

My 1st grader: typing online math facts independent reading dot-to-dot workbook handwriting workbook

Same here. :D And I'll even predict that our favorite of 2011 will be Harry Potter 7 Part 2 - as that will likely again be the only one we see at the theater. :tongue_smilie:

I just finished my plans for next year a couple of days ago - wanted to start collecting books with Christmas money. :D 2nd grade Math - Singapore Primary Math 2A/2B English - Galore Park Junior English 1, Classical Writing Aesop Part A Science - Galore Park Junior Science 1 American History - Geomatters Paths of Exploration Book 2 Humanities - Galore Park Junior History 1, online Chronology class Latin - online class French - Skoldo Primary French 1 Religion - online class P.E. - year long - gymnastics, seasonal - swimming, soccer, baseball As a family - (year long studies) Aesop's Fables, Marine science, running program, evening read alouds

Paths of Exploration is nice. Both children could work through that together. Each program has three levels worked into it. My first grader is not finding the first level too difficult, but level three is plenty challenging enough for my 5th grader.

I had to go check the temperature. The forecast says it is 45 here in Hernando county, but feels like 35 with the wind chill. We have a rat snake curled up between our screen door and our slider, must be trying to stay warm. :)

Elizabeth Foss is my favorite go-to person for bringing a waldorfy feeling into the home. (She combines waldorf with her Catholic faith - so YMMV.) In the Heart of My Home - Home related blog Serendipity - School related blog

I love the freedom of renting. We live in a much better home than we could afford if we were purchasing. My dh and I have owned four homes and I hope to never own another. We love that we can move if we want to. We love that my husband can accept a transfer if we are interested. We don't care if the property taxes are going up. We don't care that we live in a flood zone and insurance is getting harder to find. We didn't care when one of the air conditioners went out over the summer and it cost hundreds of dollars to fix. We didn't care when the water company came out last month and dug up the front few feet of the yard in order to check the pipes. And we LOVE sitting on our porch looking out over the Gulf of Mexico at a price we can actually afford!! :)

I wanted to send a quick reply to this. It is doable to school that much and still have happy, healthy children. I tend to shy away from these threads because I always get the jaw dropping, my children must be unhappy or unbalanced, how could I be so cruel responses. :D But my kids school 45-50 hours per week and still have a balanced life and are rarely stressed. They participate in activities outside the home, they have friends, an hour and a half break each day for lunch and often have all day Saturday and Sunday off as well. So here are my thoughts on why it works for us - in case it is helpful to you: We have a schedule that we try hard to live by (but are not slaves to.) Our children have a say in and are committed to our schedule. We start our days early - around 6 AM. We consider each activity and how it will effect the family before we commit to it. We determine our days off based on when we need them. We don't take two weeks off because it is a Christmas holiday. We determine what days we want off based on our plans. We will take a long weekend the week before Christmas because we have family coming to celebrate early. We will work up to the 23rd because we don't have any plans until the 24th. On Thanksgiving we worked up through Tuesday because we had no plans but took the rest of the week off to celebrate with family. We rarely do school work while on break. We just pick up where we left off. We do not try and get through the books but rather make steady progress at all times. I don't know if any of that was helpful, but I did want to encourage you and let you know it IS possible to have longer school days and still have a fairly stress-free home. :)

I had my dd do the first four or five units of level 1 last year. From here on out I am just assigning the unit that goes along with the books I was already planning to use. I have the last three books - American Lit, British Lit and World Lit. Right now she is doing Unit one of World Lit because we are reading the Iliad and the Odyssey. The program works well for us. I think it requires an independent, motivated student. I also read and discuss the books with her. While the program claims to be completely independent, I think a student gets much more out of the program with some discussion of the books. I really like all of the extra cultural information and I can rely on my dd following the directions and looking up everything she is supposed to. Most important, my dd enjoys it and is more willing to do written assignments not given by me.:)

The program assumes the student has already studied literary terms or if not, that the student will spend some time studying them and gives a couple of book recommendations. The first unit covers short stories and each story does focus on a major literary area - plot, setting, etc. So, yes, figuratively speaking would be a good idea. There is no writing instruction in this program. It is only literature. There are plenty of writing assignments and examples of finished essays for the student to review. But the student would need to know how to write an essay and continue a writing program if necessary.

I focus on waldorf methods more while the kids are younger. My ds5 is using a combination of Live Ed 1 and OM K. Dd7 participates in the fairy tale portions. Both kids will do much of Live Ed 2 (focused on Aesop and other fables) next year. My older two are more classical now although we used Live Ed as our primary curriculum for several years when they were little.

How did it go for your child? Dd10 finished this morning. She is thrilled to be a NaNoWriMo winner! I had to give her a half day off school yesterday to finish up. But she submitted her final story to the website this morning and is back to her math relieved to have finished on time. :D From what I understand, beginning tomorrow students can request one free printed copy of their completed stories.

Thanks Cleo :)

Galore Park's So You Really want to Learn French might work with a motivated and advanced third grader if you work at your own pace. I don't really know if a 3rd grader would consider it fun.

I have all three and I think you can use them in any order. I decided to start my dd 7 in winter as well which she will begin in January, but she will only do winter and spring. I am going to use Autumn with my ds next year but stretch it out over the entire year. :)

I was looking at enrolling my daughter in an AOPS class this spring. I noticed that there are quite a few people teaching the classes. Is there anyone in particular I should look for when registering - any specific teacher you'd recommend? Thanks!

My daughter volunteers with the sports programs. Right now it is soccer. They also like to have office volunteers to work the photocopier and fold fliers, but my daughter has never tried that.

7th/8th grader Mornings: Singapore math online math class Put That in Writing online writing class online Latin/Greek Afternoons: Paths of Exploration w/ Teaching Company DVDs and additional literature TRISMS Discovering Ancient Worlds w/ Teaching Company DVDs and additional literature Iliad/Odyssey study Signs and Seasons Astronomy w/Teaching Company DVDs online Geography class Evenings: online religion class review 5th/6th grader Mornings: Singapore math Key to Fractions (considering Life of Fred Fractions) MCT Grammar Town online writing class online Latin class Afternoons: guitar practice Paths of Exploration w/ Teaching Company DVDs and additional reading TRISMS History Makers Iliad/Odyssey study Keepers of the Night w/ Teaching Company DVDs online geography class Evenings: online religion class review I would really like to add French, but we just can't seem to fit it in this year. :glare:

When I was a kid in Michigan it was easy to find jobs. I had a paper route from the time I was 10. Now you have to be 18 (at least in Florida) and it doesn't even pay as well. Most of the kids around me (including myself) detasseled corn every summer from the time we were 14 and would make around $2000 for six weeks work - over 20 years ago. I don't think that pays anywhere near as well any more. My starting pay as a 15 year old in the hospitality industry was more than anyone would make now here in Florida even with experience. Most waiter/waitress jobs in Florida start around $4.00 an hour plus tips - and raises are rare. The farm work around here pays so little, I honestly don't know how people survive even putting extended families in one house. And I babysat off and on through high school but we are uncomfortable with the idea of our girls babysitting anyone outside the family these days. I've found the entire workforce atmosphere is very different today. But maybe it is just the difference between the two states. Of course, both Michigan and Florida are really suffering right now. I don't see any way our kids can hope to save thousands of dollars while in high school the way I and the kids I knew were able to - and it has nothing to do with work ethic, just opportunity. I suppose if it is important to them they will simply have to become more creative than I needed to be. :)

My dd volunteers at the YMCA. Our Y is always in need of volunteers.

Math Composition Latin Greek World/American History Ancient History Literature Geography Science Art Religion *should have French, but we aren't fitting it in right now (next dd will also have music)