today was our 2nd week of HS too. We are slowly figuring out what works for us as well. I ordered Saxon 1 math since that is what she was using at school and I liked the look of it. Today was our first lesson in that since the books just got here. I have to review the teachers book this weekend. I orderd the Orininary parents guide to teaching reading yesterday although DD can read pretty well (I think) but she needs practice. We are going to school all year long to keep up her skills and development through the summer...why waste valuable time for 3 months? Right now we are doing Z-B spelling connections which is free on the internet. I just bought the spelling workout books 1 and 2 yesterday and if they are more advanced than the free ones we will use them if not sell them. I am reading WTM now and am waiting for Wises' other 2 books to get here. For science we are doing mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. We are also doing Time and Money from a work book from Walmart. For Bible I have decided on a daily devotional. It is actually for preschoolers but it is age appropriate for 6yo I think and it has a daily bible verse that I am having her copy for copywork-handwriting. Right now we are also discussing manners. We got a bunch of books by Joy Berry from the library and we read one everyday and discuss it like whinning, being bossy, interrupting etc. I bought a ton of workbooks from the dollarstore to keep her busy until I figured out what exact curriculum I think will work well for us and it gives me time to do my research since I pulled her out of school with not alot of planning in advance. We aren't working on a foreign language at this time but I am thinking of doing Spanish but maybe not until grade 2...still looking into that. Welcome to the boards (although I am a newbie too!) Your DD is the same age as my DD.

I bought Saxon (1) math because I like the workbooks. DD used them in school too so she is used to them. I bought the whole set, meeting book, teachers book and student books. I already know I am not going to use the meeting book. Has anyone used this set without the teachers manual? I don't like the "do this, do that, mark this, sit here etc etc" of it. I would rather work on the sheets with her and discuss them etc. Thanks!

DD has good handwriting when she wants too but she also writes really little sometimes. I think I need to add copy work since we don't do too much "writing" at this point. What do you all recommend for copy work for a 6yo? Thanks!

thanks ladies. I feel better after a good nights sleep. I have actually gone years without talking to my dad over his "toxic" influence in my life. Now we talk maybe once a month-6 weeks...maybe and then it is only him calling me. None of my siblings (there are 5 of us) are close to him which is kind of sad since he is crippled from hereditary spastic paraplegia, inwhich his muscles become paralized and he is wheel chair bound. I just need to sit back and realize who is doing the talking. He may have had a good business spirit (if you call being a truck driver that...no offense to truck driver's just to him) but he is 61 years old, penniless, living in the town's low income housing, owns one truck, a bed, a tv and a computer desk with a computer on it. That is what he has after working umteen years and nothing to show for it. He was never around for us kids and yet he thinks our success in life is because of him since our mom is an alcoholic and didn't help in our life either. My sisters (all 3 of us girls are college educated, the 2 boys are a different story) all agree. We choose to be successful because we didn't want our kids to live like we did as children. It has nothing to do with the "support"(insert rolling eyes here!) that our parents gave us but rather the lack of support and the hard life they did give us. I know I am doing the right thing for our family, my children, etc. I know I can be successfull at homeschooling, just like I was successful at moving across our state to go to college as a single teenage mom to a young son many years ago. Thanks ladies!

First off my dad has never been a "fan" of mine. If I succeed at something great, like when I got my RN but then has to interject something stupid like "boy, I wish my kids got my self employed business spirit" like what am I going to do with that???? Anyways, a while back my dad and I were talking about public schools and how horrible they are (in our opinions) and he agreed with me that that is not the ideal learning environment. At the time DD was in our church school, which he also wasn't a fan of because of the religious aspect but he respected my decision. So today I told him that I pulled DD out of school and am going to HS her. So here are some of the things he had to say.... 1. Why don't you find a nice private school that will focus on her individual education (isn't that what I am doing????) 2. It might be fine and dandy for me to pick her curriculum, but I shouldn't expect her dad and step mom to help with it since it is my work/dream, not theirs. (exH and Stepmom are completely on board with me picking all the work and writing down what she has to do at their house, which is 2 days a week. I talked it over with ExH before making the decision to HS) 3. Most people start off with a bang and then get lazy and then their kids don't learn anything (how many HS people does he actually know....NONE!) 4. I need to make sure I teach her the basics (REALLY? this coming from the dad I saw 3-4 times a year because my parents divorced when I was 7 and he was a long haul trucker. I got straight A's in school and it was NOT from his help!!! I thought we would just play Hi-Ho cherry O all day dad! come on!) 5. I shouldn't worry about teaching her Bible stuff, she can learn that at church on Sundays and I would just be cramming it down her throat anyways. (I will be teaching her Bible stuff because I want to. I am not a fanatic like he thinks but I am a Christian and want my daughter to learn the Bible in fun ways as I see fit) He said lots of stuff discouraging me but I guess that is his M.O. When I worked full time as a nurse and my sister was a SAHM, he always said what a great mom she was because she was at home being her kids' most important teacher, read to them etc etc etc. Now I only work 2 days a week, always read to my kids even when working full time and my sister is now a nurse too and works full time and now I am an idiot for wanting to be my kids best teacher? UGH! And he wonders why I hardly talk to him. He makes me feel like I will fail and we just started! OK, if you got this far, I am sorry for ranting but I just had to get it out.

:iagree::iagree::iagree: I think the better question is "what does Nutella NOT go on" You can't even count veggies because it goes on celery, but probably not so good on broccoli!:D

great, thanks ladies. I was hoping I could just use stuff around the house! I love the M&M idea. DD and I just had a healthy choices discussion today at the store about always asking for candy and we need to try yummy better things and that candy would only be a special treat, so M&M's would fit that well! She really likes the fluffy pompom balls I got. I like the popsicle stick idea too. I could mark ten spaces on them for blocks of 10. I am glad I don't have to spend the extra money on manipulatives. I also plan on using real money when we get there instead of play money. She might as well learn with the real thing, right?

I just bought the saxon math 1 for DD for the rest of this year and next. She used Saxon K when she was in school and she is pretty good at math already. Do you have to have the manipulatives that come with it or can you just use other things to count? right now she is using little pompoms that came about 80 in a package or she makes little dots next the the big numbers that she needs to count. I just don't want to have to spend the money if I don't have to and my books aren't here yet. THanks!

:iagree:review the good and bad touches far in advance so they don't really "connect them to uncle Bob" but have it in their heads and I wouldn't leave him alone with your kids.

This is exactly how I feel. What am I going to do next year. I want to teach her correctly and completely. I do not want her education to be lacking in anyway. I think I have decided on a program for Spelling-ZB spelling (free on the net) with a lot of playing with those words for the week. This week we are doing long a words and I am doing 2 units at once so 12 words which hasn't proved to be too many. Plus for instance while I was doing the dishes today she sat at my feet and we came up with more words with the long a sound and she wrote them down. I am really concerned that she has a strong math foundation. I think I have decided on Saxon math since she used that at school and I liked the worksheets etc. I am searching for a used book, workbooks etc but will buy new if I haven't found any by the time school starts in the fall. For the rest of the summer I am doing some workbooks I got from the dollar store of all places and they seem pretty good but they do skip around alot. As far as grammer, punctuation, verbs, nouns, etc I want this to also be a strong base so I am looking for a program for that. As far as science/social studies/health I am going to follow WTM most likely but I haven't checked the book out yet. I did get a Scott Foresman science for first grade but now of course can't find a workbook to go with it, but I think we can still use it to discuss the things in it and make up the work for it as we go along. I also have Everything your first grader needs to know coming in the mail. I am thankful for 2 things. Montana doesn't have any requirements. I can do what I want. The other thing is that she is only 6 and I think I have a little room to wiggle for the next year to figure out what we like and don't like. Actually that is kind of what I am doing now since I pulled her out of school without having a lot of things bought/planned etc. Thanks everyone for your awesome responses. I am sure homeschooling is a continual work in progress but I am confident that I can do it!

wow ladies, thanks a million. to answer a couple of ??. I have WTM on hold at the library so hopefully I will get it in the next few days, it was checked out. I might try to go to the book store this weekend and look for it. Also, thankfully I live in MT and we get to pick the learning of choice, there are no requirements as far as testing etc. I will look at all of your recommendations. Thanks again!

The more I look online, the more I confuse myself I think. Today was our 3rd day of HS and we absolutely love it and I am just making it up as I go along for the rest of the year. DD is 6 in K this year and I pulled her out of school where they were using ACE. I am pretty sure I don't want to use that. I would be OK with doing a sort of mish mash of work, eclectic I guess you would call it, but I would also be OK with using a curriculum but OMG they are pricey! I want something I can hold onto for DD-1 so I plan on keeping all of the notes, workbooks etc that DD-6 is using. Can someone give me advice on what you use/used for a 1st grader and if you made it up as you went along did you ever start a program or keep on winging it? I want to do the best by her and her education. Hopefully that wasn't too scatter brained. I am seriously bug eyed from looking at things online.

As a L&D nurse I see alot,, I mean ALOT of babies with nuchal cords (around the neck) most do just fine. Occasionally the doc has to clamp and cut before the rest of the baby comes out at the delivery of the head but not very often. The most you see on the monitor is dips in the heart rate. Sometimes the kids don't even have that and have a suprise nuchal cord. I think the weirdest one was 3 nuchal cords and 2 true knots and the baby didn't even have one dip in the heart rate and did fine. We had twins a while ago that were in the same sac. One baby had a nuchal cord and the other baby had a knot and their cords were so tangled together it was crazy. She was kept in the hosp for about a month for continuing monitoring and U/S for fetal well being and then delivered when things didn't look so good. Both babies are doing well now. Most babies do fine even with a nuchal cord or a knot. Of course I don't have long term outcomes from this since we don't see them again past 2-3 days old.

I have only met 2 other people IRL that homeschool. One in my town and one far away. I would love to meet more on here, and even IRL if possible. I am very new to this, in fact, I can't even find when a convention is being held in MT. I am in G.F.

I posted a question earlier about online bible curriculum and I like one of them but it seems a little advanced for my DD. What do you do for teaching the Bible? I have everything else figured out (sort of!) but I am stuck on the Bible. I want her to have a good education in it, not just what I can think up for the day so a set curriculum would be great. Thanks! 2 days of homeschooling down....lots and lots and lots and lots to go!

I don't know about either one but the church school I just pulled my DD out of used ACE for everything but math. They use Saxon math for that. I don't know why though but they must not like it as well.

great to know!!! thanks. I will be stopping by Pizza hut today!

I am just getting started, infact tomorrow is our first day but I am going to adopt some of the same rewards that my DD's school did. It was a 12 student (11 now that I pulled dd out) that was at our church. They did an ice cream for 2 100% on tests in the same week (I am not sure I am going to do ice cream since I am trying to cut more sugar out of our diets) but I am going to think of something like a dollar or something. They also have "go to lunch" with 15 100's. The student gets to pick the place they want lunch. THey participated in the pizza hut read for pizza program. The kids kept a calendar of the days they read and if they read every day of the month they got a coupon for a personal pan pizza. I am going to figure out something for reading but I am not sure what. So, I guess I didn't answer all your ??? but I am interested to know what other families do.

thanks ladies! You all just made my day! I have researched HS for years now and just wasn't sure I could do it, then I met my DH and his church had a school and I thought I would like it...I don't. So I am back to researching and I think I am over thinking it ALOT!!!! I have lots of stuff coming in the mail in the next week or 2 so I guess we will just play some fun filefolder games I made and review some of the stuff she has learned in school this year......in our jammies, after we sleep in:D. That is how I told DD we were going to HS. I said we can do our work in the library or in our jam-jams or at mcdonalds. When ever we want. She was very excited about that.

I am just starting...Monday!!!! with HS my 6yo DD. I took her out of K at our church school where she was doing A.C.E. Can someone give me a list of subjects that a k-1st grader should do. I know the basics like math, reading, spelling, science, social studies, art, am I missing something? I just ordered "everything your first grader needs to know" so hopefully it comes soon. If anyone has a website for such needed things, that would be great too! Thanks

I have only seen a few but I want to use them for learning and fun too. In fact I went to Staples and bought 24 of them today. We are going to start homeschooling Monday!!! filefolderfun.com is one that I have seen.

I have been lurking for a while and have been mulling over homeschool vs. our church school and have decided that homeschool would best fit our needs. My DD is 6 and has attended K at church school and tomorrow is her last day and we will start at home on Monday. We are very excited. DD has been doing ACE at school and for the rest of the year I am going to wing it and use that time to figure out what works best for us. I love reading about everyones different styles, problems and solutions. Melissa

Does anyone have a great website with stuff to print, do, lessons etc for Bible learning for a 6yo? Thanks!