I was in a rush earlier, but thought I should add: one reason I suggested this model is because it is mounted differently from something like the Traveler. The type of mount on the Atlantis allows the globe to swing as well as rotate, which makes it easier to examine the southern hemisphere.

We like the globe we have from Replogle. You might consider the "Atlantis" model.

You might also care about the discipline strategy used in the classroom. Another issue that often comes up is bullying- what does the school do to reduce bullying and address it when it happens?

I would use the dining room, because my kids would find the playroom too distracting, and I would definitely not want to use the breakfast nook. Proximity to the kitchen is a non-priority for me, since I sit with my daughter the entire time she is working (this is kindergarten). I do not expect to accomplish any household chores during school time. Whether people could see my school room from the front door isn't important to me. We usually do school in our school room upstairs, between the kids' bedrooms, but sometimes work in the dining room.

My daughter is using the Math Mammoth blue series. We previously used MEP and Miquon, which I liked better than she did. She finds manipulatives confusing and unhelpful. Math Mammoth works for her because it doesn't require any major cognitive leaps, and is written to the student. She doesn't like me to teach her, but is happy to do what the book says. I like the blue series rather than the light blue because it allows me to decide for myself how to offer the material. Lately, I've been having her do work from two different books each week.

:) I had to rewrite those questions for my daughter.

I use a laser printer whenever I don't need color, it's much cheaper. That said, I use printable curriculum when I like it better than the other options, not because I am concerned about the cost. I also only print things on an as-needed basis, a week or so at a time. That way, I don't waste pages that turn out to be unneeded for one reason or another.

I would probably have been an eclectic homeschooler -- and that still seems most likely. I don't really think of myself as a TWTM follower, and I have no idea which aspects of the method I will incorporate long term. My oldest child is in Kindergarten, and I don't think we'd be doing K differently if TWTM had never been written. Next year, I plan to do ancient history, which I probably wouldn't have done in as much depth without TWTM, though I would probably have done it at least as far as is outlined by the Core Knowledge folks. Many people I know are unschoolers, and I'm very clear that this philosophy doesn't resonate with me. One of the things I love about these forums is that people here generally agree that it's important for kids to learn specific academic skills.

Maybe these people will still be your friends two years from now, and maybe they won't. Whether or not you're homeschooling, this might well be true. One of them might move away. One of them might go back to work. One of them might have a new baby. One of them might get involved in a messy divorce. and so on. Any of these things could lead to a change in your relationship. Yes, it's possible that the decision to homeschool might be a factor. You may find that as your friends see you homeschooling your kids, they'll get over it. My county homeschool reviewer told me that when she first started doing this job, she thought it wasn't possible that homeschoolers could be doing as good a job as a trained teacher like her, but once she got more experience with homeschoolers, she realized that wasn't true. But even if your friends get over their negative feelings about homeschooling, you may still grow apart. For one thing, they are likely to be available in the daytime to get together, and you likely won't be. Even if you arranged your school schedule to be available when they wanted to hang out, their kids would be in school, so it wouldn't make sense for you to bring your kids along to play. For another, your decision to homeschool may already indicate, or may develop into, an important difference in your values. Schooling decisions, like other major parenting decisions (stay-at-home vs. career, positive discipline vs. spanking, breastfeeding vs. formula, etc.), can highlight differences and lead to strain in relationships. It's natural for relationships to change over time. Most of us can't maintain more than a handful of close relationships through thick and thin. We just don't have the time or emotional energy.

This is my first hear of homeschooling- my daughter is an older Kindergartner, since she has a November birthday. Here is how learning to read went for us: At 4.5, we tried Reading Eggs on the computer. She loved it and made a lot of progress with it for a while. She eventually stalled out with this approach, but it was good at the time. At 2 months shy of five, she started reading Bob books. I did not require her to do either of these things. She did them when she wanted to. Two months after she turned five, she developed a more serious interest in learning to read. I told her I would work with her, but I would expect her to work on it with me every day. We used the Ordinary Parent's Guide, which was boring but effective. She didn't like it, but she was willing to do it. We kept reading Bob books, and found other books at the library. At two months shy of 6, she started Kindergarten. At this point, she could read books like Go Dog Go. We gave up the OPG in favor of reading books. She can now, five months later, read things like Nate the Great and Amelia Bedelia without difficulty, and will gladly read books with much more difficult language, as long as there aren't too many words on the page. I am sure I would have had no luck trying to teach her to read when she was younger. In observing her progress over the last year and a half or so, it's clear to me that she's matured in many ways during this time, and is much better equipped developmentally for academic work now than she was 18+ months ago.

Mine is up. I also finally got around to writing up last week. We had a very short week, featuring no "normal" school days where we worked at home during our usual school time, but we still managed to get about half of our usual work done. So I think it was a success!

I agree, sounds like Academy of Science for Kids. We're doing the Rocks and Minerals one this year as one of our many science threads. It's been really nice to have a kit with everything included to pull out whenever we felt like doing another science activity. My daughter has been enjoying it very much. That said, I'm probably going to try Science in a Nutshell next time I want something of this general type. ASK has been fine for what I needed this year, but I feel that it would benefit from a bit of explanatory text, and I think it's overpriced.

What I'm using doesn't sound like it would apply to your situation- my daughter already speaks German, so we're using a curriculum used in first grade in some schools in Germany. It's called Einsterns Schwester 1, and it's a series of six workbooks for learning to read and write. It goes through the alphabet and various letter combinations one at a time, slowly building up reading and writing skills over the course of the year. We like it, but I could only recommend it for kids who already have near-native competence in German.

We're doing Kindergarten this year, and I cannot imagine using a boxed curriculum. It would surely make me crazy! The only formal curricula we're using are for math (Math Mammoth; my kid is an older Kindergartner and was ready for "first grade" math) and German. For reading we just read books - we previously used the Ordinary Parent's Guide, but gave it up at the beginning of the school year around lesson 118. For everything else, I piece it together. I don't find it at all difficult. I do use a weekly checklist to make sure we cover every subject area each week.

I buy a mixture of new and used. I buy a lot of used books at the library book sale - for example, over the course of two years, I found a complete set of "What Your X Grader Needs To Know," which I find particularly useful for short social studies readings. I also buy from online used book stores; I'm using "Children Just Like Me" all year, and I got it for $4 including shipping. I have a World Book Encyclopedia I got from my local library for a $50 donation. I also use the library extensively. But I don't hesitate to buy things new, when that seems like the best option.

What convinced my husband was attending a homeschooled teenagers panel discussion. He was really impressed by the kids and what they had to say about their experiences.

One thing I did recently was make a big outline map of the US, and give each kid 4 smaller maps showing the position of a river, lake, city, and mountain. They then used stickers, markers, and Play-Doh to mark their items on the map.

Well, I have to get dressed in the morning because I don't wear pajamas. The kids have to get dressed in the morning because the first thing we do after breakfast is take Karl to preschool. I think I would probably require clothes anyway. I'd rather have the getting dressed chaos taken care of first thing. If the kids ask to do school in their pajamas when they are older, I might consider it, but getting dressed in the morning is such an ingrained habit here that I'm not sure it would occur to them.

I'm not a proponent of early academics, but I agree that if the kid is asking for it, there's no harm in doing it. You might consider whether you're providing as much as you consider appropriate in other areas, like: Playground visits Museums Nature centers Playgroups Arts and Crafts Swimming Board Games I mention this because some kids drift into doing academic work at this age because they are bored, and mom is willing to sit with them to do it. These kids would rather be playing with other kids, going swimming, visiting a nature center, going on a hike, etc., but schoolwork is what's available so they do that instead. For these kids, my personal feeling is that they'd be better off with more opportunities of other kinds in their lives. Other kids are so passionate about academic work that they beg for it even when they have other fun choices. I guess what I'm saying here is that if the child is begging for schoolwork, I would not turn them down, but I would let it always be at their request rather than my suggestion, and I would take it as a sign that they might need more stimulating activities in other areas.

I finished mine tonight. It went better than I expected after two weeks off.

We just cleaned up in the school room to prepare for tomorrow. We've got some exciting stuff going on this spring- a new homeschool science class, an occasional weekend art class at the National Gallery, and our Shakespeare adventure. We're also going to start silent reading time, which should be interesting! I'm looking forward to getting back in the swing of things after our two-week break.

You people make me feel like a total slacker! I'm busy having fun with Kindergarten, and figure I'll think about First Grade over the summer. I have a vague idea that I'll be doing ancient history next year, but I also might not. It's interesting to see what you folks are doing, though!

I think Rosetta Stone is actually pretty good. You don't just learn vocabulary words with it -- you learn the tenses, cases, how to compose sentences, pronunciation, etc. I definitely got benefit from using Rosetta Stone myself when I had access to it. I think it would be a good place to start. Of course, you will eventually need access to native speakers of whatever language you choose. The Saturday school my daughter attends has three different levels, one for native speakers, one for kids with some competence in the language, and one for beginners. It costs $325 per semester here in the Washington, DC area.

We dated for almost 2 years before we got engaged, then we were engaged for three years before we got married (immediately after I graduated from college). We've been married for 17 years. I never expected to marry in my 20's, but sometimes life surprises you.

Sounds normal to me- my daughter displayed all of those behaviors at one time or another in the last six to nine months. She's now reading quite well.