I think the age of school entry makes so much difference in these things. Here, the kids must be fully 5 by September 1 in order to get into PS Kindergarten. It's possible to apply for an exception if the child will be 5 by October 15, but you have to show that the child is globally advanced. Most people don't apply for the exception, and have their child enter the following year. Some kids with summer birthdays are also held back. Kindergarten here is highly academic -- kids are expected to be reading books like Frog and Toad by the end of the year, and many are reading chapter books. They memorize at least 100 commonly-used sight words during the course of the year. Kids are expected to be able to spell commonly-used words, and write in complete sentences by the end of the year. In many ways, Kindergarten around here is the new First Grade. :)

The rest of the document those come from can be seen here: http://corestandards.org/the-standards It says that Appendix C shows writing that would be at least adequate for the associated grade; they seem to be trying to show the expected progression over time. I would certainly expect my child's writing by the end of the school year to be in the same neighborhood as that shown for Kindergartners in the samples. I have no opinion about the later grades, since what I have right now is a Kindergartner! :) We're going by the public school cutoff around here, so she's on the high side of age for her grade; she'll be 6 in early November.

We're starting August 23, because that's the day my younger child's preschool starts up again for the year.

Flowers in the Attic was popular when I was in fifth grade in 1979/1980. I read it and a couple of its sequels as they came out. Not only did they not scar me for life, I can't even remember what they were about. Of course, this was 30 years ago!

This is our first year- if she were going to school, she'd be starting Kindergarten at the end of the month! We're required to cover certain subjects here, so we'll be doing: English- working more on reading. I'm torn about whether to finish OPGTR or not, as she doesn't seem to get much out of it anymore and prefers to read actual books. I think I may simply focus on making sure we get through the I See Sam advanced readers. She'll also be working on Getty-Dubay handwriting. Math- Miquon and MEP. We love both of them here. Social Studies- Geography, which I'm putting together myself. Science- Lego robotics, geology, animals, things that tie into our geography study. Art- Drawing, lots of visits to art museums, participation in the National Gallery's free "Stories in Art" program, whatever else comes up. Music- Piano lessons with Dad, Classics for Kids PE- Swimming, soccer, running around at the playground. Health- Magic School Bus Germs experiments. German- Saturday school program, Einstern's Schwester workbooks, German TV shows, read-alouds & conversation at home. You can probably guess that German is the non-required subject.

I would not use curriculum materials containing significant spelling or grammatical errors. It's like nails on a chalkboard, I can't subject myself to it. Where forum posts are concerned, I don't question people's qualifications for homeschooling, as I assume we are all aware of our own weak spots and choose curriculum materials to help us compensate. I do find that I tend to value the opinions of forum contributors more highly if their posts don't contain glaring errors. Incorrect homophone use is a particular pet peeve of mine, while obvious typos don't bother me.

When I was a kid, my mother didn't want me to read the books I liked. We had a lot of fights about it, and it always left me feeling that she was overly controlling and didn't care about who I was or what I saw in those books. It would have been nice if she'd actually bothered to take an interest in the kind of books I preferred; she might even have discovered that some of it had literary merit. I think he should be allowed to read them in his free time if he wants to.

You might take a look at PBS Kids Island. Unlike something like Headsprout, it doesn't require kids to do things in a specific sequence. On the other hand, it is free, and does keep track of children's progress: http://pbskids.org/island/ Of course there is also starfall, which does not keep track of progress: http://www.starfall.com/ In the category of things that don't cost as much as headsprout, take a look at: http://readingeggs.com/ and: http://www.explodethecode.com/

The elementary school in my neighborhood offers a popular and well-regarded Spanish immersion program, and honestly, if we weren't already doing German with the kids, I probably would have decided to send them there. I believe that fluency in a second language is the most important thing a child can learn in the early elementary years. The parents in my neighborhood love this program, and people from other nearby school zones eagerly apply to get their kids into it. I would definitely go for it if you're planning to send her to school anyway.

Whether some of these items would work depends on the age/maturity/readiness of your Kindergartner. I think they're all great products! Mighty Mind Rush Hour Jr. MiniLUK

I agree with many of the suggestions on this thread (Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking" is brilliant), but wanted to add a couple more: Julia Child's "The Way to Cook" would be useful to your son because it emphasizes basic techniques and master recipes. For example, in the first pages, it describes how to make chicken stock; then it gives things you might do with chicken stock. The book has lovely photography that really helps make things clear. Rose Levy Beranbaum has a number of books about baking -- "The Cake Bible," "The Bread Bible," and "The Pie and Pastry Bible" -- all of which are useful. They explain not only what to do, but why. Lucky you, having a budding chef in the kitchen!

We pay $57 for 8 30-minute group lessons with a maximum of 6 kids at the county pools. For the younger kids who need a parent in the water, they charge $50 for 8 30-minute group lessons, but there are up to 10 kids in a class. During the school year, it's the same price for only 6 sessions in one of the indoor pools; in the summer, there are no make-up sessions for bad weather. This price seems like a great deal to me -- but it costs $10 for an adult and a child to go swimming one time in our county pools, so the parent-child swim lessons are actually less expensive than just paying regular admission to use the pool!

How about the Language Lessons books from Queen Homeschool Supplies? I haven't used these myself, but they seem like the sort of thing you might be looking for.

My advice for a child this age is not to do a curriculum at all. Figure out what you need to do for speech therapy. Do that. Sign your kid up for one or two physical activities, like soccer or swimming. Go to the playground. Find out what's available in your area at local nature centers, museums, zoos, etc. Go on an outing to one of these places at least once a month. Get together with other kids on a regular basis. Go to library story time. Get books out of the library and read them. If she seems interested, try early reading activities -- a good free option is Progressive Phonics, check out their Alphabetti printable books. Rely on daily life for number stuff. Helping to set the table is a valuable math experience at this age. Get some pattern blocks or a Mighty Mind set. Have a bunch of art materials on hand. Discount School Supply is a good source for inexpensive preschool art supplies. Play games, like memory, board games, go fish, etc. Go on nature walks. If you do television, watch nature programs on TV. Pay attention to her. It will become clear if she needs something else.

I thought you might find it reassuring if I asked my daughter to spell these same words. She is starting K officially this fall, but for the most part, she operates on what I think of as the level of a child who has finished Kindergarten. She wasn't willing to venture a guess on "space", but for the others, she came up with: jumd ege paj bot She hasn't received any spelling instruction, but all of those words are ones she would normally be able to read.

Mighty Mind is a puzzle game similar to tangrams or pattern blocks. It consists of a collection of plastic pieces in different shapes and colors, and a sequence of ordered challenges that get progressively more difficult. It's a lot of fun, though I get turned off by their marketing hype. http://www.mightymind.com/ We have both the Mighty Mind and the Super Mind set. It's useful to us to have two sets of the plastic pieces, so two kids can work on the puzzles simultaneously.

My daughter is an older Kindergartner. We'll be doing: Reading: Finish OPG, I See Sam advanced readers, library books Penmanship: Getty-Dubay Math: Miquon and MEP Social Studies: Geography - physical and human Science: Lego WeDo, habitat studies to accompany Social Studies, other stuff as the mood strikes German: Saturday school program, Einsterns Schwester and other learn-to-read materials, read-alouds, TV shows PE: swimming, running around outside Health: Magic School Bus germs projects, other random stuff Music: Piano lessons with dad, Classics for Kids podcast Art: Drawing, art museum visits, free kids' art program at museum We're required to teach English, Math, Social Studies, Science, PE, Health, Music, and Art here, so the only thing on my list that's not required by law is German. We spend a lot of time at museums, since we happen to live near the Smithsonian. We'll also be doing a homeschool enrichment co-op one morning a week.

Well, I own a netbook and a notebook, as well as an iPhone and an iPod Touch. I also have a close friend who owns an iPad, so I think I can comment on all of these options. If you can find a notebook that meets your size requirements, it's probably your best bet. Neither the netbook nor the iPad will have an optical drive, and the iPad won't run Flash. Transferring your DVD's so they could be used on the netbook or the iPad is kind of a pain, though it is possible. Not being able to use Flash prevents you from using some educational websites and games. Also, the screen resolution on many netbooks means that web sites can be harder to use on a netbook than on a regular notebook. The iPad is the best e-reader of the devices you mentioned, but that was low on your priority list. I love my netbook, I love my iPhone, the kids use the iPod Touch all the time (quite simillar in functionality to the iPad, though of course a smaller screen). All of these products have plenty of educational value. But a regular notebook still wins if your needs are more complex than these devices can handle.

School supplies, office supplies, I love it all. That said, because this is our first "official" homeschooling year, I'm not feeling a burning need to acquire school supplies at back-to-school sales because I just don't know what we might need! I figure we'll sort it out as we go along.

I think it depends on the child. My daughter isn't in "K" until this fall, but she's already done a fair bit of work in the orange book. She prefers to go mostly in order, but we have jumped around some when she wanted to do the clock and measurement sections. She started it a couple of months after she turned five, when she was eager for math lessons. We've done it only when she asked, since I wanted to wait to require academic work until the public school K age here. I found that my daughter made a lot of progress with these basic math ideas during periods when we didn't do any math. For example, she really didn't "get" subtraction when I first introduced it, but when we recently revisited it, she understood with only minimal explanation.

I live in Washington now, and grew up in Philadelphia -- my parents took us to the University of Pennsylvania museum all the time (and the art museum, the Franklin Institute, and so on). So I'm well-informed about what's in both of those places! Here's the information from the University of Pennsylvania museum collection on Greece and Rome: http://www.penn.museum/long-term-exhibits/264-worlds-intertwined.html They also have great exhibits on other ancient cultures. The Philadelphia Museum of Art doesn't have much that's relevant to your study, but they do have a great arms and armor section, and many important modern works. I was always a big fan of the Brancusi and the Mondrian as a child. The Franklin Institute is a fantastic science museum, though again, not terribly relevant to your study of Ancient Greece and Rome.

I realize this may be too much, but what about London? If you went in the off- season, you might be able to make it work in your budget. The British Museum has amazing collections.

FWIW, I'm good at math, but I have trouble with mental math because my memory is very poor, so I have trouble keeping track of numbers in my head. So don't feel bad! I don't have the MM light blue series (I have the blue series), so I don't know exactly where the 3rd grade level starts. But looking at the blue series for that level, she really does explain how to do these things in the text. As ktgrok suggested, you may need to review some earlier material in order to make sense of it. Did the things that confused you occur in the first few pages, or later on? If they're later on, they may well be explained somewhere earlier in the text. Good luck!

If you can explain the material to her, and she can demonstrate understanding of the material, perhaps a different way of practicing is what she needs? For example, could you correct the grammar in her other written work using the rules you've already discussed with her, instead of having her do separate grammar exercises? Or could you ask her to come up with her own idea on how to practice/apply the material? For the parts of speech, what about mad libs? I bet your younger child would enjoy that, too. Or you could take up the study of another language and discuss grammar that way.

I also find that I never need to know how many feet are in a mile, but I do need to know about gallons, quarts, pints, teaspoons, tablespoons, etc. I think I would expect my children to memorize the cooking-related facts while cooking. We frequently scale recipes, so being able to figure out in your head how much chili powder we need if we're making 4x a recipe that calls for 3 teaspoons is actually very helpful. (3 tsp x 4 = 12 tsp. 12 tsp/3 = 4 tablespoons. 4 tablespoons = 1/4 cup)