I asked the question about a year ago. At that time, I was thinking that most multiple-year curriculum started in kindergarten. For example, math - I was asking what the most rigorous was, assuming that we would choose a math and stick with it. (HA HA HA HA!) I think most new homeschoolers probably have that idea - that they are making long-term decisions now, and they want to make smart ones. We also worry (no matter how often we are told otherwise) that the kids in public school are doing more. If we are homeschooling for a better education, we feel that we need to be doing at least as well as the local public school. (And ours here are GREAT - I have a LOT to live up to!) Those kids are all reading, writing, adding, subtracting, etc. etc. before they get out of kindergarten. So that's why I asked about rigorous kindergarten. I wanted to be sure that if my trial year of homeschooling didn't go well, my kids were able to go to public school for first grade and not be ridiculously behind.

I went through the same debate, and ended up deciding to do CC for a few years, then possibly switch to TOG. I have read on this forum numerous times people comment that they wouldn't start TOG before their oldest was entering the logic stage. Be warned as well that 2 year old twins will be a lot harder as 3 to 4 year old twins. Multiples feed off each other in a way that singletons just don't. I would NOT take on leadership of anything if I were you before the twins were maybe 4 1/2. After that, they start becoming somewhat reason-with-able! :) If you do CC in the meantime, that gives you 2 years to really get your feet wet and get your OWN homeschool grounded, as well as gives the twins a little maturity. It also gives you a chance to see what you do and don't like about the CC model and would help you design your own. You hear of so many people talking about co-ops that are great for a few months and then go south. Watching and learning at CC first might be beneficial. Maybe join one year, then tutor the second (to go through their training), and then start your own group after that?

This sounds so much like our story. THREE out of my 4 need/are getting VT. (2 are in, one is on waiting list). The 2 who have been in VT since Aug both took off reading, within a week of each other. The one who hasn't started VT yet is also the one who isn't reading yet. The one who hasn't started VT yet was my most advanced throughout life, until Aug. Now she is behind the others in every area across the board - reading, hand-eye coordination, handwriting, dancing (has to do with body awareness) etc. VT has made an AMAZING difference in our lives. At 2 hours away, it would not be convenient, but given the improvement we have seen, I would do it if I were you. If nothing else, go get the evaluation. They may tell you nothing is wrong, they may say he is low in one area and give you some ways to work on it, or he may be so bad off that VT is the only option. Regardless, it will give you more info. By the way, all my kiddos had been cleared by a well-respected opthomologist. Numerous times - I kept taking them back and saying "I know you think their eyes are fine, but something is wrong!" Turns out they can force their eyes to focus long enough to pass an eye test, but can't sustain the focus, which is why I was seeing all these weird symptoms that the optho wasn't seeing.

We haven't gotten to SOTW yet, but we listen to TONS of audiobooks together in the car. I stop the audio every other sentence and ask a question to be sure they are getting it. Sometimes the question is simple vocab or comprehension, sometimes more of a "what do you think it was like/is going to happen?". That way any kid who is having trouble following gets caught up before they are too lost and tune out. I try it make it less of a quiz and more of a "what's going on in Mommy's head as she listens to a story" kind of thing. My kids fight to answer my questions, so it must not be too stressful for them! :) We usually go through each audio once with me stopping it every few seconds for summarizing, then we listen to it once straight through with no stopping unless someone asks a question.

Have you read "The Latin-Centered Curriculum" by Drew Campbell? He advocates a quality but not quantity approach to a classical education. Definitely one of my top fav homeschooling books!

The catalog on their website is still the old one. Where did you get the new one?

I am using OPGTR. In the beginning, I needed the scripting to feel confident. Now that I get it, whenever we start a new section, I glance through the Instructor script for all the lessons in that section, and highlight the phrases or sentences that are what needs to be conveyed, if it isn't obvious from the words the kids are to read. We work from a white board rather than the book. Can you just change it up to something that feels better to you? My kids LOVE ETC! Maybe that will change later on, but for now, they are really enjoying it. We are using it behind OPGTR, so it is easy, and maybe that's why.

Tell me about your CC tutoring experience. I have been offered the opportunity to tutor. We don't *need* for me to tutor, financially. Obviously we would welcome the discount, but will do CC either way. How much of a time commitment do you find that it is? Do you find that the workload / mental effort takes away from schooling your kids the other days of the week? If you could pick, would you choose the older kids' class or the younger? I assume the Abecedarian level is the hardest? Other thoughts?

I have a craft lined up and ready to go after all our schoolwork is done. We run run run in the afternoons, so if we don't finish school in time, we don't get to the craft. We immediately re-do any work that is done sloppily, so it encourages them to be fast, but still somewhat neat & careful. The goal of getting to the craft is huge for my kids!! It doesn't have to be anything fancy - cutting paper snowflakes and that kind of thing.

Hmmm. I had written down in my notes "start spelling after OPGTR L124". Unfortunately, I am not sure where I got that! I'm not sure if that is a section break or not - I'm not able to get to my book at the moment. I will probably actually be waiting longer than that anyway. I have heard several people recommend waiting until after you are completely done with phonics, and that's probably what we will do. FYI - I had also written down to start FLL (grammar) after L142, and WWE (writing) after L142 IF min age 7 and handwriting is solid.

Oh yeah, and if I am reviewing/correcting someone else's work, KEEP YOUR NOSE OUT!!! Makes me insane that my kids always want to be in the midst of someone else getting punished or having work corrected.

Thank you thank you! It's a lead - I'll take it! Off to google "interior design coloring"!

It has become obvious that despite an unbelievable amount of practice, my kids are never going to become good at coloring without some more direct instruction. I'm having a hard time figuring out how to teach something that seems so intuitive, though. Apparently everyone else thinks it's intuitive as well, b/c there is very little on the internet about how to teach coloring. If you had to teach coloring to someone who had the basic fine motor skills, how would you break it down? Tricky parts? Covering large areas neatly? PS - yes, I know not everyone agrees that coloring is important, but I do and I'd really like them to get the hang of it, so please don't bother responding if you are just going to say it isn't important. Plus, the kids are annoyed that they spend so long getting their drawings just the way they want them, then the coloring screws it up.

Exact opposite at my house. 3 & 4 were the challenging ages, 5 was the golden age where they were so sweet & compliant. 6 seems to be the emotional age for us. Sometimes they are laughing and happy, and seriously one second later they are in tears. Like hormonal teenage girls! But I'll take that over the 3s ANYDAY!!! I look back and really don't know how I survived those years... I have gotten pretty consistent with increasing the work for unreasonable complaints. The kid who rolls her eyes about being asked to fold the laundry ends up doing it all herself instead of with 3 siblings helping. The one who tries to hide while everyone is cleaning up the playroom ends up doing it all by herself. And schoolwork continues until you have done a reasonable amount with a good attitude. My kid who hates reading has to read me 2 pages a day with a smile (these are easy pages, well below her ability). Some days, she reads 10 pages tearfully before getting into it, and some days she is done with 2 pages in 2 minutes. The thing is that once she gets going with a good attitude, she gets into it and actually enjoys it. It seems to be getting going that is the issue, not the reading itself. And I always reading to end on a positive, so this is what it has become. I have one kid who has had to do a handwriting sheet over 10 times in a row rather than take his time and do it right. It seems to be sinking in slowly - it doesn't happen nearly as much now as it used to.

That's a rule in my house anytime there is more than 1 kid in the same place as me. Otherwise, it takes about 0.4 seconds for interrupting and yelling over one another to start. We talk ALL THE TIME about listening to see if someone else is talking before you start talking, but that whole concept seems to be beyond my children...

Do your best, with a smile. (That covers at least 75% of offenses - not trying or having an attitude.) Obey cheerfully, quickly, and thoroughly. Be nice. (That covers everything from sharing your pencils to not kicking your sister to waiting your turn.)

I have one child who I strongly suspect is dyslexic, though she has not been officially diagnosed yet. There are a lot of vision problems (not necessarily the vision itself, but the way the brain processes what the eye sees) that can look like dyslexia but aren't. I want to deal with everything else possible first to ensure that we get an accurate diagnosis. She is receiving occupational therapy for fine motor delays. I also had an eval by a developmental opthamologist, and are waiting on an appt opening so she can get into therapy there. After that stuff is corrected as much as possible, THEN we'll go to a neuropsych to check into dyslexia. That being said, we have carefully chosen curriculum that are known to be better for dyslexics. It can't hurt typical children, and is what we would use if we had an official diagnosis. That way I don't have to worry about wasted time.

I absolutely loved it for about 2 weeks. I hated the work but the kids still loved it and got a lot out of it for about 2 more weeks. I had burned out and bought a pre-packaged program by week 5. :)

I have FedEx/Kinko's cut the spines off & 3 hole punch. I then put huge rubber bands around each and file in drawers. I pull out about 2 weeks worth at a time & put them in each kid's binder. Miquon pages behind Miquon tab, Developing the Early Learner behind that tab, Handwriting Without Tears behind that tab, etc. etc. The best thing about this system is its portability. We can grab binders and pencil boxes and know that we have everything we need to be productive.

Almost everywhere here is VERY strict about Sept 1 (the public school cutoff). My youngest turned 5 mid-Sept, but is in 4yr old preschool this year. Programs that have more than 1 class per age divide based on 6mo bday. (So Sept 1 to Feb 28 bday kids go in one class called "older 4s" as that was their age at the beginning of the school year, and the Mar 1 to Aug 31 kids are in a separate class called "young 4s".) You would never end up with kids more than a year off from your child's age unless the other child had been held back (which even the preschools are hesitant to do without cause, so it isn't common).

I didn't vote. Probably 50% here go to Mother's Morning Out from the time they are walking until the Aug after their 3rd bday. Probably 90% go to preschool starting the Aug after their 3rd bday. The rule of thumb around here is 2 days/wk for MMO, 3 days for 3 yr olds, and 4 days for 4 year olds. Most programs are 9 to 12, and I don't know of ANY that have extended day. They may have "Lunch Bunch" once a week where they stay an extra hour, but no more.

That's the proper way to say what I was trying to ask! :) So how do you go about exposing them to several languages? Are you running several foreign language curr. concurrently? It would be so nice if there was one program that did this!

I guess I was thinking that since it is so hard to get accents right if you don't practice while they are young, it would be good to get that exposure (ear training, ability to make certain non-English sounds, etc.). I was thinking it might give them more flexibility in future years as to which language(s) to focus on. Just to clarify - this is part of the education for kids who attend that school full time. They do NOT offer it to homeschooled children, and we have no plans/funds to enroll at that school full-time. I was just thinking of trying to replicate it at home. I overheard a lady at swimming last night talking about how she and a group of homeschooled friends had gotten together and hired a Chinese tutor, and how much her kids had gotten out of it, and I guess that's what started the wheels turning. So there's really not much retention of ear training, abilility to make sounds, etc. if it isn't studied continuously from the time learned?

A very highly-respected local private school provides daily "World Language Exposure" in Chinese, French, and Spanish from preschool to 2nd grades, and each child chooses a language to focus on from 2nd grade on. I love the sound of this. Thoughts? How could it be incorporated at home? 3 different programs on alternating days? Too confusing? Or would you learn a word in all 3 languages? Would you need to try and arrange a group with a tutor?

I finally broke down and bought Tripp Trapp chairs. Here's a post I typed shortly after getting them. If anything, I am even more of a fan now!! I wrote to Stokke, explaining that I was trying to purchase 4 of their chairs for kids who were going to be homeschooled in large part to make it possible to have time to continue physical & occupational therapy. I let them know that the therapist (when I asked if they were really worth the money) highly recommended their chairs. They helped me to get 4 at a GREAT price, and they arrived last week. I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE these chairs!!! My handwriting-issues kiddo had an instant 1000% improvement! I have also seen a huge increase in the amount of time my kids sit calmly paying attention at the table. I hadn't realized how much dangling legs and being just a hair too low at the table contributed to their restlessness. For anyone who is on the fence and having a hard time justifying spending that much for a chair, it's worth it. I can see now that these chairs really will work for the long term - *I* think they are more comfy than my normal kitchen chairs and am now trying to convince DH that we need them for he and I as well! SO GO FOR IT!