This is a great idea. You should go for it. You'd be amazed with what little things like that do to spice up a room.

I also have a blog on blogspot. It's mostly about homeschooling stuff but occasionally I'll put in stuff from a vacation. All of our family lives 500-2000 miles away so this was a way for them to "keep up" with the goings on in our family. I also have a few in my family that aren't to sure about the "homeschooling" thing as they call it. So it's also a way to post some of my kids work to show them that I really do teach them and don't sit around eating bon bons all day like some think.:ohmy:

I'm reading Watership Down I never had to read it in school or anything so I thought I'd check it out. I just started so I'm not real far into it. I'm also reading a Barnes and Noble Classic Starts version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to the kids for our before bed read aloud.

We tried some others, but this is the one my son enjoys. It's very easy for him to on his own since the explanations in the book are very straight forward. He actually looks forward to grammar now, and my dd who will be in 1st this year is anxious to get started with it. Oh and we're secular and Growing with Grammar is too so I have the added bonus of not having to tweak it in any way.

For our school subjects, LA, Science and History, I'd say about 45 min.-1.5 hours a day. Then each night at 7:30 pm I read a book that they've picked out for 30 minutes.

My dh is a LCDR in the US Navy. He's a nuclear propulsion officer. When my mom asked him what that means he said, "Well I'm a qualified nuclear engineer, which basically means I make the ship go" He's got 7 years left and told me after that he's going to be a Walmart Greeter.:lol:

:grouphug: It's sad that we have to go through things like that when out. I have 3 dc and get the "You do know what causes that?" question alot. Sometimes if I'm feeling snarky I'll reply with total sincerity "No, could you tell me?" Although a few months back some door to door evangelists knocked on my door and when I saw who it was (dh was on underway time with the ship) I politely said through the door "No thank you" and walked away to get a soda from the kitchen. On my way back to the living room (I have to walk past the front door for this) I saw the woman of the group (there were 2 men with her) with her nose pressed right up to the sidelight window of the door. Then I heard the door handle jiggle! Was she honestly going to let herself into my house?:confused: I was shocked!

Thanks for the replies. I think I'll just go ahead and give AAS a try. I really don't think it could do anymore damage or anything like that. If it seems to fluster the kids then we can always put it aside and try it again later or use Evan Moor then. I think I really just needed reassurance that everything doesn't have to use the same system in order to work.

Anyone have any thoughts? Anyone want to talk me down?

I don't think you could just use the text and student pages, because then you wouldn't have the passages to read to the child for the narration that the student pages are asking for. Only the 1st week of a section is given to you in the text then the basic outline for the other weeks so you can pick your own passages for narration etc. The student pages would then have a narration page say for Year 1 week 4, but you wouldn't have the passage to read to them since that's not in the text. I think you could do it with just the Workbook, but then you wouldn't have the great intro pages that give you the basic reasoning behind how the program works. Not sure if I made any sense

Hi all, Here's the background. My kids are 9, 6.5 (7 in mid/late Nov) and 3. I'm only worried about the older 2 obviously. My ds, 9 years old, reads fairly well. He can read books like Magic tree house, Hank the Cowdog and most chapter books. My dd is the middle one and she's just starting to read. She's made it through the first few Bob books and is going to continue using Headsprout Phonics (we were using click n read but she's bored with it) I have on hand All About Spelling but now I'm wondering if this will confuse my kids? It looks like a great program but I'm wondering if because we didn't start out with this method and because my dd won't be using this method for her other phonics instruction if it will be difficult for them. My son can spell ok, but is not a natural speller. He's spells things like they sound to him but doesn't know anything about phonograms. He went to PS for k and part of 1st and they didn't use phonics like AAS does. We have used SWO and Evan Moor's Building Spelling Skills in the past. He liked those well enough although he liked Evan Moor better than SWO. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I guess I'm just starting to worry because we're starting in a week and I don't want to waste time with AAS if it's just going to get things all jumbled up for them. Thanks in advance

Is it NOEO ? This is what I'm using next year and it includes some of the YSC kits along with living books.

Just have to say I had a KA Artisan that was about 4 years old and this past new years upgraded to a Bosch. I've since sold my KA. I LOVE MY BOSCH! I haven't bought bread since getting it and when I make a medium batch of dough for pizza I get at least 9-10 crusts out of that. Keep an eye out at Pleasant Hill Grain as they do have ones that people didn't like and return that go in the clearance bin. Also give them a call sometimes they have things that aren't listed yet. I got a grain mill that way, although I sold it as milling just wasn't for me. We like white bread so all my stuff is made using King Arthur bread flour, but when I did mill for a while the Bosch handled wheat bread beautifully, but my family just didn't care for any of the variations I tried.

You can see pics of our school room at my blog. The link is in my signature line

Thanks, I may just have to email them and ask. I'm getting a little anxious;)

My habit takes precedence because when dh is half asleep and getting up in the middle of the night his likely hood of falling in to a toilet with the seat up is very unlikely. If you've ever been instantly woken up because you've fallen in a toilet because they left the seat up it's NOT Pleasant at all! This is why it's my way or the highway on this issue in our house.

They are the same because they are all for Year 1. Even though they show up under Year 2. I think they did that because it's the only samples they have at the time.

I had the same issue last year my ds was starting 3rd and had no grammar at all until then. I emailed Tammy (the curriculum maker) and she said to start with Grade 3. I did and have had no problem at all. It starts with the basics so everything is covered even if they've not done grades 1 and 2. HTH

check out Home Science tools. They have an anatomy slide set that lists for $41.95 and has 16 different prepared slides My kids are still pretty little, but we've been happy with all that we've ordered from this company. HTH

We were supposed to start Aug 4th but because we've decided to take a 3 week vacation back to WI in Sept the kid suggested starting early so we'll start the 28th (my mom's coming in to town tomorrow for a week or we'd be starting monday) We'll also take our school stuff with us since we'll be visiting my parents and grandma and they'll all be at work during the day. Although I don't know how much we'll get done so I thought the starting early is a good idea. I figured it out and that way if we decide to not do any schooling while at my parents we'll still finish the first week of june like we wanted to. Just by giving up a few days at Thanksgiving and in the late spring. We already had one of the Sept. weeks scheduled as a week off. The kids are raring to go, but we've been off since the end of April too so I'm sure that's part of it.

I never had a snake but shortly after we got our new washer and dryer (this was when we lived in WI near a swampy state park) we just put the old ones on the other side of the basement since my brother wanted them. As I was doing laundry one night I saw something fuzzy moving out from under the old dryer. I assumed it was another field mouse like the one that got stuck in my kids bedroom window (it was trying to escape but my kids thought it was a new pet and he got stuck between the inside window and the storm window) Anyway I looked again and thought,"Boy that mouse is moving awfully slow" I got a dish and went to scoop it up to put it outside (yes I must deal with this as dh is somewhere in the Persian Gulf during the incident) and when I look a little closer I realize it is a Mud Puppy salamandar[/url that had crawled up under the dryer and become coated with old lint:lol: I took him up and rinsed him off. Then the kids and I took him back to the state park and released him near the lake. I guess I've gotten used to odd things because in florida the geckos and little green tree frogs were always getting into the house.

:iagree: I don't see abuse here either. The man was simply trying to get the boy to the safety of the classroom. They most certainly COULDN'T just let him sit on the sidewalk. I'm sure there is much more to this story the mom isn't telling. There must be a reason her son is seeing a behavior analyst. I'm sure there's more background possibly including her son being in other similar situations.

Does anyone know when in Aug Workbook 2 is supposed to be released? I'm not looking for an exact date, just wondering if it's beginning, middle or end of the month.

I'm really impressed with it. It has finally given me a plan to follow with my kids. It is just what I've been looking for. My dd will be in 1st and will be doing level 1 with the workbook. My older ds will be starting 4th and has little to no writing instruction because I was not sure what to do for that age, creative writing isn't something that comes naturally to him. WWE let me know that he's normal, which took a huge weight off of me. I'll start him with level 2. Both kids are really looking forward to it. Now I just have to hang in there until Aug to get workbook 2.

Well I've been married to a sailor for 11 years and we've homeschooled for only 2, my kids are still young. We did do a "by choice" unaccompanied tour but that was not because the navy wouldn't move us. It was because a month after getting to the ship they were leaving for deployment and then after deployment it was changing homeports to do a major overhaul and maintainence period. How do I deal, I guess I just do. We've never had them change orders last minute but we know it's a possiblility and for some reason they tend to not give dh new orders until about 2 months before we move. We've only been in what would be considered mid-regulation states, although if we had to go to a high one I'd deal with it. I make it a point to keep a log of all we do and a portfolio along with standardized test scores even if the state we're in doesn't require it. As for when he's on deployment, that's when we get our best schooling done. We go like mad men so that when dh comes home we can take lots of time off.