I have a 9 1/2 year old working in WWE2. I read him one sentence at a time and then have him repeat it back if needed. I don't read the entire dictation at once. That would overwhelm him. So far, he has done well with me reading one sentence at a time, waiting for him to repeat and write it and then moving on to the next sentence.

(((hug))) It sounds like you are in the wrong church for you. :( That said, all churches or people who are Christians will fail you at some point. I also know that churches often do not see the people who are functioning well and soldiering on in spite of hard circumstances as in need. You have to ask specifically for help (though you did with the ornaments, it sounds like). When my mother had brain surgery several years ago, we were small group leaders in the church and had several leaders above us who were supposed to be caring for us. No one called or offered any help. We called the church to set up a meeting with the upper leaders to express our hurt. At that point, the leaders directly above us realized they had hurt us and came over, brought dinner and apologized. They had some things going on in their own lives which distracted them. Biological family will hurt and offend you and so will the family of God. That said, I would have to find somewhere else to worship, I think. I would let the pastor know of your experience now, though, so they realize there are holes in their car of members.

:grouphug:

Thank you for all the great feedback. :) My boys both do love to read, and I do choose most of the books that come into the house. (The rest are chosen by them at the bookstore and are frequently short biographies of sports heroes.) I do like the idea of letting them choose whatever they want for the free reading time, knowing that we don't have any really "bad" choices on the shelves. We will have more freedom in our schedule next year so I think I will schedule in free reading time. Thanks again! :)

Pipe up if you have a daily (or regular) free reading time for your elementary aged kids, please. My view of this would be a time set aside for the kids to read on their own, in addition to any curriculum-assigned reading (we use SL), read alouds done by mom and other language arts. If you do this, do you let the kids choose anything to read or give them a preapproved selection of "good" books that have some sort of educationally redeeming qualities? How long does your free reading time last? Anything else you'd like to add is great, too. I'm trying to plan for next year and wanting to know what others do. :)

We school Mon-Thurs, with homeschool co op classes on Friday. We take Sat and Sun off and take two weeks off at Christmas and a Spring break, as well as summer. Our curriculum (Sonlight) is set up to be four days a week (they also have a five day option) and is 36 weeks long so it works out well.

Welcome, Amy! The leader of our homeschool co op is a full time nurse working nights. :) You seem to have figured out most of the curriculum stuff but wanted to toss out there that you might want to look at Sonlight for the History Core - you could easily combine all three of your kids into one Core because they are close in age. Sonlight also has a four day a week program, which is what we do. Again, your plan sounds good, but I just wanted to toss out another option for you to consider. My family does two heavy days of schooling and two lighter days. We do the leftover work on Friday afternoon after homeschool co op...usually there is not any leftover work, but my oldest son is working to catch up lately so we choose to do this on Fridays. You can school whenever works for you, though. Do it in the evenings. Do it on the weekend. That is the beauty of it. :)

Barnes and Noble - get the educator's card for a discount. HS'ers qualify.

SL 3rd grade readers are American history, part 1. SL 4th grade readers are AmHistory, part 2.

I am using FFL3 and WWE2 currently with my third grader and it is working well for his skill level. WWE2 stretches him in many ways and I am glad I didn't go straight into WWE3. It would have been too much for him and ended in frustration. I think he will be ready for WWE3 next year, but I am open to stretching out WWE2 if needed. It is a good program and a gentle way to move into narration and dictation, which was very much a need of my son's (the "gentle" part).

This describes me pretty well. :)

Do go by ability rather than grade level. My third grader just started 2 and it is stretching him. He has an LD, as well.

When my mother passed away, I was never hurt by anyone showing up or doing something, but I was hurt by people not showing up. I think it is always respectful to go, offer condolences and then leave if you don't knwo the family well. It shows respect and that you care about their loss. I recently went to the visitation of a high school friends' father. I didn't know her father at all - never met him - and I had not seen this high school friend since high school (in 1985). We had recently reconnected on Facebook so I learned of her father's passing via that. Since my mom passed away, I have committed to go to as many funerals or visitations as I am able and offer a hug and an "I'm so sorry".

No one should have to look at my middle aged legs in shorts, and in the Texas heat, jeans are out. I look wide in most skirts so capris for me, it is! I bought a bunch at Old Navy on sale last year that are very lightweight. It's like wearing pants made out of paper towels. Very comfy in the 100 degree weather. I also wear Old Navy flip flops all summer. At 2 pairs for $5, you can't go wrong. I don't ever know what to wear, either, and while I don't intend to be a fashion model, I just don't want to embarrass myself in public. So when I don't have a clue what in in style, I look at what the younger crowd is wearing at the mall....I have also been known to ask various teens or young saleswomen about something. My goal is not to look like a teen, but I do know some teens (including my own) who will tell me if it looks like I am about to embarrass myself.

I have bought two SL Cores already, as well as owning several levels of readers. I will be reusing all of these. I don't see the need to sell them and buy a more currrent one when not much will have changed and the "old" one worked well for us. At the end of our use, I'm sure I will sell them.

Thank you for this wonderful information. We currently use SM, but I am not a math minded person and may find that I need to switch to something that works better for me while still providing good mental math for my two mathy boys.

I have always combined my two boys in one Core, going with the oldest one's age/level. In kindy and second grade, we did Core 1+2, which was our first year hs'ing. This year, we are doing Core 3. Next year we will be doing Core 4 for my 2nd and 4th graders and my not quite a kindy dd will be listening as she can. My 2nd grader is very bright and capable of listening to the more advanced Cores. The Cores are meant to be used with more than one level of student. I do agree with the pp that you may want to use a different one for the youngest...or a different one for the oldest, depending on the skill level/attention level of your kids. I plan to always combine my boys. Will take the youngest dd year by year to evaluate her needs.

Kids with ADHD have a terrible time retaining what is given to them orally. Their brains are very busy with lots of stuff going on and it is a struggle to retain something external. I think I would do dictation each day, starting with one short sentence, having him repeat it back to you before writing it and then having him look at it for the rules of capitalizing the first word and adding a punctuation mark at the end. When he is consistently good at doing this, lengthen the sentence. ADHD has different degrees of impairment and some kids are truly not capable of retaining the information. FWIW, my third grader who doesn't have ADHD and knows to capitalize at the beginning of a sentence did a short dictation sentence as part of his WWE this morning and didn't capitalize it. I often have to prompt him to use punctuation/capitalization so I think that is pretty normal for this age child even without the added difficulty of ADHD.:grouphug:

I feel sure that someone who had a lot of time and energy could hunt these books down used for a better price. I have just about decided to bite the bullet and buy the Core 4 from SL - this will be our third Core so just one more until I reach Heirloom status.:D I'm glad I did all the research, though, because ultimately I will feel better about my decision. :001_smile:

Out of curiosity and hoping I would save a lot of money, I did a line by line item comparison between SL's Core 4 and ordering from amazon using the b3/g4 deal combined with ordering the IG from SL. My best estimate (because not all of the books were available from amazon.com) was $330 versus $372 ordering it from SL. I was really disappointed that the savings weren't more! AND I left off the $17 binder that SL includes in the Cores, figuring I could use the one from this year. With that added, the price difference would shrink even more. I didn't check Rainbow Resource for pricing, but that is my extensive amazon.com experience. I made a detailed Word document and everything...:001_huh:

I don't know your plan to use the Cores, but I will be using one history core for all three of my littles next year. We will be using Core 4 history and readalouds and my oldest hs student will be using the Core 4 readers. My two littlest will be using their own readers but tagging along for the history and readalouds. I have determined to use one history Core for as long as I can. Everyone has their own LA, math, etc...but we are together for history and readalouds. Someone asked about the Amazon 4 for 3 deal - On Amazon.com, if you order 4 books, you get the lowest priced one free, so 4 books for the price of 3. If you order more than $25, you also get free shipping. I have ordered 8 books, paid for 6 and gotten free shipping. This only applies to books that amazon carries, not those from other sellers. It is a great deal! They often have the best price on some curriculum items I need, as well. Just ordered handwriting workbooks from them with free shipping...

I found SL's LA to be too advanced for my kids (who are using Core 3 and the Level 2 readers, respectively) and difficult to implement for me. One example of a creative writing paragraph for my third grader (who already struggles with writing), looked as though it was written by a 7th grader. It was so far advanced from the "average" 3rd grader, in my opinion and even I felt discouraged by it. We switched to FLL and WWE and have not looked back. This will not be of much help to you as your kids are older, but I wanted to give my experience. I love SL's history, read alouds, readers and their recommendation of Sequential Spelling. We will stay with those, but the LA program did not meet our needs.

Another happy homeschooling Texan here. :) NOTHING required...just the way I like it! Homeschools are considered private schools in Texas.

Welcome! I'm in TX, too. :) People in glass houses can't throw tomatoes (hehehe) - so no tomatoes thrown from me. It took me a year and a half to find my hs'ing groove with curriculum, scheduling, finding a good fit for my boys, etc. You will get there. :) There are so many options it can be overwhelming, but it is a great thing to have options. All the best in your journey!

This! I bought Sonlight my first year and once I understood the IG, things went well. (I had anxiety when I opened it the first few times because it looked very different from anything I had ever seen.) That first year helped me to figure out what I could do, what I couldn't, what I was good at and what I could skip because buying the curriculum wasn't getting it "done". :tongue_smilie:I built confidence and we had a great first year. Everyone learned and was happy. This year, I piecemealed SL's history, readers and readalouds and took their suggestion of Sequential Spelling. We kept our math and farmed out science to the co op. I read The Well Trained Mind and wrapped my brain around it. I also ditched SL's LA in favor of FLL and WWE. I couldn't have done all of this my first year. I needed time to understand what our choices were and what was a good fit for us, and that takes time. I have a master's degree and have taught at the college level (graduate students), but I had horrible anxiety about teaching my kindy and second grader.:tongue_smilie: Having an open and go curriculum allowed me to find my groove...which happened about yesterday, I think.:D