Who's someone (past or present) that you look to as your inspiration for homeschooling? Someone who makes you think: "Well, if THEY can do it, I can do it!" or "I want THAT kind of home environment for my kids!" I've been thinking about this tonight, because, as I draw closer to the Starting Line for our family's Homeschool journey, I find myself very often calming my freaked-out nerves by thinking of Caroline ("Ma") Ingalls. If SHE could home-educate her girls when they were living way out in the middle of the Prairie and turn out a smart woman like Laura, then who's to say I couldn't do it? :tongue_smilie: (and yes I realize Laura Ingalls Wilder also went to public school, but certainly homeschooling back then must've been a bit of a challenge! and not to mention lonely!)

How does it work? :001_huh: If you're using, say, MUS, and MM at the same time, how do you carry it out? Does your child do a lesson in MUS first, then a corresponding lesson from MM the next day? Or do you look over how MUS and MM cover a certain subject, then use whichever one you feel teaches the subject best, and switch off however often you feel to have to to get the "best" from both curriculums?

Well, for her son's sake I'm glad the consequence is what it was. And hopefully she'll make the most of this miracle.

My hubby is going to hate me for buying more curriculum (I told him Science was the one I was probably just going to "wing" with books from the library :lol: ) but the Elemental Science certainly does look interesting! I never would have thought of using salt and cardboard to show my child how a camel's foot works! :lol:

Ah, this isn't that different from what I was coming up with, except that you have the habitat study at the beginning. I LIKE that! I'm stealing this. :lol: I have the Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia for a "spine" plus some encyclopedias specifically on animals (don't know the publishers, but they were on the discount rack at Borders), and some Scholastic books on life cycles, and the human body, and a bunch of Magic School Bus and Magic Tree House books. I'm trying to make it fun, but structured (the structure is mainly for my OWN benefit, so that I feel like we're making measured progress).

:lol: I figured I was making a mountain out of a mole hill. :lol: I'm just treading into some very uncharted territory for myself and for my family, and I'm going into hyperdrive trying to make sure nobody (read: my family) can say I'm slacking off. I'm SO glad I found this message board. I'll probably have a few other "mountains" to post about before we even get to our first day of homeschool. :tongue_smilie:

I'm trying to write up an outline of things I'd like to cover with DD during her first grade year (and first year homeschooling!) and I'm getting myself all fuddled over how to cover the Animal Kingdom, as recommended in WTM. How did you teach about the Animal Kingdom? Did you go by animal type (mammals, reptiles, insects, birds, etc.) or by where they live (savannah, jungle, ocean, forrest, etc.)?? I know when she's in HS it won't really matter which way I did it :tongue_smilie:but if you did it one of those ways, how did it go? Did you end up switching because it was easier to go by animal type than by where they live, or vise versa? Or did your kid (and likely mine) not even care? :lol:

I heard about this on NPR yesturday. It sounds like they're really trying to simplify and streamline things so that standards are easier to understand for teachers. Right now standards are filled with so much jargon and made up of long, long lists of "goals", and they're trying to hack them down to less-jargon-filled, more clear-cut standards. Of course they made the good point that "setting goals" is only one part of the equation, and that creating new resources (I'm assuming they mean curriculum) to carry out those goals will be the next step, and then training teachers on how to use it is the next. I guess it could really go either way. They could come up with some really awesome, easy to understand (but still challenging to students) goals, and some great curriculum, or it could go the way of all the previous school "reforms" and just be the same ol' same ol' under a different name (and coming from state leaders this time instead of the feds)

You probably had the temperature up too high. When I roast a chicken that big I never have the oven any higher than 325*F I also roast my chicken breast-side DOWN for about 3/4 of the cooking time, then flip it over so that the breast can brown. It doesn't end up so dry that way. :)

I only found one secular HS forum before I came here, and I have a post over there from a month ago that still hasn't gotten any replies. I was *amazed* when I found this place at how hoppin' it is! :lol: Even my mommy message board that I post on isn't this active, and we talk about *everything*! :lol:

There's a young man from my church serving as a missionary right now in Santiago. His mother must be beside herself this morning. :(

were your kids ever mad at you for doing it? My DD went to a *wonderful* pre-school, and had has an okay Kindergarten year. (socially great, achedemically way below her level) I worry if these happy public school memories will come back to bite me in the butt when we hit rough patches in our homeschooling (which I'm assuming are unavoidable :tongue_smilie:) If you have a previously-public-school'd child, do they ever get mad at you for pulling them out? How do you answer their questions for why you felt HS'ing would be better for them, especially if things aren't going smoothly in your homeschooling?

This is what I'm leaning towards as well, even doing "school" over my child's summer break (although perhaps on a lighter schedual, maybe just reading/phonics and math at first? with a little bit of science mixed in). I feel like I would rather catch the momentum of "school learning" that she's already built up, than let it lag and then try to introduce her to a whole new "system" of learning cold turkey.

So in all of the homeschooling books I've read thus far, "deschooling" has been touted quiet often as a "MUST DO!" when pulling kids out of PS to homeschool. But none of them describe exactly what it IS! :001_huh: Is it just doing absolutely nothing achedemically related for a while? Is it only doing the "fun stuff" for a while? (like science experiments and field trips?) And how do you know when your kids have been sufficiently "deschooled"? And what changes occur in the kids during that time that makes them more receptive to homeschooling instruction? Is it truely difficult for kids to go straight from PS to HS without a "deschooling" break?

Oh my gosh, this is one of mine! We've told my IL's because they've so rarely made any sort of judgement on any of DH and I's decisions (they're awesome IL's that way! :D ) But both of my parents are career public educators. My mom has been teaching for over 30 years, and the only time I've ever heard her mention homeschooling it was in a less than positive way. I'm flying down next week to spend a few days with them (they're in CA, I'm in WA) and I'm afraid it's going to "come out" that we're HS'ing next year and what the backlash might be. I don't want to hide it from them, per say, I just don't want them to find out about it while I'm in the same state. :tongue_smilie:

Thank you for all the replies so far! Helps me feel like I'm not completely nuts. :lol:

I'm still in that "Wow, this is going to be great!/What on earth are we THINKING??" emotional rollercoaster of jumping onto the homeschooling bandwagon. I never waiver in my conviction that homeschooling is the RIGHT thing to do for us, but I worry about doing it the right WAY. I worry that the first day of school will arrive (we start in August!) and my kids will be bouncing off the walls and not listening to a single word I'm saying, or show any interest in any of the books or educational DVD's or math manipulatives or anything. My two oldest have been in public school, and I worry that they won't be able to see "mom" as "teacher". I'm just here to cook their meals and set up their train set, not show them how to write letters. I'm sure we'll be fine and we'll all find our "groove" eventually, but for now I have that inevitable fear-of-the-unknown hanging over my head. So what were your biggest fears/worries/concerns when you were just getting started? Did they ever come about? Or were there other completely unexpected things to worry about?

On another message board I'm on, that smiley usually means "Ooooh, this is going to be an interesting thread!" As in: this topic is likely to produce some drama, so I'm going to get my popcorn ready so I can watch it unfold. But I don't think it means that here. :lol:

My parents are both public school teachers in California. They had NO classroom budget this year (not even lottery money which is *supposed* to be for their classroom expenses). They've also taken a significant cut in pay (about 1k a month less than they made last school year) and EVERY teacher in their district had to "interview" for their jobs last Summer. Lots and lots of teachers were laid off. Needed building improvements were put off, and they're trying to find any way they can to cut expenses. Last I heard from them there were several districts in CA that were considering suing the state for not providing them with their legally mandated funding. It'll probably be like trying to squeeze blood from a rock.

Unconditional Parenting helped inspire me to have more meaningful conversations with my young children (rather than just "Good job!" I actually describe what it is about the "job" they did that I like so that they know what they're capable of) How to Talk so Kids Will Listen, and Listen so Kids Will Talk Love and Logic 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families (Changed our whole family dynamic! Amazing book!)

I go to bed between 8:30 and 9:30 and am up at 5am. I eat a banana while getting into my workout clothes so that I'm not working out on an empty stomach, then workout with the Wii (either the Jillian Michael's Fitness Ultimatum 2010, or Gold's Gym Cardio Workout). I eat something more substantial, like a bowl of cereal or oatmeal, after the workout.

I lay my exercise clothes out before going to bed, then get up, get dressed, fill a water bottle with some Crystal Light, drink some of it, eat a banana, then go. I drink more Crystal Light as I go along, then usually fill the water bottle up again when I'm done and drink it all. By then my kids are up, so I get them dressed, make them breakfast, then make breakfast for myself.

I have the Wii Fit Plus, Jillian Michael's Fitness Ultimatum 2010, and Gold's Gym Cardio Workout. I do not use the Wii Fit for my daily exercise. It's fun for adding some "extra movement" into my day, and my kids love it (it's great for working out the rainy day wiggles!) but if you're wanting to get in shape, I would look elsewhere. I LOVE both the Gold's Gym and JM Fitness Ultimatum 2010 workouts. I haven't tried the EA Active one, and I've heard that the Jilliam Micheal's 2009 game was pretty abysmal, but I've been happy with the 2010 version. You DO need the balance board to do most of the workouts in the JM game, but you can easily get away with not having it for the Gold's Gym game. (there's maybe 1 or 2 things that require it, but they're "extras" in the game, and can easily be ignored)

Anywhere that's ocean-front. We went on a 4-day weekend trip to the Oregon Coast, and got a condo (so full kitchen, which with 3 children is a MUST! or else we'd be spending $$$ on food!) that was right on the ocean, with it's own private beach access. It was November, but we still kept the windows open so that we could hear the waves crashing against the rocks (the condo had a gas fireplace, so we kept that cranked up!) and walked down to the beach each evening to watch the sunset. There was a DVD player and a huge jetted tub that we used when we were there at the condo, and we were close to an aquarium, and a pier that had sealions, plus an outlet mall! Smelling the salt air, and hearing the waves constantly for four days straight was absolutely heavenly.

This is a HUGE reason why we decided to homeschool. Does a 5 year old really need to spend 40 hours a week being bullied so they can learn these "skills"?? Honestly, I think the best anti-bullying "skill" is a POSITIVE SELF-IMAGE!! Let a child gain the confidence in *themselves* that they're worthwhile and loveable, no matter what anybody else might say, and they'll be able to withstand bullies. I didn't learn any valubale skills from being bullied. I "survived" grade school, is basically what I did. It took me years to break from the mold I was forced into and figure out who I *really* was, and not who all the bullies said I was.