http://www.focusboosterapp.com/ I use this for work sometimes (I work from home so it's hard to set aside work time!).

I agree, math and reading and then anything your child struggles in. I don't think reading needs to be formal class, but lots of trips to the library for enjoyable books to keep them practicing their skills.

Very cool! I think we will use it! Nothing beats a free spelling book and I actually sat through a session at the home school expo about using old text books for things like reading and spelling. I found a huge stack of readers from the late 1800s for ten cents each at a library sale and these spelling books are even better because they don't have that musty smell!!!

Thanks for sharing! Your posts are inspiring to me and I love your classroom. I am wishing and hoping and praying that in about two years we can build an addition on our house to be used as a classroom. Right now it's just a dream, though!

That sounds so fun. We only teach our jr. church once per month on a rotating schedule with three other couples so we don't get them every week. If I ever switch to every week, I think I'd do something like this. Very neat!

http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/lapbooks/folding_lapbooks.htm Here's another way to do multiple folders in one lapbook. I think this would be better suited for 3 - 4 folders, maybe? Thanks for all the ideas. My head is spinning with the possibilities. We are studying ants this week and we are going to do our first lapbook along with it! I'm so excited. I'm just super OCD so I know that however we do the first one is how I will want to continue so that they all match. I wish i wasn't that way!

I just bought this on sale at Meijer for $7 and it's totally perfect. It's a craft box but it was in the tool box aisle and it fits both sets of blocks, other than a handful of 100s. http://toriandlucasathome.blogspot.com/2010/05/math-u-see.html

I'm seeing most people use file folders and some use poster board and others use spiral bound books. I can't decide! What do you use? Why do you like it best? How do you store the finished work? I'm thinking one of those file sized Rubbermaid boxes? Bonus points if you include a link to a picture of your child's lapbook work! :)

My thoughts on your experience was this... I don't think she probably thinks your son is behind in any way at all. There's no way! Most PS Kers I know can barely recite their ABCs and counting to 20 is a struggle... Perhaps she was just giving you some pointers to catch his writing skills up to the rest of his skills? Just a thought... I get that way with my daughter because she is so ahead in reading and writing and stuff. I was actually saying "She's so behind in math" to someone... and really she's not (she's doing MUS Alpha)... she's just not as advanced in math as she is in other areas. I really think maybe the teacher was just trying to give you some helpful hints in his weakER area. It's surely not a weak area, just not as strong as his out of this world reading ability, ya know? If she's expected, for the sake of the eval, to point on something you can work maybe that's all she could scrape up. As far as Kers being expected to read chapter books, not in our school system! I believe they are expected to read short "I Can Read" books by the end of second grade. In K, they assume they've never seen the alphabet before and go from there... In fact one of the charter schools in our town has a billboard up saying "Imagine your kindergartner reading!" because they are one of the only schools in town to even attempt it. If you son had his eval in THIS town, they'd probably send him off to college! :)

When I opened One Note it went right to a tutorial page and I read it and started using it. It's pretty awesome. Basically if you see something on a website and you want to save a screen shot and then add notes (like the link to the site and why you might want to use this for a future lesson) you just hold down your "windows" key and hit S then highlight the part you want to save. It takes a screen shot and opens One Note and saves it to an "unfiled page" then you can add notes to that and from there you can go to "File--New--Notebook" and make a notebook then drag your unfiled pages into the notebook...

OK, after hours of reading, researching and asking you all questions, I have decided that MOH is exactly what we need at this age. I am thinking about adding in TOG for round 2 but that's four years away so who knows! :) Now I am looking at the supplements and wondering which ones are must haves. I have a regular line item in our budget for homeschool supplies/curriculum so it's not really an issue of money but of being a good steward of said money... For example, if I can find plenty of great free lapbook stuff elsewhere, is it worth paying the $40 for the MOH downloads? Are the color pages necessary? Is the CD of reproducibles worthwhile if two kids will eventually use the stuff? Audio CDs, yes or no? Can I load the MP3s onto my iPhone (sometimes that can be tricky with non-Apple downlaods, I think?)??? The Timeline figures are a definite YES for me because the timeline concept is what drew me to Classical education in the first place! I accidentally found it while I was researching for work (I'm a freelance writer) and from the timelines I found classical education information. :) Any experiences are greatly appreciated!!!

WOW! Thank you! The screen clips feature is a great way to keep track of the great ideas I read on this site! That alone is worth so much! Very cool!

Thanks for all the help. I am nowhere closer to a decision but it really, really, really helps to hear more about how everyone uses these programs and what works for them. I'm playing with the idea of MOH for the first four year cycle and then adding in TOG the second time around, using MOH as a spine? That way we aren't biting off more than we can chew for her age and by the second time around both kids will be doing history-- having more options and a more detailed "here's the plan!" outline would be excellent. To clarify, it's just for my five year old. The 2.5 year old is going to regular preschool next year at our church, which will give my daughter and I some time to find our hs groove without constant interruptions :) I know a lot of people would recommend waiting another year to start history/science, etc, but she's already reading well, has amazing handwriting and can count to 100 by 1's, 2's and 10's, so I feel like sticking with traditional Kinder stuff would be a boring waste for her... I don't really know what to do with her except jump right into history and science and all that fun stuff.

I am considering this for science and history. We are doing a science unit (animals) over the summer and then stopping science for awhile. I think maybe we will get really into history for a few months, then switch back to science. I think it would work well and make our days less overwhelming.

This is good to hear! We are going with this for our writing program and I'm really excited about it!

I printed on the sample lessons of each and I've been looking them over and I just can't decide which way to go. TOG has SO MUCH to offer that it's almost overwhelming but I do like the way everything is spelled out. MOH seems a little more bare bones in comparison... Or maybe it's just because there aren't lots of fancy charts and schedules? If we used TOG, I would skip the writing section most of the time because I want to use Writing With Ease. I like how Bible class is heavily incorporated right into history. I like that there are so many options for things to do for each lesson. I like that there are no daily lessons, that you have a whole week to get through a topic however you choose. I don't like how little actual information you seem to get on each topic... that's is almost entirely reliant on library books and outside sources. That's not completely BAD and we will be at the library constantly anyway, but part of me wants more actual history spelled out for ME before I teach it to HER. :) Part of me says it's an awful lot of money to spend when all it seems like I'm getting is a list of projects to do and books to read... Am I missing something? Is there more to it than that? On the other hand, MOH has nicely written lessons for each topic and on a bad week when the library just doesn't happen we could get by with just the lesson out of the book and I really like that. I wish it had more project recommendations or suggested readings or SOMETHING. But once again, am I missing something? Is there more to it? Any input is appreciated! History is a top priority for me and I'm glad to finally have it down to two choices but now I'm feeling stuck on which way to go!!!

Thanks for all the ideas! I am going to go look up the Mystery one, I never even heard of that one! I downloaded the sample weeks of Tapestry and kinda think I love it but it's SO expensive. But history is a priority so I think I may need to suck it up and pay it! I just saw that units can be purchases separately and that good be good... But I need to look up the other suggestions, too! Starting a good foundation in history from day one is super important to me because I am one of those statistics from public school... my history consisted of nothing but ancient Egypt pretty much every year with one year of state history in Elem. In junior high I did a year of nothing but Anne Frank (seriously, a whole year) and a year of "government." In high school we got MORE ancient Egypt, and then European history (but never got as far as the settlements in America) and then psychology and sociology... So yeah, you can see there are MAJOR gaps in my history background. And this was in the AP/Honors program! I am going to be learning along with my daughter and I'm super excited about it.

First of all, I am developing a love-hate relationship with this forum because the more i read, and the more I learn... the less I feel like I really know! :) I have changed my mind so many times... I just... am so lost. I think A Beka does a fab job of doing history from a Christian perspective but it doesn't follow the Classical pattern and that is important to me. I'm not interested in a full curriculum, I like what we are doing in science and math and writing/grammar. I was going to go with SOTW but it's not very Christian as far as I can tell? Then I was looking at Tapestry of Grace but the price is steep. What exactly are you getting for that price??? And it looks like it's history, lit and Bible all in one, is that right? I had Bible and Lit picked out but I'm not committed yet so that would be OK. Any others i am missing? I thank you all in advance for the information that will likely keep me up researching all night long!

Great topic. Just today I had a huge discussion going on my Facebook status with all my music teacher and mommy friends about whether or not music lessons are worth the money. Around here I am finding $25-$35 per half hour to be standard and I just won't pay it. My husband and I have no musical ability whatsoever, although his sister has a Master's degree in piano... Unfortunately she lives in CHINA so she's not available to teach my kids! Since my husband and I lead perfectly fulfilling lives without any concept of how to play, I figure it's not important enough for me to stretch the budget for. I think that makes me a horrible mother, but I'm not sure.... ;)

1. Why do you do it? I am planning on a four day school week so we are trying to do most of our science class over the summer to lighten the load. I am planning to keep this up as the years go on. Especially with this being our first year and doing animals for science, it makes more sense to do it in the summer... 2. What is a typical week like? We are going with an introduction to the topic and a book on Monday, as well as starting any two-day experiments. Coloring pages/movies on Tuesday (as long as Netflix delivers on time!) and more books. Finishing the experiments on Wednesdays and filling out short reports about the books and projects. Thursdays are for going to the library to get the next week's books. :) She's also doing math (MUS Alpha) whenever the mood strikes, which isn't too often right now because she broke her elbow (ouch!). 3. Do you just continue your regular curr. or do you do other things? My plan at the moment is to focus on science in the summer, thanks to the zoo being open, plants being in bloom, the nice weather and the availability of our city's parks & rec "Science in the Summer" program.

I used to work for A Beka and I'm not even using them for language... I think they are great for grammar. Dr. Chapman (author of the grammar books) was my grammar professor in college! But they are really, really weak in writing skills. There just isn't enough focus on it... as they get older, especially. The kids in college who were A Beka all the way through school had no idea how to write a paper... They could diagram sentences but couldn't put together a paragraph so I don't think there is enough focus on practical skills...

This is completely awesome. I've always been glad I don't have a container store near me because I'd blow so much money! I found a coupon code for 20% off which covers most of the shipping fee.

If you really want to find out a reading level, here's a link to do different tests you can use. http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/articles/060899.htm

Thanks for all the ideas! This was very, very helpful!

I went to nine schools from K to graduation... I went to a college 1500 miles away with students from every state and 30-some countries. We lived in suites, so by the time I graduated I'd had over 30 roommates. Now I live 900 miles from my HUGE family, and have family scattered all over the country--and around the world. So yes, I LOVE Facebook. I can post a picture of preschool graduation ONCE and everyone sees it! I can post "Hey, Miss Princess fell of the slide and broke her elbow!" and I don't have to call everyone to tell them. It just makes my life easier. My family is so involved in my kids lives even from 900 miles away and Facebook (and Windows Live webcam!) have a lot to do with it.