I have been looking at her classes and was considering signing my son up for her PreAlgebra class for the Fall. I was wondering if any of you who have taken classes from her before could tell me about what to expect as far as the amount of homework. My son attends a co-op one day a week so we only do school at home four days a week as it is. The PreAlgebra class is the two days a week for an hour. He gets overwhelmed if his math work takes him too long in one sitting and he starts to make stupid mistakes towards the end so I am worried about how much homework she assigns and how much time it takes up during the week besides attending the actual classes. Thanks!

Yes, thanks!

Help! Trying to find an old post I had come across on here that had middle school level grammar books where I think everything was covered in a year that they need to know and then just reviews from there. I can't find it now but grammar for 7th grade is getting really tedious right now and I am thinking of something along the lines of this for next year. Any help appreciated!

I am pathetically lacking in the art dept. and it is just not getting done around here because I dread it. Opinions on which program is better, easier, etc? They are both on homeschool buyers co-op right now so trying to decide what to go with. Thanks!

Here I am http://pinterest.com/alainaforbes/ I think I added all of you at the expense of my evening ;)

Hey everyone, I am going back over my kid's ITBS scores planning on how to strengthen their weaknesses for the year. One are of the test I was not really clear on. My daughter that was in 3rd grade last year on the ITBS Usage and Expression section scored 100% on 4 out of the 5 parts- the nouns pronouns and modifiers, verb, organization of ideas and appropriate use sections. So overall she did really well on her Usage and Expression score but she scored really below average on the 5th section conciseness and clarity. Can someone give me some insight in to what that section would contain? ust seems weird that she would do well on all but one so maybe she just did not understand those but I would feel better knowing in case it is something I am completely glossing over here at home. Thanks!

I guess my question is the same as Calendula - by doing it this way how do you get through that grade without making it last forever?

Hey everyone. This is my first year I am going to be branching out and using a variety of math curr. at once. My oldest has always thrived with Saxon but my two girls ages 8 and 9 just seem to be struggling and not really grasping concepts. I put in a purchase with the group buy for the light blue series for Math Mammoth but was also wanting to add in Miquon and MEP. I am also planning on using the 1st and 2nd grade MM and some MEP to go back and review concepts to make sure they are firm on things before we move on(one of them is in 3rd and one in 4th). I am kinda anal about using one curr. per subject and a big time stickler for making sure I get the book done by the end of the year so this is a stretch for me. I have read many threads on here by many of you who do similar combinations but what I really need is for someone to tell me how to do it scheduling wise. I want to use the strengths of each program to really use this year to make some basic concepts concrete and then probably go back next year to using just one curr. depending on which one we like best. But I also don't want to skip around so much that at the end of the year I don't feel like I accomplished anything. Sorry for the novel but any advice is welcome.

Bumping in hopes that we can get to 50% !!!

Check out http://classicalhouseoflearning.com/ We love it and it is free.

We use the cards to review the events but we also use it to memorize the timeline of events using something they do in classical conversations a friend taught me. You can see the actions they use on a variety of YouTube videos like this one Eventually they can do the actions without prompting but when they first start you can hold up the cards as they go through them to remind them of the order. Of course you can do only the section of actions and cards for the part of history you are focusing on that year instead of the whole thing.

Hey there, I have three I am homeschooling 6th grade, 3rd grade and 2nd grade plus a 3 yr old. I have a schedule written out and they each have a copy of their schedule in their binder. When I make it up at the beginning of the year I schedule it based on who will need me for what subjects. For instance I schedule two of them for something they can do ind. while I am doing something with the other. We combine for history, science, geography at the end of the school day, I just have my son do extra work when we are done for each of those since he is in the logic stage. My girls for reading are right on the same level so we do First language Lessons, Writing with Ease ad Reading together. Most of what my son does by now is independent except for Latin and vocab we do together.

Oh thanks, I must have missed it before, I was wondering when they expired.

http://www.veritaspress.com/launchrock.html?lrRef=R92BJ If you enter your email address you can get $5 in free gift certificates and then if you refer others you can add on to your gift card balance.

Biblioplan has them and uses SOTW as one of the spine options so I would think it goes along with SOTW pretty well but I haven't used it. They have sampes here.

We are using a modified version of Ambleside Online for History doing the SOTW along with A Country of Ours. We do it all as a group. We have always done Science and History as a group even before we switched it all to one day. I used to have the kids take turns reading out loud and they are all great readers but my son reads way too fast for the girls and the girls apparently read way too slow for my son to pay attention so now I read. I didn't like the idea at first but they really all seem to get more out of it when I read aloud. So we all pile on the couch and I read a couple of chapters of history, a couple chapters of Science (we are doing God's Design for Chemistry and Ecology combined with Fizz, Bubble and Flash) and then we are slowly working our way through Drawing the World by Heart combined with some passports, flag stickers, extra activities, etc for Geography. History, science and geography were always what got bumped at the end of the day if we ran out of time, now we get it done every week.

We do this. I went through all of our curr. at the start of the year and figured out that my 6th graders math was the only thing that might be tight to finish if we are not doing it every day so he has one day where he does two math lessons. So we have one day a week where we do history, science, geography and sometimes even schedule in a study of an artist. Because we used to do history and science twice a week though we do two lessons of each on this day. I thought this sounded like way too much and that the kids would not retain as much but they absolutely love it. I think maybe because before we were doing it late in the afternoon after they did all their other school work and they were kind of burnt out by then. So now even though we are doing more of it in a day they are retaining more than when we had it spread out throughout the week. We leave the school table behind and all pile on to the couch while we do it all and then they get their notebooks out and do some narrations. They love the change of pace.

Thanks! As a side note, how do you make a Word doc in to a pdf or put it on Google docs like you did? I have a book list based on the history time periods I wouldn't mind sharing as well.

We are using God's Design for Chemistry with my 6th, 3rd and 2nd grader this year and really like it. Obviously the 6th grader gets more out of it but I think it is definitely meaty enough for him.

After reading about C-rods here and other places I bought a big pack of them. Mostly I am interested in using them with my seven year old although all the kids have been playing around with them. She is struggling with her addition facts. So I am wondering what activities all of you do with them? Do you use them with certain workbooks or can you give me some ideas on better ways to incorporate them?

We switched this year from Easy Grammar/Daily Grams to Growing with Grammar for my 6th grader. So far we really like it. It is pretty much workbook style. He reads through the lesson in the student book and then completes the lesson in the student workbook so it is set up a little differently than other workbooks but is still done very independently, at least for us.

Sent you a PM!

Hey everyone, I am a recent addict to Pinterest and while I am following lots of other bloggers and friends on there I would really love to find more homeschoolers to follow on there to gather ideas from. My profile is http://pinterest.com/alainaforbes/ if anyone would like to share their profile too I would love to find some new homeschool friends to follow. Thanks!

I am curious for you AO users. I use AO's History but I noticed someone's comment about reading comprehension with AO. What do most of you do for reading comprehension to go along with their literature list?

Honestly this thread is making me nervous that I am missing something. We don't always start at the same time but generally school from about 9-1 breaking for a late lunch after we are done. Is there something I am missing? My 6th grader does Saxon 6/5, Lightning Literature, IEW Writing, AAS, Growing with Grammar, Critical Thinking Skills, Caesers English I, Latina Christiana The 2nd and 3rd grader do Saxon 2 and 3, XtraMath, MCT Literature, WWE 3, Handwriting with a reason, FLL 3, AAS and ETC We do together Story of the World 4, Geography and God's Design for Chemistry. They go to a Co-Op on Fridays and do Art, Music, Science Labs, etc. So maybe I am just having a terrified, paranoid, "maybe I am missing something here" moment but am I missing something? Or maybe I am just not doing as much of everything every day as everyone else? Leave it to pessimistic me to think that if I am getting done early I must not be doing it right, lol.