try this link - they have amazing projects - very inexpensive and well worth it if you are looking for impressive projects Enrichment 4 You

Not an expert for sure, but tactile has to do with touch - in the context of learning, a tactile learner needs to feel/touch and is stimulated by textures etc. Kinesthetics refers to movement, so a kinesthetic learner will learn by incorporating physical body movement. They are closely related, and I don't know about can you be one and not the other, except to say that no one learns through only one method, we are all some combination of the various learning modes.

Well, here is what I have learned. I like the idea of a schedule that says, week one, do these pages. But I find that rarely does it work that way. Instead of spending forever planning each weeks lessons, I like to do a page for each subject, broken down into lessons, chapters, units - whatever the resource lends itself to. Then I have a box to check off when we do that. I have a basic "skeleton" schedule for the school day, and love the weekend, I try to pencil in what I think we can get done each day, taking into account all the other things happening that week. This allows me to be far more realistic in my scheduling, and keeps me from getting depressed because we are "behind" on some idealistic schedule. This is especially important if you live the way I do (and many others on this board I am sure) - my husband has a very irregular work schedule, meaning he is off one weekday, but it is not consistent which day - and then he will work 10 days straight and hardly see us. So there are weeks when we only do 3 days of bookwork school - because when he is off, they spend time with him (though I really feel they get more education on those days than any others sometimes :) - gardening, hunting, fishing, etc.). Then other weeks we will school through Saturday. I think the important thing is to have benchmarks for where you need to be by a certain date, and then schedule weekly. Otherwise, it can be very frustrating to have to redo plans all the time, or watch yourself fall further behind.

The author is VERY nice and helpful - met the family at the convention where I bought this. It is rare for me to spend that kind of money - especially at a convention, but she does a wonderful job of explaining it and I am sold on the concept. It is the application that makes me a little nervous :) Thanks for your input, I guess I will probably end up keeping it. :)

We used the HCA tales this year for my first grader - as for Grimms, they are a little more gruesome to me, and we read them, but I pick and choose.

I wish I had spent more time reading about various educational philosophies (CM, Waldorf, Classical, Neo-Classical, etc). You won't know for sure what will work best for you til you try it, but I wish I had spent more time reading up on the vaious philosophies, so that when it came time, I would be better informed. The only thing I had really read was WTM - which was great, but I wish I had read more CM, I wish I had known more about Waldorf before I started (and of course I wish the Latin Centered Curriculum had been written! :) ). While you have the time to read, read everything you can, so when you are ready to begin, you will have abroad base to start planning from. And I definitely would not try to "plan" anything yet, like everyone else said, what you think you love now will probably change 5 times before you begin. Other than beginning to pick up classic books when you find them, I would not invest in "curriculum". If you are itching to buy things, look for things like art books on the great artists (great deals at bookstores in the bargain book sections), and great classics. I did start buying those things when my first was young, and that did help spread some costs out (I mostly bought art books - which we are now beginning to use, and some beautiful copies of books like Beatrix Potter stories, Tolkien, CS Lewis, etc).

IMO - that book has some good ideas, but way too many redundant crafts, and if you are creating them on your own, way too expensive. Here is what has worked for us: box with play doh and garlic press and cookie cutters box with beans, measuring cups, scoops box with Mr. Potato head toys box with all the little crappy fast food toys they come home from the grandparents with :) box with magnetic dress up dolls lots of puzzles box full of paper, stickers, bingo dotters, scissors, glue, tissue paper (this is the favorite) tub under sink with water toys - pull a stool up to sink and my 3yo will play for hours! bag with lacing shapes bag with objects to sort and dixie cups for sorting (beads, beans, pebbles, etc) bag of string and wooden beads box of coloring books watercolors index cards with shapes to match (ours are made of shaped cut from fabric, but you could draw, cut color etc) that, combined with letting her play with the math manipulatives (cuisenaire, counters, gemstones, dominoes) does a pretty good job of buying time. That and the MOTH technique of scheduling playtime with other siblings (alternate time that toddler and another child play together, read a story etc while you work with other children)

My umbrella school requires A = 93. That is how I was graded growing up, so I guess I don't have any issues with that.

This is why it appeals to me - I use Singapore, and like how it teaches (though we also use Ray's for practice sometime), but you are right, I have to teach each concept, it's not like the books do that for me. I still have to sit down and spend a few minutes teaching the idea, then let them work . I guess it makes me nervous because I am NOT a math minded person, and the idea of striking out on my own like this is intimidating. I actually bought the program at our recent homeschool fair, and am just trying to get comfortable with it before my return policy deadline expires :) Because it is so expensive, I absolutely want to use it fully. And I like the 5-a-Day because it would reduce frustration around here I am sure! Thanks for your input!

My state is very easy (right now) and I have a minimum of requirements, but, since I know that can always change, I go ahead and keep records. I look at it as insurance. Probably not necessary, hope I never have to use them, but they are there should anyone question me about my homeschooling. Part of this comes from paranoia from growing up a homeschooler - when my parents first began homeschooling, there were no laws, and it was "illegal" by omission. We knew people who had their kids removed by child's services b/c they considered homeschooling child abuse. I know we have come a long way from those days, but I also see how quickly things can change (just look at CA :) ) so it makes me feel better to know that I have documented what we do. Also, I find those records very useful in planning for the next child. I don't have to reinvent the wheel, I can go back and see exactly what we did each year.

Once again, I give you Serendipity :) This site has great fairy ideas (more than you want I am sure, but when someone says fairies, I think this site). She has created an entire program teaching the letters of the alphabet and botany with the MC Barker books. Enjoy - I love this site!

I did my order online - I ordered it sometime in March, had no problems getting it, it came very quickly. In fact, I ordered a huge order from them, and got it within a week I think. But it is also available from Paidea classics. They were closed for a while, but are back up and running, and they list it on their site too. Those are the only two places I am aware of.

The only other place I think it is available is through the site Paidea classics.

link to amazon for heller books : heller books We LOVE them! As I just posted in the other grammar thread, along with the ideas from the Serendipity site, they make for a wonderful grammar

Yes! I love them, and they could totally stand for grammar for a second grader. Here is a site with a great way to use them, to help reinforce the ideas, especially if she is a visual learner. Serendipity Lively Language Lesson Plans scroll down to the bottom and you can see the start of the lessons. They are not complete, but once you see how it is done, you can do it yourself. Another great resource in my mind for making grammar come alive is The Sentence Family. I posted a description of it a while back, I put a link to that description below. It takes a drawing approach to learning the parts of speech, and if you were not comfortable with just the Heller books, combine it with this and you would have more than sufficient grammar for that age. my post The Sentence Family

Yes. And it has a very complete list of all concepts a chld should know before reaching Algebra, with a checklist for you to check off as each child masters that concept. The concepts are roughly in order, and the idea also is that you only give your child 5 problems each day to review, rotating concepts. It is NOT a workbook, it does not have pages for your kids to work (it does give LOTS of problems in the back to be used for the daily 5 review). I was just curious if it was something that any of you had looked at. It is VERY expensive though!

My opinions: Atelier is great - but not really what I call "technique". It is very much like what your child would get if he were in art class in a public school. Meaning, they learn color wheel, practice contour drawing, cover the basic elements of art, and create nice pieces that are what I consider designed to hang up/frame. But if you want your children to learn to draw realistically, this is not really going to help since that is not the focus (that said, I love the program, and am going to do a "co-op" with my kids and my nieces and nephew this summer and go through one level of Atelier). Harmony - I have one level of this - and again, not sure technique is what you will get. Lots of art appreciation, projects, ideas, etc, but not really a study of technique. If you are not comfortable with teaching this subject, I would not use Harmony - an example of a lesson for Grade 2: Read pp 20-25 of Come Look With Me - activity: Draw a picture of your favorite season. To me this program is more of an art and music appreciation program. I agree with Lanatron - if you are looking for something to take you through techniques, I would try Phonics of Drawing, it is very basic, step by step lessons on the computer with good visuals. For us, to learn techniques for rendering realistic drawing (my son just wants to be able to draw real looking animals all day!) - the best thing has been a handful of books from Amazon and Hobby Lobby - we like the ones by Hammond on how to draw realistic animals - he teaches amazing shading techniques, and if you have an interested child - I literally just handed my son the book and got him the basic supplies, from there his drawing has transformed (he is 9). Also, Jack Hamm has some good books for learning drawing techniques. Draw Real Animals This series is great! And of course, Drawing with Children and Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain will also give good technique, but they are not very teacher friendly if you are not comfortable with making your own plan (though Barb at harmony fine arts has done a neat set of free lessons on using Drawing with Children to use with Nature Journal drawing).

very cool - I know my mom was glad to finish - I was homeschooled 3rd - 12th too! 1983-1992 - I am the oldest of 3, so my mother finished 6 or so years ago. Although, she is already talking about looking forward to teaching her grandkids upper level math and science!

Just curious to see how many homeschool graduates there are on this group, who are now homeschooling the second generation. You know, those of us who were "homeschooled before homeschool was cool?" :)

This was our 4th year

I am curious to see how many of you have heard of this program. I saw it for the first time this May at our state convention. I like the concept (and love the tracking system/review plan) and wondered if anyone else has seen/used it. I am on the yahoo group, but wondered if anyone here had any opinions. Math on the Level

We have done about 2 pages per day, and just went until we finished. Sometimes my dd liked to do more than 2 per day, and that was fine as long as she was getting it. I really never "scheduled" it, we just did it as it came.

Not hands on - but we have used the CD's of the fables over the past several years, and my kids really enjoy listening to them. Also, I have the EM LP for Aesop's fables, I was thinking of listing it on the for sale board, if you have not already bought it and need it? - PM me if you are interested.

Well, my son (9) is really enjoying Swiss Family Robinson. The language is challenging, but it is full of fascinating information, and right up any boys alley with all the great contraptions they build to make life easier on the island. We started it a year ago (we were building a tree house and I thought it was appropriate) and it has taken a while to read (my fault mostly, but like I said, it is not a book you fly through), but we are about to finish up, and even my 7yo daughter has enjoyed listening to it. It usually inspires my son to go look up a picture of some animal they discover, or read about some plant or decide to build his own chairs for the treehouse. I think it is a GREAT summer read aloud. My last blog post listed some of our summer reading list if you want to check it out also: St. Theophan Academy

My ds (9) read Wonderbook and Tanglewood Tales this past year - great Greek mythology stories. Lots of people like D'Aulaires - they have one for Norse Myths.