The kids have kindle fires, while dh has a fire and I have a nexus. The kids love the kindles. I can password protect the internet and purchasing, and they have some subscription options available for the kids. We're pleased with them. We didn't get the name brand cases for protection. Instead I got some knock-off cases from China made in two layers (inner one is hard plastic and outer one is thick silicone) that have worked out well. Ours are the 7" fires with no hd.

DH wants a bumper sticker that says "My child is an honor student at Gallifrey Academy". We can't find it anywhere and I have no idea where he originally saw it. Anyone know where to get one?

During the winter I don't have a vehicle during the day unless I plan ahead for it and get up early to drive dh in to work, so we don't leave the house much. During the fall and spring we like to do school at McDonalds, Tims, and the library because they are all indoors and it tends to be cool outside. We school all year, so once the nicer weather comes along we often do school at local parks, the lake, and at the picnic tables along the local bike trail. I do plan ahead what we'll take with us in terms of schoolwork. On the days that we do school elsewhere we take our kindles (wifi is nice, but we have stuff on them that doesn't use wifi also), and I look over what else is on our schedule and decide what else to take. We don't use too many physical texts which makes it easier. A kindle and a notebook work pretty well for most things. I've been told that there is a community center at the local college that would be a good place to go during the winter, but I haven't gotten a native to show me where this would be. I think as part of our 'be visible in the community' campaign I'll have the kids doing school in the park in the middle of town across from the courthouse on a regular basis once it warms up. Maybe with a big sign "Homeschoolers at work". Maybe we'll attract a few more as well. As for the kids getting distracted, I just tell them that if they can't pay attention and get stuff done that we will NOT be leaving the house again. They know I mean it since there have been years in which we did NOT leave the house for months during the nice weather because they acted like idiots. These days that isn't a problem anymore. Even the six year old knows better. ETA: This works for me because I am a b*tch. It may not work for others. :)

I asked DH what he had heard about this, since he works at our county human services. We don't think it will inspire any kind of witch hunt in our county (Crawford) as we aren't the only homeschooling family with an adult who works in human services. It might even be a good thing, because there does seem to be a persistent perception in our area that the only sort of people who homeschool are the kind of people who want to abuse their kids without scrutiny. I've actually been told that by a woman who has a business doing homeschool evaluations. At least this legislation clearly states that a risk assessment is only in order for people who have had a history with children's services for abuse. We have about a hundred kids in our local school district who are legally homeschooling (PDE website), and probably three times that who are enrolled in a cyber charter school. Our county also includes parts of four or five other school districts. Our local county office simply isn't staffed in a way to do risk assessments on that kind of scale, and further, there is no evidence in the literature to indicate that homeschooling or cyberschooling alone is an identifiable risk factor for abuse. I have a lot of things I'd like to say to the legislator who came up with the original idea. Dh and I have talked about moving to another state, if necessary.

M.B. Synge wrote a Story of the World series years before Susan Wise Baur, and Hendrik Van Loon's History of Mankind is a favorite in my house. Check out the Baldwin Children's Literature Project at www.mainlesson.com for lots of great history books.

There are a ton of free vintage nature study books on google play, I just haven't had time to go through them. Post if you find some good ones!

Hmm...free is kind of my thing... Language Arts Choices: -National Treasures Workbooks http://www.mhschool.com/reading/treasure_workbooks/national.html These have grammar and spelling for grades K to 6 -Primary Language Lessons (free on google play) -Intermediate Language Lessons (free on google play) -Scott Foresman grammar and composition for grades 1-6 http://www.sfreading.com/resources/ghb.html -Kiss Grammar http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/KISS.htm -Progressive Composition Lessons by Ida Brautigam (for grade 3 to 8, make sure you get the right one) (free on google play) -MEP Math, http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm Khan Academy CK12 Braingenie http://braingenie.ck12.org/ Learning to Read: Suggestions to the teachers of young children by Sarah Louise Arnold (Google Play) Reading, How to teach it by Sarah Louise Arnold (Google Play) Everyday Classics by Fannie Wyche Dunne, Franklin Thomas Baker (google play) (first grade to sixth grade) The Teaching of Reading: A Manual to accompany Everyday Classics (Google Play) The Easy Way to Reading Primer by Carrie Josephine Smith (Google Play) Dolch Sight Words http://dolchsightwords.org/ On Track Reading http://www.ontrackreading.com/homeschooling Phonics http://www.strivney-english.com/home-school-reading.asp Starfall Grammarland by M.L. Nesbit The Mother Tongue book one: Lessons in Speaking, Reading, and Writing English by Sarah Louise Arnold (Google Play) The Mastery of Words: A course in Spelling book one by Sarah Louise Arnold (Google Play). Grades one through five. With Pencil and Pen: Language Lessons for Primary Schools by Sarah Louise Arnold Fifty Famous People by James Baldwin (the Baldwin Children’s Literature Project) Fifty Famous Tales Retold by James Baldwin (the Baldwin Children’s Literature Project) Thirty More Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin (the Baldwin Children’s Literature Project) A First Book in American History by Edward Eggleston This Country of Ours by H.E. Marshall (Google Play) The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem Van Loon (Google Play) Tales of the Greeks: The Children’s Plutarch by F.J. Gould Tales of the Romans: The Children’s Plutarch by F. J. Gould Famous Men of Greece Famous Men of Rome The Story of Greece by Mary McGregor The Story of Rome by Mary McGregor Where We Live by Emilie Van Beil Jacobs A History of Art for Beginners and Students by Clara Erskine Clement Waters Classics For Kids Mrs.Brown’s Art www.mrsbrownart.com Dick Blick Lesson Plans http://www.dickblick.com/lesson-plans/ http://thevirtualinstructor.com/ http://www.free-online-art-classes.com/ The Burgess Animal Book for children by Thornton Burgess The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess Wild Animal Ways by Ernest Thomspon Seton (Baldwin Children’s Literature Project) Stories of the Great Scientists by Charles R. Gibson The Story of the World series by M. B. Synge Stories of the Vikings by Mary MacGregor Viking Tales by Jennie Hall Great Inventors and Their Inventions by Frank P. Bachman The Story Book of Science by Jean Henri Fabre Fourth Grade General Science http://www.kusasa.org/k01/k01.html

I have a few younger friends (women in their mid-to-late twenties) who are very concerned with being associated with a certain style. I know I'm not explaining this well, but they feel strongly that they must keep up with fashions in clothing and music by listening to the latest music by certain performers and by wearing new styles of clothing as they come out and even by having a certain hairstyle and driving a certain kind of vehicle. These women are very concerned with presenting the appearance of being, oh, 'up to date' or what not with current trends. Current with pop culture. These are also NOT wealthy or well-off women, just lower middle class to middle class type women. It is from these women that I usually hear the concern that without attending school in a classroom that children will not learn to properly appreciate or conform to this sort of behavior and that this will be a disadvantage for the child, even later in life. This is what these women mean when they ask 'What about socialization?'. They are not especially concerned with the academic aspect of their child's education but they are very much concerned with this sort of social conditioning. I think these women must be the adult version of the 'peer-oriented' individuals that were discussed in Hold On To Your Kids. I find this type of person to be the most difficult for me personally to deal with. I think it would be easier to communicate with space aliens than to try to explain to this type of mom why I don't think conditioned social conformity is that desirable. They are quite convinced I'm ruining my kids for life because they aren't learning to conform to these sorts of social expectations and will therefore become 'those weird homeschool kids", the ones who prefer perhaps jazz to Justin Beiber and heaven knows what other odd ideas they might have....

One of my daughters enrolled her two year old in a daycare she could barely afford rather than have him spend the day at home with me (his grandmother) and my homeschooled kids, because the boy's speech therapist insisted that he needed to be around other kids his own age for socialization I've been told by people who have degrees in psychology (yeah, I know) who are very sincere that kids simply cannot develop properly without spending the majority of their days in the company of other children the same age. I think it is quite amazing that we managed to survive as a species for thousands of years before the advent of compulsory schooling and universal daycare, if the daily company of twenty or so age-mates is so critical to normal human development....

I'm in a similar position to you. I have dd age 9 and ds age six at home, and I have eight older kids (bio and adopted) and at last count fifteen grandchildren. My oldest grandchild is also 9 and is a girl. She is fine, but my 7 year old granddaughter with a different mom is a like you describe. My dh and I discussed this issue for some time, but the only 'solution' we could come up with to protect our child and our sanity is to limit our time with that granddaughter. Her mom won't address her behavior and in fact tends to take the easier path of ignoring it. The behavior had progressed to doing something to ruin whatever the item was that she was upset about. We were open with dd (the mom) about why we were not spending as much time with her dd. The mom was upset with us for a while, but she did step up a bit and has made an effort to spend more time with her dd and work with her on her behavior. We aren't as close with the family as we had been, but I think that it has been the right choice for our own younger kids. Good luck with this. It can be so hard to deal with these kinds of issues.

I have a daughter who does this sort of thing. She pays the security deposit and first month's rent and then never pays again. And she leaves damage and messes behind her. It generally takes six months or more to force her out of a place. Make sure you sue, since that is the only way these people learn any kind of a lesson. If you ever rent to anyone again, make sure to check references carefully. Best of luck to you.

This is becoming normal in the public schools in our area. Most of the comments I've heard have been positive.We rarely experience internet interruption or power outages in our area so that has not been a factor. Most laptops have some sort of battery life and so do tablets, so the idea of being restricted to certain locations near an outlet haven't materialized. I do have to admit that the biggest challenge in picking a location to 'do school' for my own kids has been the availability of wifi since our town does not have free public access except at the library and some restaurants. Most of the commentary about what actually HAS been a factor in deciding whether the digital text changeover has been positive or not has usually had to do with the format of the individual books. Apparently some are laid out well and easy to use while others are apparently more difficult or poorly organized. We've tried Connections Academy and found their digital books (also marketed as Pearson Homeschool curriculum) to be very well laid out. In fact, my daughter preferred to use the digital text over the physical one (rolling her eyes at me when I asked if I could use the physical book to check her work). Connections sent us the physical textbooks as a matter of routine, we didn't request them. There was a learning curve, but after that my kids were adept at getting around in the digital texts and preferred to do that over using the physical book. My kids also never spent five or six hours straight on the computer either. It seemed to me like they would be on the computer for awhile then move to offline work in each subject. In any event, many people spend all day on screens for employment purposes and seem to tolerate that just fine. As for the kids wasting time on the computer and not doing schoolwork, I respectfully suggest that is a parenting issue and should be addressed as one. My own experience is that if a child wants to waste time they are perfectly capable of doing so, even when limited to paper and pencil. My own kids are not allowed to use screens for any purpose other than school until their assigned schoolwork is completed and accepted by me, then they have unrestricted access to kindles, laptops, the Wii, ect. They are not avid screen users, and I think this may be because it isn't a big deal in our house. If I had to worry about anyone spending too much time online, it wouldn't be the kids.......

You make the best of the hand you're dealt. I have two in p.s. because my ex refuses to even consider anything else. :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

This song is stuck in my head now. If you need something catchy for a dental health lesson, this is it:

I had to poll the kids. Nine year old dd: "We homeschool so we can have time to socialize." :confused1: Um, not sure what to say to that.

You can make fake maple syrup. Basically it's just a sugar syrup with imitation maple syrup flavoring...........The imitation flavoring is the most expensive ingredient and you can add as much or as little as you like (or your budget allows). http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2012/05/make-your-own-ridiculously-easy-and-inexpensive-homemade-maple-syrup.html

I have to say no. I had two now adult children who clamored to go to public school. We finally agreed and one was started in eighth grade and one started in ninth. The older one was interested in writing classes and theater while the younger one was interested in sports and cheerleading. To make a long story short, the eldest ended up so severely bullied that she was very traumatized for several years and needed counseling, ect. The younger girl became a bully, was arrested for felony witness intimidation, made friends with the druggies and criminal element at the school and was arrested multiple times for shoplifting, ect and began running away. At 16 she was the object of a sheriff's manhunt after escaping from custody at the courthouse and later that year was extradited back home from a state several hundred miles away. At 18 she was convicted of running a heroin ring. I realize these are drastic outcomes and not all kids take to that sort of thing like a duck to water, but although we had pulled the girls out after just those two years in ps, the train had left the station as far as my daughter's lives were concerned. I'm not saying that my younger girl would not have become a criminal, but if she hadn't had the exposure to those other kids she wouldn't have had the ideas and opportunities that she did to develop her sociopathic tendencies. Tendencies we weren't aware of before we sent her. And we live in a mostly rural/very small town type area. I can't imagine what that kid might have gotten into if we lived in a more urban area. So, I guess I'm not a fan of public education in that it brings together a very diverse group of kids and while that may be nice to learn about things like cultural difference and tolerance, it can also provide your child with an introduction to much more negative things as well. You don't know how susceptible your own kids will be until they are in that situation.

Lol, nurses used to light up at the nurse's station and most of our patient smoked too unless they were in a room where someone had oxygen. I had a prof in college who smoked in our pathophysiology lab......he would take his cigarette out of his mouth to use as a pointer as he showed us stuff on a specimen.

All of the virtual charter schools are different, even in the same state. They have different 'cultures' I suppose, as well as different curricula and different rules. You have to find one that will fit your family, and since you don't usually know going in what to look for in a virtual charter that suits you best sometimes you need to find out from trial and error. We've tried three.The third one works. This is what I've learned: Since we do have mandatory standardized testing in my state I want a school that offers test sites within ten miles of my (not in a major city) home. I want a school that offers a comprehensive orientation to the system for BOTH me and my kids. I want a thorough user's guide in ONE place. I want ONE phone number to call for help. I want to be able to talk to a human being that same day, even if that human just takes a message. I want a response to my concerns or problems from a human within two or three days, if not the same day I want a school with a fairly easily to use interface for ME to keep track of what my kids are doing. And my kid's courses should all be in one place and easy to find. It should also be easy to find my kid's teacher's email addresses. I want a school that doesn't have more than twenty kids in an online session, and the teachers should be familiar with the software to run the online session I want a school that sends me laptop computers since I don't have room for desktops. And the computers have to be reliable. I don't have time to figure out why your proprietary software keeps crashing the system you sent me. I want understandable curricula that is at the minimum accurate (math) and grammatically correct. I want curricula that has been edited BEFORE I see it. I want math and language arts curricula that are very good, if not great. I can tolerate a lot for an excellent free math and language arts program. I want superb customer service. I accept that I'm not likely to get it, but at least make an effort. I want a challenging curriculum that is designed to accomodate kids who thrive on more depth and teachers who are able and willing to deal with kids who need more depth I want a school that is willing to at least entertain the idea that some kids really are able to complete vast amounts of work in a matter of days in a core subject and still beg for more, so the school had better be able to at least dialogue with me about sending the next grade level of material in that core subject even though my kid is still in the lower grade. I want a school to actually make that next level of material available or be willing to come up with a plan for my kid that doesn't involve showering her with stupid electives like 'Cooking' instead. I want a school that actually offers field trips and arts programs that are less than an hour from my home. And I want those on a frequent basis. I want Brainpop. In return, I agree to: Make my kids do Study Island on a regular basis Make my kids attend your online sessions even though usually my kids are miles ahead of what you are teaching that day. Tolerate your poorly thought-out social studies class and your really annoying music class while doing my own thing. Forgive you for not offering Latin thereby forcing me to spend my internet stipend for a decent Latin course. Log your unrealistic attendance hours (like we only do five hours of learning a day!) Bring my kids to standardized testing outside of my home. Allow my kids to participate in all of the other foolish neverending testing throughout the year. Put your bumpersticker on my car. I'm sure I'll think of more......

K12 in my state promised me the moon to get me to enroll my daughter, then once we were in they had all kinds of obstacles and policies that prevented us from getting any kind of curriculum on dd's level. One thing they told us was that everyone has to at least start on age-grade level and if that was completed during the school year then the child might be allowed to 'try' the next year's level. So, dd sat down and completed the math course. The whole year. Did all the assessments and passed. THEN they said she had to wait a year for any more math curriculum. I'm in PA. I think the school is more worried about the state test than anything else. They knew dd could do very well in her age-grade, but might only do average in a higher grade. BUT I told them I didn't want her promoted, I just wanted that level of curriculum. They could call her whatever grade they wanted. NO DEAL. We left. I don't know what to tell you for advice, but do write everything they promise you down along with the names of the folks you speak to. If anything, it'll rattle them when you complain later. We just signed up with Connections Academy. They supposedly have a strong GT program. So far so good, but we'll see. Dd loves the live lesson classes and all the outings (we are in a homeschool dead zone for activities). They have a lot of clubs that we are looking at. It may work out for us or it may not. If it works out at least partially we'll likely stay with it, just to give me a little break in an area or two and a chance to focus a bit more on ds age 5.

I have a template in Word with two columns. The first column has subject headings in bold, and under each subject heading is a list of the resources that I have chosen to use for each subject. I put those there as a sort of reminder to me when I make plans. Math has one block, Language Arts with subheadings for spelling, ect. has another block, and Science/History/Geography/Fine Arts/Health and Safety share a block, and Latin and critical thinking have a block. Phys Ed has it's own block and Current Events/Civics/Citizenship share a block. Each heading or subheading is followed by a list of resources for that subject. Science is done two days a week usually, history and geography are usually two days a week, and fine arts and heatlh and safety are usually at least one day. This way when the child looks over the list for the day there are five major blocks and two minor blocks (latin and critical thinking). If just seems more doable to them like that. The second column in the template is blank. The templates are used for daily planning. I have an ongoing portfolio for each kid in Word and when I plan I go into that kid's portfolio and add in a weeks worth of blank pages and put the template on each page. Then I fill in the template with plans. I don't plan more than a week ahead because things get screwy, but I do keep one blank page as a sort of storage area for things I have 'cut' from the planning template because they didn't get done. I have printed these out in the past for each kid, but I've got each kid trained to look for them on their kindle fires now (even the five year old who brings his list to me), so I shoot the week's worth to each kid's kindle. They get deleted during the planning phase for the next week. Hey, it saves ink. Oh, and I keep the whole thing (portfolios, blank templates, planning subfolder,) in dropbox as favorites so they are available on my tablet even offline. I do the actual planning either on my tablet or my laptop. During the actual day, I keep the Word pages for that day open on my laptop (tablet if we are out) and add in things that the kids do that i didn't plan ahead, like extra math pages or whatever they decide they want to do. That way I can capture things that they do that weren't planned. Things that don't get done get cut and pasted to the next day or to the storage page. At the end of the day I 'save' and move to the next page/day. I can add in photos as we go, or scan in some work if I want, and VOILA! at the end of the year we have a portfolio for the state (I"m in PA). Of course, I DO edit them before I turn them in. Last year I turned them in on a cd. I SO want to turn them in on something like a Hello Kitty flash drive........but Dh thinks we should stick to the cd. I have separate Word pages for planning in each subject that I look over before I do each week's planning. I use those to add ideas to, to get ideas from, and to make sure we are on track with our goals. I keep those in a subfolder in the same folder as the kid's portfolios. Then, I have a three ring binder. I like having a binder. In front is a calendar and a blank page to catch sticky notes. I have subject sections in there and I keep things like spelling rule lists, teaching ideas, Bloom's taxonomy cheat sheets, lists of literature, measurement conversions, Roman numeral cheat sheets, lists of suffixes, prefixes, writing prompts, graphic organizers, Dolch word lists, ect that I either have found useful or might find useful at some point. I guess it is my 'cheat sheet' binder rather than my planning binder. I do have a nice montly planner book in there too that i use for dr appts, field trips, birthdays, or daily events ect. Once it is that month those go on the big calendar in the front of the binder. My binder also has those file folder pockets, so I have a file for each kid with work I think I might scan in, and a file folder with our homeschooling stuff like the letter from the school district, and a file folder for stuff like flyers and brochures we collect when we go out and do things. It is a zip binder and I have my good pens in there, my sticky notes, my paperclips, my stuff. And my android tablet fits in there too. I wish it was the kind of binder that had a shoulder strap but it isn't. I'll probably crochet it a cover someday with a shoulder strap........

Things are very smooth around here. It isn't because the kids are especially easy or anything though at least I don't have any toddlers or babies in the mix. I think I tend to consider things to be going smoothly because I'm just at that place with my parenting experience and skills that I can handle most any behavior or attitude thrown my way by the younger kids still at home after dealing with my older crowd. Of course, I'm talking about kids who are bright and mostly NT and not kids who have any particular challenges. I do have one adult with intellectual challenges and he was tough to parent, though I did not educate him. I have another adult with a serious mental illness who was the most challenging for me to both parent and educate. The younger ones still at home are pretty easy for me to manage. Though I must mention that I do have one child who has displayed an aptitude for STEM that is quite unexpected in our language arts oriented family.....I actually had to price snap circuit kits last night. :bored:

I have a nine year old who reads as well as I do but has never been able to grasp spelling. She can, with much effort, memorize spelling words but within a day or so after the spelling test she can't remember how to spell the same words. She is mildly gifted, and diagnosed with dysgraphia. Apparently the dysgraphia in her case extends to the patterns of how letters are arranged in words. I've probably found it more frustrating than she has. We've switched to keyboarding over the past year and that has helped. I let her use spell check too, for her writing assignments. I've spent a LOT of time going over phonograms with her (like in SWR) and we STILL go over them daily. I think it is slowly helping a little. But yes, we have done the rounds of nearly every spelling curriculum out there with no magic cure.

I've learned to crochet and knit from you tube. I went to a meeting of a local yarn crafters group one time and found out that I'm somehow knitting inside out.......I still can't figure out how I'm doing it wrong. But i still knit. However, I seem to have learned to crochet and to do tunisian crochet properly. I can't remember what you tube videos I watched, all I can say is find one that makes sense to YOU. The little squares you want to make are called granny squares and as I recall it wasn't too hard to figure those out from the internet. If you have a hook and some yarn and tend to be stubborn you should do fine.

I have a kindle fire and a nexus 7. Neither of them will play Time4Learning videos. I'm told that they both CAN, but they need some tinkering and a flash player installed. I've seen websites that state how it can be done but I haven't tried it. I know we have people here on this forum that could tell you how to do it. I'm not sure how hard it is. The main difference between the kindle fire and the nexus 7 that I can see as a normal, non-tech type person is that the nexus has a microphone. With the nexus I can record audio notes, give voice commands, and do speech to text type things. It means that I can use voice to give commands to some of the personal assistant apps that are out there. It is also just very cool. I can use it with bluetooth. I can skype with the nexus. I can't do any of that with the fire. I did go onto some websites that discussed how to jack the fire to get it to do that kind of thing but I could not get it to work on my fire. The myth is that the fire has a working microphone in the audio jack and that you can configure it to be used. I DID get google apps installed on my fire and I did get ONE of the voice recorder apps that I tried to record my voice very weakly, but I could not get any other voice type stuff to work, including skype. That happens to be the main difference I've encountered right now. We just got them for Christmas. If I had it to do over, I'd get the nexus over the fire. And I LOVE Amazon. Oh, and I can get you tube and Khan Academy stuff on both devices with no problems. Both will allow me to access pdf files and documents. They both have a million or so apps, even free ones, that you can use for school. You can download ebooks on both and both will browse the web and check email. My kids both have fires and we use them extensively for homeschooling. I have the nexus for my personal use, as well as to assist with homeschooling, so I 've been using both and I ;prefer the nexus. I downloaded the kindle app on my nexus and I read kindle books on the nexus all the time.