I love flashcards also! I recently decorated a small box with wrapping paper so I could organize them. We currently have math, latin and history (memory work). My dd is very visual and they just work so well with her. :cool:

I do not yet have a 10 year old, but I am very concerned about how well other people supervise my children in a group setting. It would be all too easy to let them go off and do their thing while the grown-ups enjoy some vacation time amongst themselves. Add to that the fact that we have a co-ed group of preteens and the potential for mischief increases. I wonder if your dh "knows" instinctively this isn't an ideal arrangement, but doesn't quite know why - so he decided to pick on the driving. I would take his concerns very seriously and discuss them openly and take time to think about this before making a decision. Sorry to be the party pooper here, I just know from experience how much trouble even good kids can find when nobody is watching.

I think it was most likely a random call. Still creepy, and more than a little pathetic, but no danger to you and your family. I like slumber parties when dh is away :)

My friend's son didn't read well until he was about 10 years old. By 12 he was devouring history books and (unabridged) classical literature. When she sent him to high school he tested at post-graduate levels. He is a senior this year and considering attending college as a history major :cool:

Could you explain the difference please? I would like to give my kids Greek also at some point. :cool:

So call her Eliza, it is such a pretty name :o I recently bought my 4 y.o. a set of magnetic pattern blocks to use with a small cookie sheet and those do amuse him for a little while.

We had a similar problem when our computer became infected by spyware. You may want to consider this as a possibility. Sorry you have to deal with this!

I have family in NH, VT, MA, CT, and my dh grew up in ME :D

I was working with ds1 in his math workbook today and we had a page with five hats and four umbrellas, and he was supposed to color the set that had more. He scribbled over all the hats with a writing pencil and went on to the next page. This one also had two sets of objects but he was supposed to color the set that had less. He completes this exercise in a similar manner and is ready to move on. (Ds1 is very artistic when he wants to be, but in this case he was completely product oriented.) I just think it is funny because I used to dread these kind of assignments with dd. She would spend half an hour choosing just the right colors for the hats, meticulously fill in the lines, and probably decorate the page with little flowers, in the end turning her math worksheet into an artistic masterpiece. Ds1 wouldn't even stop to pick up a crayon :D

I skip most of the written practice with R&S. I do everything orally except the sentance diagrams, and the writing assignments. In this way it is very easy to double and even triple lessons when dd seems to be breezing through the material. This helps tremendously when I fall behind, which seems to happen all too often... :o

The Pathway Readers were very useful for developing my dd's fluency when she first became an independant reader. We used the books themselves, not the workbooks. I dropped them when she was reading at about a 6th grade level and began just feeding her age-appropriate literature within that range.

I am willing to hear anything ;) How do you keep up with multiple children in different history cycles?

LOL! :cool:

Yes, I switched dd from Saxon math at 4 1/2 because the 1st grade program began to move from manipulatives to drill. I wanted her to spend as much time as possible with manipulatives so that she truly understood the real quantities before she began memorizing facts. Miquon and cuisenaire rods worked very well for us at this time. I have recently added Singapore math for dd and I wish I had done so much sooner because it is working out beautifully. I just started Singapore EB for my ds (who will be 4 on Monday). I don't know yet how I like this program for a young child, but I can tell you that so far we have covered concepts like same/different, long/short, big/small, etc., He breezed through about a third of the book today. ;)

That would be perfect. Thank you! :)

Actually my oldest is going into 5th grade next year and my middle will be 4 1/2. I messed up that "perfect 4 year cycle" by starting dd early. Plus there is actually almost 5 years between them anyways. I do plan to let ds1 participate as much as he is willing and able to do so this coming year.

Is it possible or even desirable to maintain a perfect chronological approach with history while bringing along the younger siblings? Or do most prefer to simply fold the younger ones in as they are able to participate at whatever era the older children are studying? If you break the chronology for your younger children (i.e. starting your first grader with SOTW3 because that is what the other kids are doing) how does this work out in the long run? And how does this work if the oldest happens to be studying the modern era (holocaust, etc.,)?

This is a spin-off from the eager 4 year old thread: Quite a few people mentioned that they would not begin the SOTW series too early because then the child would be in volume 4 at a tender age. I had the same concerns with my own early learner. We are managing to avoid the modern era this time around by delaying it until dd is in 8th grade. However, I have two more children whom I will want to fold into our lessons as they are able to participate. We are beginning the history cycle again this coming year and when we return to volume 4 I will have an 8 1/2 year old and a 6 year old tagging along with my 8th grade dd. How would you handle this situation?

We are in 4th grade now with dd (almost 9) and still reading SOTW 3. I have had a tough time figuring out the whole homeschooling business and getting it all together these past few years. Also, as mentioned, I wasn't eager for dd to get to volume 4 too early. What I actually plan to do is either just read through or completely skip volume 4 for now and revisit it again in 8th grade. I do not think this delay will have any lasting consequence for her education - she already knows more history than I was ever taught. :o In the mean time, I plan to spend some time on geography and state history. We will return to the Ancients in the fall for 5th grade and begin to involve eager ds1 who will be 4 1/2 :)

I started homeschooling dd with just reading and Saxon K math. Once she was beginning to read independantly, I added SOTW1, and FLL and just fed her books on a variety of subjects. Don't be afraid to make adjustments if your dd's development in some areas is disproportionate to others. With my dd I had to approach the writing very gently, as her fine moter skill was pretty much at age level. I modified her lessons for the first 2 - 3 years so as not to frustrate her with too much writing. Also spelling didn't seem to "click" for her until she was 6 - 7 years old, but since then she has more than made up for lost time. At this time, both her spelling and writing are quickly approaching the same grade level as the rest of her studies. So have fun, be flexible, and watch your child's eyes. I could always tell when my dd had had enough because her eyes would glaze over and she would seem to forget everything she understood completely just a few minutes earlier. Don't be tempted to finish a lesson after she is tired. Take a break and come back to it later. There is plenty of time :)

We wanted to know with dd, and it was probably a good thing. We were very surprised when the u/s tech told us she was a girl because girls in dh's family are rare. We knew intuitively that ds1 would be a boy, but decided to be "surprised" anyways. I didn't have an u/s at all with ds2. We thought God just might give us another little girl since he made the miracle happen once already. So we didn't "know" nor did we have the "sneak preview" we found out when he was born that he was a boy.

Could I insert another question? I am fairly new to Singapore. The only books I have been using are the textbooks and workbook. I was unaware of the IP (what is that?) and the Challenging Word Problems. Are they for extra practice, or do they take the math lessons to another level? In other words - if she is "getting" the material from the text and workbooks, do I need to add these other books?

My daughter will be finishing Latina Christiana I in a few weeks. I am planning move her right into LCII and would expect to finish sometime next fall. At that time she will be 9 1/2 years old and in 5th grade. Should I move her on to Henle, or will the grammer be too advanced for her?