My dd is at the end of her 5th grade year and is now doing R&S English almost completely independently. She has been using R&S since grade 3--I think that makes a difference. Each year covers the same topics but in more detail or adding more information. I wouldn't expect a child who hasn't done much R&S before to be successful on her own. But after a couple of years of us going through the material together, she is now doing a good job of reading the chapter on her own and understanding the material. If there is a worksheet for the chapter she does that, otherwise I usually assign odds or evens for her to do on a whiteboard or in a notebook. For really easy lessons we might do them orally on the sofa. I do follow up with her periodically to make sure she's learning everything okay. She is strong in language arts stuff and has been doing just fine on her own.

Dds used to take turns being the rich Roman or the slave scrubbing her back during their baths.

Another "like" here!

I would definitely be there. Would love to hear everyone you mentioned plus Michael Clay Thompson and Andrew Kern as part of the dream team. I would be there to focus on academic issues and would skip any sessions by anyone trying to tell me how they think I should be living my life. Wouldn't mind a good vendor hall. I think focusing on academics or a classical or classical Christian approach to education is the way to distinguish it from the annual OCEAN conference which I see as more worldview-focused. And probably having it in some month other than June would be good (theirs is usually about the 3rd week of June).

For grammar level we read The Boy Who Saved the Town by Brenda Seabrooke--a picture book about a boy who has the idea of hanging lanterns in the trees so the British will aim too high and miss the town. The endnote says that according to tradition this happened in St. Michaels Maryland.

I would argue that no one is going to "own" home schooling as we move into the future. I think for a long time it has been owned more or less by fundamentalist Christians because that is the group that chose to home school first. But as home schooling becomes more mainstream there are many more home schoolers who don't fit this category. As much as Ken Ham and Doug Phillips want to control what everybody does and thinks, the amount of control that they have will be decreasing over time. And I say this as a Christian, just one that doesn't want my worldview defined by them. Much of the country still doesn't have access to home school conventions. Home schooling can't really be defined by the people who own the conventions. Conventions are just one source of many for information. All of the Great Home School conventions (or whatever the name was) were east of the Mississippi. For states like ours where the only convention is the hit-you-over-the-head-with-our-worldview convention, many many home schoolers just don't go. I don't think it's even on the radar for most people starting out home schooling where I live. If you want an easy start, what is appealing to more and more people are the online public charter schools. You get to do school at home without the bullying, peer issues, forced schedule of B&M schools, but you don't have to do the work and thinking of planning what to teach. As the definition of home schooling expands to include other models of learning at home, there is too much entropy in the system for any one worldview or group to "own" home schooling.

Pick the one that you'll use. For me that's the treadmill. Everybody can walk. And when you're ready for more, pick up the pace and run. I have to admit I've never even tried an elliptical, but the treadmill is easy to get started on.

I think I paid about $42 (total with shipping) last summer ordering through AmazonUK. And they came in about 2 days.

Finished Duty and Desire by Pamela Aidan, the second book in her Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman series. I am waiting for book 3 to show up in the mail--it shipped last Monday. Hopefully tomorrow. I also just finished Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls and have the smeared eye makeup from the tears to prove it. I'll assign it to dd for schoolwork now. At the moment nothing in progress. 2011 Reading List 20. Where the Red Fern Grows-Wilson Rawls 19. Duty and Desire-Pamela Aidan 18. An Assembly Such As This-Pamela Aidan 17. Left Neglected-Lisa Genova 16. Classics in the Classroom-Michael Clay Thompson 15. True You-Janet Jackson 14. The Samurai’s Garden-Gail Tsukiyama 13. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet-Jamie Ford 12. God’s Middle Finger-Richard Grant 11. Kristin Lavransdatter-I: The Wreath-Sigrid Undset 10. The Housekeeper and the Professor-Yoko Ogawa 9. A Lucky Child-Thomas Buergenthal 8. Three Cups of Tea-Greg Mortenson 7. Run-Ann Patchett 6. The Red Queen-Philippa Gregory 5. Agnes Grey-Anne Bronte 4. The Daughter of Time-Josephine Tey 3. Mythology-Edith Hamilton 2. Phantom Toll Booth-Norton Juster 1. Her Fearful Symmetry-Audrey Niffenegger

I think the early Latin programs to look at are Prima Latina, Song School Latin, and Minimus. They are for having fun and getting your feet wet--an introduction. I see Lively Latin as more on a par with Latina Christiana and Latin for Children. Use them when you are ready for a more comprehensive grammar approach to the language--roughly 3rd grade or so. Each of these has their own style. Prima and LC are ecclesiastical, a bit more dry. Lively Latin has more cultural information. I find LfC fun and complete. There are others out there too--these are just the ones I looked at. From the samples, LfC really fit the way my brain worked (and dd thinks a lot like I do). We've been happy with it. We love languages here, but I couldn't see us having success with this before about 3rd grade. My youngest has enjoyed tagging along since her K year, but she's not trying to master the grammar.

Luckily I don't have to decide every subject every year. For most subjects, once I find something I like I just get the next year. But of course every year there are a few things that are new--like adding Latin or starting vocabulary. I do look at samples and reviews. I try to get a feel for what the program is like and visualize how it would work for me. I think I usually do a pretty good job at finding one that fits our style the first time. Once I own it, I use it and teach it. I don't second-guess or dream about what else is out there. Occasionally I will buy something just so I can get my hands on it and check it out. My Rainbow Resource order will have both the Singapore Math NEM first semester book and their Discovering Math book so I can see both and get a better feel for what might fit dd for the 2012-2013 school year. And I'm guilty of using more than one program in several subjects because I find value in approaching things in different ways. Our home school budget allows for some of this--if it were really tight I would have to just make the best decision I could based on samples and reviews and then live with it. I do think that for any given subject there are lots of options that I could make work--I'm not searching for the one perfect magical program. And in my experience whatever I choose does seem to work just fine.

It helps to be familiar with different programs' catalogs or book lists, such as Sonlight, Veritas Press, Tapestry of Grace, Winter Promise, etc. We use Biblioplan for history which has a list of books that include classtime/references/spines (SOTW, Famous Men, Cultural Atlases), readers in 3 age brackets (K-2, 3+, 5+), and family read-alouds. These books are scheduled for you in a 36 week schedule. You don't (can't) do all of them--pick and choose the spine you want to use, etc. Keep reading threads here too--people are often asking for favorite books from a particular time period and you can add those to your mental list. You will begin to see which books are not-to-be-missed because they are on multiple lists. For your kids' ages, I have really appreciated Biblioplan because the K-2 readers are all picture books. The SOTW AG also has books for the younger set. Sonlight and VP tend to skew toward older kids. And if a recommended book isn't in our library, I usually just look at the books that our library does have on that same general topic. It works out fine. Biblioplan does not share their book list, but you can get some idea of their program from the sample pages at their website: http://www.biblioplan.net/

I've used SWO with my older dd and after a couple of years switched to Spelling by Sound and Structure (that's the R&S one--right?). Anyway, I love R&S spelling and the 2nd grade book starts at the beginning--no need to do spelling before that book. I chose to use the R&S 2nd grade book in first grade for my youngest dd but she was reading and finishing up phonics by that point. I don't think you gain anything by doing SWO before that book. You're fine waiting until 2nd grade.

VBS is free at our church and at others in our town. We budget $1000 and draw about 100 kids which is really good for our small church. Fewer than 10 kids are from our church. We do always have some kind of offering project--food drive, school supply drive, or raising funds for mosquito nets in Africa last year. The offering projects are always well-received and successful. We see VBS as one of our most significant ministries and a way to be part of our community.

No big list here, but my two absolute favorites for this period are Johnny Tremain and Carry On, Mr. Bowditch.

We found ourselves at the Chipotle a couple of times. We had been parked in a two hour spot in Colonial Williamsburg and needed to drive somewhere anyway and it is nearby. My kiddos all love quesadillas, but my disabled dd can be particularly difficult to feed, and since quesadillas are her favorite, Chipotle was an easy lunch for us.

No t.v. We do not have cable and the only station we can see is PBS, but we don't watch it unless there is a presidential election! We do have a family movie night a couple of times a month. At times we will watch things that have educational value, like Ken Burns' Civil War series or Liberty's Kids, but there hasn't been much of that this year. No Netflix here. I will buy DVDs that I think we'll watch a lot; otherwise we get them at the library. For the most part we all choose to read instead of watch.

This may sound silly, but if you have a home state you might try getting your congress person involved. I occasionally read stories in our paper where our local senators and representatives have been able to resolve red-tape issues like this very quickly for their constituents.

I've had this book on my Amazon wishlist for a few years now. I'm sure I read about it here. My kiddos are not obvious future engineers and have been too young for this, but I still might get it someday. Worth looking at. http://www.amazon.com/Art-Construction-Principles-Beginning-Architects/dp/1556520808/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3RN9LSIW9VUTG&colid=3G16BSKPDAU7Y

This made me chuckle. This was me with Surprised by Joy. I'll have to try it again now that I'm older and wiser. I've been caught up in the world of Pride and Prejudice this week. From another thread here I found out about a trilogy by Pamela Aidan that tells the events from Darcy's point of view. This week I read An Assembly Such As This and enjoyed it quite a bit. Then I decided it was high time to introduce my girls to the A&E P&P production with Colin Firth (they loved Mrs. Bennet. I loved Colin Firth!). I checked my library on the computer and they had the other two books of the series on the shelf, except that when I got there, someone had checked out the third book hours ahead of me! So it's not due back until April 20th and I don't think I can wait that long. I am reading book 2 now, Duty and Desire, but have already peeked ahead and this one takes place entirely between the events in Hertfordshire and the events at Rosings (i.e. no Elizabeth Bennet). Yesterday I ordered the third book used from Amazon and hope it doesn't take too long to get here. Then last night I re-read my favorite parts of P&P. I've got it bad. Still have Where the Red Fern Grows in progress. 2011 so far: 2011 Reading List 18. An Assembly Such As This-Pamela Aidan 17. Left Neglected-Lisa Genova 16. Classics in the Classroom-Michael Clay Thompson 15. True You-Janet Jackson 14. The Samurai’s Garden-Gail Tsukiyama 13. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet-Jamie Ford 12. God’s Middle Finger-Richard Grant 11. Kristin Lavransdatter-I: The Wreath-Sigrid Undset 10. The Housekeeper and the Professor-Yoko Ogawa 9. A Lucky Child-Thomas Buergenthal 8. Three Cups of Tea-Greg Mortenson 7. Run-Ann Patchett 6. The Red Queen-Philippa Gregory 5. Agnes Grey-Anne Bronte 4. The Daughter of Time-Josephine Tey 3. Mythology-Edith Hamilton 2. Phantom Toll Booth-Norton Juster 1. Her Fearful Symmetry-Audrey Niffenegger

I finished C25K a few weeks ago. My goal is just to run a 5k race this spring or summer (running the whole way). That's enough for me.

I'm not familiar with MUS materials but will offer an opinion anyway! I think I would do fractions and decimals in one year, and then the "supplement" year would perhaps include those topics, but others too. We are enjoying LoF Fractions this year and I will get Decimals and Percents for next year. We use that as a supplement to Singapore and Horizons, so we just do it in sporadic chunks when we finish a major Singapore unit. If I was really trying to make sure my dc's math skills were solid before moving forward, I would be tempted to do an all-encompassing choice like Horizons 6A/6B. Horizons is our supplement with Singapore being our main program. It does a nice job of continually bringing up previous topics and it has a broad sample of problems in each lesson. Since MUS is a mastery approach with just one topic at a time, something like this would be a good review to make sure all skills are sharp. I think focusing only on fractions and decimals for two years would be a bit limiting. Horizons would make sure your student can still do long division, multiplication, geometry, etc.

Another vote for MCT. We jumped in at Town level this year and did Building Poems with my 10 yo 5th grader and 8 yo 2nd grader. It's been wonderful. We now understand that poems are constructed and that words are chosen carefully. And that even prose writers use these ideas to improve their writing. We did the poetry writing assignments as a team with a white board. Not sure my kiddos could write a particular meter correctly on their own. We all learned a lot and the girls seem to be retaining the major ideas. My 8 yo had to point out the alliteration in the pajamas we got her at Target today: purple playful puppies.

I was wondering how far down the thread I would have to read to find a response like this. It was the first thing that popped into my mind!

We need a cat sitter. I would pay for someone who had time to not just feed him, but spend quality time with him while we're on vacation. 14 year olds are more likely to have that time than older kids.