Does your school do online grading? I love that our district does. I monitor my dd's progress almost daily. My dd is at school because she wasn't doing her work at home without pushing her to do every little thing so I really keep on top of what she is doing at school. At one point she hadn't turned in a bunch of LA homework which I made her get in. Overall it's been good for her accountability. I actually see her keeping on top of her work for the most part. She really dislikes LA and I think she didn't feel like doing some of the work. Most of the undone stuff was related to vocab words that they get each week. Dd is sick of doing them. My dd's math teacher collects homework daily but that seems like such a headache for him. He has 120 students and has to enter it for each student each day but at 7th I think they need the accountability each day. He doesn't actually grade the homework from what I can tell. As long as it is complete dd gets the points even if she has wrong answers. I'm sure he just doesn't have time to check every answer on 120 papers each day with every thing else he has to do.

I'd try to keep it as simple as possible. When my 6th was born I had 4 kids ages 3.5 and under. I wish that year I had picked something simple for my older girls. I had bought Winterpromise that year. Bad idea and we gave up about 6 weeks in. My youngest is almost 3 now so I definitely have time for a bit more than we used to. I like Rightstart Math but it's not something I would start if I was going to be adding a new baby. MFW K and MFW 1- I don't use the Math and most of the Science but I like how everything is right there. Elemental Science Intro to Science- Even my 4 yo can do this and it's pretty easy. I try to do it when my youngest is napping. Math Mammoth- Really easy to use. My 6 yo son loves worksheets though. My 6 yo dd doesn't really like it though. FLL 1- Short lessons and we can finish this quick. FIAR- We don't do this every week but my kids love most of the books.

We live less than 2 hours from Mount Vernon and finally made our first trip there for Homeschool Day today. I enjoyed it a lot and so did my 10 year old but my younger kids were bored and weren't that into it. I had bought a ticket for my 12 yo and was going to pull her from school for it but she decided she didn't want to miss school. I know she would have loved it so we'll have to go back on a weekend sometime. I saw lots of people from our homeschool group even though it's a pretty good drive. They definitely had a good turn out. The weather couldn't have been more perfect. If it had been like yesterday I almost would have reconsidered making the trip. We had no trouble parking but we got there around 10 am.

My 6 year old son had an extra tooth behind his front row of teeth. It was found by x-ray last summer and the dentist said they'd just watch it. It broke through a few months later and was bothering him so I took him in to have it checked in Dec and they did another x-ray. It was pushing on his permanent tooth that hadn't come in yet. We opted to have it pulled. Ds just had novocaine and laughing gas for the procedure. He did wince a little but it was over in less than 5 minutes. They had to pull one of his front teeth to have room to pull the extra tooth (called a mesioden). His permanent tooth still hasn't come in yet but from the x-ray it looks very crooked. I wish we'd had the tooth pulled earlier.

This sounds like my son. He turned 6 in June. He was born 2 months premature and shouldn't have been 6 until August. He is very immature for 6. I had started him on some 1st grade material that I wound up putting away after I realized he just wasn't ready for it yet. He does call himself 1st grade though and asks all the time when he will be in second grade.

Do you keep them on the same curriculum? They mostly use the same curriculum. Do you teach them at the same time or make an effort to do one-on-one? They do History and Science together. Reading and Math I do individually. Do they move at the same pace, and if not does one feel like they are "behind" the other? Mine are boy/girl so obviously not identical. My son is great at math. It just clicks for him and he is way ahead of dd in that area. He's a few lessons ahead of her on Rightstart right now but I anticipate him getting much farther ahead. Ds loves worksheets and could probably spend all day filling them out so he does MM and some other stuff that fulfills his need for worksheets. Dd doesn't really care for worksheets. Reading is going much better with dd than ds. Ds is having a hard time learning to blend and dd seems to get it. If they work together dd will try to answer for ds so reading is best done separate. Is there a lot of competition? Yes and that's why they do not do math and reading together. Often times my son will race to finish just so he's done first.

I've used Math Mammoth a little bit with my oldest that is in public school. She was confused on some fraction stuff so I had her do MM pages on fractions. I like MM because I could just buy the specific area she needed to work on for a few dollars. It's hard to find a time to do it with PS. Dd is tired at the end of the school day and often brings home lots of homework. She is not thrilled when I suggest she do extra stuff.

I have used both and find MFW much more doable for our family. We have tried 2 different WP programs and I've decided it is too much for me. If I did attempt it again I would have to allow myself to skip stuff. They have so many extra websites to visit and hands on projects to do that I could never keep up. MFW usually has 1 small project a week. Like this week we made wigwams using cereal box cardboard strips, an old paper bag ripped in pieces, and glue. Last week we did Scottish Shortbread. They aren't super neat projects but I find myself doing them because they are easy to pull together.

I've had FIAR a long time. I didn't use it much with my older kids thinking they needed something more in depth. This year I'm doing it with my 6 year old twins and I don't know why I ever felt like it wasn't enough. They really seem to remember a lot of the stuff we do with FIAR. I put together simple lapbooks for most books using either Homeschool Share or I will occasionally buy the digital lapbooks from FIAR. They are $9 each so I don't do it for all of them but all the ones I've gotten have had fun activities. The story disks are one of my favorite parts of it. We have them all over our laminated world and USA maps. I had actually started SOTW 1 this year and was going to do that instead of FIAR this year but decided we're just going to do FIAR. I may do SOTW next year but I'd like my kids to do most of the FIAR books and I think there are 71 in all counting the new digital units.

Those look great. I had been making my own for SOTW 3 but these would be way more convenient.

I have a friend that teaches high school and has several illegal immigrants in her classes. She has said that a lot of the kids don't apply themselves and she understands why. She said they can never go to college or hold a legal job. Why would they care if they do well in high school? They're going to be stuck working illegal jobs pretty much their whole life. She says a lot of them have babies young because the baby will become a citizen. I don't know if the mom would then be able to apply for citizenship or not. It does seem like there should be a way after they've grown up and been educated here but I don't think there is.

I like that Teaching Textbooks gives 2 tries on a problem. My dd will try to figure it out if she gets it wrong and go back and fix it if she'll get her points back. I just print out the grade sheet TT generates to add to her portfolio. My dd at public school is able to correct her math quizzes for additional points so I see it as similar to this. Plus there have been plenty of times dd gets the right answer and then just enters it wrong and this way it doesn't count against her.

We do 4 days mainly because we do a homeschool co-op on Wednesdays. I am just too exhausted by the time we get home Wed afternoon to do any schoolwork. However I only plan to take 1 week off around Christmas so we can finish our current program by middle June. If we were doing 5 days we'd probably do more breaks.

I'd like to switch to AAS for my 5th grader. I have level 1 I'm using with my 6 year old twins. I imagine she'd go through it pretty quickly but I figured I'd start there because I already have it and I don't think she knows all the rules they go over. How many levels could she go through in the school year? Her spelling isn't great although it's not horrible but she frequently makes very simple spelling errors. She's doing Sequential Spelling 1 right now which she says is okay but I don't think she's gotten much out of it. I was considering ordering Levels 2-5 but that is a lot to spend at once and I wasn't sure if we'd get through it all by August. Dd is planning to go to public middle school next year with her sister but I may continue AAS in the evening. They don't seem to do spelling at the middle school at all at least not for 7th. I'm not sure what they do for 6th graders.

This has been a problem for us. My oldest was doing TT 6 and got through about half of it and then went into 7th grade PS. Math has been a struggle because she is definitely behind in that area. She's in basic Math 7. She does not know enough fractions. She never did number lines and they seem to use that for a lot of stuff. She does have a B in the class but she's really had to work at it. My 10 yo is on lesson 102 of Grade 4 and they have yet to do any division. It looks like on lesson 104 they finally get to it but really a 4th grade textbook should be devoting a large amount of time to division. I would like to switch her to something else but she says she likes TT better than MUS and I'm not sure I want to switch programs when she is planning to go to public school next year with her sister. I supplement with Calculadders (my dd loves timed tests so this has worked well) and LOF Fractions. I'm hoping to do both Fractions and Decimals this year but my kid seems to be the only one I've heard of that despises LOF so I may supplement with Math Mammoth instead if she isn't liking it better in a few weeks.

I would too. We've only done 2 weeks of Exp to 1850 and we haven't done a book basket book yet. I have a decent library but getting over there during their very limited hours is a struggle. Plus I need to be on top of things and request in advance because the library is small so something almost always has to be sent from another branch. I'd much rather buy a book package. What I think I may do is buy Core 3 Advanced Readers and use those with my 5th grader. I'm planning to do Adventures for 2nd grade with my twins after we do MFW 1. We'll be done with MFW K in the next couple months. I've been thinking I'd use the Readers from WP AS 1 with Adventures mainly because I already own them but I haven't purchased Adventures yet to see if that would work.

At least 3 hours probably closer to 4. Math is usually at least 45 minutes, more if we do LOF. Dd does TT and Calculadders 4 days a week (we take Wed off for co-op). She also does LOF 2 days a week and Mindbenders 2 days a week. About 10-15 for Geography (Trail Guide to US Geography- just using the questions and mapping exercises), 15 minutes for Sequential Spelling, and another 10 min for Cursive. MBTP Lit we spend at least 45 minutes on each day. History I'm not sure on we do that after the little guys go to bed, maybe 30 min depending on how much reading there is. I do the MFW reading and then she narrates back and I write it down and she copies it into her notebook the next day. IEW Writing I only do 2 days a week because it takes so long. Those days I never do Science which has been a hodge podge of stuff lately. We both hated the Sonlight 5 Science I had bought for this year. We also practice some Latin each day even if it's 15 minutes. Dd loves Art so she does that most days but that's more for fun. She's been using Mark Kistler online the last month so doesn't need my help with that. Dd claims I'm a slave driver but I still think she has it okay. She is rarely up before 10 am. I work with my younger kids earlier so there is no reason to get her up. We do most our work in the afternoon and then some again after my younger kids are in bed when it's quiet in the house. Compared to my 7th grader that is gone over 8 hours a day for school and brings home an hour or so of homework each night I'd say dd has it pretty good.

I finally ordered the Intro to Science just because I had heard so many great things and it is pretty inexpensive. My 6 year old twins and my almost 4 year old really like it. We already are doing MFW with the occasional FIAR book so probably didn't need anymore science but the experiments are really short and easy at least so far and they have enjoyed them. I don't feel like I have to do the whole thing since I have other stuff but if I have a little extra time we'll do an experiment.

WP American Story 1 I wanted so badly to make this work but I just struggled with it. The bazillion paper crafts just made it worse. It was my most frustrating year ever and I just about enrolled the kids in school. I had it pulled out to sell but I just decided to keep it. I actually like most of the books and will just read them to the kids. It was mainly the IG I couldn't stand. 100 EZ Lessons Never could figure out why this was so well liked. At least this one was inexpensive.

I'm doing B4FIAR with my 3.5 year old. We only do it a couple times a week but she really enjoys it. The stories just seem more on her level than FIAR but she'll listen to those stories when we do them too but she doesn't seem to get much out of the activities. My dd also really likes Confessions of a Homeschooler Letter of the Week. She thinks she is just playing but she already knows all her letters and a lot of the sounds from that. She also does HWT preschool book but that's mainly because my older kids are using that and she always wants her own.

This makes me feel a little better about putting WWE away for awhile. My twins are very young 1st grade (summer bday and born 2 months premature) and I read about what others are doing for 1st and feel like they are behind. Their handwriting just isn't there yet for WWE. It is very close but they got frustrated with WWE and I'm guessing by Christmas time I can pull it back out again. We likely wouldn't finish it until halfway through 2nd grade that way. They do some copywork which is fairly short. I use a hodge podge of stuff. I have a ton leftover from my older girls. Right now we are doing MFW K mainly for the phonics stuff with the read alouds and the occasional science project. I do one FIAR book about every 2 weeks and we are slowly doing SOTW 1. It will probably take 1.5 years for SOTW 1 at our pace but that's okay. They also do Rightstart B (ds loves worksheets and does MM as well). Other things we use are FLL 1, Get Set for the Code (just about done with those), HWT Kindergarten book, and Elemental Science Intro to Science.

I made the mistake when I first started with Sonlight of thinking that the Cores corresponded to grades. We did most of Core 1 and then for 3rd grade I decided to do Core 3 for my oldest dd. She has dyslexia and was a very late reader. The reading was too much for her and we wound up sending it back. I think we would have loved it a year or two later but after that I avoided Sonlight for a couple years because I thought it didn't fit us. I keep going back to it though and I think my problem was trying to use the Cores on the early end of the recommended age. Last summer I bought Core 5 from a friend that was done with it intending to use it for 5th grade but I decided to shelve it for a year or two. My dd I wanted to use it with just turned 10 and after reading some of the books I thought they would be a challenge. I think it would have been okay but I think she'd get more out of it if we do it in a year or two. We're doing MFW instead and adding in some of the Core 3 readers and read alouds.

I have one child in public school but I think in your situation I'd homeschool both kids. My child in school is almost 13 so that helps a lot because she can get off the bus by herself and stay alone for a little while in the afternoon if necessary. That makes it more flexible with what I can do with the other kids because I don't have to worry about being home by 3:30. The field trip thing is hard. Dd did just get to go to a museum in DC with school. She's upset she's missing the fall festival the rest of us are going to next week with our homeschool co-op and we have a few other ones planned. But I'm not going to not go because dd will be upset. My other children have needs too and we aren't going to hole up at home every minute dd is at school so she doesn't miss anything. So much of the time after school is devoted to her with homework and extracurriculars that I don't feel too bad. We are planning to go to Mount Vernon for homeschool day in Nov and for that I would probably pull dd out of school for the day but I can't do it for every field trip.

We just enrolled our 12 year old dd in public school this year. She was behind and I felt like I was spending all of my day trying to work with her and my other kids were suffering as a result. My twins did nearly nothing for K last year because I had no energy to work with them. I think that is okay for K but this year is 1st and I wanted to devote a lot of time to them. We've actually had the time for lap books and some other fun stuff I wouldn't have dreamed about last year when I was hovering over my 12 yo to get her to do anything. My dd is a super slow reader and writing just about anything is like pulling teeth. Math she was about a year behind of where she would be. The public school put her in regular math and language arts to see how she'd do because she'd never been in school before. All other classes there are no choices for levels. After 2 months her grades are fine. I was so worried she'd be failing. We did just put her through a program at a local learning center. They used PACE (processing and cognitive enhancement) and Master the Code (improved her spelling immensely- it was 2nd grade level last spring). Dd has 4 As right now, a high B in Language Arts, and a middle B in Math. I thought the work would be more rigorous than it is. The writing thus far has been minimal.

They are both good programs. They are different in layout but I like both. MBTP is nice because the worksheets are all right there. Most of the worksheets I've really liked and I don't feel like they are just busy work. Five in a Row I feel like you can go off on little rabbit trails a little easier. With FIAR we usually put a lapbook together for each book which my kids always like to look back on and seems to reinforce what they've done. You can get just once Concept from MBTP to try. That's what I did. For the 5-7 and 6-8 there are just 4 different concept books for the year. Once you hit 7-9 they have separate lit units. I'm using just the lit units right now with my 10 yo and I really like them. I'm also using the 5-7 Environment as the occasional supplement for my 6 yo twins. They made maps of their bedrooms and we've talked about different animal habitats. I have them skip the handwriting sheets because they already have other writing stuff they do. Cost wise FIAR is so much cheaper. It starts adding up fast with MBTP if you buy a lot of the Lit units. If we do 12 this year it will be $180 for the manuals.