My son is doing running start which is where they go to college and get college and high school credit. he joined Phi Beta Kappa this year he was invited when he got over a 3.5 I think GPA

My son is doing running start which is where they go to college and get college and high school credit. he joined Phi Beta Kappa this year he was invited when he got over a 3.5 I think GPA

Curriculums? curricula? anyway... My family is in kind of an extreme situation right now we just pulled out my three-year-old from public-school preschool. He has low functioning autism and needs to be attended to one-on-one all day long I'm struggling to manage everybody's schoolwork and I'm trying to switch to everything independent that I can so far we are using easy Peasy Homeschool and we really like it any other suggestions? thanks!

I use it with my older children my sixth and eighth grader we supplement lightly, but overall I find it to be a fairly complete curriculum. Right now we need very independent work to happen with our family situation so I'm thrilled with it I think it's a huge blessing and I'm so glad to have it. i think it could make a good base even if you add stuff to it and it could be a very good basic start for school. Certainly can't beat the price!

Very eager to hear others' experience with this!

my very very favorite of those type shows is "pioneer quest" its a canadian version, like frontier house, minus all the drama... its nearly imipossible to find though :(

we are starting with this one with some of the subjects in Jan http://allinonehomeschool.wordpress.com/

ugg, sorry! another duplicate!

we intentionally have decided not to do Christmas gifts, but are also having to forego much of what we'd normally love to do this time of year, because of finances, and i am STILL finding myself massively stressed out and down during this last weekend, in particular, and feeling anxious and just all around not at ease about buying our essentials. its a difficult time. i can just so relate to all this, and its strangely encouraging seeing others in the same position.

Cat- Ahhhh... see that makes a lot of sense, i didn't mean to belittle your perspective- i just read it entirely differently- i read it like "she saw more value in doing the service like things (and of course baking cookies and whatnot is FUN!) and the experiences of Christmas, probably largely because i've come to that conclusion myself so i was probably 'relating' to her post a lot, if that makes sense.

I made a post about our no-gift Christmas plan that we did last year and will this year as well on my blog here- http://homeschoolingwiththekvenvoldens.blogspot.com/2012/11/how-about-radical-christmas-this-year.html This probably won't be meaningful if you aren't a Christian, but if you are, maybe that can put things into perspective, particularly check out the Ann Voscamp article i linked to and the Advent conspiracy video!!

OUCH! a bit judgmental there! Its a bit of a stretch to suggest that her children will be devastated by not getting more "stuff" when maybe more activities, more real TIME, more experiences would be far more needed/wanted than a few cheap toys!!

oooooh! that's cool! i spent a good portion of the afternoon looking for blogs featuring moms using this curriculum and didn't find ANY using this particular one which was surprising, i am also adding on bigger, since that will work beautifully wtih my youngers, i think.

Im thinking about buying parts of it and finishing out the year with it. my loose plan is NOT working. I'm wondering mainly how "doable" to an overwhelmed overworked mama :) i just LOVE the lit selections, actually, everything! we are already using all american history, and i LOVE the Bible program it uses... anyway, if you have any tips or whatever, i'd love to hear it!

wow! i guess i'm not alone! we took a pay cut when dh's overtime was drastically cut, AND stuff costs more. NOT fun, we've actually been visiting the food bank a couple times a month, which is NOT fun.

So my daughter, age 9 is pretty severely learning disabled, we aren't sure exactly what yet, but we do know that her visual skills are excellent and we are leaning toward severe auditory processing disorder. At any rate, i'm NOT able to explain math to her well at all and her therapist recommended she use an abacus for her math right now, she suggested i buy one and just practice with her, and ditch our current math curricula- jump math- but i'm thinking i could use a little help, so i'm thinking of getting the set from rightstart like this- http://store.rightstartmath.com/alabacuspacket.aspx is this a good choice or might a different one be a better choice- my situation is that i'm both seriously time crunched and money crunched, or i'd just buy the whole shebang. i've done this curricula before, but crashed and burned, but i think i HAVE to devote more time to it to help annabeth succeed. i did see an earlier post from 2009 that showed a picture of a homemade abacus which i might make, since i could make a BUNCH and we could each have one! anyway... i'd love any feedback and if you are selling anything you suggest, let me know that too!

here's one we did, from my blog http://homeschoolingwiththekvenvoldens.blogspot.com/2012/10/todays-art-project.html we did this and it was fun http://www.allkidsnetwork.com/crafts/fall/fall-leaf-craft.asp have a few others on my pinterest http://pinterest.com/mamakven/seasonal/

I'm finding i'm falling back into the typical for us pattern of never getting to art, music, critical thinking, so i'm going to be doing a loop schedule that looks like this- I'll draw a circle- at even points in the circle add 5 "maths" then add 5 " " "LAs" at 5 points, or maybe i'll break it down to spelling, writing, phonics, etc. haven't decided- then 5 read aloud spots then i'll add in 3 history spots, as i want to do history 3x a week, and science maybe 2 x a week so 2 spots for science, art 1x music 1x critical thinking either 1 or 2x a week. geog. 1x etc. That circle will represent an entire ideal week. Since that ideal week will likely n never happen, we likely will NOT do the subjects as planned but they will form a ratio for how i want them covered. Make sense? i'll likely just make the schedule a list style schedule after i get the visual created, and maybe I can challenge myself to how far we can get numberwise on the schedule each week? regardless, i'll know that everything is getting covered, at least SOME.

Thanks Chris!!! LOL about my pinterest boards :) yeah, kinda crazy about the pinterest :) Thanks! i'm going to do exactly that. i DO have a low shelf that he can use, and i could totally stash the stuff elsewhere before ash gets home! Thanks!! i like the rug idea too! R

Thanks Chris! i AM on pinterest, and if you see my page, http://pinterest.com/mamakven/ you will see that i have ZERO excuse for being stumped! i have every idea on the face of the universe!!!! its implementing it that's stumping me. I'm awesome at research, not so great with follow through. and the problem is, i have a really tight space for school... i do have a shelf in our living area- within reach of ash that i can have access to, the one in the dining room with most of our stuff is gated, so he can't access that one. But i LOVE the ideas you have there... i have some of the super cute oriental trading company trays they used to sell, so maybe i'll find somewhere during the day to lay them out for elliott to choose. i like the idea of tying the scissors to the box :) You must know Elliott :) he's industrious and creative and once tried to flood my bathroom :)

anyone?

So my twins just turned 3 at the end of july, Asher is in preschool, he has autism, and we just really NEED the break from him and don't have any other way of getting it, and so he's gone from 8:30-11:45 about, but his twin, Elliott, is home, and is kind of attention deprived, so as precious as school time is around here, i think i'll take the first half hour or so to play with elliott one on one... the others, ages 13, 11, 8, and 6 can do independent work, or therapy (dc 8 and 13 have neurological issues) I'm thinking maybe helping him with eye hand stuff, cutting, folding etc, and reading with him. After that, i'm trying to think of things i can do with him so he doesn't burn the house down- he's one of those WAY too smart kids who are kind of scary... does anyone have any ideas or resources? i've not quite trained him to clean up after himself yet, most of the other kiddos just played with a toy, cleaned it up, and put it back, so maybe i should head in that direction, i want to try and make our home a bit more friendly for that too, but with asher, i'm limited in how accessable stuff can be, and also i need some time alone at home to DO that, ugg. any websites, ideas, tips, would be awesome!!! R

uh, yeah, that would be NEVER. i'm trying to talk him into it today so i can try and revamp our organization in our school area..

Ok, so i'm not ENTIRELY sure i understand exactly what Calderwood is promoting, i'll have to check it out, but if i'm understanding it correctly, its much like we school- we have a minimal amount of group work in the morning, and the rest of the day is devoted to whatever each student would like to learn. For example, Nik, my 13yo is currently working on 1 year adventure novel and is fascinated with dinosaurs... so all his extra time goes to that- either that or extra history. I make sure they have some basics in the morning- math, language, history, art, science, but they can take what they like and bunny trail on their own with plenty of time to do so. The reasons we switched from a more lockstep WTM approach to this is because in reading John Holt and others regarding what children learn, and by observing my own children and myself, it became evident that i could "teach" them until i was blue in the face if i wanted to- but i can't make them LEARN anything. That is their choice, and they are FAR more likely to get a good quality education, albeit less balanced, perhaps if they follow their interests. And let's face it, most of us don't need balance, we need functionality in the world and specific skills. When my now 17yo aspie was 5, i'd limit his lego time, in favor of more "important" subjects, despite him building elaborate stru ctures which i had no idea were WAY beyond grade level ability, now he's a senior in highschool going to his second year of college, just finished calc 3 and plans to be an engineer. Its not because i forced him to do extra history either :) I've learned a lot from these little people and that's one thing i've gleaned that has heavily impacted how i'm schooling them now. Of course this only works in an environment that is free of distractions- tv, computer games, wii, etc. only happens saturday afternoon in our house so pretty much everything they are doing is educational.