Great idea! Good for you. I agree that if you build it they will come; especially with children. We are the facilitators, so I think you're right on track thinking this way. I hope they all benefit greatly from this group :)

Ok, now there are 9 pages in this thread! I am new to hs'ing and am keeping a curriculum planning book. However, now that I know how awesome our books are, I realize I don't even need that b/c we just do the next lesson each week. I do write in the boxes, though, so that my DS9 and DD8 can look and see what they have to do that day.

Houswork is just one of those rotating, never ending, painful things of life. Sadly, my house is clean on one day of the week, the day my dear cleaning lady comes over. After that there are shoes, flip flops, socks, toothbrushes (I have a toddler), remote controls, hair accessories, baseball caps and tons of other stuff just flung around. Add to that the laundry I start working on during the weekend and O.M.G.!!! I forced everyone to do a tidy up tonight (being Sunday night, get ready for the week), and it looks better. But still... with kids and all the stuff they move around it is impossible to stay neat! Again, sadly, we live with full time air condition and hardly have the doors or windows open. Not so much dust in my house.

Well, whatever is safest is a good way to go!

I don't have any practical advice since I've been homeschooling all of two weeks now ;) Just wanted to offer some support!

Another vote here for start with #1. I'm a first time homeschooler with a 3rd and 4th grader. I am doing SOTW Vol I with them both and it's working out great. I will hopefully do all four with them in the upcoming 4 years.

Good to know we're each not alone in the bad attitude department! I can see you're trying to get her to be more positive in general. She might just be a negative person, so try to work with that. Maybe make a point to praise her more than you correct her (and not just cheerleader stuff, but genuine praise). Maybe *don't* give her too many options. Tell her what the plan for the day is and where her breaks are. I repeat a lot how I want good attitudes while we're working please. "if you can't have a good attitude you will get some extra work to do". When my DS9 totally messes up an afternoon lesson, I have him write a page of "I will not disrupt History class". And we put that sheet in his folder too!!! It isn't easy, and I think each stage has its challenges. Hopefully she'll come out of it.

Thanks Mallory! We do also look at the Kingfisher page that corresponds with the chapter. I will have them write their narrations from now on; I just did it myself last week 1)b/c we were short on time, and 2) I want them to see how I want it to be organized. Thank you for your encouragement! Means a lot to a first-timer! Btw, where are the tests? I didn't see any in the textbook nor the activity book. Is it a separate book?

Thank you, ShanVan, those were great ideas. I think I'll use the 'owe me time' thing.

Hi, this is my first post here, but I've been lurking for a few weeks. I just started using SOTW I with my 3rd and 4th graders. We use it 3 times a week and seem to have gotten through the first 2 chapters rather easily. I read to them, we discuss using the question in the teacher's book. We do a coloring page, map page, and maybe an extra activity. I asked them to narrate back to me what they learned, and I wrote it on notebook paper and put it in a folder. Am I on track?