This sounds pretty normal to me from my experience teaching 2 of mine.

My 5 year old really isn't using anything that my older child used, but I THINK that my next child will use some of the same things that my current 5 year old uses. I have a much better handle on what I like and what I want now, but who knows how I'll feel in 2.5 years?

If you print in Fastdraft mode it uses MUCH less ink, therefore decreasing the price considerably (at least that's been my experience). I never print in normal mode.

Ok, I'll have the unpopular opinion here. :tongue_smilie: If my child brought something up, I would discuss it with him/her, but try to do so in a way similar to what someone else said about feeling sorry for him, he must be unhappy, etc.... If my child didn't bring it up, and he wasn't directing nastiness directly towards my child, then I wouldn't say anything. My parents both had issues with their parents that I never knew about until I was much older, and I'm glad they gave that gift to me. My goal is to try to make sure that my kids have the best possible relationships that they can with their grandparents, so I avoid speaking unkindly of relatives in front of them. We certainly have some "crazy" in our family as far as certain relatives, but I don't think it hurts for a child to be sheltered from that until they bring it up and want to discuss it. Besides, I do think that sometimes when we have a negative opinion of someone, we end up overreacting to everything they do (at least I do). Anyway, that's just my opinion. I also should note that my oldest is only 9, so I don't have experience with 8th graders and where they are emotionally, so maybe my answer would be different if I did. :001_smile:

A few years ago, I would have said that it was a great idea! Go for it! Fast forward a few years, and now I'd be much more cautious about doing so. I really thought that I'd continue with what I have for all 3 kids and bought consumables to cover my 2 younger children in a number of different books. However, now that my 2nd child is 5, I'm re-evaluating everything that we've been doing and realizing that I really want to go in another direction. Has my 1st child been receiving a decent education? Definitely. The reality is though that I think there are better ways to achieve some of the things we've been doing that I didn't know about as a new homeschooler. Can it work for some people? Sure. I'd just be absolutely sure that I loved the material and really believe that its the best available thing out there. Good luck deciding what to do!

If you decide to stay at one of the Hotels, make sure to call and find out if they're doing construction or not beforehand if that will bother you. We like to stay at the Disneyland Hotel because my kids like the Peter Pan pool, but the last time we stayed they were in the middle of a big construction project. They're updating rooms and the pool. It didn't make a difference to us as the pool wasn't closed off and we were never in our room during the day to be annoyed by construction sounds. It was also nice to stay in a room with new furniture, decor, etc..... Anyway, again, no matter where you stay, on or off property, it never hurts to call and ask about that. I would probably take 4-5 days to visit if I was coming from out of town (but we like to have relaxing vacations and not feel rushed....it's very doable in 2-3 days during off season). My kids would choose longer if they could. Even though we have passes and live nearby, we still plan a small vacation there every year. :)

I guess it really does depend on when you go, expectations, etc.... We live in CA so go to Disneyland/CA Adventure often, and we love it. I wasn't so thrilled with CA Adventure when it opened, but I've come to appreciate it more over the years. We have always received excellent service at the Disneyland Hotels and the Parks. While we enjoyed our one trip to Walt Disneyworld, we felt the same as a previous poster. The cast members were not as polite and helpful, and we actually had a bad experience at our hotel. There were 2 separate issues - one being broken glass in our room that my then 2 1/2 year old almost put into her mouth saying, "Ice!", but luckily we got to her before she did. We had just checked into our room (which obviously wasn't clean), and it took several hours and phone calls before someone came to clean THE GLASS OFF OF THE FLOOR for us. It was crazy, and along with our other bad hotel incident, we really felt like Disneyland gives much better hotel service. We were also disappointed with some of the rides and attractions, like Small World and the Tiki room. To this day, my kids refer to the FL Tiki Room as the "Bad Tiki Room." On the other hand, we liked that the teacups were covered and went faster than ours, and there was one other ride that we felt was better (Pooh maybe? Can't remember). Overall, we still had a fabulous trip, but I think Disneyland will always be our favorite.

I usually just don't say anything. Occasionally I might say something along the lines of, "We all have to do what works best for our families." I really don't know what I'm supposed to say after a comment like that.

:iagree:

I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I personally love to buy books. If I could own everything that I've ever read and liked, I would. We have bookshelves throughout the house, and my oldest will reread books that she enjoys (has read the Harry Potter books 3 times so far). When I was young we didn't get to own many books, but I treasured the ones that we did (and still have some of them today at 40). I figure that my other 2 kids will read many of the books that my oldest has read someday, so they will be well loved. Eventually I will also probably sell some as they outgrow them I guess (but we'll see). I personally don't enjoy going to the library with babies/toddlers, so this has worked better for me. My youngest is 2 right now, so in another year or so, we'll probably start using the library more (and my kids love the library as much as they love owning books it seems). I have fond memories of the library growing up and wish that we used it more, but currently we primarily use the library we are building at home. :tongue_smilie:

Monday we'll be making cookies with my mom at her house. Friday we'll be caroling with some people from our park day at a senior center. Tuesday we'll be celebrating at Disneyland. :tongue_smilie: Sometime this week we'll be passing our fliers for a coat drive that my DD's GS troop is having for a local charity (she's very excited about this one).

My oldest has loved any kind of science class. This semester they did "mystery science," which was forensic science, and she loved it. Let's see, she has also really liked.. - Writer's Roundtable (share fiction they were working on each week) - American Girl class using the American Girl books - Choir - Speech - Art (focused on a different artist for 1-3 weeks at a time and did projects in a similar style to that artist)

:lol::lol:

For multiplication tables, my DD LOVES Timezattack.com. We are using the free version, and it appears to be working so far (have only used a few times at this point). She's having fun and not feeling stressed over learning her facts. At 9, she is officially "behind," but I'm ok with that. We're using MM 3A right now and things are going great. I think we'll "catch up" by sometime this summer. Good luck to you!

Absolutely. My kids love Harry Potter, fairy stories, fairy tales, mythology, etc....

I'm using ES Intro to Science with my 5 year old and love it (although we haven't gotten very far yet). My 9 year old is using RSO Chem. and I love that too, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do next year. I like both programs! :confused:

Thanks for this! I checked it out and will be ordering it soon.

Just wanted to quickly add that my 5 year old also loves math and phonics games. We have addition (and multiplication) war, and a variety of other games that I can't remember the names of right now. Her cousin comes over twice/week and we always play games on those days with him. There's a game called Sum Swamp that I've had my eye on that's on sale for $7.99 on amazon right now. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004TDLD/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

I have a few basic ideas for you. First, my 5 year old LOVES Time4learning.com. She is learning how to read primarily online. I am sitting and interacting with her the entire time. She also enjoys the math on the site, which we do for fun. Instead of HWOT, have you considered something like Draw Write Now for your oldest? You could work on a drawing lesson with him, then have him do copywork associated with the picture for his handwriting. Once you get to multiplication, my oldest loves Timez Attack online. It's fun and painless. Since they really don't spend much time on the computer, I am ok with these 2 things for them (Time4learning and Timezattack). One last suggestion is to do some science kits if you're not already. Most kids seem to love hands-on science, and you could use it as incentive to get through some of the more tedious subjects. I'd try some Magic School bus kits along with the chapter books to go along with whichever kits you get. I am being called by children, so that's all I have time for now. :001_smile:

I've only done chemistry and think that it would be great for those ages.

We do have some things planned on specific days, but other than that, we will be doing our lessons. We took 2 weeks off at Thanksgiving time due to some outside circumstances and started our "year" late this year, so we need to focus a little bit more than usual. Many of our weekly outside activities are canceled in December, so that gives us an opportunity to work at times that we wouldn't normally be doing so. However, we do plan to take extra time to make cookies, do some extra Christmas crafts, watch holiday movies, etc....

:iagree:

I feel very strongly that elementary aged children need a lot of free time to just play and explore their world in their own ways (whether that's through building with blocks, doing crafts on their own, dress up, etc...). I've seen so many young children lately who seem to have no idea what to do on their own without "being bored." That being said, my 2 year old can count to 20, sing her ABCs, do simple puzzles on her own, etc..... I have not set out to teach her these things in any formal sense, but she has picked them up as she has 2 older sisters (my middle child sings her ABCs as she brushes her teeth, and my youngest copies this). I am guessing that she will WANT to start some sort of formal lessons by the time she is 5, just as her sisters did. My other 2 started to show an interest in learning how to read by 4, so we started working on that slowly without pressure. Although we did no formal math instructions at all with my now 5 year old, I'm actually shocked that she has a system for adding numbers in her head already that she can verbalize (I honestly didn't even know that she could add at all yet :blush:). I think my kids would be bored if I didn't do any kind of formal lessons with them in the young years. However, I don't make them sit at the table for 5 hours/day. I try to monitor how many outside activities we have so that my kids have time to just play at home, read, relax, etc...... I kind of feel like the problem today is not necessarily too much structured lesson time, but too much structured time period with school work, outside activities, classes, etc.....

We discuss everything as questions arise, and we were shocked that it took until my DD was almost 9 to ask how the sperm got to the egg. Her reaction was HILARIOUS when we told her, and the question, "You and daddy did THAT?" with the face and sound effects even more so. There was added fun a few weeks later when there was a discussion about the fact that adults do this for fun, not just for reproduction purposes, and of course she had some comments about her father and I to go along with this conversation. :lol: Fun fun fun! My DH and I crack up later when we're alone every time we have one of these conversations. To the topic at hand, there have been books that I've told her I think she should wait on due to knowing her (Harry Potter books waited until she was 8 as she would have had fear issues before then), but I haven't had to censor much else. There was one young series I said no to just because I couldn't stand the grammar (can't remember the series right now) and the books. When I was a child, I was able to read whatever I wanted to, so I'm trying to go along with that. My kids are very comfortable discussing things with us, so I'm pretty comfortable with this decision. As with anything else, this topic can be revisited if I think there's an issue in the future. :001_smile:

:lol::lol::lol: Love it!