Sounds like my oldest who was an extreme introvert. Even among his family. I did not push him to socialize but did require him to answer is spoken to...usually he did that with as few words as possible. Fast forward to now...he is in the military and has a position of authority. He has friends and is thriving. Not being "socialized" did not hurt him at all. I would not push her to be what she is not.

Pretty much we are doing it because I have it. It is easy and it gets done so I can give myself a pat on the back for doing art. I do plan on trying his nature study/drawing course though. I am going to be trying the Home Art Studio videos the Homeschool coop has on sale and I am hoping these will be more what I am looking for. My older son is using Artistic Pursuits and that is pretty good and includes art history/appreciation in it. We tried the K-3 book and did not like that one, but the older ones are teaching things like shading, lines, and how to look at things to draw them. These are also easy to use. The first book in a grade level is drawing the second book contains color work. I I cannot honestly say if the Artistic Pursuit is better, but you do get more real like applications to use. Art has been one of those subjects that I cannot find anything that wows me yet. One son used the Alpha Omega LifePac Art program and I was pleased with it. It was for High School level and covered a wide range of media (drawing, painting, and ink, to sculpting, and other 3d media) and taught color concepts.

Word Smith Apprentice

At the end of the school year I take all dd's work I want to keep, art included, and I get it spiral bound into a book. It has a cover page with school year, grade, a picture of dd and she signs it. There are dividers for each section. Art is placed at the end of the book because it has mixed paper types. Any art page that is a typical size gets placed in its original state, larger projects or 3d projects get photographed and then a full pg photo is placed in the book. There is a pocket page at the back of the bound book for special things to fit in.

Not psycho weird but just typical homeschool science weird. We have not done on field dissections but have observed the decaying process of a opossum, placed beheaded snakes in red ants and watched the cleaning process, dug through the remains of road kill/animal kills to point out the different body parts, as well as collect dead animals for the bones....all in the name of science and learning. I don't consider myself psycho or my kids. Non of this was done with malicious intent or evil joy. Your daughter took advantage of a dead animal, even in death the animal had a purpose. Kudos to your husband.

Yes, but the reading is a technical reading. He needs to go slow and understand what is being said before doing it. Also there are diagrams that need to be followed. Attention to detail is important. Patience and following explicit directions is important.

We are on break now but finished 85 days of school out of 180 (or more).

We have used several Barry Stebbing programs. For the most part I like them but there are a few things I want to point out (at least from the ones we have used). He does teach about color and lines but for the most part I found his projects did not have any take away value....what I mean is he will teach you to draw a clown, but what skill will that give you for later drawings you might want to do. Another thing I found is his directions leave a lot to be desired. However the lessons are short and can actually get done. By the end of the year your child will have an art book filled with drawings and paintings that look impressive. We have not used his videos but I did see some samples of his Nature drawing video and they do look impressive. Those would be used outside his lessons.

My oldest used 2 different Radio Shack Electronic kits and learned a great deal. They taught him the basics and how to "think" electronically. I actually used these for him in High School as part of his electronics credit. The ones we bought were later used by my youngest son, so they do last.

I never used R&S but have used BJU for 20 yrs. Grades K-6 is teacher intensive and manipulative intensive. The teacher's manual holds your hand while teaching giving step by step dialog to walk them through each lesson. They also approach the skills from different angles to help different learning styles. Word problems both oral and written are taught and having the student create word problems helps show an understanding of the material. There is adequate daily work both with mom and on their own plus there is an extra activities book if they need more. Daily review of facts and other math skills. The workbooks are colorful and fun, each year you follow a story and character.

I would explain to her that she will not be getting that and even explain why. I will do this with dd's list she makes each year because she will put things on their she will not be getting no matter what and I feel it is best to let her know it and cross it off, maybe offer suggestions in its place. This keeps the disappointment from happening.

A vote for this one. I just got this for my dd and she loves it. The horse is very nice and the box is her stable. But be warned, the horse is not made for the dolls to sit on. Not too expensive either $40, but they go on sale often for $30.

I am planning on starting this when we start up again after winter break. From the dictation I will pull spelling words. These will also go into a notebook dd will be making the way Ruth Beechick suggests in You Can Teach Your Child Successfully. A page in the note book for each vowel, long and short sound...meaning if the word has a long a sound made from the letters ai or any other combination it goes on the long a page....there are pages for each consonant and schwa sounds, vowel blends such as oy/oi, vowels with r...I might even have her write spelling rules on the pages they apply to as she adds her words. After a collection of 10 words she will have a spelling test. missed words will be go on the next test and correct words will have a check placed next to the corresponding word in her book so she will see at a glance what words she still needs to learn.

I have only used the curriculum kits from them and have not been impressed with them. They include too many things that are household items or can easily be bought at Walmart and they don't include everything needed.

I picked King James Version even though we haven't used it yet...but will starting in January. Before that I used NiV and other versions. I am changing because of something I read by Ruth Beechick and how the wording in King James flows better/more poetic to the ear and is more easily memorized.

Another for MOH. It can be used for all age groups. it is easy too.

My advice, add in more breaks. My 8 yr old needs lots of breaks to keep her mind on school....sounds silly, more breaks to get school done faster , but it works. I also make sure to pair a writing intensive subject with a reading intensive subject. We usually do 2 to 3 subjects then a 15 min break. She also knows that dawdling during school time means less break time, and knowing she just has 2 things to do before another break makes her work faster. With all we do and all the breaks we still are finished no later then 1pm at the latest.

I have all my picture books from my childhood and I am so glad my mother did not get rid of them. My children have loved those books. I even have a few from when my father was a boy, those are cherished also. I will be doing the same for my kids, not get rid of their picture books.

I am going to use her memorization ideas for Bible memory....first learn all the books of the Bible then start with verses, getting to multiple verses as we go along, also for poetry (something we have been lacking) Spelling is going to change to just using words from her writing, reading, Bible, science, and history. We will create a notebook as suggested in YCTYCS book. Beginning copywork from the Bible to focus on cursive, spelling, and will pick out some grammar to discuss when necessary since formal grammar will stop for now. We will still be studying Astronomy with ES but I am also going to be using Science in the Creation Week for ideas and to help get the Bible into our science more then it is. Also I am looking at Answers in Genesis for some ideas. I am still reading and dissecting both books so I am sure to be making more changes. Next year I will have all our subjects line up with a Biblical aspect....still trying to figure it out though.

I have been reading Ruth Beechick's books A Biblical Home Education and You Can Teach Your Child Successfully and plan on incorporating some of her ideas when we start up again in January. Edited to add: bought the Home Art Studio from buyers Co-op and will be starting that once they come in.

I am working my way through the AOPS books. It started out as a just for fun thing but I have been learning so much I never knew. Other things I am doing to further my education: Going through How to Study Your Bible before tackling Daniel Reading You can teach Your Child Successfully and A Biblical Home Education to rethink how I am homeschooling Going through Lambs Book of Art and Artistic Pursuit with the kids to help improve my art skills Reading (slowly) A Handbook of Nature Study and Keeping a Nature Journal 2013 goal is to read every non fiction book in my home library to brush up my knowledge in a multitude of subjects and read all the books I am making my kids read.

My 16 yr old is reading The Count of Monte Cristo because we just watched the movie. Percy Jackson Books and Heros of Olympus books Andrew Lang's Sherlock Homes series

There are samples of the guides under the info & faqs page. I am planning on doing this curriculum with dd and adding in core d books.

Sorry, just repeating what I heard about it being out in a yr. I am okay if it is not out till school year 2014/2015 since ds will not need vol. 4 till then. Yep, had these on the shelp, sold them, then repurchased them and they sat. Each time I looked at them it was not a good fit until ds#3 and High School and his complaining all history was excruciatingly boring....now he doesn't complain. As for the creative side you are talking about, not sure what you mean. For the older assignments, most are loook up this or that type assignments. There are more hands on stuff for younger and middle age groups, but my ds detests anything crafty (much to my dismay) so it never was a problem. If you are looking for some interesting rabbit trails, I found Mysteries in History http://www.amazon.com/Mysteries-History-Ancient-Wendy-Conklin/dp/1420630490/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1354043549&sr=1-4&keywords=the+mystery+history. These are designed for group discussion but we have used them to start off research tangents. They have them for different time periods. I have used the Ancients one with vol. 1 MOH and covered topics like Atlantis, Was King Tut Murdered, Stonehenge, Troy:Was there a horse?, and so on. MOH does have the students exploring some things in history I have never heard of and am learning each time I read one of ds's papers...extremely interesting.

I voted "other" just to throw out there Mystery of History. It is the first history curriculum my ds actually liked (said it did not put him to sleep ). it is a 4 yr curriculum (4th volume to come out in a yr). What I love is Bible history is included, people/places/events, as you study world history. The history covered is very interesting...the basic history events/people...but other very interesting people/places/events you never hear or hear about but never study because typical history books just never get to it. My son is enjoying the questions he has to research, he said the aren't boring and at least once a week I get, "Hey Mom, did you know". He has 3 researches to do a week. One I make oral, one just note taking or paragraph, and one needs to be a multi paragraph paper. Since there are many research questions dealing with the Bible I will be giving a Bible credit at the end of 4 yrs. Mapping is also included. I looked at MOH for my him when he was younger but didn't like it, now that he is older it is perfect for him. I have used BJU for 20 yrs either as a full curriculum or for just a subject or 2. It is a very good curriculum and if textbook style is what you want, then BJU will get the job done. We just needed to break away from textbooks for history. We tried different types but MOH is the first that sparked an actual interest in history for my ds.