I didn't know that! That is very good to know! Thanks.

I guess as far as the literature and history debate, the Circe thread has set me free. My kids are still young so we haven't gotten into history too much, but I felt this real obligation to base our school around history. I think this feeling was from the WTM and how they structure their homeschool. Honestly, I didn't feel that approach was really right for my family, but I felt really pulled in that direction. (And please don't think that I am saying that this isn't right for any family.) These are my plans: I am a history lover. We will definitely do history! Right now, we are starting out with American history (we started with Leif the Lucky and we are moving up to the present time). I plan to spend 2-3 years on an overview of American history. We are doing this mostly through well-written biographies. I am not sure how biographies got lumped in with historical fiction, but I have found that biographies can be an excellent resource to read. CM believed that children learn more about an era when really delving into the lives of particular people through biographies written by someone who was passionate about the subject. We will read some historical fiction if there is a really excellent resource, but I am not going to read the historical fiction (or a poorly written biography) just because it fits into our time period. I plan to start with ancients when we are done with American history (probably 3rd grade). I personally was spending way too much time worrying about my history cycles and how to fit it all in. I am now relaxed about this. We will spend as much time as we need to on American history and then move into ancients and world history. I am no longer stressed about this! I don't have to plan my literature based solely on where we are in the history cycle. We can just read wonderful literature whenever we want to! This has taken a lot of stress from me. A lot.

I just wanted to say that my prayers are with your family. God bless you!

This is what I was told at a homeschool conference by a reading expert. It is how I handle it with my 1st grader.

This is so true. Until I had a real vision for my homeschool (one that is still in progress), I really had trouble doing the hard work of homeschooling. It was hard to keep plugging away when I didn't have an understanding of where I wanted my kids to end up! In fact, a lot of my time lately has been spent in educating myself. I want to give my kids a wonderful education, but unfortunately I didn't get one! I have found that my excitement about learning myself has really spilled over into excitement about homeschooling my children. I listened to a CiRCE lecture by James Daniels this week in which he discussed being authentic. We can't give what we don't have, but we can teach the kids in an honest way. We can learn along side them and be authentic with them. We can trust God to fill in whatever is lacking in our knowledge and wisdom. This realization took a lot of stress off of me and really encouraged me.

I can't even remember what they were called, but those incestual kids living in the attic books...UGH. How did I read those? I also would rather they not read those horrible Judy Blume books I read. I am planning on letting my kids read some twaddle when they are older as long as they have read a lot of wonderful living books. I think they would not want to read these books anyway once they are used to real books. I guess I'll cross that bridge when we get there! For now, I am avoiding picture books that put down traditional families, teach children that disrespecting parents is normal, and overtly feminist books. I have had to preread books from our library. Some of them are awful!

I always seem to get into these conversations late... I have to say that I have been doing a lot of contemplating when it comes to what I want out of my homeschool. I was such a product of public school and there are so many things that I felt like I had to do because of that. I have really let go of a lot of those things!!! The main focus of our homeschool is morning basket time. We do several things throughout the week, but include fairy tales, poetry, composer study, picture study, hymn study, memorization, Winnie the Pooh stories, US history reading (D'Aulaire's biographys and some Beautiful Feet selections), science (right now I am using Science for Little Folks by CHC and LOVE it), nature study, catechism, saint stories, etc. We do 3-4 books per day. We spend about 30-45 minutes on it. We also have a couple of wonderful read alouds going on (right now we are reading Lightfoot the Deer by Thornton Burgess and Peter Pan without the cursing by Tinkerbell!!!!). I usually read these during meals. We still do seatwork, but we do a lot less of it. Of course we have math (RS and Miquon and some Ray's), copywork, phonics, and reading lesson. This almost never takes more than an hour. I give my kids a lot more time to play. I have found that they are really creative in their playtime. We are much more relaxed overall. I am definitely teaching from a state of rest most of the time. I have stopped worrying about so many pointless things and focusing on exposing my kids to the best there is and letting them take off from there. I have stopped doing NOEO science because it was just overwhelming to me even though I liked it. We spend the rest of the day unschooling. I cannot even tell you how much my kids have learned of their own volition! I am just there to help them if they need it and to encourage their adventures! If you have too much public school in you, I suggest reading anything by John Taylor Gatto. I also high recommend 10 Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child. I am currently reading Poetic Knowledge. I cannot recommend this enough, especially for those with small children. It is not an easy read, but it is so worth it!

I have occasionally done a unit study for a month that is heavy on science or history. Those are really a fun break. I do keep doing math and LA during those times though. I find that to be a really fun diversion every once in awhile. I am not sure I would do what you are talking about though. Can't you just do the programs over 1.5 years instead of 1 year? I am doing that with my NOEO Bio right now. I think sometimes we get a little too worried about the 4 year rotations. We sometimes just need to slow down some of the rotations so that it is enjoyable and works for us. So, if you want a month of science and history with less of the other subjects, that sounds great. However, if you are only doing it to "catch up", I would say not to sweat it!

I love my Kindle. I still buy regular books most of the time, but I love being able to get OOP book on my Kindle and books that are a lot cheaper. We don't use it a lot for homeschool, but my kids are still young. I did get all the McGuffey readers on there for free and my son reads those. I would say it is a good purchase. If you don't want them to be able to sneak and use the internet instead of reading, don't buy the Kindle Fire! :coolgleamA:

After he wrote about the ugliest word I have ever seen (in which it seemed like he didn't know why there were lines on the paper), he told me that he forgot how to write. And this was after a very long session of math in which he was making shooting noises while slamming the beads on the abacus while not at all listening to the numbers I was giving him to add. You have to love the first day back after a break. I hope tomorrow goes better!!!

In my opinion, you should sit down with your husband and really hash out why you homeschool. That is really only your decision. If you basically homeschool because of the bad school system where you currently live, then maybe this move and putting them into PS is a great option for you. Although this is a personal decision for you, here is why I homeschool: I started out homeschooling because I felt led my God in that direction. I also thought my son would be bored to death in kindergarten since he was already reading and would likely become a behavior problem. However, 18 months into this, I am homeschooling for many more reasons than that! At this point, I just completely disagree with how PS teaches kids. I see how long it has taken to me overcome my "training" at PS. I really thought that everyone could believe as they wanted and there was no Truth. I was a ultimate feminist who thought that I would never have an abortion, but it is everyone's choice. I was a real environmentalist who thought that having kids was mostly irresponsible and bad for Planet Earth. And I came from a great Catholic family... I just want more for my kids. I want them to make connections between subjects and not just move from class to class at the bell not thinking about the previous class until you are there again tomorrow. I want them to enjoying learning and not worry if they are too smart to be cool. I love that they don't pick up horrible behaviors from their peers. I am glad they get to be around kids and adults of all ages. I am glad that we have plenty of time to read aloud and pray as a family. I love taking field trips. I love traveling in the off-season. I love that my younger kids pick up so much from what I am teaching the older kids! The list really is endless. I don't think you have to limit your decision to just moving and PS OR stay and homeschool though. If you love the house, you can still move and homeschool!

Well said!

I get calendars from previous years (i.e. CHEAP) and cut out six pictures. I laminate them so my kids can touch them and look closely. We do it once a week for six weeks. I usually get some books. For Renoir, I used this and this. I start with the picture upside down. The kids are usually pretty excited. We turn it over and they look at it carefully. When they are ready, they turn it over. They tell me what the remember from the picture. It is usually pretty amazing what the remember. Then we turn it back over and discuss it a little more. How do you think these people feel right now? What do you like about the picture? General questions. Then we hang them up around our table in the kitchen until we move on to a new artist.

This is what my gut told me, but I am glad to know the reasons now!

Have you looked into Connecting With History?

She would love Right Start B.

We homeschool year round, but we don't have a set schedule. We basically homeschool whenever we are home. We often do 4 day weeks, giving us more time to do other fun things like field trips. We schedule several weeks off throughout the year to go on vacation. I don't feel guilty at all taking time off when we are sick or when DH had a kidney stone surgery last month. I also take short days or days off when the weather is gorgeous. It is flexible. When my kids are in high school, I will probably keep to a stricter schedule so they can prepare for college, but I love the flexibility. School is more of a lifestyle for us than a schedule. We do take a long Christmas break and the month of May almost completely off.

:bigear:

We use Miquon and Right Start math and LOVE them. They do rely on manipulatives though. Both programs are spiral. She might really like McRuffy Color Math. It uses some manipulatives, but you do a lot of different things. I really liked it, except that it didn't teach math the asian way. That is the only reason that I changed.

Here is my basic 1st grade plan: Reading: Little Stories for Little Folks and TONS of other books Phonics: ETC Copywork Math: Right Start and Miquon Maps, Charts, and Graphs B (my son LOVES this) Science: NOEO Bio History: American history using D'Aulaires biographies and some other books (basic intro to American history) Picture study: Renoir, Rembrant Composer Study: Carnival of Animals World cultures: Asia, Europe, and Australia (finishing our trip around the world using picture books, folktales, animals, food, etc) Religion: Neumann Press books We also read lots and lots of books, both picture book and chapter books.

If you know how to pronounce the Latin, do you need the CD's? You can just do oral drills yourself. This does worry me since we are using PL next year. I have been going through FF1 and Henle 1 on my own so I am pretty confident with pronunciation so I probably won't use the CD's. I can tell you that FFL has perfect pronunciation. You can buy a pronunciation CD from Seton homeschool for Henle that is great.

My favorites are: Right Start Math Miquon Math I tried several math programs my first year and we couldn't be happier now!

:grouphug:

Two.options : Listen to SOTW on CD while driving. Pick out some great biographies for you to read aloud or have the kids read them and narrate to you. Many people have history as the backbone of their homeschool. I have literature as our backbone. We learn history, but it doesn't mean we use the time period we are in to determine literature choices. Don't tell anyone, but we aren't even in a time period. We are doing basic chronological American history through biography. I am going to simultaneously go through world history starting next year. We do history twice a week for 15 minutes. :tongue_smilie:

Your response was good. His blog post was ridiculous. Basing your Christian argument on Dewey? Spare me! It just goes to show that anyone can write anything without doing ample research.