:lol:

Oh my word.. I just typed a novel and lost it when my cat jumped on my laptop grrrrr. officially she is taking "Science 7" lots of biology stuff, some life sciences and physics mixed in. They are not allowed to being home text books its pretty lab based and she brings home vocabulary that is about it. They use some secular books here and for the life of me I can not remember the publisher(s) I seen a stack of books they used at open house and that was the just of it. They also do not have science everyday its a rotation type schedule. As far as math goes, I am pretty set on using the saxon I like the set up of it. She is excited to do it and I am pretty comfortable in thinking she will be ready for Alg 1 after doing 8/7. I don't know what we will use for Alg 1 but I am not set on Saxon for that. I am also interested to know where her school would of placed her for math next year. They have Math 8, pre Alg, Alg 1 & Alg 1 Honors . She is in pre Alg now so it would be Alg 1 or Alg 1 Honors (I think alg 1 and honors use the same text just honors goes faster) She is making C's in pre-alg so using the 8/7 is mostly review to ensure I can go ahead with Alg 1 for 9th. I am ok with that track. Now if she all the sudden starts making A's and the school feels Alg 1 honors would be a better fit I would be inclined to start Alg 1 for 8th. Also re-testing her on saxon and the years end would paint a better picture. I don't want to base it all on what the school would do when they are no longer going to be in charge of her education. Moving on to History. After looking more at the AAH and its claim to be for 5th-8th.. I feel its too easy for her I could beef it up alot (or buy something else) I have no doubt at all I could use this no problem for my 4th grader. dd12 however has not had American history she did civics/American gov't in 6th and is doing world history this year. So what ever we do i want it to be American. Now speaking to the "age grade" thing. I consider my self a newbie and this line of thinking hasn't really entered my mind. I do feel though she has completed the necessary amount of years, has the skills, and has the maturity to be an "8th grader" not to mention its a "status" thing with kids. Having an advanced/accelerated 4th grader to be, and knowing her favorite hobby is picking on her big sister and taking every turn she can to show her older sister she is smarter/better than her. This would be a lot for dd to take on she is sensitive enough. kwim? We have talked to her in some detail that while she is ahead a grade it is perfectly ok to do 5 years of highschool to ensure she is fully prepared for college. another issue altogether is my budget doesn't allow for much more to be purchased I can save up some prayerfully but I tend to stick with lower cost things and things I can reuse or resell. We also have a pretty decent library and netflix which helps some. Thanks so much for your post Elizabeth I can see your heart in it :grouphug:

I don't have stickers on my car or anything (I am not a sticker person to begin with) I have no issue sharing my faith. I hate to think I missed an opportunity to witness to others because I was timid. I do know times when not to talk about it though religion and politics are both hot topics in my family. We have about 30 family members locally and we are the only conservative Christan's (Baptist). I have one Aunt who is Christian but she isn't big on talking faith when we are in family settings.

I am considering wining it for spelling for my 4th and 8th graders next year. They are both strong spellers. dd8 has gone the entire school year with all 100%'s and dd12 has gotten all 100%'s and 1 95%. my concern is are the continuing to remember how to spell these words or are they just memorizing them until Friday and then forgetting it later. They have some basic homework with spelling, use your words in a sentence, write the word 5x each, fill in the blanks kind thing. All thing I could do on my own with many free lists on line. I was thinking about buying R&S for my 4th grader but I don't know much about it other than samples I have seen. I could go the free route or find something even cheaper but I don't know where to start. with their spelling already pretty good is winging it even a good idea?

I find it encouraging, and even though I am a skirt wearing, quiverful mama (though suffering through secondary infertility) I can find some of it to be a little much. I would still read it over many other parenting or Christian magazines.

This is my toddler to a T. She is far more into things than her sisters where. I have no idea how I am going to manage the chaos other than I plan to rotate a lot. as in while I work with dd12, dd9 watches her, then while I work with dd5 & dd9 together, dd12 watches her. That is my tenative plan I figure its somewhat of a break for them from school work but might make for some long spaced out school days. I hope this is a short season of toddler crazies and I can slowly start getting her into doing "school"

I have had good luck in thrift stores. It is so hard to find modest attire. For the kids I do a lot of lands end and some Hanna Anderson. I do have good luck in thrift stores for them too from time to time.

Would it be at all possible to set up a few play dates just for the boys? and limit the times where the mom and daughter come along? I know you don't want to tarnish the friendship but maybe it would be easier to just limit how often the sister comes too. :grouphug:

:huh: I wouldn't allow those types of experiments.

I do see where you are coming from depending on how well dd does with saxon 8/7 will determine if I feel the need to do more Pre-Algebra type things or if I will spend the summer before 9th doing Pre-Alg. or if I will take the summer and the 1st semester of 9th doing more Pre-Alg. many moons ago in school 8th grade was when math started splitting up more you had options Consumer math (or football math as dh called it :lol:) Geo pre Alg Alg 1 split Alg 1 Where you where placed depended on your 7th grade teachers recommendations. I was in Alg split which meant we did the 1st 1/2 of Alg 1 in 8th and we took the 2nd 1/2 in high school. I liked it because I had a long time to process alg. and I was able to go on to higher maths like Trig, Alg 2 and Calc. Where some of my friends who did Alg 1 seemed to Struggle more with Trig and high maths. I kinda like that way of doing it, I want to really make sure she has the concepts before pushing on high maths.

so sorry he is having issues. I have sleep issues so I know just how hard it can be. One thing that always helped me was respectfully asking everyone to do a 1/2 hour of total silence when I first laid down. once I get to sleep I can stay a sleep its all the noise going on when I am trying to first fall asleep that really is bothersome. What are his roomates doing up late in the dark anyway :glare: that is bizzare to me, lights out go to bed! or slip his roomates some j/k

anyone?

No this is not my first year schooling dd12 was HSed prek, 3rd, 4th(cyber school) & part of 5th dd9 was HSed prek & 1st dd5 was HSed Prek My plans for 1st thus far are math- MEP Reading/LA- FIAR & FLL S.S- CLE 1 we have great phonics dvds at the library that she loves, and we have 100EZ and she also loves playing on starfall. I can also check out OPGTR from the library and try that out with her and if I like it more than 100EZ then I will get rid of that and buy OPGTR. My older 2 dd's read very young and with very little help from me (I was the same as a child) so this is kind new grounds for me.

I voted yes but we have a system. each child is held responsible to put clothes in the hamper dd9 is to bring hampers to me I stain treat and sort dd9 takes them to the basement dd12 washes them, dries them, and brings them back to me I and dd5 fold them and sort them for putting them away they each put away their own dd12 does hers and mine, dd9 does hers and dads, dd5 does hers and dd2's dd2 usually proceeds to pull them all out of the drawers and unfold them all :lol: we have a family closet so its easy to put things away and we hang a lot so its pretty simple for the kids to just hang them up and put away the socks and undies. I keep it simple and I will wash the clothes together knowing dd12 puts away mine and her clothes I wil do those on one day so I don't have 3 kids trying to put away at once. I also do any special care laundry myself like washing diapers, wool, hand wash only stuff, and I do the ironing and take care of any dry cleaning (until dd12 is driving anyway :lol:)

this is why I bought 6/5, 7/6 & 8/7 figuring I have one advanced in math and one a touch below level in math that in one way or another I would get use out of all 3, not to mention 2 more dd's that may use them some day. I think they both could benefit from some drills practice over the summer.

Chalfont? is their more than one... because their is a chalfont boro right across the street from me... ETA: doh its Chalfant that is near me.. I got excited for a second lol

She is doing biology now in 7th (she loves it and needs it in High School), she had physical science last year.. I went with general science because she has not had enough science from a creation stand point so its almost like going back in time a bit and really just using it as a filler because she needs science. Despite being a Christan school they have been more about experiments and dissections then studying the creation behind science IMO praying before you cut open a sheep eyeball does not = Science from a Christian viewpoint. I think the school (which is only been open for 1 full year this being the 2nd year) assumes that most of these kids in upper grades have already had the basic creation science foundations where as my dd was PS some and we did mostly HS science fluff before. as far as saxon goes it's not that she didn't understand it she explained the concepts, steps, etc. for everything but she just got the answers wrong. Like she knows how to get the answers but she is gummed up in the works of basic addition/subtraction/multiplication/division. I have considered just spending the summer doing tons of speed drills and then retesting in Aug to see where she is at. I think she could do 8/7 just fine if we worked out the basics a bit. thanks for the links I will check them out :D

as far as phonics goes she is a strong reader (I think) for being 1/2 through kindy. She is pretty solid on most site words, she understands most phonics concepts, and is pretty good at sounding things out. I figure with FIAR we will come across many opportunities to study new words and supplement in some phonics printables. we also have a dvd phonics series at the library that she loves and she would do starfall.com all day if I let her. I honestly do think my 4th grader could do Science & History no problem with my 8th grader, even some math. She is a advanced reader and seems to understand concepts above her normal peer level. What I don't want to do with her though is take away things she should be learning at the 4th grade level. spelling wise I was planning to just use random at level lists I have found on the net. The 4 & 8 graders are really good at spelling already and I don't feel led to spend a lot of time in this area.. I wasn't sure if I would introduce spelling at the 1st grade level or not. I figured that it again would be something we would come across doing FIAR and maybe making a list of new to her words. and maybe just testing her on dolch words. I am a horrid speller (spell check is my bff) so I don't want to make mistakes here.

My girls will have been in a pvt Christian school for 2 years when we start schooling at home next year. I have homeschooled in the past and all but never all 3 older girls at once. I am pretty solid on what I want to do in some areas but totally clueless in other areas. They are going to be in 1st, 4th and 8th grades so combining things would be hard. for my 1st grader my plans are Math- MEP LA/Reading- FLL & FIAR Social Studies- CLE Science- I kinda just want to piggy back on things her big sisters will be doing, mostly hands on and teach briefly on life cycle, earth/space science type things. for my 4th grader Math- Saxon 6/5 (is where she tested at but I have 7/6 & 8/7 if I need to go up) LA/Reading- easy grammar? + plans to read Anne of green gables History- I plan on adding her to my 8th graders all American history Science-? for my 8th grader Math-? she is below average here did not do great on the saxon placement tests but she needs to take Alg 1 in 9th LA/Reading-? I need to prepare her to do a lot of writing also not strong in this History- All American history she does excellent in history Science- Exploring creation w/ general science she also does well in science and I plan to do Biology in 9th so wanted to start 8th with general science if I cant beef her up in math I don't see how we could go past biology and anatomy I honestly can take 5 years to do high school if I need to, she is a year ahead in school to begin with. She was super smart at 4 so we started her in Kindy a year early (my mother did the same with me) I can see with her it may of been a mistake. another bump in the road is that their isn't much $$$ we can spare for much more curriculum. dh was working 2 jobs so they could attend pvt school after we paid 2nd semester tuition for this year we decided he should quit (he was working both 1&3 shift and was basically only sleeping 4-5 hours a day so he could spend an hour or 2 a day with the kids and I he was always stressed and it wasn't worth it) We have both felt led to homeschool again so it was fitting to stop all the stress in his life and do what we feel called to do. So keeping low cost ideas in mind, can y'all help me fill in some holes here.

so sorry you got jipped :( I tend to agree that 50 posts is not enough. I just joined yesterday and I am almost at 50 (I am chatty ask Paula :lol:) that is way too soon to gage trust. on the flip side I am leery of buying anywhere anymore I have been jipped more than once but it hasn't happened in a long time and I am extra cautious about checking feedback and even asking for additional feedback links (such as ebay, etc.) many sites have policies that state nothing can be paid as personal, not that everyone follows those rules.

No high schoolers here yet, my oldest will be in 8th so just lurking on this thread to see what is out their. I thought I would share this helpful abbreviation list with you I have to refer to it almost daily. :D

It would have to be something super awesome, wonderful, opportunity of a life time and Free. or emergency situation or Jesus lol.

I love making oatmeal cookies and using dried cranberries. my oldest loves snicker doodles. I like making chocolate chip cookies with reeces pieces or Andie's candies too. man now I want cookies :lol:

my dd is 5 and does this as well, as well as writing many letters/numbers backwards. I think its totally age appropriate and that the grading policy is unfair.

I see what you are saying but if that box is now where things belong then they are being responsible and neat. I think for my kids being responsible to get your box out, completing the assignment and return the assignment and materials back to the bin neatly would be sufficient. My kids are pretty terrible with putting things back where they belong so if I can get them trained in this one area maybe it would improve on other things like replacing the toilet paper when its all gone, or putting the trash bags back under the kitchen sink :lol: and maybe after they master that I can employ them to do some of their own box filling and such.