We always start with circle time. Calendar, weather, days of the week song, months of the year song. We are learning Spanish so we count the days on the calendar in Spanish and sing a Spanish color song. It only takes about 5-10 minutes and both kids (8 & 5) love it.

:iagree: We started hs'ing this summer after ds8 finished 2nd grade in ps. This has been the best summer! He and DD5 get along so much better than in the past when he was away at school all day. I also feel like my relationship with him is better too. Last August, I remember thinking I can't wait until school starts to get some peace. This year, I'm so happy that they won't be going to school on Monday!

:iagree:

My ds8 has had similar trouble at the playground. Very sad.

We always start with updating our calendar, days of the week, and weather. Then we sing songs about months of the year, days of the week, etc. We are beginning Spanish so we have songs for the numbers and colors that we practice. Even my 8 year old still loves calendar time. After that, I usually let them choose which subject they want to do first.

Check out the WTM for sale board. I have gotten most of my used curricula there. AAS is very popular so you have to be quick though.

Love this! I've been searching for timeline ideas for awhile and I think this is it!

Mead has a Number Stories book. We haven't used it yet but we have used the Letter Stories books with great success. There is a little story that helps them learn how to form each letter or number. My daughter loves it and it has really improved her handwriting.

We are doing HOP K with my daughter. I usually tell her the rule behind the sight word such as in "like", the silent e at the end makes the i say it's name. Others can be sounded out, they are just a little more advanced phonics than our level. For example, we learned "with" the other day. So I taught her the sound that th makes and now she can sound out with. We love HOP and she's doing really well. She's so proud of herself when she can read a book on her own.

My son is a reluctant writer and has been struggling with it the past two years in public school. He is nearing the end of 2nd grade and I'm so excited about homeschooling him for 3rd grade. He has been expected to journal every day since kindergarten. I lost count of how many days he came home upset over not being able to come up with an idea for his journal. In 2nd grade, he had to do a research project including researching on the internet and in books. Then come up with a way to present it to the class. About that time, I started reading WTM and was so relieved to learn that he shouldn't be expected to do this kind of thing yet. It really gave me more confidence that I'm doing the right thing.