We did CC for one year. What I liked about it was the opportunity for group learning in small groups. What I hated was the lack of flexibility in curriculum. For example, I was the tutor for the 4-7 yr old group. I had a VERY young group. That year we were supposed to teach chemistry. My time would have been better spent teaching a phonics segment in lieu of the science segment. I know there are a lot of people passionately against CC and many who think it's the perfect fit for their family. It didn't work for my family, but i could see where it is a great opportunity for middle school and high school aged students to get a rigorous program that is different than any other standard curriculum out there. My sister lives in NC and it has become quite popular there with the homeschool community. As others have said, it definitely depends on where you live. Some communities are vibrant while others are barely getting the job done. It was a good lesson for me to learn that year. If my normally laidback, obedient kids are giving me grief about everything, they aren't happy and then I'm miserable. We went back to our eclectic, messy way of doing homeschool on our own schedule.

Me! Me!!! My kiddo is devouring these books faster than lightning!!

I used Horizons and Abeka with my oldest kiddo who was a natural learner, eager beaver type kiddo. For her, Abeka and Horizon's worked great. Lots of workbooks, lots of writing and fun matching worksheets. Read-aloud time with mom. But the read aloud for Horizons was a watered-down version of Robinson Crusoe. Terribly dull and made me fall asleep while teaching!!! DS will never sit through that. So I am back at square one with phonics for the boy! Here was a good nugget I picked up at the Greenville convention. I attended a workshop by Burton Reading (I do not work for them and am not promoting their product). One thing she said really struck me: Whatever curriculum you pick, make sure phonics is taught with a 4-pronged approach: read alouds, phonetic spelling, sight words, AND writing. You need all 4 components to make phonics and reading really come full-circle. Incidentally, I did not buy her curriculum. I ended up choosing Memoria Press simply because I felt it was gentle and not as overwhelming as Abeka. I fully expect that DS will come alive with a little more work on HOW to learn. And at that time I may move him into another, more challenging style program.

I am working on a proposal to our local school board to allow HS students to participate in extra-curricular activities e.g. band, chorus, debate team (but not sports - not my can of worms to open on that one!). I live in Georgia where there is no state law regarding the subject, thus each school district can create their own policy. Through research on HSLDA I have found these policies to be known as "Equal Access" policies. Has anybody recently tackled this issue with your local PS Bd of Ed? Would love some ideas on where to look for a recent discussion of the issue. I seriously doubt my school board wants to be the "guinea pig" for the state, but they are pretty progressive around here, so maybe it could happen.

Another vote for Benjamin Moore. It's thick - like cake batter!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE the coverage!! It is quite pricey but sign up on their website for coupons and they will send you one about once a month. usually $5 or $10 off a $50 purchase. For my kids' rooms I would probably not fork out the money for BM but for our hallways and bathrooms and kitchen I only use BM. I have used Behr and it used to be my go-to paint until I found my friend Ben.

I do not like it in a car, I do not like it at a bar. I will NOT clap along my friend, Unless it's at song's great end!

I don't know about yours, but mine sure is dead!!! It bit the dust last Sunday when somebody at church dropped it on the floor - as we were moving the food to the tables for dinner on the ground!!! I was very sad. I had tried Trisha Yearwood's crock pot mac n cheese recipe for the 1st time! But on the bright side, now I get to buy one of those fancy new programmable ones! Mine was 17 yrs old. I reckon I got my money's worth!

We met in college summer semester after Freshman year. We had both flunked a class in the spring - due to spending too much time outside appreciating the "local wildlife". We had mutual friends that were in the same boat. I was sitting on the floor on a bean bag chair in a dorm. In walked a farm boy wearing faded ripped jeans, cowboy boots, and wayfarer sunglasses and a Z-93 t-shirt (an Atlanta radio station no longer in operation). It was "like" at 1st sight for me. Took him a bit longer. HA! We've been married now for 17 years. I guess my intuition was right.

Heroes of History has a new unit study to go along with their books. I saw it at the Greenville convention and lots of folks were buying it. You get all 23 biograhies + a unit study cd for each bio. Here's a link. It's kind of pricey at $225, but if you and another family split the package it would be a bit easier to swallow the cost! I think the convention price was $199 - which basically means you saved the cost of shipping. http://www.ywampublishing.com/p-1142-heroes-of-historybrus-history-curriculum-special.aspx I bought the Ben Franklin unit study and I like what I see. For example one of the projects is to write a poem about current eventsof Ben's time. Apparently Ben liked to use different forms of writing to provide the news in his almanac. He didn't just write everything in an article format. Another task is to write a brochure-style newsletter to mimic the work of putting together the whole almanac.

My sister has the same issue at her house. She has 3 kids. Her son is average smart but lazy boy. Middle daughter is genius, already grade advanced twice and will probably be doing dual enrollment by sophomore year of HS. Her youngest daughter has dyslexia and several other dys- diagnoses which escape me at the moment. The middle kid is gifted on such a level that the youngest really does see how far apart they are. Especially because the girls are only 18 mos apart and as little kids they did everything together. My sister found that her youngest loves to be outdoors and loves animals. So sis took DD2 to the barn and let her begin to ride horses. Dear Niece2 fell in love with horses. So my youngest niece spends all her extra time pursuing horse activities thru 4H and Quiz Bowl and other horse sports like polocrosse and hunting events and western shows. This has built her self-esteem greatly. The Quiz Bowl thing was new for 2014 and we were all concerned how DN would be able to study for it and if she would crack under pressure of a timed quiz event. Turns out, because she has to memorize so much to compensate for the dyslexia, she scored the highest score on Quiz Bowl exam. All that to say, find an extra-curricular that your child can do just for fun and maybe you can help build confidence that way.

Another tip - we use lots of shorthand and abbreviations on this board. If you read the Well Trained Mind book you will pick up on them or you can check out the posts that are pinned regarding abbreviations. When I first started out, I tried to read everything about everything. My poor head was spinning with all the options out there! My advice is to pick one direction and focus on it for a few days. For example, spend a day or two researching language arts options for your youngest kiddos. Then you will probably find a couple of programs you really want to explore further and you can really dig into them. Take it one chunk at a time. You will figure it out!

Have you looked at Timberdoodle? I would describe their boxed curriculum as "eclectic in a box". Timberdoodle doesn't write any of their own curriculum. They basically researched the best of everything and put it into a box with some manipulatives and resource materials. It comes with lesson plans too. If I were to do a box, I would buy this. They will also customize the box. For example if you already are happy with your math choice, they will deduct the math from their box.

I need help figuring out how to better communicate with DS (age 5.5). He thinks everything should be funny and will make jokes when I am trying to assess where he is with sounding out letters. Unfortunately he is so smart that he makes jokes and the answer is usually correct - if I can sift thru his way of thinking. Here is an example. Mom: What sound does letter Y make? Son: Yuh Yuh. Mom: Good! Can you think of a word that starts with the Y sound? (I am thinking about Dr Seuss's ABC book "A yellow yak with Yolanda on its back!" ) Son: JOEY!!!!! (grinning the whole time because he knows it has a Y in it) Hmm. Well you see his name is Joey. And he knows it has a Y in it because he can spell it. And while I don't really enunciate that YUH at the end of his name, he does sometimes. So technically, the word DOES have the Yuh sound....but I asked for a word that BEGINS with the Y sound. ARGH!!! If we are doing math, he will give me a wrong answer and then after a few beats say "JUST KIDDING!" and provide the correct answer. Anybody know how to cut thru this silliness and get down to work? Or is this simply a maturity issue that will eventually go away? It is quite frustrating to me because I have limited one on one time with him. We have plenty of silly time throughout the day. How do I convince him to just give it to me straight during school time?

My fridge has a top??? I'm 5'2". I've never seen the top of a fridge. I thought there were just shelves up there where the elves live who make the ice in the ice maker at night.

I have struggled with math curriculum too. DD is good at math (not a child genius!) and doesn't need much review. We started with Horizons and that bored her to tears. Too much review. We tried Saxon in 3rd grade. WAY too much review at that point in their curric. We then did a mixture of Saxon, Math Mammoth, and the Calculadder Master Pak drills. DD liked the Calculadder method of tracking your speed and your accuracy separately to arrive at a combined score. For some reason this clicked with her - that speed did not equate to knowledge OR accuracy. Now we are back to doing Saxon and only a tiny bit of Math Mammoth - when she needs to see a different way to explain what Saxon and I have already said! My fear with math has always been that making it up yourself will somehow create gaps in the student's learning. That you won't end up in the right place (prepared for HS algebra) with the right foundation - solid mental math skills, comfortable with fractions and percentages, able to solve for an unknown. Whatever method you choose, if you arrive at 8th/9th grade ready to do algebra or geometry, then you are well prepared. Definitely not implying that every kid should be bound for calculus by 12th grade, but it seems that the brain is ready for algebra by 8th/9th grade.