What an incredible picture. Congratulations! Hope you're getting some rest. :)

Soooo....my 2.5 year old twins have thrown down the gauntlet. They refuse to nap any longer. I used to homeschool my Kindergardener during their nap, but, obviously, this is no longer an option. In the past, when I tried to homeschool while the twins were awake, it was very frustrating. Any suggestions?!? Thanks!

Hello all! My brilliant son, Merrick, will pretty much be finished with his kindergarden curriculum by January. He finished 100 EZ a couple of months ago (he started it when he was 4), will be finished with ETC 1 by next week, and will be finished with both kindergarden Singapore Math workbooks. Soooooo....where do we go from here? Honestly, I think most of what we've studied so far have been a bit below his level. He breezes through ETC and Singapore (not meaning to brag here...but my son must be brilliant, right?!?). :001_smile: I also have the ETC 1 1/2, but I've been thinking of skipping it and moving onto ETC 2. Any thoughts on that? We've also been doing unit studies this year, including a few Five in a Row books. You can check out our blog to get a better sense of what we do: Gettin' Skooked Blog My husband thinks we should move onto to first grade. I've been wondering if we should just play educational games (to reinforce) and do fun unit studies, but I do feel concerned about not challenging my son (which causes him to get bored and lose interest). Thanks for all your help!

Hello all! This is probably too late for most, but I thought I'd share our plans for our Christmas Unit study. I wrote everything out on our blog (to help me have all the links in one place and to help make it easier for others as well). For some Christmas themed ideas, you can check out the post here: http://gettinskooled.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-unit-study.html

Just thought I'd share about our Santa theme today. We found this adorable book at the library, A New Improved Santa, about how Santa tried to go on a diet and get a new look. You can read about our little Santa day here: http://gettinskooled.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-improved-santa.html

Hello all! I am totally late in posting this. The holidays have kept us busy around here. However, I thought I'd share this with everyone in case you could use any of the ideas for next year. Our homeschool group got together in October for a Pumpkin Day. We had a blast measuring pumpkins, seeing if pumpkins float, playing pin the face on the Jack-o-latern, etc. Here's the link to the post in case you'd like to do something similar in the future: http://gettinskooled.blogspot.com/2011/11/homes-cool-pumpkin-day.html Thanks!

Hello all! I little while back, I asked you for some ideas on how to help my kiddo pay attention during school. I ended up putting together a unit study on Attentiveness. Thought I'd share it here with any one else whose kiddos struggle with the same thing. I'd love to hear any feedback on this as I will probably be reinforcing this unit again and again in my house. :) Here's the link: Gettin' Skooled Attentiveness Unit Study Thanks! Leslie

Hello all! Just thought I'd share the info I collected for our Thanksgiving Unit Study. Hope it's a help and saves someone out there some research time. My son is on a Kinder/1st grade level (with toddler siblings along for the ride) so most of the info is geared toward that age. However, a lot of it could be useful to older kiddos as well. Here's the link: Gettin' Skooled Thanksgiving Unit Study Thanks! Leslie

Thank you so much! That is just what I was looking for!

Does anyone have any resources for a unit study on attentiveness? I've seen an Attentiveness lapbook on homeschoolshare.com and was wondering if it went along with a particular study. I know Konos has a unit, but I'm not interested in buying the entire curriculum for just that unit. I'm looking for Kinder/1st grade level info. Thank you so much!

Hello all. :) We are on our third week of homeschooling my kindergartener. Though I think we've been having lots of fun, he has said to me several times, "I don't like homeschool." It breaks my heart to hear him say this. I know the issue is that he doesn't like doing the work and that it takes away from his "play all day" routine. But, it is still very difficult to hear. And, it makes me wonder if I could be doing something better. You can take a look at our homeschool blog if you'd like to get an idea of what our days have been like. Basically, I stick to a Bible story, reading lesson, phonics (ETC), handwriting lesson or activity, and a math game or worksheet. In addition to that, we've read plenty, had an All About Me unit study, and made a lapbook. There are times when his 2 year old twin siblings are doing puzzles or watching Mickey Mouse and he gets so frustrated that I pull him away to do "work." Sometimes, I feel like I have to coerce him to get through each line of a worksheet (ETC), but those are also the places where I feel he is learning the most. Next week, we'll begin "rowing" our first book with FIAR. I'm curious to see if he'll like that any better. Does this attitude ever go away? Any suggestions on how to handle it? Thank you so much for any and all help.

Just had to share our post on our very first day of homeschooling. This has been a day that we have dreamed about, prayed about, and prepared for for 3 - 4 years now. Gettin' Skooled Blog - Our Very First Day I am so grateful that God led us to make the decision to homeschool. It is not something I would have ever considered before meeting some pretty awesome homeschool families. :) Thanks!

Hello! For those of you who use ETC, I have two questions: - How many pages does your student(s) complete in one sitting/lesson? - How many times a week do you have a ETC lesson a week? We are officially in our 3rd week of homeschooling Kindergarten. We've done 2-3 pages each day, but I'm wondering if this is something I don't necessarily need to do every day. My son gets bored easily doing workbook/worksheet activities. We also have a 100EZ reading lesson and a handwriting lesson/activity every day. And, we read lots. Thanks so much for your help!

Hello all! This will be our first year homeschooling and I am so eager to have a room in our home that is designed to help facilitate effective and fun schooling. If I had tons of mula, I'd just pick my favorite pieces of furniture out of the Pottery Barn and Serena and Lily catalogs. But, as it is, I had pretty much NO money to spend! So, we had a garage sale and raised about $550 to spend on setting up the schoolroom. Then, thankfully, I found Ana White's site with hundreds of free plans on how to build furniture (this is not an advertisement at all...though it's sure starting to sound like one, huh?). I found the exact plans for the table AND storage system I had been eyeing for more than a year! I recently finished the school table and I'm currently working on building the cubby storage system. I am SO excited and grateful we can have the school room of my dreams on such a limited budget. And, I can honestly say the furniture, etc, is made straight from the heart! Here's a link to the pictures of the table: http://onesietwosie.blogspot.com/2011/06/elementary-table-build-complete.html Just wanted to share this in case there are other mamas/daddy's out there in the same situation. Thanks!

When I opened up our mail, I almost cried to find our homeschool curriculum waiting for us! Here's my little blog post about our curriculum joy: http://gettinskooled.blogspot.com/2011/06/curriculum-is-here.html Can't wait to get started!

Hello all! This coming fall will be our first year homeschooling. We are so excited that several other families in our church have made the decision to homeschool as well. We are all relatively new to this and were thinking of having a "NOT Back to School Party." Any ideas on what we should do? I've heard several people mention going to the park on the first day of school, but I really can't wait to start lessons with my son on our first day. We were thinking about having a potluck at our house with some games (or perhaps at the pool?). Thanks in advance for all your thoughts!

Hello all! I get the majority of my recipes online from Recipeezar/Food.com. I love this site mostly because of the number of reviews on any given recipe. However, I'd really like to find a similar site that offers healthier, fresher recipes for when I'm in a mood to cook something without tossing in a can of cream of mushroom soup. Know of any helpful sites out there like this? As a side note, I just finished reading Frank Bruni's memoir Born Round. Loved it! He is a great writer and I can relate to his sad, twisted relationship with food. I highly suggest it (the book, not having a twisted relationship with food). Thanks! Leslie

Hello all! I am thinking of buying FIAR and going through some lessons this summer with my soon-to-be-kindergartener. Any ideas on the amount of time and money it takes to prepare for each week? Also, is there a list of basic materials that I would need to have on hand? Thanks! Leslie

Thanks so much, all! I was going to skip book 1, but now I think I'll use it over the summer for review. Makes sense. Thanks so much!

We've decided that we're going to try out Explode the Code workbooks for phonics next year. When I emailed ETC to ask about a placement test, they directed me to a $20 test I could purchase. I'm a little confused about this. The reason I wanted to give my son a placement test is to SAVE money! I didn't want to buy the first book only to find out that he's already ready for the second book! Any way. It's a really little thing, but does anyone using ETC have any suggestions as to which book we should begin using? My son, who will begin Kinder next year, is already reading at a basic level. We've gotten through about half of 100EZ, but the lessons are pretty easy for him still. Thanks so much!

Sorry, but I can't figure this out...what is HOD, LHTH, LHFHG? I didn't see them on the abbreviations list. Thanks!

What great insight. Thank you so much for sharing all that.

Thanks! I appreciate that!

Hello all! I posted a thread recently asking about favorite Kindergarten curriculum and got an overwhelming response for Five in a Row. I have heard many people sing praises for FIAR, but it is very difficult to get a good idea from their web site of how it actually plays out in an every day situation. From the bits that I've seen on other peoples' blogs, it seems to me that it is basically reading a book five days in a row and doing projects that coordinate with the theme of the book (unit studies?). My concern with this is that as a first time homeschooling parent next year, I will be overwhelmed with adding this to our plate. So far, we plan on doing 100EZ, Singapore Math, Bible Lessons, Explode the Code, Artistic Pursuits, and possibly some geography. If things go well beyond that, we may do some Spanish. Would it be crazy to add FIAR to all that? Does it take a long time to prepare for the projects? Does it cost a lot of money? Also, I'll be homeschooling an active Kindergartener with two year old twins by our side... Thanks so much for all your help and for sharing your thoughts!

Is Funnix an online program only? Thanks!