We have combined them easily. Last year my son was four years old and in preschool, and they used the HWOT program. They even copied the K level for me to use this year at home and we practiced that for awhile until I switched to the PR1 in June/July. Since he worked on capitals first with HWOT, and PR has him strictly doing lower case right now, he thinks thats silly and keeps asking me to do capitals w/ PR. I guess Im holding back because I really want him to know to not use capitals unless there is a reason, and he doesnt get the reasons yet. So if hes writing "for fun" and not prompted through me, hes writing in caps. Its his own little defiant way to say hey mom, I already know how to do this even if you havnt taught me yet. My son is left-handed and somewhat uncoordinated, but PR has him writing beautifully and he loves knowing exactly where to start his letters. HWOT is a fun way to get those handwriting skills built up, wheras PR is a bit more work, but definalty worth doing. I think my son enjoys the variety too, if I break out the HWOT, he thinks that it will be a "light" day. Maybe try doing the HWOT and then switch to PR. HWOT will warm him up and he will adapt to PR easily.

My daughter only breaks out in hives when exposed to cats or cat dander. We had a little girl over one time that lives with multiple cats, and within a few hours my daughter was all broke out. I blame the cat dander on the girls clothes. We had this happen again last year while my daughter was in public school. The teacher changed the seating arrangement and immediatly she started breaking out. Her eye started to swell, so they sent her home, not because of the hives(which they didnt notice) but because of the "pink eye." Once home, her eye suddenly got better, and I saw no hives. Have you ever had her tested for allergies? Cat or dog allergies could be the culprit.

I am using the Latin Road 1 for my 6th grade son this year. So far so good; we both like it!

We like Rightstart A, it's got plenty to do for Kindergarten and would be challenging enough for a child younger. We have the abacus, the games, geared clock, tiles, geoboards, scale, cards for the games, etc. It's got catchy little songs in it to make it fun to learn and I'm finding it easy to get through the lessons. we are on lesson 30 out of 70 something lessons, and so far so good. I will probably be looking to get RS B next. My 2nd grade daughter loves to do it with us and also likes the games. It's a worthwhile investment.

I find this true with my son sometimes too...sometimes we go off the beaten path in RS A and do our own thing, although I use it as our spine. My 5yr old likes to work in big sister's 2nd grade R & S, and she complains that she wants to do his Rightstart. I can't seem to win.

My son is 11 almost 12 in Dec, is in 6th grade, and is working in 7/6 Saxon with Dive cd rom. He is breezing through and is on lesson 46 out of 120 something lessons so we might start pre-algebra after this and just skip 8/7. That's pretty much what the WTM book says to do anyway. I have gotten Chalkdust Prealg real cheap on here, so I'm debating on either doing that next or keeping on with Saxon. I guess it could go either way.

Right in the beginning of our first few weeks at homeschooling, I was at the playground with my kids and a few moms and their kids when my 5 yr old says, "Look mom, these lines are parallel!" He was right;they were! It just made me feel good that he remembered what we had talked abt, but it also made me look good too:)

For what ages are you thinking abt?

My 11 yr sounds like yours....mine really liked reading books from the Kingdom Series. He's read the Kingdom's Hope and the Kingdom's Dawn, the first 2 books; I think there are 6 in the first series. I spied them from a Christian homeschooling seminar, a friend had recommended them. It turns out that they are in our library so Im planning on getting the others soon. My son also liked the Christian Heroes books, both the missionary and the historically based ones. If I think of any more, Ill let you know!

Sorry for the delay in answering back...I see that someone kindly relies already....hope I didnt trip you up too long:)

This one is our first "violent" game and I have to say I havnt seen any negative changes in our 11 yr old. My husband plays it with him, and I think the only downfall is the cussing factor. You also have to have the sound on, so that you can hear the zombies coming. So if you are ok with that....maybe rent it first and see what you think....

Rod and Staff is great for my 7 yr old. She is very independant with it now, although I break out the tm from time to time. It tells you what to say, and the worksheets are almost self explanatory w/o the tm. It is also mastery oriented and really drills the facts before moving on. I have her skip parts that I dont think she needs extra help on. The pages are cutely decorated(makes me want to color them) but arent too busy to distract a visual learner. Cheap too. She likes playing Rightstart games with her little brother to reinforce whats shes learning and to have a little fun.

Hi Gina, I'm Nina.

We use Rod and Staff and are very pleased with it. It really drills the math facts, although my daughter tends to fly through it and wants to skip problems that she feels are repeats. I love the design, not too busy, almost makes me want to color on it like a kid would. It is a very traditional program, but is a mastery approach. I also like that its inexpensive, and you get five workbooks to start with instead of a huge one. You could always use Singapore as a supplement on those days when you feel they are zipping through.

My son's handwriting started out awful looking when we started having him write the phonograms back in February. We have been pressing on, having him hear me say the sound, and then he says it as he is writing it. I give him specific instruction on how to for each letter, for example, writing an "o" is like starting at 2 o'clock, just below the mid-line, rounding it out, touching the baseline as we go, and back to 2 o'clock. We looked at a clock first and I explained this to him and after repetition, he caught on and at least knows where to start his letters. His handwriting has greatly improved after daily work, but we only do abt 20 minutes a day drilling sounds and writing a few, as much as he can do. We have worked on just letters and their diff. sounds for each and writing them, before I have just now started giving him vowel teams like aw, au, oi, oy, etc. The Spalding method we are doing has you write it, say it, read it, and isnt much on sight words. Some are skeptical, but I am seeing real results from a boy that I really didnt think could have such pretty handwriting. Now, my only problem is getting him to do it, and know that I know he is capable, Im starting to expect more. I would just do as much as the child is willing to do...maybe 15 min or so and then more on to something more hands on, like building words with block, or phonics bingo, etc.

What are you doing for writing?

Nina, Robin, Liesel, Natalie, Michaela, Katelyn......

Here are our local school's guidelines which I try to go by somewhat.... http://www.fox.k12.mo.us/files/_LHAF0_/b8beee8d6d810b673745a49013852ec4/GLE-3rdGrade.pdf

I vote for Emma; all the Emma's I have ever known have had the sweetest dispositions and are truly great to be around. No offense, but the name Sadie reminds me of a puppy dog's name.

I think that teaching Braille or sign language and just in general talking about people with disabilities is great to teach kids. My son was in public school from K till the end of 5th grade and since 1st grade has been in the "Special Friends Club" up at school. When we pulled him out to homeschool, his chief concern was whether or not he could still participate up at school in this program. We have it worked out so that he can still attend and be apart of this group. He loves it and I think all kids should be given the opportunity to learn how to communicate with others, despite their disabilities. I think this also is a character building skill that will make an impact on their view of others. You could also take a field trip day to visit a school for the blind and read to ger abt Helen Keller; it would make for a great unit study. She may also want to help others one day and, you never know, she may want to be a OC or other related therapist. Endless possibilites, and I dont see one of them as a negative.

With Latin sometimes taking over 45 min to do, I am now just having 45 min as a cut off time. I make sure he is doing the right work and talk to him abt it for like 5 min and when time is up and he is not finished, we either save it for tmrw or if we have idle time at night, he can finish up. I just figure that he has too many other things to get checked off his planner than to spend any more time on one subject. After a while, he probably doesn't retain all the info and could just be thinking abt all the mistakes hes made. Maybe watch him do it for awhile, making sure he's on the right track, then tell him he need to get such and such done by whatever time. Maybe he can somehow be motivated to quicken up the pace so that he can move on to other subjects. Perhaps a reward system, like getting points earned for completing all work by the end of the week, or something to show him that he working toward a goal.

I have two Sparkies and a T&T this year and my youngest was so excited to get his new vest last Sun. He said John 3:16 and is eagerly working on the "S is for...P is for..." parts. We love AWANA; this is our 2nd year.

I wrote a friend earlier this week about what our last week looked like, so I copied and pasted it here. We had a four day week, but usually have five, just took a fieldtrip day on Friday. We also have 2 littles, so thats why you see some "little kid stuff" thrown in. 6th grade Monday Reading- 40 pgs of "I am David" book(book of choice from library) Math- Saxon 7/6, lesson 26 Latin- listen to Pledge of All. in Latin, review cases, first declensions, correct section B and C from last week/ review vocab Spelling- 20 words, test, rewrite one mistake 5x History- read "Our Island Story" 6 chapter(was only supposed to do 1) and World Religions pg 54, read abt Medieval Monks for 20 min English- 4 vocab words, and read abt editing and revising writing in Shurley Grammar Music- learned Down Down Baby song and handclap w/ kids, listened to Miss Mary Mack too Swimming at YMCA for 45 min. Tuesday Reading- 40 pgs " ", read abt Johnny Appleseed w/littles Math- lesson 27 Latin- review cases, declension, vocab, 3 pg review sheet Science- read abt plate tectonics in Christian Kids Explore book History- read Streams of Civilazation pg 192, 265- 266, timeline work English- read pgs 11-13 and 4 vocab words Wednesday Reading- 20 pg of " " Math- lesson 28 Latin- review and test Spelling- 20 words, test, corrections History- read Church in History 1 ch, Art of History pg 9-13, 22,23,26-27, finish maps for geography Writing- wrote a one pg paper on topics "Pretend you are a monk and describe a typical day" which was written more from a third person point of view, so we are redoing Thurs Choir and RA's from 6-8pm Thursday Reading- 30 pgs " " Math- Lesson 29 No Latin Spelling- 20 words, test, corrections Science- read more abt plate tectonics and Pangaea, answered question orally History- read King Arthur for 30 min 15 pg approx Writing- dictation from Usborne Time Traveler, abt 10 sentences, wrote paper on pretend like as a monk using 10 key words from the Medieval Monk book in writing My son thinks we do too much school, but I think we need to amp up writing to 4x a week. Also, from what Im reading here, we might need to do science for more than an hr to an hour and a hlf a week.

My husband also has the admin password, but we share an email account and password. For any accounts we have, I keep a address book full of passwords in case he might need them but I'm usually the one to pay the bills.

My oldest had issues with reflux. He didnt have it while I was nursing him though. The symptoms didnt begin until I put him on formula to go back to work. I tried putting rice cereal in his bottle and regret doing so because it was hard on his digestive system and it didnt help him either. The Dr switched him to soy milk and that wasnt any better. He was fussy and projectile vomited after his feeding. It was so bad that his babysitter quit me after just 4 weeks saying that she was afraid that he would choke on his own vomit and wrote me a letter about her concerns. He continued to have these symptoms until he quit formula at 12 months and started eating regular food. He now struggles with digestive issues such as constipation and I believe it is linked to issues he had as an infant. I am now thinking abt seeing a nutritionist to see what might help. I have already gotten rid of the reg milk in the house and replaced it with almond milk, but I havnt taken away the cheese and yogurt, so maybe thats why I cant tell any difference. To this day, I dont know exactly what has caused these problems. He eats lots of fruits and veggies and has taken natural supp. of slippery elm bark and extra fiber, and maybe we havnt been consistent, but it doesnt seem to help. I would definalty try and seek other help out until you get to the root of the problem. Poor little guy!