Pretty familiar with it. Dh is part of a company now creating games on Facebook. Those of you on it, search for PackRat. It's a very fun trading card game. Highly addictive. ;) And I love playing Scrabble with my sister and other friends. That said, I don't know that 14 is old enough for the responsibilites that come with an online life, heck, I'm not probably responsible enough. It really depends on how much you're watching their interactions, if you know their "friends", if they know how to avoid people who need to be avoided, just like real life. Ask me in 7 years when my oldest is that age! Jami

She's just busy from what I know. :) I think they're in the early stages of house hunting in their area (not moving anywhere out of the area). I know personally the switch in board formats has made stepping back and not being *quite* so addicted easier for me. Since I can't *hear* all the conversations going on and get swept in. Maybe it's the same for her. Jami

Hmm...I admit this is just off the top of my head and I haven't though much about next year yet. My ds will be a 2nd grader and my dd will be mostly-2nd grade (math I'm not sure yet where she'll be). Latin--Minimus and Latina Christiana most likely, I may yet look more closely at Lively Latin though. Math--Horizons 2 and possibly some Singapore over the summer or on Fridays. Still thinking through if and how I want to add that in. I'm not even sure which level of Singapore will correspond, 1b or 2a? Copywork/Dictation and Writing--from our literary selections, narrations, may also work through Matt Whitling's Imitations in Writing: Aesop depending on their readiness. English Grammar--mostly in the context of Latin and Copywork/Dictation, maybe FLL3 History--American history with Truthquest, SOTW III, This Country of Ours Classical Studies--D'Aulaires myths, Gould's Plutarch (Greeks) Literature--Ambleside's Year 2 literary selections, LCC suggestions for independent and family reading, Highlands Latin School 2nd grade recommendations; some read-alouds, some independent reading Bible--Training Hearts/Teaching Minds for Shorter Catechism, Studying God's Word from CLP Everything else--I'll probably continue to mix LCC and Ambleside, so we'll use Ambleside's rotation on composers and artists, do science and nature with living books and interest-led, geography will probably follow our history studies and focus on the US, we'll read some Shakespeare (Lamb's or Nesbit's) and poetry. We'll continue Suzuki violin lessons and group classes, ballet, soccer, and other fine arts classes that strike our fancy through the program we attend on Mondays. Dh teaches drawing. Jami

I tutor for a national academic and test prep tutoring company. I go to student's homes and only choose those relatively near me with evening or weekend time slots. It's decent money, I've enjoyed most of my students so far, and I have an excellent boss. It's not work *from* home, but I have a dh home at a good time in the evenings with some flexibility in his schedule. I try to earn enough to cover violin upgrades as my children get older and need larger instruments and nice haircuts from my favorite (not cheap) stylist for myself on a regular basis. Jami

I'm Jami (formerly Jami in MO, then Jami in TX) currently in the DFW area. I "discovered" classical education in 2000, pre-children. I started reading the main names out there at that time...David Hicks, TWTM, Douglas Wilson, Susan S. Macauley, Charlotte Mason. Dh and I were strongly drawn to a Great Books/Great Ideas education for our children and then to the homeschooling lifestyle as a means for accomplishing this. I've been on the boards (with increasing frequency) since 2001 after my first child was born. Our educational philosophy and practices have been primarily shaped by the WTM, people here on the board, The Latin-Centered Curriculum, Memoria Press/Highlands Latin School, and Charlotte Mason's writings as implemented by AmblesideOnline. I don't know what camp we always fall into, I just like to call what we do "education". :) Um, let's see, what else would you like to know in a general introduction? My children are brilliant, my husband is handsome ;) Dh is a graphic designer and game designer, if you're into Facebook let me know I'll point you to the game his company has created there. Careful though, it's addictive. Jami

We've been using the SOTW CDs predominately. Every Monday we have a 20+ minute drive to our homeschool arts program and then the 20 min. return trip. So we use that time to listen to SOTW. And my kids enjoy listening to the CDs at resttime or bedtime. They seem to pretty naturally narrate and discuss what they here. I loosely try and pick chapters to listen to that match up with what we're reading in Our Island Story which is our main history text right now. So the Romans conquering Britain and the sections on the Celts, things like that have overlapped nicely. I seem to have kids that make connections well on their own and retain huge amounts of material. So we can read books from all periods of history or listen to CDs and they make it all hang together pretty well. The same thing works for science. We have several Usborne, Magic School Bus, and other science and nature books and I just encourage them to read about whatever interests them. We go to the zoo and nature preserve and talk about what we see. They explore what small bit of nature they have in the backyard. In the spring we'll plant flowers and vegetables. My son, in particular, loves learning about space and the ocean. So he brings home stacks of library books on these things and I try and wade through them with him. ;) My children are very young still, but so far just having plentiful books and a readiness to talk about what they're interested in seems to be working in history and science. Jami

I have a 1st grader and a Ker who mostly works on a 1st grade level. We spend about an hour to an hour and a half on formal school work each day, or at least 4 days a week. I also have a 3.5 year old tagging along. We do about 20 minutes of memory/group work first thing in the morning. I read a Bible chapter/passage to them and we review catechism questions. I combine LCC with Ambleside so we are learning a hymn during this time also. We work on poems we're memorizing and a bible verse or passage. Then we move on to math and copywork. And some Explode the Code to improve on spelling. For math we use Horizons and for copywork we use the Memoria Press Copybooks, my own selections from literature we read, and I have them write a letter to a family member every other week or so. Some days I have us work a bit with First Language Lessons before we start our Latin work. We've just started Prima Latina, but it's the favored subject here! If we skip it I hear about it. :) Usually they're ready for some lunch by this time. I try and read from one of our literature books or poetry over lunch. My read-alouds are drawn from the AmblesideOnline year 1 list right now. The afternoons are a rotation of reading from history books (Our Island Story, Britannia, Mighty Men, 50 Famous Stories), fairy tales and literature, the Holling C. Holling books, or science/nature books from the library. And my husband usually has an evening read-aloud going, right now it's The NeverEnding Story. Oh and I usually have them take turns reading aloud to me. I know they're strong independent readers, but I want them to practice reading well aloud. I've been using really well-written picture books (McCloskey, Beatrix Potter, etc) for this. Eventually we'll do books like Charlotte's Web together during this time. I think that's all. :) We have LOTS of free time for play in our days. They also are learning violin and have to practice daily. Art and music sort of happen through good books and CDs scattered around. But I loosely follow the Ambleside rotation there. Jami

I'm pretty much pulling together things myself. Every time I've sat down with lists from various boxed programs (Sonlight, Calvert, etc) I kept thinking of other things I wanted to add that I felt were missing or books I'd rather use. I use LCC and AmblesideOnline as general guides for what to cover and then go from there to choose particular materials and schedule them myself. Jami