At 4, my son was ready to read. He focused easily and he learned quickly with 100ez lessons. He still had off days. On those days, we stopped. At 4, my daughter desperately wanted to read so that she could read books to the new baby. She was not ready. When she asked, we tried. But I did not push and definitely did not punish for normal 4 yo focus issues. She is 4. Play games, read to her and back off. She will learn to read and it will be fine.

Do you need two math programs? I would just go with SM and do some history or science instead of two math programs. RS4K science is easy for a busy schedule. The halter a are quick reads and full of good info. I plan one book a semester. That gives me lots of extra time. One chapter and one experiment a week are easy and if we miss a week, no big deal. We have a busty schedule too. I work evenings and the kids come with me some. For my 4th grader, I teach him his lessons and we save the written practice for while he sits at the studio with me. He keeps busy and has more play time at home. When you are ready to add history, get SOTW on cd (or something else on cd) and listen while in the car. Then you can discuss and add extra reading as needed.

Oops! Hit post on accident! We repeat lessons for a couple of days, we take a week to finish a lesson in pieces, we take a break and write in glue for a day. :) once I stopped thinking I her as behind and started to work where she was I was less stressed. In PS, she would be "behind" and we would both feel the pressure of getting her to level. She does not know there is a problem. She wants to read and we are slowly getting there but she has no one to compare to.

I am 100% convinced that homeschooling my DD is muh easier than navigating the PS system would be with her. We go for testing in Dec (4 month wait! Ugh!) but we are making progress. I have read every book on dyslexia and ADHD that I could find. I also talked to other moms with dyslexic children and a friend who's specialty before having kids was LDs. I changed curricula to fit her needs. Everything is multi sensory. We have pictures, manipulatives, games, and worksheets. We have days where we make baby steps everyday and all is great, then we have a day where it seems she has forgotten it all. Once I learned to relax, she will get it when she gets it, everything started to go better.

I started the year with ETC for my 6 almost 7 year old. She hated it and we made no progress. Now we do AAS and she loves it. It actually takes us less time to do a full lesson than it took for 1 page of etc some days! My son (9), has always been a sit and get it all done at once kid. Even at 6. My DD is different. I do a lesson with her and giver her a short break. Less than 5 minutes to chase her little brother and she is ready to go. Sometimes it is longer, while I do a math lesson or dictation with her brother. She is first grade. We do AAR 1, Song School Latin (which is also our grammar as it covers the basic parts of speech), SM 1, and AAS 1 once a week. She also does cursive, at her request. She does MP geography, SOTW, science and MP Timeline with her brother. She is memorizing the time line, but she is not absorbing much of everything else and that is fine. Her brother is 4th and just started doing some of those subjects. She does then because she is there. I went to a college prep private school from 5th-12th grade. I have some major holes! Even after 2 college degrees, I have holes. You are not trying to teach your child everything. You give a solid foundation in reading, writing, math, and thinking skills. You instill a live of learning and then teach them how to learn by teaching all of the other subjects. Then they can fill the holes they need or want filled.

Sometimes there are limits on the weekly specials. It is per customer. Me and 3 kids = 4 customers.

We own 3 small businesses that we run from home. DH keeps the kids at night while I teach dance. He is usually home at least 3 full days a week. He goes out of town 2-4 times a year for 4-7 days. We have more family time than most people and I love it. We cook and clean together. He gardens with the kids. I don't think I could handle him being gone all day everyday.

No. I homeschool because it was what was best for my kids. My state pulled out of CC, so it would not have been an issue right now.

From my friend who is a specialist in infectious disease: "It's not that easily spread. And not like that. Again I reiterate - not waterborne not respiratory not on surfaces. Not foodbourne. Need heavy body fluid contact. Repeated contact. Viable source." (referring to surfaces touched by the sick.) She said she is in daily contact with things more contagious than Ebola, the media has just latched onto this one. The best BBQ I have had was Perry Foster's in Warrensburg, MO; tied for 2nd would be Kehde's in Sedalia, MO and Dreamland in Birmingham, AL. 3rd is Van's Pig Stand here in Moore, OK. I have had BBQ in Texas, it was good - but not Perry Foster's! I put beans in my chili. I think I have covered all relevant topics from this thread. :)

My mom was unsure at first and my dad was always asking Aidan when he would go to real school. They don't ask anymore. In 2012-2013 the school both kids would be at (a great school academically) made the news three times. Lock down for a gun found in a classroom. Lock down for a bank robbery around the corner. And it was destroyed in the May 20th tornado that went through Moore. My kids were with my parents that day, 30 miles from everything. I don't get any questions any more. They also see how well the kids are doing, but that stopped the questions from everyone.

I am trying to figure that out as well! I have the Veritas press timeline cards, Kingfisher and Usborne Encyclopedias and a tin of books I have collected at library book sales. I may build our own program from all of that and supplement with biographies from the library.

I have the teachers guides for R&S because I bought 2-5 used and got both books for each level. I like having the guide. We can read along together and I can look at the answers as we do the oral drill. My grammar is improving greatly as I work with my oldest! Some things I don't remember ever learning, I like having the answers :). The books are pretty cheap, so I will probably buy both when I buy the next level.

I use R&S English. We go through the lesson together. Do the oral drill and the worksheet is assigned. I don't have my some do the written practice. I use the worksheets to replace that. He hates to write, and this is one place I can avoid frustration and still get good practice! We use SM and do the same thing. Latina Christiana has a CD for pronunciation. He does the work book alone most of the time. IEW was a DVD series last year, this yet we go over the assignment quickly and then he is on his own. We sit together for 30-45 minutes and go over everything. Then he takes the printout from skedtrack and works through the day's assignments. We do history, science and geography on alternating days - as a family. But most of his work is independent.

Thanks! That looks so easy to use!

If he enjoys them, let him read them. Part of the goal of early reading is to build a love of books and reading. Use the scholastic book wizard to find some more hallenging books and have him try them. My son read te MTH books for a while, then got bored with the formula. I kept a variety of books around, so he tried a bunch. I gave in and let him read Diary or a Wimpy Kid. Then he picked up Call of the Wild and an abridged Moby Dick followed by the Hobbit - all on his own. I simply encouraged him to read what he found interesting. He now goes back and forth between challenging books and easy books. For enjoyment, most people want a book below their highest reading level. To develop speed and comprehension reading below is good. I push my sons reading level with McGuffey readers. He reads outloud to me at least 3 days a week.

I use Skedtrack to plan. I print out the week for each kid and we use it as a check list for the week. Sometimes my 9 year old works ahead to have more free time on Fridays.

My friend's dad does concierge pediatrics. He charges $100-200 a month. Takes no insurance. But he will make house calls so you don't have to haul sick kids into the office. This $100 fee is different and unusual. My best friend is an internal medicine specialist. She get calls and texts even when she is on vacation and it is just a part of her job. She even fields questions from panicked best friends- "do I go to the ER, or can I wait until morning for the doctor to open?" And much, much more. I would not pay the $100 every year. But if I had an extra sick year with lots of after hours calls, I might offer to pay then.

I have never been harassed. I do get asked questions about getting started all the time. I have a supportive family though ad our area is heavily populated with homeschoolers.

I expect my 6 year old (1st grade) to be able to solve any addition or subtraction problem up to 20 with manipulatives or pictures. We are slowly memorizing facts. We finished week 3 and she is pretty good with 0s, 1s, 2s, and 3s in her head. We also memorize skip counting songs.

We go to co-op once a week. There is a mom's room with snacks. We hang out and chat. That same group has monthly mom's night outs. I go when I can. We also have playdates, we go occasionally. We also do a monthly field trip. This is all with the same group. We have made a lot of great friends doing this. As far as other socialization...we had a church small group and we see them every now and then - they all moved :( But we have a very large family and we spend a lot of time with DH's siblings. They are our closest friends.

My kids do musical theatre and dance. That gives them lots of exposure to music theory, as well as various styles and composers. They also take piano. We listen to music at home. I am going to start teaching them the recorder this year. For art - I have some books that we look through for fun projects. We are doing Drawing with Children this year. I have a set of books on my Kindle that I downloaded for free a couple weeks ago. I am going to plan an art history class using those for next year. :)

That was the plan, but my parents want to keep the kids for a week and cannot do that until after the 9th. I don't want to do a week and then take a week off. We have been reading CHOW, some science books, a Bible study, and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe this summer. We will continue with those next week and I may start our math review. But I am just going to delay everything 2 weeks. Good thing Homeschool Skedtrack is so flexible! ;)

My son started "ahead." We did math on our own for kindergarten and I tested him for placement and we started with 2A. For 1st grade and half of 2nd we went at the suggested pace and I added in IP and CWP. My son got bored with the repetition and drill. He grasps concepts quickly and just wanted to learn new things, not drill the old in 3 different books. Now, we do the text book together. We go over the lesson, do a few practice problems together, and if he seems to grasp the concept I send him off on his own to do the workbook. Sometimes we only do half of the problems in a lesson. When I grade the lessons, if he has missed a lot on a topic, we do the other half or we redo all the missed problems. We completed 3 sets in 2nd and 3 sets in 3rd. Next year for 4th, we will be in 5B and probably complete through 6B. We don't work in the summer, we don't do any tests.

I was trying to quote the post that said it was available to all kids. It simply is not true. Yes, funding may be there to an extent, but our neighborhood school did not have space for preK. The funding was not enough to build new facilities. The funding does not help add classroom space. The state may claim universal preK, but it is not true in implementation. Most of the programs I know of are half day, not full day.

There is not really universal pre-k in Oklahoma. Parent's camp outside the schools that have it in our district in order to get one of the available slots after taking all the low income students first. Each school handles it different. One makes parents wait across the street until they open their doors and then they race to line up. It is ridiculous! They may be moving towards universal, but it is far from it.