Thank you!

My youngest is not a natural writer, although the girls are. One dd was published at 14, and I never taught her a thing! So ds was a bit of a surprise! I don't know K12 but what you describe would be impossible for my ds. IEW is great, start at the beginning and take it slooooooooooow. Do Intensive A and carry on from there. OR, if you can bear it, just do loads of copywork in school, poetry, excerpts from favourite books etc, and then when they are 13 or 14 or so, work through The Lively Art of writing by Lucile Vaughan Payne. Small, cheap and brilliant! Willow.

For people who have used Latin Prep by Galore Park... What does one need to buy? There seems to be a book, an answer book, workbooks A and B and answer books, a puzzle book and also a CD. Do we need all of these? We are 'slow and steady' people rather than 'rush on through' people! This means we would normally go for all the materials, but this adds up to a lot of money. Thank you Willow.

In NZ we have to register to homeschool. Then we get about NZ$750 per oldest child per year. Younger ones are on a sliding scale, with a bit less for each one. We can spend it on what we like, although all mine goes on curriculum because of exchange rates and postage from the US. We have to declare we are teaching "at least as regularly and as well as a public school" every 6 months, and that is it. The Educational Review office can visit you, and will if there have been complaints, to see if you are teaching "as least as regularly etc" but as homeschoolers almost never fail the inspections, they don't come any more. :D Apparently it is uneconomic to worry about us and the inspectors would be better off spending their time in schools! Willow.

Yes, as he has passed all his classes it makes no sense to repeat them...and also some things will be 'just carrying on with the book" for example I expect we will finish Apologia General Science around November/December, so then I will just carry on with Physical Science. My older ones are girls and were very mature at this age (academically and emotionally mean :tongue_smilie:) One dd had a short story published in an anthology at 14 for example, ds is just not where they were. He's a great kid, kind, gentle, fun loving, but there is no way he can do what they were doing at his age. I truly don't mind. He was born with an apgar score of 1, amid major drama. No one knew if he would pull through and then if he would be brain damaged from lack of oxygen. He wasn't, there are no adverse effects, he is bright, lively and coordinated. He surfs and sails, BUT he has always been a little behind emotionally. The basic 'young for his age' kid. I think I fear that pushing him into an amount of work he is not yet ready for will kill his enthusiasm and love of learning (he is a history buff). Maybe I just won't label him anything, but just record his work. Then I can always do "retrospective" labelling! As in, when he is ready to go off to college I just fill his transcript with what he has done over the previous 4 years regardless of whether he is 17, 18 or 19 at the time! And label the years appropriately. After all, there is no point in going to college until one is ready and one of the girls took a gap year between graduation and college and benefited enormously, so we may encourage that as well.

Sorry I have taken so long to get back to you, and thank you for your interesting and insightful replies. I love this forum, I go to bed and when I wake up people have taken the time to consider my question. I am not in the US (at the moment) and HSing here has very few rules. It is more emotional than academic although his poor handwriting and spelling slow him considerably. And yes he can and does type, but he needs to be able to write too. ;) Academically he has done OK, not brilliantly, but he has achieved all that has been required of him. His essays are still very immature, but I assume they will improve over the next 4 years.... He is not sure what grade he is at the moment as here the grades are different, so I don't think it would be seen as holding back. I haven't worried about grade designation so far, but I think I need to for High School because of his transcript. I need 4 years of High School of course, so that is why grade designation has become important this year. Thank you again for your thoughtful responses. Willow.

My ds is 13, will be 14 in July. He shows no signs of puberty yet, is the youngest child in the family, and is 'young' for his age. He would make a great 12 and a half year old! I don't think he is ready for High School work. He is reasonably bright, but does not yet have the concentration and commitment for High School. He also has difficulty with the physical act of writing, and is working hard this year on this. He has just finished MUS pre-algebra, and is doing an eclectic mix of Ambleside year 7, and some other stuff. Science, half way through Apologia general Science. Would it be possible to take another year in grade 8, and what would be the consequences of this?

So much depends on the kid and the location. I live in New Zealand, I feel differently about this than someone in, say, New York. I think 7 is too young however. Basically can they cope in a crisis? If the restaurant or library has a fire alarm, and all are evacuated, do they know what to do? What if a man comes over to talk to them? Do they know what to do? Also 2 or more together are MUCH safer than one alone for soooo many reasons. Also what are the truancy laws in your area? Can they be removed to a place of safety if assumed to be truanting? Once mine were 11 or so they pretty much went anywhere, but I preferred them not to be alone. I would leave a 9 year old in the library for a short time, alone. BUT I live in a very low crime area.

I am so sorry. I will pray for you and your family. Willow

slowly! We did one long division sum together, gently, with lots of reminders and easy numbers every single morning for almost a year. It did get harder as the year went by and ds gradually took over doing more and more of the work, but it was always gentle and slow and together. Now he loves long division, and will do them for fun!

This is so funny! We only had an outside dunny, and I got an indoor toilet last year. We redid the bathroom, and put in a toilet. I was so proud....

DD1 didn't speak until she was 3!! She then said "Could you pass me some cake, please" Oh, and within 2 days of her deciding to talk it was also apparent she could read. Chapter books. No idea when she learnt. So that shut the doctors up. ;)

Its a trolley! :001_smile:

I haven't read all the responses but just in case anyone else has not pointed it out..... NEW ZEALAND IS NOT PART OF AUSTRALIA!!!!!!! ;) I voted "somewhere left out" of course. Willow.

Please ignore...this is just me letting off steam. Mothers day. One dd is home also ds and dh. I get up a 6am as usual....I like this time alone. At 7am I make dh a cuppa and take it in. "Thank you dear" OK, well, he is still half asleep. He gets up, makes his breakfast. DD gets up comes in. " oh Happy Mothers Day." "Thank you" I say. Dh looks startled but says nothing. She makes her breakfast. (She is 19 and stopping over for the night) No card, no offer of a cuppa even. DS gets up. "You'd better say Happy mothers day to your mum" dh tells him. "happy mothers day" says ds "Thank you" I say. And that is it, no card, no cup of tea made, no call from older dd not living at home, not even an offer to help with making meals or the washing up. OK rant over.

My dh is a teacher.....it sounds just like school....the parents are FAR more of a problem than the kids, and the kids are a pain.... Why are all the good teachers leaving teaching? because of the things you just describe. MY kid is gifted/LD/ADD/special/plain different, and you must change what you do to accommodate him/her. Or "My child deserves more time than the rest". Dh points out a child in an average class of 45 minutes is entitled to less than 5 minutes of a teachers time. I expect it is the same in a popular Co-op. Rant over and :grouphug: to you. I would never either run a co-op or be in one, because of things like this. I am an independent homeschooler and proud of it! (mostly...when things are going well... and not on a Monday morning.....;)) Willow.

I'm worried my boy is just starting his growth spurt....and he is cealiac...its costs a fortune to feed him at the moment....NZ$7 a loaf, and he can eat that in one sitting.

Charlotte mason used to provide time for masterly inactivity. We do this by having unstructured time. We have no TV anyway, so we also have a computer free day every now and again, and also computer free, school free time. If your kids are required to read challenging stuff for school they may choose lighter stuff for free time. After all we all need 'time off'! I'm not suggesting not challenging them during school time, but do they have free time as well. If you nag them during free time, or worse, require them to document everything they read during free reading they are not going to choose to read, any more than you would if your dh required a list of all you had read with dates started and finished! I think what i am saying....your kids are young, they need time chatting to friends, time outside, time playing board games. they will read if the TV is not on and if they have time, space and freedom to do it! maybe just not all the time...

Which bring Richard III to mind again.....anyone read "daughter of time"?

Because co-ops seem to be turning into schools. Don't go, be free, learn, have fun! ;)

I am in NZ. dryers are not illegal, but are uncommon. People who do have them use them in winter or to finish the laundy off if necessary. I have a 19 year old washer (top loader) and no dryer. I also never iron. I hang shirts on hangers (outside!), in winter we put it in front of the log burner overnight. You could use radiator hangers if you have central heating. Willow.

:iagree:

"Rigorous" meaning, of course, challenging but also closely associated with rigor mortis......;)

I'm not am American, and not located in America, so don't truly understand credits. BUT if MUS say a course is a credit, the surely it is a credit. Isn't it? Willow.

Not MUS geom but Algebra, but a thought about MUS and the "R-word". I found an old algebra book from our local school area. The dates written inside it were from the 1930's and 40's. At first we were staggered at what the kids were apparently able to do then, and how it compared to MUS algebra. So we tried it. The explanations were VERY sketchy, just one sentence, and then straight into the exercises. After we got used to the small print and overwhelming number of questions we realised we could do it! We had learned all we needed in MUS. The questions were 'harder', more challenging, but we had learnt all we needed in MUS. We were fine as far as we had gone. It was impossible for us to learn the work new to us from the old book. I have no doubt we will be able to do it as we cover the new stuff in MUS. Because the problems are easy in MUS and the explanations simple, we understand (I keep saying 'we' as I am doing MUS too....I played truant most of my High school years) and then we can transfer our knowledge to the more challenging questions. I worried about MUS in the past (because of the "R word"!! ;)) but now I am fine and comfortable. We will first understand, we will then seek challenge (from 1930's school books if necessary!) Sorry, off topic, but I hope it helps. Willow.