:bigear: I just started mine this weekend. It's not done yet though and definitely a work in progress. I had been looking everywhere for printables like the pp posted, so thank you! Can't wait to see more :)

We have a local charter school through the public school district. I know you're going to get tons of folks that have very negative opinions about the whole thing, but from this newbie's point of view, it really is nice. We are enrolled at the local charter school, as are many local hs'ing friends. There are MANY perks to the local charter school...all of which are OPTIONAL, and you may pick and choose as you please. There are weekly enrichment classes, field trips, public school system curriculum provided for free, $40 to local vendors for things such as dance, karate, etc, homeschool curriculum for core courses paid for as long as there is no religious information in them, "normal" school activities such as battle of the books, science fair, spelling bees, etc. All of these things are INCREDIBLY encouraging for a mom pulling her 4th & 1st grader out of ps for no reason other than she feels she can do better at home. We are welcome to use WHATEVER curriculum we wish, even if it is religious, the school just cannot pay for it. They will pay for non-religious curriculum, even if it's not the ps standard. For example, they regularly order MUS and from Rainbow Resource. We have free use of the "resource room" for the school district (ie the place to make your homeschool class look all pretty with all the diecuts we can imagine, free lamination, etc. The one place where the school is "involved" is that we meet once a month with our resource teacher who we give work samples to (1 sample from each core subject...for the entire month LOL). The children are also required to take the state test, which if we didn't go through the charter school, they wouldn't have to do. Personally, I WANT them to take it just so I can compare how I'm doing with how their ps teachers have done with them in the past. So, while I understand that some people don't like the idea of government involvement in their children's education, that wasn't why I pulled my girls out of ps, so I LOVE the idea of being 100% involved in my children's education, and yet still receiving some of the perks of my paid tax dollars :)

I'm curious about this too. We will be in Island this year, but it appears that much of the notes and such in the books refer to things that they will learn this year in Island, so I'm not exactly sure how to work it?

Question about this...which one are you guys looking to get? We're using MUS, but I've thought about MM to supplement...I'm just not sure which of these options I want?

Ok, whoa. I didn't know there was a HST+ yahoo group! This might actually make me attempt to work with my trial version more if there's good plans in it! What's the link?

Starting August 1st and love this! :bigear:

We just got 3 writing tables from walmart. I'm on my phone right now and I can't easily link it, but you should be able to find it by searching "writing table". It is black, has one small drawer and was $39. The only thing I don't like about it is the backside is just unfinished pressboard, so we're taking some black paint and painting the back of it so that we can have them in the middle of the room. Anyway, it was exactly what I wanted and the price is right, so maybe it will help you :)

Yay! I've been on a road trip with the kids this week and realized there were several songs that my older daughter learned in first grade that I hadn't thought about teaching my newly 1st grader. Love these suggestions!

We are only taking 2 days to get there (about 14 hrs) and 3 days to get home, but we would still like to be able to attempt some quick site seeing excursions on the way. Any suggestions? We're actually taking the 15 to Provo, then going through Park City on our way to a family reunion in Hanna, UT. 3 kids, ages 3, 6, 9. We haven't been on a road trip like this...EVER...so I'm kind of nervous about it LOL. Anything we should take in the car to help pass the time? And any suggestions of places to see on the way would be great!

I have a friend who has homeschooled all but 1 of her children k-12 (she calls her oldest dd her test case in ps and the reason she hs the rest lol). She once told me that the way she finally knew for sure that she'd done a good job was when her kids started hs'ing their kids. It makes sense is you think about it! So far, all of her grandkids are being hs (including the kids from the ps child) :)

What?! Grrrrrrrt. I JUST dropped our cable and signed up for Netflix last week! This is seriously irritating!

I would go to Staples if we had one near us. The closest one is 2+hr away. I always see the staples deals posted on the net and get very jealous LOL.

I have a friend who uses it and LOVES it. She loves how her son has grown both spiritually and educationally by using it. I don't know a ton about it, but I have glanced through her books and such. I looked into it, but decided it was too big if an undertaking for me to start with lol. She adds Right Start math to it (as it suggested) and she didn't care for the science it had so she uses a WTM science suggestion. She also added SOTW because while she loves how in depth and Christianity focused the history is, it's essentially all US history so she wanted to add some world focus to his studies as well. Sorry...I have no personal experience using it, but I know how little info there is out there for it so I thought I'd let you know what I know :)

:iagree:

Definitely something in the older version. I just got the new version and they specifically say what week they go with :). My current plan is to use the BP maps for the 4th grader and the AG maps for the 1st grader. I'm sure you'll be fine with whatever maps you use :)

Haha! We don't lol. We actually start Aug 1st. I was looking at a calendar that started on monday instead of sunday and it screwed me up lol.

So pretty! My concern with this is how easy is it to adapt if you miss a day? That's where my problem comes in. I want to plan the whole year so I know how much to do each day and keep an eye on where we are, but I don't want it to crash and burn as soon as I miss a day, or the kids do something unplanned, etc.

Well, you can take this with a grain of salt, since I haven't actually started using it yet LOL, but the way I set it up was sorted by weeks. It made no sense to me to have a maps binder, and a cool history binder, etc, all separated. So, I just put the lesson plan for the week on the first page, then the Companion info after that, then the Cool History info (both middle and littles). These are all things I picture myself teaching from, not handing to the child. I then made a separate binder with the maps and coloring pages because those will go to the kids. Like I said, I haven't actually started yet (will begin teaching it Aug 2), but this is the way I thought would work best for me.

I just bought 3 of these for my kids. They're not adjustable, and obviously they're just cheap, but the price was right for us :). I wanted 3 separate desks because I don't know if they'll work better apart from each other, or together as a group, and I didn't want to spend a fortune, so this is what we ended up with. We love them :) http://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-Writing-Table-Ebony-Ash/16401708

This newbie wants to see these videos!!

Yes, have read WTM and have an idea of Charlotte Mason - haven't heard of Julie Bogart yet, but googling now :). Definitely like the idea of dictation, copywork and narration. Hoping it all works as I picture with my kids ;) LOL.

This is our first year of ps'ing. My 4th grader is very bright, but has been in ps, so she's learned very little grammar, and most writing has consisted of journaling. She LOVES to write and I want to make sure she explores that through our hs'ing. We are using MCT, but I just feel like I need some more writing to add to it. Would WWE be appropriate in this situation, and if so, which level should we use? What about some of the other writing such as WWW, etc. I guess I just don't know what program I could use to supplement MCT and where I should jump in at with her. Also, for my 1st grader, I'm using FLL1. Should I add WWE for her even though she's not reading fluently yet? Or should I focus on reading and get to writing as the reading comes along? Help! I spent so much time picking out the main subjects for our curriculum, now I'm getting into the nitty gritty and feel like I need to add more LOL.

Oooooh - I hadn't seen that yet!! Thank YOU Christine! My Apologia should be delivered today and now I have a good idea for how to work the schedule - perfect for a newbie. Thanks!

I'm in California and 4th grade is California History here. Since I'm just pulling my kids out of ps, I wanted to try to at least keep an eye on what they're doing in ps, in case we crash and burn with hs'ing. I'm not expecting that LOL, but I do want to make sure to have a backup in case it happens. Anyway, I found a literature study guide for California state history, which includes 8 or so books. My idea is that dd will read these books in her off time, and we'll do a notebook on it as well. In our state history, 4th graders always have a big mission project, and before the budget crisis, they would take a field trip to a local mission. We will incorporate this into this year as well...or at least that's the plan (keeping in mind that this is my first year of hsing LOL).

Hmmm...I wish I knew what year it was that we first got the internet. I graduated high school in 95 and I know it was long before that. My dad was always a computer nerd, having to have all the latest and greatest. We had an old TI computer way back in the day, when I was literally just a kid, but it wasn't on the net. I know we were the first ones that got the internet when it came to our town (grew up in a small town). Anyone remember ICQ?? We would call my aunt & uncle in Kansas (we were in California) and could talk to them on microphones over ICQ - it was free long distance, and amazing ;) LOL. I'm going to have to ask my dad what year all of this would have been. I'm guessing 91 or 92. My dad also had a cell phone (a big giant bag phone LOL) long before anyone even knew they made them.