Yes, oldest DS went to 2 years of private school for pre-k (age 3 - 2 mornings a week, age 4, 3 mornings a week), followed by K and 1st in our local PS. Younger DS went to a little over half a year of private pre-k - job changed and so did the $$ ;) (age 3 - 2 mornings a week), followed by 1 year of pre-k in our local PS. This is our first year homeschooling. :) And I don't know if I've mentioned it, but so far we LOVE it!!!! :D

:thumbdown: I don't doubt some people are like that, I just think its ridiculous. (So know, that when I say I'm what many would call religious - yeah, that doesn't apply to me!! ;) ) Oh, and I forgot to say that I stay organized and scheduled because it's my personality. I'm kind of freaky that way. :) (And clutter in certain areas drives me nuts, too. Like totally ruins my mood. And reading this thread I feel I should check out this Flylady person...)

Well, I'm what one would call 'religious' - but it has nothing to do with why I keep my house clean, so I an answer, right? :tongue_smilie: I clean my house because I like for it to be clean. Don't get me wrong, I'm not all that great at it... the laundry gets done, and the house is 'clean enough'. But it isn't spotless, and I usually don't willingly vacuum the floors until I notice crumbs under the table. :tongue_smilie: (and since our dog is seriously like the dumbest dog on the planet - but we love her - she doesn't eat the stuff that falls off the table!!!! Like, what on earth??) And I'm not gonna lie, I'm thrilled that the boys can start helping clean. I hate cleaning, but like the results. Well, actually, I don't mind cleaning once I get started... I just hate getting started. I have to like, plan for it. Or know I'll have help. :D

Pentecostal Christian conservative. I guess that about covers it... :)

Well, we are only like 12 lessons into it, but so far we've done everything orally. There are some occasional things regarding writing proper nouns and such, but my boys write plenty and I don't see the need at this point. FTR, I never saw the older edition, so I can't say if there is much difference. :)

:lol:

1. sort of - if all one color counts :D 2. yep, most of the time 3. it depends on his mood - never perfectly inside the lines, but sometimes better than others 4. nope, he hates it. like, seriously. Which is probably why all my answers are what they are. :lol:

I don't think you'll need it. Especially for the lower levels. :)

We live in the south. People here like the confederate flag (I don't, personally, nor does my DH who is 'from' here) - it makes them proud to be from the south or something. Idk, I honestly think it's kinda stupid. But to a lot of them its like a redneck pride thing :P

Ok, so today I realized I weigh more than DH :glare: Therefore, I must lose weight. Well, I knew I needed to anyway, but now I really need to (hopefully this will motivate me - aside from having the kids, I have never weighed more than him!) My BMI is 26, so I'm not TOO bad off, but would like to lose like 20 lbs. Has anyone ever tried anything that really, truly worked for them??

Pretty much everything. Of course, we're newbies to the whole homeschooling thing, and I'm one of those people who has always loved school, so that isn't too surprising. But I am excited about field trips. :D

haha no :)

:iagree: :grouphug:

In the middle would be fine, I think. Oldest DS is currently in B (didn't know exactly where to put him, coming out of ps) and its really easy!! But thats ok, I plan on him finishing through C this year, and a little review can't hurt, right? :D

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I generally want to try to stick with what is recommended in WTM since that is my preferred method of educating them. :)

Well, this year is our first year of homeschooling. DS(7) has had 2 years of ps, and with DS (5) we are starting from scratch aside from some pre-k school last year. For this year, I basically took what was the highest recommended in WTM and went with it. I figured that it will work for now, and I may find things I need to tweak or change a little this year, or get rid of all together for next year. And I'm ok with that. I'm confident that my kids will still be learning what they need this year, and if they don't then I know we can fix it. I'm really not too worried about it. For example, at this point I have both boys in FLL 1 - youngest DS makes sense, but oldest DS I considered not doing it because its starting so far back for him. At the same time, I'm not exactly sure how much of that sort of grammar and such he has actually been exposed to and taught at ps, so I figured we may as well go back and go over them briefly. I plan on finishing FLL 2 with him by the end of the year. A couple of examples: For Science, WTM has some recommendations for basic 'spines' to use for animal study, human body, and plants. As it stands right now, I already am pretty sure that we'll move to a different way of doing Science next year - possibly Apologia or RS4K. As for right now, we are doing what is recommended in the book one day a week (looking at the pages about the animal we are studying) and another day we're doing a different (and usually completely unrelated! lol) fun project. Yes, we are doing the mentos and diet coke on Friday. Yes, I know it is a silly, mostly just to make things shoot up in the air type of thing. But why not? :tongue_smilie: It's supposed to be fun right now. We do also get books at the library about the animals we are studying that the boys look at throughout the week - but I don't make them study it hard. We're introducing things and just having a good time learning about monkeys (this week, anyway). I really am not loving Saxon Math. blahhhh.... I don't know why, it just isn't something I'm a big fan of. I feel as though Saxon Math 2 is wayyyyy easy for my 2nd grader (so is Spelling Workout B, but he'll be finished with C by the end of the year, and I don't think it hurts to review, either). The hard thing with him is just figuring out where he would fit into a new curriculum with no knowledge of exactly what he knew/didn't know, etc. I kind of want to switch to Singapore Math next year, particularly for my oldest. For my younger, we shall see. If he seems to learn well and do well with it, we may stick with it. Otherwise we may switch to Singapore or maybe Math-U-See. Anyway, I said all that just to say that we're just kind of going with it and seeing what happens. I think I ordered all excellent curricula to begin with, and we just have to find the right fit. From what I've seen here (in the small amount of time I've been around!) that seems to be the norm. :001_smile:

:iagree:

:lol: that is hilarious. and ftr, i don't use the word either. idky, I just hate it!! and the story w your daughter - hysterical. :lol:

Yes, I think so. With just one lesson a week, though.

:iagree:

Well, my thoughts are that if they are feeling led to do this because of their faith or belief in God, then there is really no arguing with it. I'll use your examples, just for ease: I can't imagine being happy with just one child (I have 3 and part of me would just keep having them!) but in the end God does decide regardless of what we do. I could still get pregnant despite having my tubes tied. So for someone who is a Christian, God decides. A friend of mine had a surprise baby when her next youngest was 7 (her oldest was 15) - sure, maybe at the time one more baby seemed to be insane and the thought of it made her rather unhappy - however the life that this child now has was obviously meant to be, and he's loved just as much as the other 4 (plus he has 4 other 'parents' lol). Short term inconveniences and shallow life goals such as wealth (which are the only reasons I can think of for not wanting more children) actually have nothing to do with personal fulfillment anyway. Regarding volunteering, if people hate it - wow. I mean I don't always love it, but there are so many ways out there to volunteer, I can't imagine there being something that wouldn't be less dislikeable than most everything else. And volunteering is the right thing to do. Regarding the interfaith things, well, I know not everyone would agree, but they shouldn't have been looking outside of their faith anyway. Sorry. :tongue_smilie: Anyway, to me these questions are all matters of integrity. They all just have to do with the way the person feels at the time, imo. What we think determines what we feel over time. Again I don't know if I made sense... I kind of rambled...

We are using it. I like it, it is very simple but I think taking the time on each lesson really helps things to sink in - as opposed to a totally new lesson every day. We usually do about 2-3 of the activities suggested. When I read the Parent's Guide, I absolutely loved the idea of the whole thing and how it will work. Like, seriously, LOVED it! :)

I can't wait to order my stuff for next year lol! :) and $300...wow. That was like, a fraction of mine. Good job! :tongue_smilie:

Since we live in a rural area, I have to look and see what is available to borrow before deciding what to buy. Then I can look through and decide what we would really like to own out of what we can't get access to elsewhere.

For oldest DS(7), we sit down and talk through what he wants to write, and I'll write the first couple of sentences for him. He usually does a couple more himself. My plan is to move it to just writing the opening sentence for him, and then not write it at all. But I will still help him form his thoughts into sentences, if he needs it. This is our first year homeschooling, so this is something that is totally new for him, as much as it is for my 5yo. For DS(5) I write it all for him. Honestly, he has a hard enough time with narrations as it is, and he is still working on writing well. I only have him do 1 history narration and 1 science narration per week. Other than that we just kind of talk about it or I ask him some questions. :001_smile: Anyway, that's how we do it.