I also made ours, printed on white cardstock & taped together so that it folds up accordion style. My kids keep theirs in a bag in their school box, but it would fit in a binder. I printed one century per page (landscape) for example, one page would say 1600 at the left side and 1650 in the middle, then the next page would say 1700 on the side and 1750 in the middle. I started at the year 0 with the year 50 in the middle and ended with the century 2000 with 2050 in the middle. So far we've glued on pictures (that I got in my Time Traveler's History Units or that I printed from the internet) related to the composers, explorers, family related historical events (like immigrating to America), instruments like the violin and piano, the Mayflower, Jamestown, and other things that we studied that year. This year I am going to add 2000 years b.c. When we open ours up, it stretches across the room. I love that the hugeness of it shows their place in history and I love how when we label items from music, and history, they can see that these things were happening at the same time. This year we plan to add more bible, art, and science to our timelines.

I also tend to count a weekend or vacation day here and there because my kids are always doing things I count as "educational". So we end up ahead anyway.

If you're ready, you can start "school" without your books. I was all set to start Aug 22 with my books & schedule (when our local school starts), but found out we'll be moving that very week. So now we won't start fully with our books & schedule til after Labor Day (which is a short week anyway). But we can start gradually before then with some projects like, like the tadpoles that I hope will arrive soon :)

My Abeka grammar books all came in cardboard "envelopes" with cardboard inserts & all the corners are damaged too. It looked bad and definitely disappointed me. My kids didn't notice the corners at all, they loved the colorful cover & pages :) I must add that now, after they've been stacked for a few days they have flattened out & you can't even tell anymore.

I loved reading the Ramona books to my 2nd grader :)

We may try the back to school out to breakfast this year! Thanks for the idea :)

We're fairly new, this will be our 3rd "first day of homeschool". We like to buy new school supplies that we don't need :) (we buy what we need too because they are on sale now but I like to let the kids pick out things) we buy a new 50 cent pencil box (and recycle the old one) we pick out cute new pencils (even tho we have tons of boring ones) and we pick out a "cute" notebook of paper. I like to get a back to school surprise too. The first year was midyear & it was art supplied. The next year it was a dissection kit my oldest wanted, and this year it is an explorer backpack. I also like to let them open up all the packages of new crayons, pencils, markers, etc themselves :) on the first day, make a banner, etc.

i think the reason that it is a negative symbol today is that it still offends people today: it represents a time in history and a location in history that relied on slavery and fought to keep slavery i knew that even in public high school

my 11 yo daughter recently doesn't change into pajamas at a sleepover (even tho they are in her backpack) she'll stay in the same clothes for sleep & the next day, so frustrating! But I wonder if it is a comfort thing like not wanting to deal with going into an unknown bathroom to undress?

You have to what's right for you, and your house, and your other kids. We'll move soon & my oldest will not necessarily get the biggest room, she'll actually get the room furthest away from us because my 8 year old probably couldn't handle it :)

I did not see the "my child was almost born at home" option?? We were lucky to make it to the hospital 20 minutes away on an empty tank of gas :)

i've told my own that you just keep wiping til the toilet paper is clean (and make a bath every night). I think boys must be more difficult with this than girls because girls have to wipe every time, regardless of what's going on :) I taught public school kindergarten for 7 years and once had a child who couldn't wipe, so he wouldn't go which made things worse for his body. (I had no idea) They (parent & principal) decided that if he needed to "go" the secretary would call his mom to leave work & come help him. I probably taught close to 150 kdg'ers and only had one with this issue to that extent. It definitely, but temporarily, disabled him to be put into full day kdg and not be able to take care of his most personal need.

isn't that sad though, its like you have to "dumb him down" to put him into ps, (then ps will dumb him down even more??) yikes! Sorry, i'm a ps lifer, saw the light, and recently transformed to a hs'er. I have a 3 yo who wouldn't start preschool til next year because she isn't old enough, but she wants to learn!! I found 5 cute workbooks at Dollar Tree for $1 each on math, letters, etc and she'll sit in with us for bible, science, history, stories & whatever else she can so that's pretty inexpensive right there. But I'm also buying handwriting without tears sticks, cd, slate & writing book (i taught ps kdg 7years & loved these) so that was quite pricey but she's ready for that (not the writing book - i'm thinking after christmas) My first grader will do some primer and alpha math u see & I know she'll do well with some of the primer right now. I have to admit we also have a kumon maze book that she loves & I may buy a Brainquest Preschool Workbook for her if she needs more. I bought the 2nd grade book for my 1st grader last year when I took her out of ps in the middle of the year & it was nice.

We started each day with Bible Study for All Ages last year (our first full year for one and 1/2) my kids love the worksheets & its just cool. I would like to be able to be free and random about what we do when; maybe when they are older & more independent :) For now I had to see if we could do all I wanted & felt we needed to do in a day & be done by 2 for sports team practice, so I made a schedule with subjects in order & time slots (so I'd be able to see the reality in what we would do). But if we get going on something we'll keep going, I'm not going to ring a bell every hour and tell the kids to stop & leave to change classes ;) I know we'll do so much more than they'd get in ps that even if a day gets lost or off on a science tangent & spelling or whatever doesn't get done...we're still ahead.

I looked into it last year & everything seeming to be "free" sounded great but I read a review that basically said, "be wary of the trojan horse". Being free & given lots of curriculum might be great but you do have to abide by their requirements, timelines & schedules. One reviewer I read said she was called by a representative if her child hadn't logged on by a certain time of day and another said her daughter didn't get something but couldn't push "pause" and work on it, she was required to just keep moving & completing assignments. I knew it wasn't for us but I'm sure some are happy with it, and I'm sure you can google reviews.

I found a plain old regular globe on clearance at target last fall! Also we posted a huge us map & world map on the inside of our garage doors, so the kids can always go check them when they need too. (but i don't remember where we got those) This year I found a US and World map set at Walmart for $4.95 in the school supplies section. I think we'll keep those folded up in our notebook & unfold it when we need & want it?? And also have our originals hanging up.

you could include Book Adventure.com (my daughter used it a lot in 4th grade) to demonstrate reading comprehension... It is a free site that provides comprehension quizzes on a lot of books, keeps scores, tells you reading levels, etc. I mention that because here, public schools are so big on the AR - Accelerated Reading program, where they read then take a quiz; I've used my daughter's work on it to help influence a letter grade and I print out a list at the end of a semester showing all the books she has read & quizzed on. You can do points, etc, we don't.

First full year with all my kids starting soon....!! Oldest has one full year of hs; 2nd has a half year...

I was a "successful" public schooler, then became a public school teacher (for 10 years, then stopped to try being a stay at home mom!!) after 1 year I began taking my kids out of ps one at a time...that's just the way it happened, not planned, at all. I've homeschooled now for 1 1/2 years to 1 and 1/2 of my kids; but will be starting our first year homeschooling all of my kids very soon !!! So my oldest went through most of 4th grade; 2nd went thru half of 1st; 3rd finished kdg; and last may never know ps, btw my 1st-3rd were in daycare from birth to preschool also, while I taught ps, so really we've been lifers til now...and are undergoing a huge transformation :)

No, and MUS helped my oldest (4th grader at the time) get stuff she should've gotten in 2nd grade. It makes so much sense, introducing measurement pints to gallons, etc while introducing multiplication (because that is what it is, right?!) Our ps do a tiny bit of everything so our kids hopefully get something. With MUS you master something. Then you move on to the next thing. We love it!

Hi! I have no experience with the curriculum you mentioned but I do have a former ps kindergartner who had a really hard time going the last few months :) (honestly, not that hard, she did fine, had a great teacher, and "handled it" but just hard getting up early to go when her sisters stayed home to school) i'd try to find out, ask her, what do you "hate" about school, what do you like about school, and make home school good for her! I've been telling my kids this last month... "hey, we are going to learn about this...." or "Look, we're going to read that book". Today we got our time traveler's history unit cd and my former kdger saw the project pictures on the back and asked if we could start today, yay!

Do you have to start on August 22? I'm planning to start Aug 22, but I don't have to...just saying... but good luck :)

I would not worry about writing with reversals at so young. My daughter wrote with reversals even through the 4th grade, and all letters and numbers from the bottom up. I had always been concerned about that but now, as she's entering 6th it doesn't seem to matter. I wish you the best in your journey to figuring out your child, aren't you glad that you get to, & he's not in ps for someone else to figure out or push aside or label?

I did many different phonemic awareness activities when I taught ps Kdg (8 years). I have 2 favorites. Have you tried, say it fast? I would say these sounds..../k/.../a/...../t/..... Then my students would say it fast, CAT! After they "got" that, (like after some time) we'd move to learning how to "break it down" (because it is more difficult), I say "cat" and I and my students (use our fingers to count, in slow mo, as we sound ... /k/.../a/.../t/. (Then we are also counting how many sounds are in that word) You have probably done these, but when I hear that your daughter doesn't like/want/or know how to answer, "what is the first sound you hear" I think maybe they are skipping segmenting and that would make it hard. In order to be able to answer a question like, "what is the first sound you hear in the word ball?" She needs to know that the word ball is made up of different sounds..I would dare to say that if at 5 1/2 she gets rhyming but hasn't mastered it, wait on the sound games and just keep rhyming. Often the ways we ask kids to dissect what they hear gets confusing. There were many times I'd ask for kids to dissect what they heard in some way & they'd do a different way..i.e. confusing opposites and rhymes. Most of all you want her to feel confident to try new things so always build her up by focusing on what she can do well.

I spent this morning looking through their free catalog and daydreaming about the "ease" & happiness I might feel in being able to just click "1st grade" (and 2nd, 6th, Pre) and get everything I'd need in a box. Especially because I just spent many hours finding the "perfect" things to order for us this year & placing orders from 6 different places. But when it comes down to it, the cost is 10x what I'm spending for this year.