Imagine being a teacher (by nature, profession, both, whatever) and finding out after 9 weeks, the week before grades are due...that your ps 4th grader had failed e.v.e.r.y. math test so far that year. (with no note home, phone call, anything after the 1st or even 2nd test and that they had around 6 or 7) Imagine having to explain to the teacher that you are there to help your child, you want your child to succeed, and to please let you know what you are working on, what she needs help with, etc...and still after hearing nothing, finding out at the 2nd 9 weeks that she had failed every math test again...and no I didn't just wait 9 weeks before each time I asked how she was doing, I kept asking and no she couldn't bring home a math book and no the teacher didn't input data to the ps grade website thing to keep us informed week to week, everything was entered in the 8th week or the 15th week. I'd say it was the teacher, the same grading program showed the class average on each test, my daughter failed each test, while the class average was a D. (But I heard the same frustration from another parent whose child was in a different class...after we withdrew.) While that wasn't upsetting enough, even tho she failed every single test, she was still passing. So sad that that early on you can see your child pegged to pass even tho she didn't, we started home schooling because I flashed forward and saw her graduating & not knowing what she needs. We added our 2nd in the middle of 1st grade after being bullied to tears....All since then we've all healed and moved on :) And so from then on our philosophy has been mastery, enjoyment, & curiosity, and I love having more time to just "be" with & love my kids...

I was due 3 years ago... thank goodness noone's said anything... Good luck, I'm trying wii, trying to count calories, thinking about dusting off my awesome bike...

Can you read something you like??

Thank you for sharing!!

This was funny to me, it reminded me of my first weeks of ps, I taught a variety of grades but mostly kdg. The first week of school, the kids were just exhausted. Even tho I gradually phased in different things to get, finally, to our complete schedule...everything was new and a complete contrast to summer, getting up early, expectations, being with new kids, etc. But by the 2nd week, totally different story. With the whining, I just remind them of what was next...let's do this so we can do this...if we don't we won't have time...

How exactly do we do that?? I've always wanted to try Atelier but it seemed too expensive. I'd be interested, but how?

After a ton of research before we began home schooling, I bought Spelling Power and have not regretted it. The manual is a lot but you only buy it once, for everyone, for ever. You can keep buying the booklets of writing pages but my oldest doesn't even use them anymore. We've been very pleased with the program, she's flying through it and the philosophy just makes sense...

As a ps teacher it was very hard for me not to "save" something if i could...but now, my (former ps) kids love getting to actually work in a workbook!

My new goal is to pare down everyone's clothing. I really think if we own less and purchase more strategically, we won't always have such a mountain of clothes/laundry. Laudry eats my lunch. Really. Especially in the winter when it doesn't take that many pairs of jeans and sweaters to fill the washing machine. I have been thinking this too, we always just wear our faves anyway....and I've also wondered if we had 2 full weeks of outfits and only washed clothes twice a month then wore everything again....that sounds so much nicer than the 2 loads I do & fold everyday but would it work....hmm sounds like i'd need more clothes!?

cutting the dependence on tv...sounds so minor but i wished i had done that long ago

Hi! My schedule has time slots just so I can plan & imagine how we can stop for lunch, be done by 2 (because we'll head out for volleyball practice soon after) and get things done that I want us to. But our times are estimates. I don't schedule reading because we do that before bed & that can be short or long depending on them. But for example, for my oldest, I have planned 1 hour of math, that includes time for logic problems too, but I know we still won't take an entire hour, that gives her (and me) some break time before our next thing. Plus sometimes it will take more or less time than the day before... So I have planned our schedule by hour increments, but then I erase the times on the schedule I print out for each day except for the start and end time. That way I'm not pressured to hurry & finish something that we need more time with, but I know realistically what we can get done, etc... p.s. I have to be careful what I tell my kids when we finish... if I say free time, they'll think they have hours to build a fort or something when really its 15 minutes...so I'll either tell them they have time for a quick break, free time, or activity time... since my oldest needs 1 hour of math and is not independent at that yet, my others have 1 hour of open ended time - so I'll have 1/2 of that be an activity (like Brain Pop, painting, magic school bus video, etc & the other 1/2 be play time)

Phew, glad i'm not the only one! This is my first year with all my kids and with a plan and I've been wondering whether I'm over planning right now!! Anyway I had our choices selected but then I started planning out our timeline, when would we finish this book, etc. So logically that took me to next year :) Doesn't it feel so nice having a plan! (Even if it changes next month) ?

Your spreadsheet looks so nice! What did you use to make it??

I was just planning that out, we're going to try to do 2 Zoology books this year and it looks like we would read 3-4 pages per day (looking at Zoology 3 right now) depending on whether that was for 4 days or 5.

Yes it has a plan that you could use or adapt it to your schedule. We just got Zoology 3 notebook & junior notebooks. I wondered whether it would be worth the $$ too, compared to printing pages from the computer but after looking at it, I think so. This was our biggest purchase this year but I think it is definitely worth it (although we haven't used it yet of course, I'm pretty sure my kids will like it). There are note taking pages to go with each chapter, crossword puzzles, a copywork page, experiment printouts, but I really liked the animal mini books in the back, they are in color, also tons of animal stickers in color to "map" where the animals live. (p.s. The cost of one book is still cheaper than one ink cartridge for my printer)

To Terri: I thought we would try to do 2 Zoology books this year, (but this will be our first time with apologia science so I'm not sure how much we'll do each day). How often (and for how long) did you do Science?

wondering....does the issue come up with parents of boys as much as with parents of girls, i'm just wondering because i only have girls, who depend on me to raise them to be strong women, and anything that degrades them raises a great big flag over here...

With us modesty did come up when my oldest was in ps with shorts, she wanted to know why she couldn't wear short shorts. With us its defnitely not coming from religion; i just don't think its appropriate. Aside from that we haven't told our girls they can't wear something but our oldest has wanted to be more modest lately at the pool/beach so we bought her a super cute rashguard & board shorts to wear over her swim suit if she wants, and she wears them all the time. and now that i think about it bra straps did come up with her softball uniform, all the girls seemed to be ok with them showing but we ended up using a paper clip so they wouldn't show.. p.s. my younger, looking at a tinkerbell party cup from walmart told me..."the only thing i like about tinkerbell is her shoes, her dress is too short"

I know, I mean I have felt those feelings just this week.... like we're making a major move to a smaller house (ours is small already - 4 kids sharing 2 rooms) because our rent will be less, etc etc; but then my husband's job is suddenly changing too, less income but a better change for his soul... so we'll make this major change to save money and possibly still 'just get by', but this is what he needs right now.....and I know it'll be better for our family in ways we can't imagine right now. Hang in there.....it is hard...I try to make a big deal of free stuff, like going to the park together

Our only big problems were with our first & we just needed to establish more of a routine & limits. After all the getting ready for bed, dinner, play, bath, etc we let her watch one episode of blue's clues, then put her to "sleep". I remember being very frustrated at the time but she got it, after a few nights...that we'd watch blue's clues then go to sleep. Then a year later when we didn't need blues clues anymore, she kept getting back up so we tried the magic words, "after we say these magic words, we won't say any more until the morning....(and the magic words were...) "good night". That seemed to work too when we needed something.

I would say yes, it is worth $20 per year but I don't know if it is for your need. I used it to find activity pages to go with random topics that came up for us to study, like dolphin pages to go with Island of the Blue Dolphins and map question pages to go with continents, oceans, etc. They do have a ton of stuff. When I taught ps Kindergarten we used printable books from the site from time to time that used key "sight" words & those were fun as "extras" but I don't know how/if you could rely on those as a reading "program". We used it last year & we'll use it again this year but like I said, for random stuff.

That's exactly what I need to know, thanks so much!!

Does anyone have & know whether the 5th Grade HWT Cursive book "Can Do Cursive" actually says "5th grade" on it?

We used a similar folder that Amy showed, Walmart has them in different colors so I have a different one for each child. I liked it for their "independent" work, their map, and to hold flashcards & other little random things like lapbook pieces before they got put on, etc. For a visual I printed out a daily checklist & my kids crossed things off. One really liked it & followed it & knew what was going on & what to do next. My other wouldn't use it unless I kept reminding her, she just doesn't think that way, but she didn't know what was coming next etc either so I think she needs the list even more.

Try Target's infant/toddler section, we just found a "replacement" for one my daughter has almost loved to death. I believe the fabric is "chenille" anyway the brand/tag says "Tiddliwinks" on it, (It is about 3'x3') we bought bright pink, they also had purple, our first was white. The first has been washed a million times; is still soft, is not still "white" (but has torn - so the kids can't drag each other across the floor with it anymore). .