Maybe the Amish math/writing/spelling books? They're not fancy, but they're cheap and the ones I've seen seem good.

I dunno, I think that there are MUCH cheaper ways to introduce music. Even the friendly neighborhood fiddle teacher (and I don't know how realistic finding such a person actually is? I wouldn't know where to look) is going to charge between $20 and $60 for a 1/2 hour lesson (I think this mostly depends on area...), and renting the instrument is less than I expected (thankfully) but still a real cost. I can't think of anything else that is like music in that, assuming a baseline of decent instruction, lots of practice is the most important thing to be successful. Obviously, practice will improve your ability at pretty much anything, from art to algebra, but music really, really, really requires lots of practice to get anywhere. And after an initial honeymoon period based mostly on the excitement of having a shiny new toy, it doesn't really get fun until you've reached a certain level of ability. But you can't reach the level of ability without enough practice. So that's where parents and teachers have to step in to make a practice schedule (daily preferably, but realistically at least every other day) reasonable, workable, and fun. I'm not big on rewarding my kids for every little accomplishment, but we have a sticker chart for my older daughter's piano practice. Tonight is actually her 50th day in a row practicing, so DH is taking her out to dinner at a restaurant of her choice (she chose Friendly's). After 75 days I'm taking her to a concert, and after 100 days, when the chart ends, she gets a doll bed for her AG dolls. It has TOTALLY worked. She hasn't complained about practicing since about day 8, and even she, at 6 years old, can see how quickly she's been improving with the constant practice. A short period where practice was this huge battle is what made me start the chart, and I can't even describe what a smashing success it's been... to her attitude about practicing, and her ability to play the piano. Basically, I think that getting lessons, even informal ones, and then not requiring any practice is basically setting the kid up for failure and disappointment... he won't improve, and will get frustrated, and eventually will just decide that he's not talented and give up. IMO an instrument is pretty much unique in that if you're going to go for it, you have to go for the whole hog.

It's really up to the troop leaders. Some troops do tons of stuff, others do lame stuff. The journeys are kind of lame, but the badge work can be fun, and being a Girl Scout troop really opens doors to participating in cool events and visiting cool places in the community... I call up as a homeschooling mom and some places are like "Um, I guess, I'm not sure if we do that..." and I call up as a Daisy Scout troop leader and they're all "OMG we LOVE scout troops! Come on down, any time! We'll have goody bags for the girls!" It can also be a nice way to hand off stuff to some other adult... crafts, hiking, etc.

Bastien and Faber seem to the standards, but the music school that my DD went to has recently switched to Celebrate Piano! for kids. I have no music training, but I actually think that the order it introduces topics makes playing a lot easier for children. FWIW, her teacher also had DD buy Grace Vandendool's Keyboard Theory book (says it's better for younger kids than the more standard piano theory book used by a lot of teachers, which is the Keith Snell series), and Robert Starer's Basic Rhythmic Training. She told us to do the Vandendool book at our own pace, whenever the whim takes us, but they've only done one thing from Basic Rhythmic Training and she said that one gets phased in more slowly. Hope that helps!

We just started my 5yo on cello. He's doing Suzuki. Lessons are 30min, once a week. Suzuki usually requires a group lesson, but since he's starting in the middle of the year, and it happens that everyone in the group lesson he'd be in is much older and moving much faster, we're not doing the group lessons yet. They should practice every day. The Suzuki chair at the school we go to says practice time should be 3x the age of the child. So a 4yo should practice for 12 minutes a day, and a 5yo for 15 minutes a day. So far, I've found that about right. As they get older, they're supposed to practice for as long as their lesson is, but that's a lot for a younger kid, and with Suzuki you want them fresh and enthusiastic, with appropriate posture. Anyway, I'm mainly responding to sub, because I enjoyed reading this thread. My older daughter is taking traditional piano lessons, and it's all very different. But I'm enthusiastic about Suzuki right now, and think that it will be good for him. Oh, and technically in Suzuki they don't learn note reading for ages and ages, but it's really up to the teacher... some teachers introduce it much earlier than they're "supposed to."

Honestly, I don't think I've ever showed my kids a paper invitation. When we receive it, I'm not sure if we can go yet, and I'm not going to tell them about a party that we can't go to. And by the time I've checked my calendar and RSVP'd, any excitement they'd have about getting mail would be long gone.

Wow, I've never heard of that. Honestly, it kind of sounds like a gift grab. "We like you enough that you can come see us get married (here is our registry info). But not enough that you can come to our party. Cha!"

Evite is pretty standard these days. I just got a paper invite the other day, and was like "great, now where am I supposed to put this?" LOL, I used to have a clip for them attached to my calendar, but I think I haven't gotten one in at least a year. Evites are nice because you can check the info from anywhere.

My middle child could do that... I was busy taking care of the oldest, and being exhausted and pregnant with the youngest, and he spent A LOT of time playing on my iPhone. He knew all his shapes (including trapezoid and crescent and weird ones that it never would have even occurred to me to teach), colors, numbers, and a bunch of letters. He's a sweet boy, but not on the advanced edge of things now.

We do, and our town is really easy. They totally don't seem to care. Our education plan had to be approved by the school committee, and I went to the meeting where they did so, and it was obvious nobody up there had even read it. Every single person at the front of the room sort of did that "quick paging through things while nodding very seriously to make it seem like you're just REVIEWING, and not seeing for the very first time..." thing that people do. I don't think I know anyone in Quincy... we're on the South Shore but a little bit east. I would be surprised if Quincy has much time or money or energy to give homeschoolers a hard time, but I could be wrong. FWIW, the requirements are the same in every town. It's just that some towns (mine included) asks for every single thing they're allowed to, and others are more blasé about it. FWIW, every single little thing isn't really all that much... and as I said, they ask for it, and sent me my packet back when I hadn't included everything, but once all the paperwork was in they obviously didn't care.

Oh okay, my bad. I only know what I read on here.

Isn't Art of Argument the one that has you debate abortion? I've heard that's definitely not secular, though it claims to be.

Honestly, I'm only at Lesson 10 but I haven't seen anything yet that isn't secular, except the "disciples" part in the first section. There isn't any preaching or Bible stories or anything... so far, at least. I've been happy with it, and DD loves it.

I knew I was in for a rough start with Song School Latin when the first lesson's "derivative river" section (where they show how Latin has morphed into words in English, French and Spanish) was about discipli turning into "disciples." My DD was totally confused... I'm sure she'd never heard the word, and it was obviously something she was supposed to know. LOL. But it actually hasn't been so bad. We're only on Lesson 10, but there hasn't been anything else so far. For philosophy, has anyone thought about using Sophie's World? I admit that I could never get through it, but I think it's pretty much a full introduction to philosophy.

No, I was replying to the person who said that some of her favorite memories were with only 1 adult. I was trying to think, and I can't think of any childhood memories which would have been significantly altered by having a second adult around. I think that a 2 deep policy makes good sense, and I can't think of any reason why an organization that involves kids wouldn't have one.

Check out the Montessori Services catalog. Also look for Waldorf products. https://www.montessoriservices.com http://www.waldorfsupplies.com I love beautiful school supplies.

Honestly, I can't really think of any experiences from my childhood that didn't involve my parents, which would have been all that different with an extra adult in the picture.

I have thousands of kids books, and it's a struggle to organize them. I keep board books in big plastic tubs in the living room. All of my kids still go diving through there. Chapter books are on Ikea Billy bookshelves in the upstairs hall. There's not much space, but we jam it in. We don't have enough space, and I'm not sure how we'll expand. Most of our books are picture books. I have built-in bookshelves that were made for records, and they're the PERFECT size. If anyone is ever planning to build custom shelves for picture books, I definitely recommend using record shelves. I have tried to organize this mess, but it's just never happening and so I have given up. The one thing I did do, after about a month of homeschooling and never being able to find the teeny tine 2 millimeter thick picture book I wanted in the vast sea of picture books ("I know we have a Let's Read and Find Out about wind...") is that I pulled out most of the non-fiction picture books and put them with curricular materials. Unfortunately, this is out of reach of the kids, but that's the necessary evil right now for me to be able to find the materials I need. They're on higher shelves, organized by subject. As we use them, though, I've been putting them back in general circulation so that my kids can look at them. For example, we just did our last bit on Ancient Egypt, so I moved all of those books to the record shelves, and DD1 likes looking through them because I've already read most of them to her so it's visiting old friends.

If I switch to either or both of these books next year (for 2nd grade), should I start with book 1, or go straight to book 2? We did about half of FLL her kindergarten year, and I know that it's very basic, and easy to speed up... should we start at the beginning and accelerate, or is there enough review built into the second level that you can skip the first?

I had my own phonetic alphabet that I took all of my notes in. And I did it in the teeniest cursive so that other people couldn't see what I was writing. I actually spent a lot of time and energy developing that alphabet, and making sure that it wasn't missing any sounds.

Sorry, to have the adults be not-related, or related? I think not-related makes more sense, because I think a spouse would be more likely to ignore or cover up problematic behavior. Having Sandusky's wife around did nothing to protect all those kids, and she's still got blinders on despite all the evidence.

Yes, in Girl Scout leader training we were told that we have to cancel if there's only 1 adult.

Interesting. In Girl Scouts, it CAN'T be husband and wife. It has to be two non-related adults.

I'd love to know this, too! My daughter loves memory work, so I figure I should emphasize this now while she's into it! We've only done poems so far.

Thank you everyone! I also found Cursive Connections through a Montessori catalog. I'll look at all these options.