Thank you all so much! I had a mini freak out this afternoon, but your posts and my husband's supporting words have made me feel much better. You guys are awesome! :grouphug:

Our state does not have this requirement, but I'm thinking I would maybe keep a small sampling from the beginning of each year and a small sampling from the end of the year, just enough to show progress has been made in each core subject. Hopefully all of that will fit into an accordion file or two. I'm not sure I'd keep all of the workbooks. Unless you want them for posterity.

Our school year officially starts tomorrow and I'm a nervous wreck! This will be our third year homeschooling. The first year (DS's 1st grade yr) I had no idea what I was doing, I was winging it and it didn't go well. We all sort of burned out after Christmas. Last year (DS's 2nd grade year) I had lost all of my confidence because of my experience from the previous year and we barely did anything formal at all. I used to joke that I wasn't homeschooling I was just sanctioning truancy (it's sad, but that's truly what our year was like!) This year I'm more organized, I'm more confident in my curricula choices and I'm excited to teach, BUT I'm consumed with guilt over last year and how I've let my son down. I've been reading The Well Trained Mind and suddenly I feel like he's so far behind and now I've ruined him for life and no matter what I do he'll never make up that lost year that I couldn't get my act together. He's starting (age wise) his 3rd grade year and I feel like I have so little time left while he's still in the grammar stage of development. Someone please tell me I haven't ruined my child and that there is hope for him (and me)!

LOL! Thanks! I've decided to get it. My youngest loves to color and he's a fidgeter. If his hands (or body) aren't moving, he can't pay attention. I plan to let him color the coloring pages while I'm reading him the story. My oldest can color if he choses or do some other relevant, quiet task if he feels he needs to fidget.

A friend of mine (very, very, very anti homeschooling) teaches Spec Ed Math and she told me it doesn't matter if my kids are especially gifted, Spec Ed or just average, but to run FAR FAR FAR away from Lattice Multiplication. She said she almost went bald this year from pulling her hair out trying to teach it! From what I understand, no one (even top mathmaticians) actually understands why it works, just that it always does.....??? I've not looked too closely at it, but it seems to skip steps to me and I'm not sure kids will truly grasp the fundamentals of multiplication if they rely on the lattice method. Also, have you seen how much paper one problem takes up?!?:glare:

You could also see if your local library has the "We the People" series from Compass Point Books. They are great books that tell the story of our country. We own several of them and my boys really enjoy them.

I have this book and my boys really enjoyed it. It's out of print now, but it looks like you can still get copies of it on Amazon. It give topics/holidays, etc to cover each month of the year. It's not techincally a history book, but it thoroughly covers the important parts of our country's histroy. We're finished with it and if you are willing to pay shipping, I'd be happy to send it to you. :001_smile: You can email me at mauk.jessica (at) gmail.com

Even if you don't know the exact dates, I would include "on approximately June 25, 2011....." or something like that. Personally, I wouldn't state that you now understand that you misread the form ~ as that admits culpability. I would simply state that the instructions are confusing and could easily be misread, and then include your highlighted copy. I've dealt with our local post office and I can tell you they are a PITA to deal with. They have zero customer service! Good luck!

I purchased AAS1 & 2 for my older son and I know he's going to fly through them, but he reallly needs spelling help. I bought AAR PreLevel 1 for my younger son and I'm pretty sure we're going to finish that up before the end of the month. He's really excited about learning to read and it took quite a bit of work on my part to build his confidence enough to believe that he actually *will* be able to read (for some reason he just through reading wasn't in the cards for him????) Anyway, I'm not sure I want to wait for AAR1 to come out if we finish up Pre 1 early, so I'm considering switching him to Explode the Code. Would this take the place of AAS1 as well, or should I use them together? Does anyone know if these flow well together? Thoughts? Thanks!

It's my understanding that AAR1 & AAS1 are complimentary of one another and written to be used simultaneously. We have AAR Pre Level 1, but I'm not sure we're going to stick with it. We may switch to Explode the Code. I'm still torn.

I'm getting ready to start SOTW with my boys, using the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History as a supplement. Do I need the Activity Book as well? If so, do I need one or two - to teach two kids? Thanks for your help!

I can't tell you how many posts I've gone to "like" and then realized that while I spend as much time here, as I do on FB, this site is not, in fact, Facebook. Go figure!

My son is determined to go to West Point (granted, he's 8.5 yo). I understand anything could change over the next 10 years, but he's been obsessed with all things military since he was old enough to talk. We live in a very heavily populated military area and I'm sure this contributes a lot to his interest. Anyway, does anyone know how the military academies view homeschooling? We've checked the local recruiting offices and overall, they are fine with homeschooling, but I was wondering specifically about the academies. Anyone have any experience dealing with this? Thanks!

I knew she had written some courses, but I haven't looked at them. Thanks for the reminder! :001_smile:

I have found that first four movies stayed almost exactly true to the books, but as the books got longer the movies started to stray a little. There is only so much you can fit into a 2 hour movie :001_smile: I love the HP series. My kids are still too young, but I can't wait to read them all together and then use the movies for our family movie nights.

Admittedly I have not read every page of this ~ however, in our town (and most towns that I know of) there are city ordinances about barking dogs. Here there is a limit to how much a dog can park in a 15 minute interval. I can't remember the exact amount. I know this because a good friend of mine has a barking dog and she's tried everything to get him to stop and he just won't. Her neighbors call the cops on here almost weekly. Start logging when the dog barks, what time, how long (time it), how long they stopped (again, time it), what time the dogs went inside, etc... and start researching noise ordinances in your area. I won't comment on your son shooting the dogs ~ you've gotten enough of those comments already. :)

I admit that I've pretty much dropped the ball on Science for the last two years. It simply doesn't interest me and it always seems to be the one thing that I can easily (without much guilt) push aside. My older son has specifically requested that we do Science this year. "Like, for REAL do it this time, Mom!" How can I say no to that? I planned to use K12 through our public school extension program for Science, however when I was registering for it, I had to agree to basically having him log on every single school day and do a lesson. I'm sorry, but that's not how I run my school. I'm not planning on having him do science 5 days a week. Can anyone suggest some type of Science that won't have me pulling my hair out, but will keep both my K'er and my 3rd grader engaged? Thanks!

We homeschool through an extension program through our local public school (I know, I know, we're not "real" homeschoolers. I'm ok with it) I happened to stop up at the office today to fill out some papers and our advisor asked what Math we were planning to use for our K'er. I told her Singapore and she asked if I'd look over something this weekend before our meeting on Tuesday. She gave me the Teacher's Guides to a new curriculum called "Math Expressions" I'm not familiar with it at all and I haven't looked through the books, yet. I wanted to stop by here and see if anyone had any experience with this particular program. Thanks!

I'm a swim team mom and all of the girls on the team use Suave Clarifying Shampoo & Conditioner. They all have beautiful hair.

:smilielol5::laugh::smilielol5::laugh::smilielol5:

What a fabulous story! These stories make me realize that I AM doing the right thing for my kids and even though it's hard sometimes, I just know my kids will be successful! :party:

:iagree:

We're coming up on apple season and after peeling/coring/slicing 50# of apples by hand last year I told DH that I would not be making his beloved applesauce if I did not have a foodmill this year! :glare: He told me fine and to go ahead and pick out the one I wanted. Problem is, I have no idea where to start! I typed "foodmill" into Amazon and I think I got 4,308,398 hits! :lol: Anyone have one they absolutely love? Or absolutely hate?

Oh, I've also prescribed push ups to DS8 when he's particularly whiny or snotty. At first he thought it was funny, but after the third (or so) time in a day he realizes mom means business. Hey, he wants to join the military someday. Might as well get him used to pushups, right? :D

I found a link to the article. It is delicious! Enjoy! http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1913,154189-227196,00.html