I generally move on and just keep reminding him of the rules he has learned. So, if he is writing something for another subject, I generally let spelling slide, EXCEPT on words that he has already learned the rules for. We always go back and review what he writes for all subjects and he has to correct the spelling for words he has learned in AAS. I also will usually make him talk me through the rule again when he makes a mistake. I have found that he is slowly getting more consistent as we go. Also, the concept reviews that started in level 2 have been really helpful and I have seen a big improvement since we started that. One more thing we do is that if I notice there is some rule that he seems to be consistently forgetting or having trouble applying I will go back to that lesson and review it one day instead of moving on.

I vacuum once a day and mop once a week. We also have a strict "no shoes in the house" rule which I think is the thing that helps the most. I think vacuuming is much better than sweeping, especially for the cat hair (we have 2 indoor only cats). With the broom I felt like I was just moving cat hair around.

If it makes you feel any better I am in Hawaii and the free shipping option takes 6-8 WEEKS to get here :-/ ...so 2 weeks sounds wonderful, lol. I always have to pay for their expedited shipping option, and even that normally takes about a week.

When I was a teacher I had a kid in my class name Alkapone, pronounced Al Capone...totally stumped me the first day. He went be Al. I also had a Precious, Sweetie, and a Princess, which I thought were strange.

We were in the in same boat...it is so hard, but I strongly encourage you to choose someone and to designate separate people as guardians and financial if you need to. I was inspired to finally buckle down and do this when one of my best friends from childhood died unexpectedly in a car accident (single mom, no dad in the picture). It took her mom months to go through the court process to get custody of my friend's then 3 year old daughter, even though my friend and her dd had been living with her mom for years. She did eventually get custody, but in the mean time her poor 3 year old, who just lost her mom, was taken away from the only other family she knew...it was really awful to watch from all sides. Anyway, my point is, you can plan all you want to just "stay alive" but life happens...my friend was 26 and certainly had no expectations to die anytime soon (thus why she had no will). So please, for the sake of your kids, choose someone. We ended up asking a good friend of mine (great with kids) to be the guardian, and made my other friend (not great with kids, but financially responsible) to take care of the money. I was nervous to ask, but they were both surprisingly receptive.

Haha! Too funny, I hope you aren't burnt too badly :-) My son decided to ask me this question (quite loudly and persistently) in the middle of dinner at a crowded restaurant...the nice folks at the table behind us got a good laugh out of it. :-)

Here in Hawaii anyone who is your parents age is "aunty" or "uncle". Random kids on the playground will address me as aunty...my kids friends that come over to play call me aunty, so I would be fine with it. Then again, my kids have grown up with that custom, so for them it's just a term of respect for someone older than you.

Totally normal...it's like a right of passage for homeschooling I think :-) I second what a previous poster said about not being quick to get rid of curriculum. Sometimes I have found that after waiting 6 months we go back to a curriculum and it magically works wonderfully...maybe my kid just wasn't ready for it the first time around, maybe I wasn't ready to teach it, maybe it just didn't work in our particular life situation in that moment....but with little kids things seem to change so fast I think you just never know. I have gotten rid of things and regretted it, I also have a ton of stuff sitting on my shelves that didn't work for my ds, but I don't want to get rid of them because I think they might work for dd. We have also had situations where I ditched something and came back to it in a few month to have it be a favorite. AAS was like this for us...I was so excited to use it that I jumped in before ds was ready and it was awful. A few months later we tried it again and it's now one of his favorites, so go figure :-)

Thank you, that was really helpful :-) I really like the idea of doing the chapter review and just going back to see what areas he really needs practice in. I think that will probably work well for us. Also, the ADAM did break things down by various skills, which was nice. I could definitely see that there were areas he was way more ahead in than others, although he did pretty well on all of them. This is something I have noticed as we move through the 1B units as well....once in a while there will be a section that seems to give him more of a challenge than others, which is one reason I was hesitant to just skip a level. So, I definitely agree with what you are saying about looking at individual skills rather than an overall grade level.

Just wondering if anyone has used the ADAM math assessment from Let's Go Learn? Did you find it accurate? Here is why I am asking ;-) My ds6 (first grade) has been doing Singapore math. I got 1A and 1B, but we skipped a lot of 1A because it just seemed to easy. I have been going through 1B with him and we should finish in the next month or so. Honestly he has still seemed really bored with 1B, like it is still too easy for him. Also, we homeschool through a charter school, and we have to meet with a teacher twice a month for web cam classes. Whenever these classes have been math related they just seem really easy for him....so I was curious what level he actually is in math before I start 2A and find that too easy too. Well, he scored at a 3rd grade level on the ADAM...I feel a little shocked, lol...can that really be? If it is, what the heck do I do now? I feel uneasy about skipping stuff in math because what if there is that one unit that he doesn't intuitively "get"? Thanks for listening to my ramble and for any advice :-) He is my oldest, and I am not a "mathy" person (I have always had to really work hard to get math stuff) so this is new to me.

Thanks!

We do this too. My son likes it, and it's quick :-) He has improved drastically in just a couple of months.

I was really frustrated with this as well. This year I started my own little group. I was VERY picky about the types of kids and parents I included and very up front about our goals and expectations from before we even started. The mom's met before hand so we could discuss all of that stuff. It has been awesome! I think the main thing was getting everyone on the same page and having a clear purpose so that we all feel it's productive. Also, as mean as it sounds, being picky about who to include was key as well. I had an idea of what I wanted it to be from the start and choose families that I thought would mesh well with that. We also made it clear from the start that inviting others to join was not a possibility for a good long while, and if it ever was, it would be a group decision to do so (this was an issue in a previous group I was a part of...new people totally changed the feel and purpose of the group).

I alternate days too. AAR one day, AAS the next. Sometimes, if we are on a "read the story"step for AAR I will do some AAS that day too.

My 6yeR old ds won't do anything if I am not I the same room reminding him every 3 seconds of what he is supposed to be doing :-) I think it's pretty normal.

I have not visited here in a while for this exact reason :-) Hopefully I am not headed back down a slippery slope here :-/

I voted for a larger room mostly for the wall space. I keep finding uses for more white boards, timelines, etc. I also have bookshelves coming out of my ears and love having a large space for all of that stuff to be.

I tried lots of different things, but this was by far the most helpful method for me: http://www.theplantedtrees.com/2013/08/how-i-plan-our-homeschool-subjects-part.html I love that it is easy to adjust if we miss a day or want to move ahead a day. I do it 9weeks at a time so that I have a good idea of how far I want to be by a certain month. I have found it to be really flexible, yet detailed enough to save me a lot of time every evening when I am prepping for the next day.

I agree that if you have to birth in a hospital that is not used to a lot of natural births (instead of a birth center, or as I was lucky to experience, the rare hospital that encourages natural birth) a doula is going to be essential. They will advocate for you and make sure your wishes regarding your birth experience are carried out when you and likely you dh :-) are unable to do so. They are so worth the money.

Do you have a close friend or relative that has been through natural child birth and would be willing to act as a doula for you? I ended up calling a good friend at the last minute to come to my first birth. She was not a trained doula, but had been through 2 natural childbirths herself and I know I could not have done it without her support. I feel it is really nice to have someone other than your husband there. It was hard for my dh to stay calm and see me in pain, he gets so caught up in that emotion, it's hard for him to focus on my needs :-) Also, when I was at my wits end and screaming that I couldn't do it anymore, she was willing to look me in the face and basically say, "suck it up lady, you have to. " DH definately wouldn't have been able to do that, but it was what I needed to hear at the time. ;-) Anyway, I highly reccomend either getting a doula, or finding a good friend to act as one if that is more comfortable for you. Also, IMHO you don't need to get super caught up in one particular type of breathing, or positions, or anything else. Your body will know what to do and you will do what you have to do to get through the pain because you have to. Also, what worked last time won't necessarily be the best thing this time because each birth is different. It is more important to have the support system there, people to help you find different things to try (lay down, stand up/walk, bounce on the ball, etc.) and to create a calm atmosphere. Just my 2 cents.

I made boxes for my 3 year old dd so she would have stuff to keep her occupied while I do school with ds. I made one box for each day of the week. Each box has 3 or 4 things in it. She gets that box and works through everything in what ever order and what ever pace she likes. It seems to work well. At this point I figure whatever activity she chooses she is learning something and I don't really have an agenda for her "school time" yet, so I am just happy she is occupied so I can get through phonics and math with ds. I would suggest just letting your son pick the order of the boxes. Also, he may rush through everything, but them he could go back to things, right? DD often quickly goes through everything in her box, then goes back and does one thing for a longer amount of time.

Lakeshore Learning has Reading Rods in Spanish, my son really enjoyed those. They also have easy reader sets in Spanish.

I was one of those people rushing around all the time and we were totally stressed out. Then I pulled out of a lot of things and decided we would only do activities after lunchtime. We are all WAY HAPPIER and a lot less stressed out. I don't regret giving so many things up at all and my kids don't seem to miss it. I think you have to find the balance for you and your family.

This is off the origional topic, but I am glad to hear that other people's kids can't tie their shoes yet. My pediatrician has been asking me if Ds can do this yet since his 4 year check up and a almost 6 years old he is not even close...grant it we live In a place where no one usually even owns shoes with ties, but I was still feeling bad. I am going to set myself a new bar...by third grade ds will be able to tie his own soccer cleats (the only pair of shoes with laces he has) :-) ETA: DS cannot alphabetized well yet either, but we are working on it and I think it is a worthwhile skill. I wouldn't stress about it though, I think it's one of those things that if you just make a point to do it once in a while it will eventually come.

DS, 5 years old, loved these books. We just read through them one at a time from the library over the past month.