Hi everyone, I was speaking with our tax advisor about our intentions to homeschool, and how I hope that we'll be able to afford to integrate travel with our homeschool year. She wondered if it was possible to create our home "school" under an LLC so that homeschool expenses would business expenses and not be taxed. I know that homeschooling expenses do not qualify for the Educational IRAs that all other schooling options qualify for, but has anyone ever heard of calling your homeschool a home "school" and making it an organization (LLC, non-profit, etc.)? We're a fairly simple family, so this sort of acrobatics would be a little unfamiliar to us. We live in Michigan, where the forms for informing the Dept. of Ed about our intention just ask for the parent's name, not a legal name of our "homeschool". Thanks for any help with what is a complicated question! Warmly, Shantana

This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you. My friend lent me both A and B, so I can compare.

I'm in the newbie stages of planning curriculum for next year. I lean towards Classical and Waldorf, which sometimes don't play nicely together. Case in point: I'm interested in the RightStart Math curriculum for my energetic son, and borrowed the Level A from a friend to see what I thought. The curriculum looks GREAT, but I was shocked by how deep into mathematics the curriculum goes for a 5-year old. I had in mind that, for Kindergarten, we'd do the Oak Meadows curriculum and just generally get into the rhythms of HSing, getting familiar with letters and numbers. When I saw the RS Level A, it's what I would have pictured for 1st grade. However, being highly-educated and married to a highly-educated man, I'm embarrassed to say that my pride is rebelling at having my 1st grader do "Kindergarten" math. I've gone off on a rabbit trail - my point was to get opinions about the RightStart Level A, especially knowing what my relaxed goals are for that year. My friend who lent me the curriculum said that everything in Level A is covered in Level B, albeit faster. A big part of the reason we have decided to HS was to get away from these ideas of "behind" and "ahead", and I'm allowing myself to get drawn into them anyway..... Comments? Sage advice?

I'm a newbie, making plans for beginning HSing next year for Kindergarten (besides the obvious life learning we already do). I'm browsing around at Hobby Lobby and JoAnns for art materials, and while the prices aren't bad if I figure in the 40% coupon, I can't bear to ever buy more than 1 thing at a time because I know what their markup must be if they hand those 40% coupons like candy. It got me to thinking: Where do a lot of you buy good quality art materials? And how are the prices? Please, rescue me from 29 consecutive JoAnns visits with 29 different coupons......:)

Thanks sbgrace :) My oldest is 4 1/2 and my younger son is 2. We aren't really doing anything structured (can you call Oak Meadow "structured"? ;)) until next year, partly because we're starting to establish routines that will help us next year, and to give my youngest a chance to be able to participate as much as he is able to.

Hi everyone, this is my very first post here. My DH and I, after 5 long years of deliberation, have finally decided to HS our 2 boys. My boys, at least the oldest, is very "Wiggly Willy". This has caused me some conflict when I am torn between an unschooling philosophy and a Classical approach. I'm so new here that I'm not sure if it's unusual to be drawn to both. I've found the "100 top picks" book to be incredibly helpful, and am exploring the following approach when we start a more structured HS routine next year when my oldest is 5: Oak Meadow Kindergarten curriculum, gradually adding in (perhaps the following year) Math-U-See Primer Sing Spell Read Write Any comments? I love the content of Classical schooling, but I know my oldest enough to know that the methods described in the Core are going to make us both miserable. We're heavy on real books, which is where the WTM has been most helpful in the suggestions they've given.