WTM is what had me think I should just try to do my own. But it did not seem like many actually do that. Maybe I should get the WWE guide for help. I think I could find sentences for dictation just fine but I could use some help with how to word things to get narrations. I need to do that with him and my oldest dd too for science and history.

An older thread but it could still be helpful. MEP Gattegno Duolingo The Civil Air Patrol has free teaching materials Pinterest has some free stuff I have used. Prodigy MobyMax Kahn Academy Crash Course Coursera Overdrive

I do not know how MiF compares to standards since I use the U.S. edition. I know standards does have a little more the the U.S. Edition so maybe it be less extreme but it takes me much longer to get through a MiF lesson then a Signapore lesson because each lesson has much more textbook to cover and more workbook pages too. I have one kid doing each because I thought MiF being a little more incremental would be helpful for one child but I actually much prefer Singapore.

Our area has had several active hiking group for parents that are lead and planned for by other parents. It mostly attracts parents of babies, toddler and preschoolers during the school year but I think one for homeschoolers would be cool. I used to do the hiking groups when my kids were younger. It never has been an issue. One group did eventually add a liability thing and they all included details in the descriptions of what the hike was like to prepare for the weather and terrain or whether or not pets were allowed etc. None of the groups were quiet but no parents left trash or damaged stuff or anything. Parents were glad to have other adults to talk to and you actually do want to scare away critters when there are bears in the area. There also was no issues with different personalities getting along or any conflict during hikes.

They use Go Math in my district. That is pure craziness that they use that crazy way to do long division. Drawing a bunch of circles and skip counting that high is crazy and so arduous. Skip counting is not the best way to show the concept especially for long division. I do like doing long division conceptually so they understand what is happening but that is craziness.

Yea those videos are super boring and extremely hard for me to get through. I much prefer to get info from reading because it is faster but these videos are ridiculously slow and yes it is like a female Mr. Rogers which does not work for me. Lol. Good luck with it! It will be here before you know it.

I was doing Treasured Conversations with my dd and ds but my ds has really not liked it. It would be a lot of juggling but I am thinking of just doing dictation from books he likes and have him do a narration for history, science and our literature instead but without a program. We also do Apples and Pears spelling. I would continue to use Treasure Conversations for dd because she likes it just fine and I think the skills it teaches coming up will be good for her where I think it will be too much writing for ds when we get to paragraph construction.

I find that I am not liking using our current math curriculum especially for the child who is struggling but I also do not think I could manage on my own either with my older child. I managed to do a lot of hands on concrete things last year with my youngest mostly using supplements and it really has given her a good foundation but I could only do it for so long before I wanted a curriculum. Most curriculums have done if what I am looking for but not all. I am trying to catch my oldest up and I feel like the curriculum I am using is not working well. I also got Ronit Bird Overcoming Difficulties With Numbers hoping to get ideas of other ways to teach what the curriculum covered and I am just not liking how it is organized so I have bit really used it. It is hard to find where exactly the disconnect is. It is not with the earliest number sense stuff but there is a disconnect. I am intrigued by either Math on the Level or that curriculum mentioned in another post where you have a skills checklist and lessons for the missing skills. I want conceptual concrete ways of teaching that transitions away from that to paper. I like the kind of thing they do on Education Unboxed but I need it with an organized plan and mostly not video based. I do not find myself doing enough concrete when the curriculum does not include it and it gets harder with higher math anyway. I for sure have executive functioning issues myself though and I am not very organized. I cannot just put together my own thing but maybe if something was clearly laid out I can find ways of hitting those topics.

I regret doing it. It does not give a diagnosis though.

I believe they use Houghten Mifflen which seems very sight word heavy.

That is what I do but with 3. I work one on one with one while the others do things they can accomplish in their own like audiobooks for the youngest or prodigy, free reading etc. We do some subjects together in the afternoon. If I had only two switching off would work much more smoothly.

I am wondering this too. I use prodigy right now and it is ok because I can do assignments but I prefer something that aligned better with Singapore as a digital supplement to Singapore. A lot of the topics Singapore covers is not even found in prodigy and they make you type in the traditional algorithm for a lot of their stuff. I was thinking of dreambox because I heard it was really conceptual but I am not sure how it assigns problems and if the practice would match up pretty well to be like a fun review of it on the side. Maybe when Beast Academy online comes out it would be a good supplement but I am not sure how it will work and how it will assign problems.

I am glad you found something that sounds like it will work well. I am curious the name of the text too. That sounds like it might work for my dd.

I plan on doing the microscope labs but if I need to skip one or if it does not work well then that is fine. The cork lab did not work well for me either but the two others I tried after it did work. I did not get much farther then you because I was waiting on some supplies to arrive to do more microscope labs. The kids enjoy the labs so I plan on doing the ones where we have the materials and it seems doable. I am guessing a few might not work well.

My ds hid under chairs before his VT sessions started and it was hard to get him in the room where they do VT. He never did that anywhere else before. He did manage to get in for his appoinments though. His VT is good about stopping what they are doing when he gets upset and convincing him to sit where he is suppose when he is being obstinate about that. He used to be uncooperative at the beggining of a session but once he got started he would do better. She is careful about talking to him but he still will say things like she does not know what she is doing or she is not nice at home and that just comes from him not liking VT. The only time he has been uncooperative for teachers or instructors has been VT. He was always good for teachers when he went to school and is for extra curricular activities. In retrospect maybe we should have done the reflex stuff first then gone back to VT. I have no coverage for any of this though so getting extra evaluations and paying another provider in the mean time was not something easy to do. It seems it is going a little beter now that the reflexes are integrated.

I talked about a well rounded high level of education no matter what the field in the first paragraph. Lots of kids do not know what they want to do or have an unrealistic expectation. I would hope people would not educate a child to a high standard for that child because they did not have great ambitions as a youth. I would be honest if my kid as they got older had an unrealistic expectation on what they wanted to do. I would hope to have open communication so I could help them pick something realistic. I would not be too worried if a kid had no passions and did not know what they wanted to be as a teen or preteen. Some people start college not even knowing and eventually figure it out. Not everyone has a passion and that is perfectly fine but you can talk about interests and possibible things they can do in the future and encourage them to try things and read a lot. I would also make sure they are not spending too much time on media.

I notice in my area where we have homeschooling charters or oversight groups they did not have the best tests results for state testing. Looking closer though there are many more kids enrolled in the middle school grades then elementary and more high schoolers then any other grade. Each grade has more kids. The youngest kids scored the best. A lot of the older kids are actually probably traditional school failures that did not have any options left but pulling their children. I do not think that means though that it will fail if you pull a kid later just that there is more to catch up on and you should have an intentional plan that is not sticking a kid in front of a computer to do things by themselves if they were struggling. I am sure there are homeschoolers who are not doing a good job but that does not mean all homeschoolers are. The failures are more likely to end up in a school. There are plenty of kids though that are getting failed by the school system too though. With homeschooling though others failures have no bearing on your own homeschooling unlike school where if a school is not doing well your kid is unlikely to be well served in that school. I would not worry that some homeschoolers were not in a good place but just do the best you can to provide a good education and if it is not going well then you can consider if a school will serve that child.

I have one child that has a definite interest and passion early and I can see him sticking with it and two that I see changing interests more. I would not want to hold a child to that though. I think in any field it is good to have a well rounded, well read individual with background knowledge in science and history. If they tend towards science or math interests then trying to get to advanced math and science before going to college will really help towards that. If that is not possible though because a kid is a late bloomer or just needs more time or has some difficulty then you do the best you can. Most 11 year olds will change their minds and refine their interests a goals as they mature. I would hate doing what I wanted to at 11. We also live in a changing world. I do not think steering an 11 year old towards one career is wise. Let kids explore their passion and talk about ways of meeting goals and not letting setbacks hold them back.

I have been having her listen to audiobooks. We also do read alouds every nights. We used to watch a lot of documentaries but not lately. Maybe I should have her watch some while I am working with her siblings. She does have a good vocabulary. It is funny but I am noticing that read to yourself silently first thing works well for her so maybe she will want to eventually do some reading once she can.

Ok that does sound a lot better. Level 6 is silent E words. Do they have words like bake and time in earlier levels too and it is solidified there or are they introduced there first? I thought you were not suppose to do any outside reading until at least level 6 and in a FAQ it mentions sticking to their readers until level 8 which I think is a bit much. I see in research though that kids made big gains in grade level though so why wait so long to have them read.

I got the 7-9 science unit which was too much work for not enough content. The older units in different areas sound like they are a little better.

I saw that at a homeschooling conference. It looked interesting and they claimed it was secular but I did not know too much about it.

I do want to make sure she is solid before moving on and I am keeping level 1 around a little longer just in case. I will give the post tests but if she ends up not passing after a level should I really I do it all over again. I do know she needs the foundation and it really is better then having her read what she was not ready for. I know I do have time since she is in 1st but with how short a lesson she can tolerate it seems like the best I can hope for is a lesson every 6 months after level 3 so she still will not be reading for a while since they do the long vowel words in level 6. I hope a level will not take a year but I guess that could happen. This is a long way away but can you wait on level 9 and 10 if she was youngish when she gets there? It hard to find time to watch the videos. With homeschooling 3 all who need some one on one time it takes a lot of time and we have extra curricular activities too. I do not have much time and it is hard to want to watch those dry videos when I finally have a moment. Lol. Videos are not my preferred way of learning material. As much as I have mixed feelings at the same time I wish there was something very similar out there for math but for another child of mine. ;) Plus things have really settled down and lessons are going good now.

I have definitely met some unschooling families that did extremely minimal 3Rs because Johnny or Jane were not into it. I also was surprised at a orientation for new families how many were not expecting to do any actual teaching but it was mostly for teens though where things were not working well at school. I know one local crunchy Facebook group I was a part of talked about homeschooling a lot and there were discussions about being very child led and not worrying about much older kids not reading or having much math skills if they were not into it at the moment. I left that group years ago though because they were very judgemental if you were not an AP super parent. I actually see less of that nowadays. I would expect some to be below grade level and there is nothing wrong with that. A lot of the local homeschoolers do not test really great but that does not mean that they are not being taught to at least minimal standards. I bet a lot are homeschooled so their needs can be met because they were not at school. The schools did not test well either. I am more thinking those who do not do much of anything. I have no idea the percentage would be. I do not think it would be too high but I have ran into people.

So things have settled down and we are now onto level 2 which she was excited about. She mostly got used to the process but still the hand gestures can trip her up. She seems to find level 2 even easier then level 1. We can only get a short lesson in each school day. I have a love hate relationship with it myself. The videos are so hard for me to watch and it seems so slow going. I wonder if it is good to wait so long to get to long vowel words. I do think it will be good for her though. I can see where some of it is going like some of the tricks or how you do not move quickly to sentences like mentioned in another thread.