Thank you so much for this. I'm about to start with my eldest and it's great to have the equipment list up front.

For some of the reasons to teach reading phonetically, read some of Diane McGuinness' works (In particular, this one: Early Reading Instruction: What Science Really Tells Us about How to Teach Reading, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2004), I taught my 3 older children to read using her methodology. My younger daughter learned to read last year at school here in the UK aged 4. She was taught using Jolly Phonics which is very popular with the schools here. HTH. I've been out of the homeschooling loop for the last couple of years because our kids have been in school but we're gearing up to homeschool again from July. For what it is worth, and I'm going through this again now with my youngest. Teaching phonetic sounds is easy and kids pick it up as easily as they pick up any other picture/word association. What you need to watch for is if they are ready for the process of connecting the sounds to make words (blending). My youngest knows all his sounds and can spell some words but isn't quite there with blending sounds together to make a word. Because of all the groundwork we've put in though, once it clicks, he will fly.

All my kids have dh listed as an attendant.

The original Winnie the Pooh books by A. A. Milne. They have fantastic language and humour and my kids read them over and over again. Beatrix Potter books, they have lovely illustrations too. I'm not much help after that, ds is stuck on Star Wars:confused:

Winnie the Pooh Dear Zoo Where is the Green Sheep? is a big hit with ds 4months and dd3 at the moment. Anything that is tactile, particularly for my oldest dd, she loved touching things.

My oldest dd was 2yrs 3 months because she was trying to figure it out herself. My boys were 3 years old. My younger dd was around 3. I start when they start trying to read for themselves.

:iagree: I have this and Wheelock's Latin. Getting Started in Latin is a much less overwhelming text. Actually the most Latin I've learned has been from teaching the kids with Latina Christiana, but don't tell them that;)

Living in the region we say "oh-she-ah-nee-uh"

The Latin Centered Curriculum http://latincentered.com/.

:iagree:

My kids loved science experiments at that age (actually they still do). I've found that we get a period of intense interest in workbooks and schoolwork and then a period where they want to do nothing for a while. I also had different types of workbooks lying around when they were that age that they could pick up and do independently. Have you had a look at BrainPop or BrainPop jr? My kids like those as well.

I was bullied and ostracised as a teenager for my lack of pop culture knowledge. Even now as an adult there are many conversations that I cannot participate in because I have no knowledge of that era. Conversations between my dh and my sil, or conversations with friends. A lot of small talk and conversation with people you are getting to know revolves around pop culture. Now as an adult I don't watch much TV and don't follow pop culture, but that is my choice and I will not inflict that choice on my kids when they get older.

I had the same situation with my oldest and I still occasionally feel sad about it. On the plus side, she slept through at 6 weeks which none of the others have. You've done what was best for you and your child at the time and that is what matters.:grouphug:

Australians say APE-ri-cot. Using phonetic rules it should be AP-ri-cot, hmmm.

We're using Elementary Greek which can come with audio that I wish I had bought. It is definitely not secular, all the memorisations are from the Bible. As a textbook though I really like it, the kids have learned the alphabet really easily and some of them can read and translate a little bit too. I think, if you wanted, you could probably find some other passages for memorising and skip the Bible verses, I just don't have the time or the resources to do that at the moment.

2 cups flour 1 cup salt 4 tablespoons cream of tartar 2 tablespoons oil 2 cups water food colouring Mix together over medium heat until it starts to congeal. It will go a different colour. Turn out onto the bench and knead until smooth. This keeps in the fridge for over a year, unless your kids like to leave it out so it dries out.:confused:

Congratulations! They are great weights!

Fantastic, I might have to try this myself.

I have 3 working on official school work plus a 3 yo and a baby. Reading the Latin Centered Curriculum really helped me to determine what was important to me in teaching my kids. I am implementing a modified version of it that looks like this: 9:00 dd1 Math, ds1 Piano, ds2 independent reading 9:10 dd1 Math, ds1 independent reading, ds2 piano 9:20 all Latin 9:30 all Greek 9:40 dd1 Piano, ds1 Math, ds2 Handwriting 9:50 dd1 independent reading, ds1 Math, ds2 independent reading 10:00 break 10:20 dd1 independent reading, ds1 Handwriting, ds2 Math 10:30 dd1 independent reading, ds1 independent reading, ds2 Math 10:40 dd1 Writing, ds1 and ds2 free 11:00 finish for the morning In the afternoon evening we will do 1/2 to 1 hour of History, Literature, Science, Art or Geography. dd2 does what she wants after 11, usually some Math and some reading. This is working very well for us. I get lots of 1-1 teaching for the subjects that need it but I am still close by for the other subjects. ds2 tends to do his reading at the table so I can listen to him while I teach the others.

I have one from http://www.babaslings.com . I love it and it is versatile. My ds sleeps in there for a few hours at a time. I even bought one for my sister:001_smile:

We often have the radio on so the kids occasionally pick up things from that but they certainly don't watch the news.

A superhero cape and belt, cowboy gear, firefighter, police, one of our favourites has been clown gear. My friend's kids have spiderman and superman costumes.

Same here. I have wrapped two things into one gift before. My kids all know that they will be getting 3 gifts from us this year. I have a maximum limit but I've only reached if for one of the kids this year and I came in way under budget for the baby.

I live in Canberra, 250km SW of Sydney. We get the occasional funnel-web and with the kids so young we kill them. The others we leave alone unless they are somewhere dangerous, like the white-tail in the kids bedroom. We had a redback that one of my boys nearly grabbed when he was a few months old, that's the scariest interaction that we have had. Mostly we coexist quite peacefully. I did have an arachnophobic neighbour who used half a can of fly spray every time he saw a spider.

Thank you for the link it will be very useful.