You could start volume 1 at 5 and take 2 years to go through it. There are so many projects/books/extra activities that it is easy to spread it out over two years.

my son has had his hermit crabs for several years in an old aquarium with a mesh top. We are horrible pet owners and don't do anything other than make sure they have food and water. We are in Missouri.

I tried to switch from AAS to Phonetic Zoo when my children were about 10 and 8. PZ didn't work out for us, because they still needed to work WITH me. The 10 year old needed the interaction with a teacher and the 8 year old wanted the interaction. Since my original goal was to save myself time, I switched by to AAS and really streamlined how I used it. One way I did that was to not do spelling at all with my good speller.

We have two. I know they are supposed to be kept in a warm (and maybe humid) environment and provided with fresh water and salt water. They are supposed to get fresh food daily. My son started out doing that, but it didn't last long. They have access to fresh water (changed once a week) and there is always food in their bowl (changed once a week.) They don't do much. It is hard to tell that they are not dead. We get them out every so often and build block mazes for them to walk around in.

Our family has insurance through the marketplace. We chose a well known insurance provider and are having no problems. I am so sorry that you are not having a good experience!

I am using a theme book with my 5th grader. We are using All Things Fun and Facinating because I happened to already own it. I was looking for a systematic way to teach him how to write good summary paragraphs after reading about a topic in history. Because my focus was narrow, I have skipped a lot of the lessons in the theme book. He did a few lessons on key word outlines and a few more on summarizing sources. On the weeks that he does not do an IEW lesson, I have him write a paragraph for history. I provide a source ( a short article from an on-line encyclopedia) and he uses what he has learned to write a paragraph. I was able to skip around in the theme book because I have used IEW off and on with my older children. If I had not done that, I would have stuck with the theme book only and not required any other writing until we were finished with the book. I think a paragraph a week is a good expectation for a 5th/6th grader.

We have stuck with the 4 year cycle so far: 1 - 4th: SOTW 5 - 8th: K12 The Human Odyssey (I stick to the years that SOTW uses, so we only use 3 books spread out over 4 years) 9 - 12th: Our plan is to use SWB's books. It is going well with my current 9th grader, but I am not sure these books will appeal to all my children. Right now I only have two children working together because that is how their ages fall, but they are all learning very similar things. Sometimes the same week, sometimes a week or two off. We all join in on Fridays for the projects in SOTW.

There is a lot less teacher instruction in E. On some days you may spend just 10-15 minutes (including warm-up) with the child and then they practice the skill with a worksheet. It is a big time commitment, but worth it!

I teach a Sunday School class of 2nd and 3rd graders. There are two brothers who obviously still believe in Santa, but I think they are the only ones. They kept bringing up Santa Claus and I was afraid that another child would say something about Santa not being real. There were a few awkward moments! You said that this child is sensitive to being caught in error. I would worry that he would be in a situation with other children and learn that Santa isn't real. That may be very embarrassing for him.

I tried EIW for the first time this year for 5th , 7th and 9th grades. My 5th grader had A LOT of grammar before we even began writing. However, since I am used to doing much more grammar (my older kids used FLL and Rod and Staff) it didn't seem like quite enough. For people who just want very light grammar (correct punctuation and capitalization) this is probably enough. The grammar is very easy to skip in EIW. The writing and grammar lessons are completely separate with no overlap. If you want to do a separate grammar program, you may want to choose a different writing program. I am sticking with EIW for my 7th and 9th grader for the rest of this year, but have dropped it for my 5th grader (I switched him to IEW with Rod and Staff grammar). I probably will not use EIW again.

When my oldest children were about that age I was looking for a less teacher intensive approach as well and switched from AAS to Phonetic Zoo. I found that my children were not ready to work alone. They felt lonely (I put them in thier rooms because I didn't have headphones at the time) and thought they were being punished! Your child may be ready for it, but I just wanted to share my experience. I still am using AAS and sold my PZ after a few weeks. I saved time by dropping spelling with my natural speller (as I taught my other children I learned the rules and would casually mention them to dd when it would come up in other school work). I also streamlined AAS so we spend 10-15 minutes 3 days a week on each lesson.

If the mom thinks he is safe, then I wouldn't worry about it. I have no experience with food allergies, but I do have a son with Type 1 diabetes. He can eat anything your child can, but many people do not understand that. Many times at events where there was a group snack he was left out or given crackers because someone decided that they knew better than me.

It probably isn't good for my clothes, but I don't sort. I stopped having time for that years ago. The only problem we have (that I have noticed) is keeping my husbands T-shirts white. He just wears them as undershirts, though, so I buy a new set every 6 months or so.

I have only used AAS, so I can't comment on another program that would suit your needs better, but I would not go back and start AAS with anyone over 10 years old. (I am not sure how old your daughter is.) Can you borrow from your friend? You would go through the books so quickly, hardly using the program at all. The expense does not seem worth it unless you were planning on using the books with a younger sibling.

About sending the facebook message...I have sent a few messages on facebook and they were answered a weeks (one time months) later. Someone told me that if you only look at facebook on a phone, then it is harder to see that someone has sent you a message. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but there is the possibility she didn't see the invitation.

I have always wanted to do this. You would have to treat laundry and kitchen chores like you had a job outside of the home, and not something you try to fit in around school.

With my 4th grader, we just read the section, answered the questions from the activity guide (if they weren't too hard), then wrote a paragraph. Because there is so much information in each section, I often provided a topic sentence. We did no other writing (except for occasional writing lessons in his grammar book.)

The writing is what sucked the joy out of science for my oldest at that age. Elemental Science seems to be a lot of paperwork. (I am giving it another try this year with my middle kids after ditching it 4 years ago. The difference this time, though, is my middle kids aren't science lovers.) We are writing just a sentence or two for the experiments. (You could alternate this or they could dictate to you.) For the writing assignment, I am just requiring the kids to write 5 facts as they read. We are adding in Creepy Crawlies and the Scientific Method one day a week for fun science.

I used it with my young 4th grader last year. The sections are very long, so doing narrations was hard, but I came up with a couple of solutions. Sometimes, I would come up with a topic sentence and he would supply the details. Another method was to just write one fact that he remembered. I skipped the outlining. My kids have not been into coloring lately, so we didn't miss the coloring pages, but I thought that you could purchase those separately. You may want to check that out. We had been used to doing an activity from the guide on Fridays, and I remembered from my first time through SOTW4 that the activities in the guide were not that great. I bought 2 CDs from Home School in the Woods to do on Fridays. I chose the Civil War and WWII. The reading level of the literature suggestions in the activity guide is a big jump up from the previous volumes. You may just try searching for library books by topic.

It sounds like you got a lot of good advice. I just wanted to reassure you about the decision to drop the Homeschool in the Woods history. We did two units this year for "fun," but it quickly became a drag. There was much too much busy work, printing off papers, and hunting down craft supplies. History should be fun and history projects are great, but you can incorporate that in other ways.

When I saw the title of your post, I thought I would be reading about how you don't have a job in which you earn money. I thought (like me) that you were feeling a little guilty about that..like you should be earning money so your family can enjoy some "extras." I thought I would be giving you a little pep talk and encouragement about how what you do is important, your time with them is more important than extra money, etc. Instead... I am so impressed with you! Your family has no idea what you are accomplishing. I am so sorry that they are not a support and encouragement to you. What your dad and sister are doing and saying is rude and hurtful.

I missed that about the LDs. Good luck!

With four kids that close in age, you may need to simplify for your own sanity..and so that you have time in your day for fun. Consider doing one math curriculum, or starting spelling and grammar in 3rd grade. It is a balance between meeting their needs for academics, play, and having a mom who is available for a game/bike ride/making cookies/etc. With a day like yours when my kids were a little younger, I would have been a mess. I needed the afternoon for friends, the park, museums, errands. Sorry if you didn't want this kind of advice.

These are really challenging ages. There is not much that any of them can work on independently. One thing that I notice about your schedule is that you have an hour devoted to math for each child. I am assuming that you are using the same math curriculum with all your children, so you have taught it to the oldest one. I have always done an hour with my oldest, then have been able to go a bit faster with my younger children. Last year my 4th and 1st grader got 1/2 hour of my time for math. The 4th grader went first (6th grader started her math independently at the same time). After teaching my 4th grader, he would do his assignment close by. I checked in on my 6th grader to see if she was having problems, then brought over the 1st grader. Your ages are different and you will not have anyone ready to start their math lesson independently, but I think you may be able to rotate them through a little faster. (I use RightStart which is pretty teacher intensive.) The same for language arts. Could you shorten that to just 15 minutes for the youngest two?

I like the stick down kind because the dishes can still slide in and out of the cabinet. I always line the shelves. I think it protects them from moisture.