Hi Penny, Thank you so much. We wrapped our nail in wire and attached it the battery, held it over our iron filings and all got very excited because there it was - we had ourselves a magnet. We obviously didn't have a strong magnet because it only moved the paper clip, it couldn't pick it up, so I'm very thankful for all those iron filings I found in a kit at a garage sale. There was great joy as they all leapt onto the tip of the nail. I am SO grateful for your help. We have all been frustrated so it was a great time today - I love homeschooling. We get to all have breakthroughs together. Thanking you from over the seas, Jenny

Hi, I wrote the same post on an Australian website and got the suggestion of doing charades with the vocabulary words. From then on, everyone looked forward enthusiastically to Latin. It made such a difference - we got through a lesson a week, and by the time we got to the end of Prima Latina, they knew their vocabulary very well and were loving Latin. For Latina Christiana 1, we've stopped doing the charades but we've all got a much more positive outlook on Latin as a fun subject and now we all love the songs and learning our declensions, believe it or not! HTH, Jenny

Hi Penny, Thank you so much for that help. I will set up what you're talking about tomorrow and see if we can get it to come together (10:30 at night right now on the sunny Gold Coast, Australia). My only other question would be: is the wire OK to be insulated or not? I would have thought not, but the book actually had insulated wire for the experiment with the compass, so I thought maybe it doesn't matter. Thank you once again, Jenny BTW, my sister is a civil engineer - she seems to be a big help with matrices and metal properties but not electricity.

Thank you so much Lorna and Penny for your replies. Lorna, your very sensible point-of-view made me feel, firstly, not alone, and secondly, inspired. I've taught highschool science for years and I know all about experiment failure, but somehow, I felt like as a homeschooling mum now, that I was "above" my old muddling self. Surely experiments done by an ex-highschool teacher with a couple of early primary kids ought to work!!?!! :-) Your post was definitely the wake-up call I needed to just get the kids more involved with what is or isn't happening and why. Penny, I do remember stuff about electromagnetic coils. The experiment in the book just had it all done with a single wire, but that does seem a little unlikely when I think about those old experiments. I think we used to wrap wire around a cylinder and put a magnetisable object in and out of the cylinder. Is that the sort of thing you mean? I really appreciate your help. Thank you, Jenny

Hi, After several years of trying to do electricity experiments as part of our science program, I am realising I need help desperately. I am using "Physics Experiments for Children" at the moment and we just attempted to attract iron filings with a wire attached to the terminals of a small battery. I could get a light bulb to work but I could not get any iron filings to be attracted to the wire. Then, I was supposed to be able to get a compass to show the flow of electricity - again ... nothing! If an electric current creates a magnetic field, then why can I not get my experiment to work? Does the battery have to be of a certain size or something? If anybody could give me any suggestions at all, that would be greatly appreciated. I'm a bit tired of telling my kids what "should" have happened IFYKWIM. Thank you, Jenny

Self-explanatory and thoroughly colourful and enjoyable for the kids. Definitely sequential too - my kids are doing great with their maths. Jenny

My dd6 and dd8 both do Spelling Workout entirely independently, except for when I give them a spelling test. I love the program - the proofreading skills and story writing with the words are both very useful skills. My dd's are doing B and E and are very happy with it. Cheers, Jenny

Hi, I don't know about help with spelling - although they're going to be mighty good spellers if they can spell Latin and English words, but certainly my daughter is already excellent and recognising Latin roots in words. We're only up to Latina Christiana 1 Lesson 10. My dd8 and dd6 really enjoy it, although I'm only focussing on dd8 being able to do the quizzes etc. I think the biggest advantage of it is just the thinking skills that are required. You learn your conjugations and declensions (more so in LC1 than PL) and then you have to apply them to different words and translate sentences correctly in singular and plural etc. It seems to me, to be able to think through all the case endings required, is to put your child in a great position to be able to think through anything!! And yet, my dds really take pride in what they are learning and are fascinated by it all. HTH, Jenny

Hi, My dd8 is almost finished 4th grade in Australia and she works independently - I am around to help if she needs it but I usually just mark her work in the evenings and write comments in her books so I don't forget where she needs help. I'm pretty flat-out with the younger 3, although even dd6 is already doing a number of subjects independently. In my case, the subjects I actually teach are Latin, Japanese and Science - I find languages can't be learnt just out of books, and I like the fact that we discuss grammar a fair bit in Latin because I'm also getting a chance to check her comprehension of the grammar rules. Actually, every now and then when I'm marking her maths work, I see a big error of understanding and will get out the manipulatives with her and go over a concept - so she's not entirely going it alone. Oh, and I read aloud history with her but she does the rest independently, and I do her spelling tests and the occasional dictation with her. It is great to see what they are actually capable of, isn't it! Jenny

Horizons gradually introduces "carrying" later on. dd8 is doing Horizons 4 and dd6 is doing Horizons 1 - they both loved Horizons K and really enjoy what they are doing now. dd8 found Horizons explanations for things like "carrying" very helpful. Jenny

Hi, Thank you very much for all your help with sharing what you are doing. It has certainly given me plenty to think about and look in to. My poor dd8 (almost 9) - she does such a lot of work already. It's so hard to fit it all in and not have her going until late in the afternoon as well. I'll have to really work out what I can fit in of what you all have recommended. I'm very sporadic with dictation so I need to put more emphasis on that. I think history gives her plenty of narration and sort of copywork, but I don't know whether to look into IEW now or not, and I like the sound of R&S English composition, but is it just more work that she's running out of hours in the day for? Thank you again, Jenny

Hi, I started off using FLL1/2 with my dd's and then moved into R&S in grade 3. However, I've not been happy with the writing programs we've been doing. I started with Writing Strands and found the assignments jumped from easy to too hard without any transition, and this year we've been doing Wordsmith Apprentice but it seems to need a worldly-wiseness that my dd8 seems to be lacking because she doesn't watch TV. I have appreciated some of the skills that she's been developing along the way, but it seems so hit-and-miss or something. I'm having to register with our state government for this year and am commenting on her writing program. I'm realising that a lot of what they expect her to be covering for writing, she's doing in R&S. Should I keep pushing on trying to find a writing program that works for us, or just make do with Wordsmith Apprentice, or just not worry about a writing program at all? I can think of a few other areas I'd like to have more time for. I'd love to hear what other people who are doing this sort of a combo are doing. Thank you very much, Jenny

Hi, I love this post. I put my dds in matching dresses when my eldest dd started grade 1 hsing because I just couldn't handle the decisions every day as to what they were going to wear. They had 2 dresses each - they wore them twice each without being washed and we had a day off. When my eldest dd was starting grade 3, my mum found these school uniforms being sold off for cheap in her city. $10 for dresses and $5 for boys' shirts. Again, my dds got 2 each and my elder ds got 2 shirts. The uniform is so smart and uncrushed looking. I don't have to wash it every day which really keeps my washing down - lets face it, anything like that that saves time when your hsing is worth doing. It has lasted 2 years - we bought them pretty big but they still looked good. They're getting a bit too stained now after 2 years and, the rate they're all growing, we've run out of hem to let down. I was really tossing up whether to keep going with the uniform idea - I love it but I thought I was the only person out there that actually has uniforms, and I get so embarrassed when I run into other HSers at the shops or something. However, this post has helped my resolve - uniforms are smart, time-saving and give structure to our week. My kids never complain about them, although they do enjoy uniform-free days, so I shall push on I think. Does it help them do their schoolwork? Only in the sense that I think we take our day seriously - as the previous post-er said. I also have separate desks for each kid and a daily schedule which my dcs follow for themselves without having to be reminded constantly by me. I'm an ex-highschool teacher so I don't think I could help myself in these things, but I have no regrets because it really does keep things simple. Thanks for the post - a "brave" one from where I'm standing. Jenny

Hi momof7, I can't tell you how much I appreciate the time you've taken to tell me what you do for math. It makes excellent sense and I think you've saved me a big regret - I truly think Horizons is great, but not being able to see any of these other programs, I just didn't know if it was thorough enough. Sounds like it is, and being an ex-highschool math teacher, I figure when we get to the end of Horizon 6, I'll probably be pretty capable of working out where she needs to go from there - the MUS book sounds great. But it certainly sounds crazy swapping programs now if Horizons has been suiting the kids so well. Thank you very much. I can't believe I didn't ask earlier because this has been bothering me for awhile. Cheers, Jenny

Thank you so much for your feedback. I have really enjoyed the 4 years I've been doing it with my dd8 and dd6 has done K and is doing 1 at the moment. They both really appreciate it. However, I don't do it in isolation - I think any program will have its limitations unless you combine it to some extent with other workbooks - I can see how my dcs could learn to do maths the "Horizons" way, but I deal with that by having them use other books as well. Momof7 - I would love to know what you did once you got to the end of Horizons 6. I've been thinking about changing to Saxons once dd8 has finished Horizons 4 because I thought maybe she will need to spend a bit more time in Saxons before she "has" to do it. I really have no idea what Saxons is like - noone over here that I know does it. Thanks for your help, Jenny

Hi, I started my dd on Horizon math because SWB recommended it in TWTM, which I had borrowed from the library. I later bought a more recent version of TWTM and it's no longer recommended but I don't know why. Can anybody tell me please? Thank you for your help, Jenny

We're just about to start Ancients again next year so I'm casting my mind back 4 years, but the one thing that stands out the most as an extra was getting the "Usborne Cut-out Models: Make this Model Trojan Horse". It was a massive project so I've kept the cover and hope to buy it again for next year so that hopefully we'll be able to construct it more easily this time. We worked on it for hours and hours but we were living in Fiji and it just didn't make it back to Australia, and we never did quite finish it. It was lots of fun though and certainly made that story unforgettable. Cheers, Jenny

Hi, I've been trying to avoid speech therapy for ds4 but I managed to get quite a bit of material off a few friends whose kids were doing speech therapy. The main thing that is working wonders with ds4 is games - we played a memory game with a pack of 12 pairs of words starting with s (home made) and after a few weeks of that (he would have to concentrate on putting his tongue in just the right place every time he said one of the words), his s's have improved no end. I found out later that s is usually one of the last they work on because it is so hard. At the moment, we are playing memory with a pack of r words - his own name is Russell, which, from when he started to speak, he pronounced "Waddil" - you can see why I ended up starting with s and r!! People would ask him his name and then look blankly at me for the translation. Now, I never have to translate for people - I'm very proud of him! He's come a long way in a couple of months. HTH, Jenny

Hi, We do Mondays: read a section (also the revelant part of UILE), answer review Qs, do narration/outline and illustration/map work Thursdays: read the other section, answer review Qs, do narration/ outline and map work Fridays: projects and games from the AG I get out the recommended extra reading and put them out on a display bookshelf (a plastic shoe rack perfect for the purpose) in the loungeroom so we all browse/read the books at rest time (including dh whenever he can). Jenny

I love maths and my dds so far seem to be enjoying it quite a lot but I have been really shopping around with math topics. My dds do Horizon maths in the afternoon but in the mornings, I try to make it as practical as possible. We've had the whole room set up as a coffee shop (and worked out how to set it up and take it down again as quickly as possible - we don't spend the whole morning doing math), I've had floor mats as number tracks, huge lengths of paper for dividing fractions into smaller fractions, and for basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, I've come across 2 books called "Teaching Number Facts using a Number Sense Approach" by James Burnett and he tries to start with practical applications and finish up with puzzles and games and use a lot of manipulatives in between. I'm an ex-highschool math teacher and I want my dcs to love math and to appreciate it as well. And ... I don't want to cycle around and have to reteach topics over and over again - hence my choice of Horizons in the afternoon. HTH, Jenny

You should always write a fraction answer in its simplest form, and that means checking your fraction to see if the numerator and denominator have a greatest common factor larger than 1 and then divide them both by that factor. Invaluable skill for fractions!

For me, the big curriculums seem too expensive on a single-income-first-year-teacher's pay (dh just spent 4 years studying and started teaching while I have stayed home having kids). I buy a lot of my stuff second hand and so I work with what I can get. There is really so much good stuff out there, that most of it is tried and true and with the tweaking that everyone's been talking about, it's been working for my dcs. I've bought all my Story of the World stuff new though.

That's the beauty of Horizons for me - their whole aim is to cover every topic thoroughly and progressively year by year. I can focus on my math topics in the mornings, knowing that in the afternoons, my dds are relatively safe in the hands of the tried and true "Horizons" folk who have put together a plan for covering "everything".

I do this all the time with tables - just lose the left and right side lines and you've got perfectly spaced lines. Also, if you get rid of some of the middle lines, you can add a dashed line over the top of where the wiped lines are. I don't know if that makes any sense but table are definitely the way to go.

Hi, I've heard there's a fair bit of debate about a "mastery" approach to math eg. Singapore math, vs. Horizons style of including about 8 different topics within math in every lesson so that they don't forget what they've just learnt while they focus on another area. I think it's a case of doing both if you can - and HSing is perfect for that as far as I'm concerned - we aim for a half hour of "mastery" in one particular topic in the morning (no set curriculum - I pick and choose) and my dds work on Horizons independently in the afternoon. This seems to be working really well for us. Jenny