As in quite a few states Northa Carolina doest NOT require you to go to kindergarten. Nor do you have to enroll you child in anytype of school home private or public till 7 http://www.ncpublicschools.org/legal/SchoolEntry.html Relax (easier said than done I know) but if you kids see you stress out they will also. This is the time to make education fun and have them both engaged in what you are doing. If they are the type that have to wiggle while they learn there are lots of get up and move things you can do with them. It is going to take planning and forethought but it can be done. Have you been able to connect with any other homeschooling mom's no matter what level of education their kids are so you are learning the rules from people that are living it and not from some one who knows some one that once had happen type scenario?

http://www.amazon.com/Oregon-Scientific-PR18-06-Interactive-Globe/dp/B000EULXY8 This is the one my MIL bought my dd for Christmas because we couldnt get her to walk away from it at Target. It is on clearance at target for 40bucks plus this one comes with upgrades for two years. The only thing for us is we have a dell computer and it is not compatible with dell thankfully it is compatible with my MIL computer! BTW this is a gift for a two year old who loves maps and globes. Every time we pass a globe in the store she yells mom it is a planet earth globe I need it. I need it. We bought her the Vtech one with the hand control and the little plane. SHe had everything mastered so fast that it is no longer fun for her.

There are lots of great idea's on this thread. We also make bath time education time. My dd loves letters and she has those foam letters that sticks to the wall. She say the letter and the sound and tries to put them in order. Counting we count going up the stairs down the stairs from the kitchen to her room to mommy's room. I have found that when we are sitting down to look at something like a matching or sequencing game in the middle of it when I can see on her face I tell her to gallop to something and back and somewhere in there I yell freeze and she stops and then we can continue for a little longer. Making the letter out of clay or home made playdough helps keep the hands busy I visit sites lilke: http://www.besthomeschooling.org/gateway/inted16.html That give me a list of ideas or is a gateway to great ideas We do have a twister game mat that we have used in a LOT of various ways and a Maptangle and my two year old knows more places on that map than my hubby. We are getting the USA version hop offit for Christmas. We also play lots of different games with a hopscotch rug we have. I have the leapfrog series and they are wonderful and a big hit. We also utilize Signing Time and that has helped with ABCs and 123s among learning a second language. Adding in a little bit of Spanish is helping too

I have known people to make something similar with hair gel and a zip lock bag for the kids but nothing mom/teacher size.

A drop or two of essential oil and food coloring will make purple lavender playdough

I dont have a lessons plans but what has worked for us is SigningTime videos do the ABC on I think all of them plus they have ABC stand alone video. We read Chicka Chicka Boom boom. Learning the letter sounds her Leapfrog toys and videos have helped with that tremendously I know a lot of people that do ABC books. Going to site and print out a letter and find different things that being with that letter around the house or in a news paper or magazine. Reading books that are about that letter. Meaning if the letter is A read books about Ants Airplanes Apples Alligators ect. We also use starfall.com for letter recognition and letter sounds. Good luck

Here are some of the things that I have done or currently do Sensory box: have things that are all different textures I like sand paper scraps of different types of fabric leaves pine needles I would say do flannel and we would go around the house and look for things there are flannel like jammies or blankets or sheets Scent boxes typically has different flavored home made playdough we make together (pumpkin spice that is orange or lavender that is purple ect Color boxes: One week we put all the red things we could find around the house and we talked about them. Some weeks I would have things already in the box and we have to go and put them away and why they belong where they belong. Number box. We got the plastic magnet numbers and look for items around the house or around town that went with the numbers that were in the box. (looking at our mail or on the cereal boxes) I have a white board hanging at her level that has the leap frog letters on it so she plays with those and every day I write a word on there and we talk about the word and we sound it out since she knows her letter sounds I made out of felt a calendar and we do the calendar every morning it has the month day of the week date season and weather. We watch SIgningTime and she has picked up a tremendous amount from that. With animal names sounds her numbers abc colors and more than I could have hoped for. We put a food pyramid we got the dollar store and laminated it and put velco dots on and and when she has something from that food group she changes the number I cut letters out of felt and made an ABC tree and she pulls a letter leaf off in the morning and a number out of the clouds and a shape off the trunk of the tree and we talk about those during the day. We watch move and groove video series for her dancing and exercising. That has taught her what her locomotor skills are among other things. We read and read and read. She has a dress up box that since I was pg with her we have stocked up on at Halloween clearance sales! She has a kitchen set that I have given her my old rice and pasta boxes and her snack boxes and she has mommy old towels and wash clothes and does her own dishes. We have at her eye level in her play area A weather chart, president chart 1-100 ABC and colors and a weather chart. I dont use them for anything more than when we are sitting there playing she will walk over there and ask question or tell me what things are. When she is old enough for preschool I will work on these more. Most all of that was gotten at a dollar store. She also has quite a few USA maps as she is totally into maps. I try to make play educational and have the tools that she needs near her. She has a very active imagination and has lots of independent time as well as structured time. I have been doing this type of stuff on and off since she was about 1 and she just turned two the end of sept.

I have not used it. I dont plan on using with my two year old only because I would rather she learn to read phonetically and not sight read which this program seems to promote. My dd has expressed a want to learn to read so we have OPGTR that we have been using. She has known her letter sounds for a while and has recently started to sound out words so that is the only reason I am starting. Good luck on your journey!

There just was a thread about this http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67684&highlight=TG

My SIL is fluent in Mandarin. And she told me get what ever programs cartoon tv show whatever so they can hear it throughout the day being spoken. Because they use tones it is also wise to have the kids learn an instrument so they learn to hear the tones. Right now my SIL just speaks it to my dd and we have a cartoon that she watches but when I am ready to fully commit to it we will have her do all of these things.

What is the difference between this and volunteering at the hospital or the library every day? She is getting a valuable skill set plus self confidence. If she is still doing her school, having a social life and this is what she wants to do I honestly do not see the harm. I image you know the owner and trust her. I would make sure she would bring home a varity of chocolate which can be nice holiday gifts for family and friends!

I have seen them at walgreens, walmart and kmart but not really all that recently. Would it work to soak them in pink dye and dry them out?

The stable goes up in the living room and Mary Joseph and a donkey go down the hall. Every day they move a little further on their journey till Christmas eve they make it to the stable. Christmas morning Jesus is there and on Epiphany the wisemen show up mostly out of nowhere. We move Mary and Joseph after we do our reading for the Jesse Tree.

I am a BRPT Board Registered Sleep Tech. I learned on the job and when I left two years ago I was working three days a week over night and making 40k a year. It takes 18mos of on the job training to take the test to become registered and then if I wanted to I could get sleep studies sent to me at home and I could score them (read the test and write the reports) for the drs at home. You could easily get 150-300 per test and typically when I was score a normal case I could crank out about 5 in 8hours.

I went with my MIL as she purchased my dd's globe, telescope, microscope and other stuff. She is getting me teacher manuals and workbooks! It is going to be a great Christmas this year!

I would not have taken the cupcakes. I would have politely called out that my dd has sever food allergies and is on a special diet. That would have been the honest truth. My two year old has been trained to say no I have allergies any time anyone but mom or dad offers her food (it doesnt always stop her but she at least says it) I dont think that there is a right or a wrong as we all parent differently. I think for your life and in that situation with the ages of your children your mom did the correct thing. If it had been someone else family it may not have been the right thing as it would have been a contradiction of what the children in that home have been taught. So tell your mom job well done and buy those girls a cupcake!

We just went to the dollar store and they had tons of workbooks that worked with simple addition, shapes and number writing. We use the RightStart program for math. We also were able to pick up some Planet Earth workbooks and the dollar store. Sames one we got a few at Michael Craft store and at Walmart. Carol

The PE we do at our house is Move n Groove. There are three different DVDs out and my dd gets her dancing stretching and movement and now so does mommy! We do the leap frog videos SigningTime CDs now that we know the signs to the songs, Kinderbach video to see the concepts, books about what ever she is interested in. We have talked so much about space she was the only two year old that I knew that could not only tell you the order of the planets but facts about them. She has a microscope that we use to look at things as well as a telescope. She loves her globes. We talk about different countries and play map tangle and Hop Off. We do calendar time and that helped her with her numbers. She helps with making her playdough and we talk about the measurements of the ingredients and how fun it is to mix it! She has playtime and mommy has time for herself. We do lots of songs and change the words and see how silliy we can make the songs to get her vocab and creativity up. We try to make workbooks available to her when she wants to do lots of crafts materials. We take nature walks in the front yard. I ask her lots of questions and she does the same. I am not ready to commit to sit down school and try to make learning her type of fun.

Why not uses magnet letters or shaped clay for the writing part. I havent used the book so I am not sure what the writting is for but if she is not ready I would not push the issue

Good I am glad you have the information you need!

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66026 does this answer the question?

Rainbow resource has quite a few games both board and card games. What is your goal with the games? An expensive globe and a child and a timer and a stack of question can be fun too. Have the kids come up with the question come up with your own and the timer is to beat their own time and not the other persons time. For younger children the question could be where is Mexico and for the older child it could be where was the Statue of Liberty made at. Then you could also do a mommy list of question and join the fun. With the maptangle we play it not only the way they do it in the video but I have 3x5s cards where I say a language and they have to hop a countries or country that speaks that language. Since it has continents not so much countries I also have 3x5 that list countries and they have to hop on the continent. Or we throw the bean bag over our head and where it lands we have to talk about the climate/weather land forms there. We do the same thing with animals that are found in area.

We have this game and we make up various versions of this game. They also have some other games that I have been told are really good but have no personal experience with. We do have the HopOff on our wish list for Christmas. http://www.borderlinegames.com/maptangle.html Carol

http://www.hslibrarybuilder.com/pages.php?pageid=7

starfall.com teaches letters sounds and then reading. For my LO who hates to sit for more than two three seconds we play lots of games. We have a big felt tree with letters on it and she picks a letter off of it in the morning and we talk about the letter. the sounds the color and then we make a game out finding that letter on anything and everything. We have a number felt thing on the wall where she does the same thing. She is two and knows all of her letters/sounds and can count to 20. (minus 7) We have music CDs in the background while she is playing or the TV on leapfrog DVDs but the picture not on so she doesnt get stuck sitting watching and that way she is playing blocks or tinker toys or whatever she is into for the moment still learning. We have loads of board games. Candy land chutes and ladders hiho cheeryo lets go fishing bedbugs twister dominoes connect four yahtzee memory scrabble and the list goes on that we play that have some sort of educational value. Whether is it learning colors or counting or sportsmanship. Then I also keep a box that she can reach that has workbooks and coloring books so when she wants to do school she can and typically she will tell me its time for school and she wants to learn what ever they are teaching in those books