Sadly, it's probably a college essay (judging by the oh-so-original name) in one of the remedial English classes available at most universities. She's probably taking the class because she failed to acquire basic communication skills in high school. Just think how poorly our homeschooled students will write if this is what highly-trained experts produce.

My kids love it. I was worried about the colors, but it's been a non-issue for my Dd, who uses rods daily.

We use an iPod for this. If you are transferring it from a cd it might show up as song content. In that case it doesn't save your spot, but you can go in and change the format to audio book so that it will save your spot. We also have a high quality portable speaker on which I can play things on from my iPad via Bluetooth. The kids can have the speaker right next to them, even in a different room, without access to the iPad, but they can still adjust volume and move around with the speaker.

I purchased the app; we're not beta testing.

My kids (and dh) have been playing all weekend. Dd hesitated with the colors at first, but made sense of it all within 30 seconds. She regularly uses rods with her mm. I guess the other characteristics like the eyes and length of the rod are more important to her. She said it doesn't matter to her what color the nooms are. Ods wasn't bothered by the colors at all, but he's been "off" rods for a couple years. Hope that helps anyone that might be hesitating because of the colors!

Is your first grader doing the CSH art? What do you think is the ideal age range? They say elementary and middle school on the site, but would it be a lot for kindy and first?

Ds, 6, wants to be a planetary meteorologist. He's wanted to be a meteorologist for a while, but the specialization is a recent add on. Dd, 4, wants to be a princess or a dentist or a veterinarian depending on the day.

We use classically Catholic memory. I don't buy the student book; we just use the Tm, so that saves a bit. For history we use connecting with history, which has the faith integrated. Those two are probably where they get the most religious education in terms of curriculum. If you're doing sotw or some other history rotation you could still add in some of the suggestions from connecting with history. The once upon a time saints books and the footsteps of the saints series are good. My kids have enjoyed the ccc movies too. https://www.catholicvideo.com/dvd/98288D/ccc-of-america-set-of-nine We also made a set of the peg dolls from Catholic icing to join in with our paper dolls from the famous figures of ...times series. The peg doll PDFs is here. http://www.catholicicing.com/peg-dolls/ My older is in faith formation at our parish, but I consider it a fun social experience. The pedagogy is much like a public school with all the associated problems so I don't rely on it to actually impart any knowledge. In our homeschool, each morning we do a devotion from a Catholic children's book. Then we do a song from we choose virtues, which is a Christian resource in the general sense of the word, not specifically evangelical. The songs and coloring pages available as cheap downloads for we choose virtues have been greatly enjoyed by all my kids. I don't feel like I'm doing a particularly good job with art or music right now. My kids are the same age as yours, btw, so I don't think it's especially critical at this point. I do want to do better in the future though. I'm thinking of using the art book from Catholic school house for next year. It can used with their full program or as a stand alone. In the past we did making music, praying twice for music but my oldest is starting to age out of it and I am kind of tired of using it a couple years in a row. I might get it back out when my youngest is 3-4.

My advanced reader mostly just reads. I also continue to read aloud. I try to choose some of the older books for read alouds. They tend to have more advanced vocabulary and sentence structure with themes that still appeal to younger kids. This year we are using moving beyond the page for language arts. There are discussion questions for the books, and story elements are played with a bit. I would add that in at this point if it wasn't in my language arts curriculum, but it could be done informally. You could introduce that during your read aloud time too. At this point he can pretty much read whatever he wants, but I found that we still needed to have him read aloud to me a bit each week for pronunciation. Those pesky foreign words that he picks up from reading work their way into his speaking vocabulary with occasionally comical results.

Maybe the beta testers could convince them to change the colors. Nudge, nudge soror.

Eek, I think I just peed myself a little. Would it be too drastic to paint my rods to match?

We dumped the fun Spanish early on for ods. After picking up lots of asl via yds's speech issues, we've found that asl is more practical and useful for us on a day to day basis. So we're going with that for foreign language. Everything else is going well...and even better, everything my oldest is doing has a next level.

The only reason to work through it rather than skip would be 1) master the facts to automaticity 2) make sure he can recognize the relationship between addition and subtraction i.e. the parts vs whole or rewriting an addition as a subtraction. 3) developing number/algebraic sense with the inequality work to see that one need't do subtraction to determine that 8-2>8-4 If these are mastered, happily move on. If only points 2 and 3 are mastered, feel free to move on and supplement with continued fact practice via games or apps.

That is so funny about the readers. I've done AAR 1&2 with 2 kids and I just bought the aar3 readers because I love the AAR readers. I thought I would die if I had to listen to dd read one more puketastic Disney princess reader, so I am hugely relieved to be back with the AAR readers.

Take the placement test for AAR if you want to go that route. If your child is starting to take off with reading, you could just keep reading and get your phonics via aas. If you go that route, you could purchase the AAR readers to go along with it. Iris there is a correlation chart somewhere that tells how to line them up.

Not yet, but I am planning to when we get to that spot in bfsu. I can't wait to phosphorylate everyone, bwahhhhhh. Let us know how it works.

Right start math level a is appropriate for a preschooler if the implementation isn't rigid. There is very little writing, and what is there for writing can easily be adapted. My middle child did well with it at an oldish 3. A less structured option is Miquon orange book. You could also check out mep reception but he might already be past it. If he knows all the primary letter sounds and can blend something simple like "Sam" he could start all about reading level 1. Like right start, it's hands on. AAR has no writing. Both my olders did very well with it at an oldish 3. I would guess them gifted, but not super-crazy gifted, just run-of-the-mill gifted.

You might see if she is interested in any of the 4h projects done independently. They are pretty in depth without rigid grade level attachment. Maybe something will spark a passion. This site has them online. http://sarasota.ifas.ufl.edu/4-H/4-HRecord.shtml

I am trying to distinguish between general music class and instrumental lessons. Your school district doesn't really do instrumental lessons with pre-k kids does it?

Well, I had to scroll way down to find it. I believe op is talking about a male stage performer in a huge bear head. And ftr, I'm appalled at the way dancing bears are treated...the real literal bears I mean.

Thank you for your input everyone! Ours starts in upper elementary so I wouldn't consider lessons a homeschool expense until then. Looks like we are pretty typical.

I prefer the q listed under loops and other groups in mamaraby's link. I have always thought the 2 style was hideous. I hated it when I learned it and printed it whenever I could. I also have a strong dislike for the ZB "T" and "F".

I wondered about this too, but I've seen the first person rule from multiple sources. After I googled for awhile (hehe, another word unknown to the children of bygone eras) I found that when Kjv was written the word "will" meant to desire something to be done. Therefore the Latin word for the future was rendered shall. The first person vs third person distinction came later.

I'm just curious after reading the homeschool cost thread. Are the lessons free, subsidized, not even available? In which grades are they offered?

Most of our faves were mentioned. A few that weren't (or I missed); Bunnicula, Charlie and the chocolate factory, Winnie the Pooh, Mrs. Piggle-wiggle series, wizard of oz.