https://www.dropbox.com/s/yhnt0o8osz3g8ol/http___web.archive.org_web_20080307072415_http___www.singmath.pdf Hopefully that link works, I do the miquon first and then the singapore lesson. It slows us down a little but that works for Eldest who is quick with concepts but seems to struggle with memorising anything so takes a long time working every problem from scratch and getting lost in multi-step problems. A child who memorises better might skip some singapore review depending on what books you're using.

I use miquon alongside singapore personally, I have a chart showing where miquon covers various topics. I use that to introduce the topic, and then go deeper with it with singapore.

CHECK EVERYTHING! EVERY LABEL! My brother came to live with us last week and is celiac. I thought this would be easy, we're already low carb, I had no problem with the basic meals and excluding wheat from them. No biggie. I've made him sick twice this week, once from soy sauce, and once from beef stock. BEEF STOCK! WHY IS THERE WHEAT IN BEEF STOCK?!?!?! *bashes head against wall* I've been reading a lot of labels the past two days.... sigh.... There is wheat product hiding in a lot of places you don't expect it. Marinades and sauces, gummy candies... Can you tell I'm feeling a little on edge and guilty? This is harder than I thought.

Never too many books. Never However, you CAN have the wrong books imo. Each book takes time to read, and I'd rather my children spend that time on worthwhile books than on mediocre ones. No point having 20 bookshelves if 15 of them are filled with mediocre books. So, I try to be quite intentional about the books I buy, looking to see if they're good quality, often preferring sets from DK etc over lots of random titles of varying quality. I also think those books and sets end up being more appealing to kids. My mum gave me heaps of books from garage sales, but the same few shelves got read over and over while many of the others were never opened. Every few years I go through our shelves, and cull the unappealing and the low quality. I have 8 half full bookcases at the moment. We also generally don't keep anything that doesn't have re-reading value.

Eldest got her first adult teeth about 4 months ago, so they're new, but not barely-emerged, they're about 2/3rds out I think. The past few weeks she has complained that these teeth are sensitive. She has specifically and consistently stated that they hurt when she eats cold food such as a cucumber or tomato from the fridge, so it appears to be sensitivity rather than pain or soreness. (she has complained of pain when eating things like room-temperature apples, but identified that pain as coming from her other, slightly wiggly teeth rather than the new adult ones so I think that's normal and unrelated, but it appears that she understands the difference in pain). I know kids can get sensitive teeth from cavities and stuff, but, these teeth are like 4 months old, and were seen by a dentist 2.5 months ago and he said they looked good then, so poor hygiene seems extremely unlikely as the cause. I also know brand new teeth can hurt shortly after emerging but, again, these are 4 months old, hardly 'brand new', and she only began complaining a few weeks ago so I don't think they hurt when they first came out (or could it be that they were below the line of their other teeth and just not in contact with the cold items until they got bigger?) Seeing the dentist again so soon is not ideal given our situation, it's a lot of money for an issue which is probably nothing, and the dentist we see has a two or three month book-ahead time for non urgent issues anyway. I'm happy to have her just use my sensitive toothpaste but I want to be sure I'm not covering up some serious problem.

I did those grades through a distance education school which is somewhat similar to your online charters I think, so it was a curriculum made by the school, nothing that can be bought by outsiders. They wrote the curriculum for a 4 day week in that instance, so I did 4 lessons in a day, taking about 4-6 hours total. The format... I'm not really sure what to compare it to... Australian math overlaps a lot with asian math, so it may have been similar to the Singapore high school texts. It was self teaching, but definitely indepth. DH did a similar schedule with saxon, but skipped half the practice questions. But I wouldn't recommend that, it burnt him out, saxon is not a good choice for that kind of intensive.

The suggested schedule I just posted? Yes, in that instance I would aim for two lessons a day three times a week for english and math, which allows wiggle room for when a particularly hard lesson drags on one day. It should take a good two or three hours, but since there's only two subjects for the day the stamina should be higher. Of course, that definitely wouldn't work for everyone, some kids will NOT handle that schedule. But some will thrive with it. I did 5 lessons of math in a single day for most of high school. My retention was great, I got As, began trig in 11th (but had to drop out due to life circumstances). DH worked himself into a similar routine (we were both homeschooled) It's not for everyone, I mean, charlotte mason is basically the exact opposite of what I'm suggesting lol. But it's worth exploring for kids who don't like transitions and get burnt out from the third or fourth new subject each day like I used to.

I did one subject per day in highschool. Yes including math (though I wouldn't recommend it for your kids ages). I struggled with the transitions between subjects and just wasn't efficient. One subject per day was the absolute ideal method of study for me personally. It didn't make for long days, in my opinion it made for shorter ones both in actual time spent (less time transitioning, looking for books, reorienting) and mentally, I could immerse myself in a subject and really enjoy it and had time to really get into it, instead of skimming over everything. With my kids, they still need to practice basic skills. We do math and english each day. But after math and english, we do what I call 'intensives' so we actually do one subject (or group of subjects, if the unit is cross curricular) per week at this point. It works well for us.This week is science, next week will probably be art. Another alternative is to do two subjects per day, alternate math or english each day and then add one other subject, so in this layout math and english are being done 3 times a week rather than every single day, but the transitions are still far less. M - Math, Science T - English, Art W - Math, English T - English, History F - Math, Elective

STORAGE Seriously, I've lived in so many houses with such little storage... I'd want a walk in closet, walk in pantry, laundry room and cupboards/closets out the wazoo. Big kitchen. Just... space. I guess I want a big house. Not big as in 5 bathrooms and 10 bedrooms, big as in a big kitchen, big lounge, big playroom, big bedrooms. I love my space. Oh and Library room is a must.

43C (110F) here too, but it's the humidity that's absolutely killing us. The heat index calculator breaks at a certain point 43C (110F) + 40% humidity = a 'feels like' temperature of 57C! (135F) Whether that's true or just the scale breaking entirely I don't know. http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/html/heatindex.shtml We've hit 47C (115F) before, about 12 years ago I think, but it was a very dry weekend, and in my opinion more tolerable than this has been. I'll take a dry 47 any day over a humid 40+ It looks like a storm is rolling in, but the 60% humidity pre-storm is suffocating. Thankfully it's supposed to break tonight with the storms. I love summer, can't stand being cold and do not function at all under 15C (60F), but this has been a bit much, even for me.

Having been a homeschooled teen, let them go for awhile. If you have two who need certain high school stuff for a transcript, sit down with them and talk to them about what the minimum requirements for those subjects are for you to give them a credit and see how they might be able to fill that fairly independently. You say they're self motivated and would fill their time valuably, would they do a few lessons of math a week from an independent curriculum, and read a few assigned books and work through an independent history curriculum? A bare-minimum semester won't ruin them in the context of 7 probably amazing ones. But, for the middle school ones and younger... you've been a good, consistent homeschooler. There's only 4 months of the year left, big family changes are happening... how 'behind' would they really fall if you just stopped, and passed the bare essentials on to independent work for the high schoolers, and went 'unschooler' for the rest of the year? You're agonising over this, which tells me you don't just drop school regularly. You're not that flakey parent who stops school over every insignificant hurdle. 4 months of freedom, plus summer, might be exactly what you need for that fun stuff the little ones need, for time to adjust to DHs changes, for time to focus on the 2yo, and rest and recharge for next year. It wont hurt them academically, you obviously place homeschooling as a top priority generally. They'll be fine, really...

Eldest didn't talk. She knew how to tell me what she wanted quite clearly. But her only words before age 2 were drink and shoes. She wouldn't even say mama or dada. She saw no need. She was 3 before she got real sentences happening. I couldn't comprehend those talking 1 year olds. Then second came along, and was speaking full sentences at 20 months. Given the age gap, eldest and second practically learned to talk at the same time. Youngest is almost 3 and was right on average. Is currently speaking sentences theoretically but is incomprehensible most of the time. She is saying actual words, but her baby talk 'accent' is strong and it takes three or four hearings to try figure out what she is saying sometimes, especially if tired/cranky. All three kids are slightly above average academically. Not highly gifted by any means, but bright enough to be bored in their age-appropriate classrooms. Eldest turned 6 two weeks ago and reads at a third grade level, middle is just moving on from CVC to 1st grade readers right now. Early or late speech seems to have made no difference. Except, eldest does struggle with memorisation, math facts, spelling, she either doesn't do well at memorising or doesn't see the point in it. I wonder if that has anything to do with late speech, just not remembering/being bothered to remember the words to say them, but recognising them just fine when heard.

You've definitely read that here and that's exactly my point. Scorn is heaped upon families like mine, meanwhile they're upset about long hours they feel 'forced' to do to pay for the things they're scorning us for not having. It seems like a cycle. We stepped out of that. In my opinion college funding is not worth the loss of a father. Obviously those scorning people who don't have college savings and are complaining about 70 hour weeks disagree. I'm sorry for those who are genuinely working such long hours to put food on the table and a roof over heads. That's not been the experience of anyone I know, and it must be really hard if they feel they have no other options. In my experiences and those of my families there are a lot of low paying but livable jobs with 40 hour work weeks. Maybe there's a bunch of reasons they can't do any of those, I don't know. But if that's the case they have my sympathy. But you can't say you are forced or have no choice but to work a 70-80 hour week, while typing on an iphone at a childs dance class and driving a new car. You're choosing to work those hours to provide those things. That's fine, but don't equate that to the people who are genuinely facing an 80 hour week or homelessness, and don't act as if it's not a choice to live that middle class lifestyle or that it's 'just what people have to do.'

I keep trying to think of how I can say something here without offending everyone who obviously sees things differently. I don't think I can... it's too emotionally fuelled for most people. But I agree with you. If this is what it takes to be middle class and 'comfortable', well, I'm quite happy down here with the working class in my rented house with my second hand... everything, and lack of vacations or extracurriculars or college savings. What's the point of life if all you do is work and sleep, in order to raise the next generation to do nothing but work and sleep...? Reading this thread makes something inside me hurt, I'm not sure what. But it's not a life my DH or I would ever consider. Good luck to you all, you're stronger people than I am.

Some people/families aren't. I see a lot of posters here saying they wouldn't do chores before food, but my kids will often grab an apple as soon as they wake up, and then do chores, get dressed, all the listed stuff before breakfast quite happily. I rarely eat breakfast and certainly don't need it instantly upon waking, so, if that's working for your family I wouldn't worry too much about that.

This is definitely an our house, they pay rent situation. I don't intend to treat them as guests, but, this is our home they're staying in, not a shared home. That helps define a few things. Food should be ok, I think we've agreed we will take turns making meals for the entire household most nights, they will contribute to our grocery budget and they'll have their own shelf in the fridge for special extras. TV is a non issue, they're computer people, didn't have a TV in their old place either and are quite content to play computer games or watch a movie on their computer screens, and I will be expecting some privacy in our lounge area where the TV is after the children go to bed (they'll have both a bedroom and a 'lounge' space of their own to retreat to, which helps. I wouldn't expect them to be in our lounge area after children go to bed unless they're using the kitchen, but I should find a tactful way to actually bring this up and make sure we're on the same page). Music is fine, their bedroom is far away from the children's room. And I have thought about music in the common areas and how to handle that, it should be easily handled... Late bedtimes are no issue so long as they're respectful. I seem to be in a routine of laundry on the weekends so I might mention to him weekdays are better. I have a massive machine which helps, we can do a week worth of laundry for 5 people in 2 loads. Cars are a non-issue, my brother is legally blind like me, and the big goal while they're here is for his girlfriend to get enough hours for her full licence as she is only on a learners still, so they don't have a car yet and when they do, it'll still only be one for them and one for us. Cleaning is a definite topic. They're moving here because of financial issues so we want to help them save. They are going to contribute to bills and groceries but we wont be charging rent, in exchange for them doing some house cleaning chores we have previously hired out to a housecleaning service. He seems happy with this arrangement but we will have to finalise what that looks like this weekend, I don't want them cleaning kid mess but they may well end up solely responsible for the kitchen and vacuuming and mowing. Thanks for helping me think this stuff through guys!

My brother and his girlfriend are coming to live with us... in like, three days. This has happened suddenly due to financial situations no one expected, but it will likely be for a reasonable period of time (6-12mo) I've only house shared once and it was miserable, mostly because it was a tiny unit and we felt the need to interact all the time and I got absolutely sick of the other person after a week. I know better this time, I will be setting a ground rule that no one has to feel a need to interact at all times. He doesn't judge me for spending the entire day on the computer if I feel like it, I wont judge him for spending the entire day in his room. Interaction is great, but it does not have to be constant. Does anyone have any other advice though? I'm nervous and self conscious. I feel extremely self conscious doing family worship time if he can hear us (he's not christian but is extremely respectful, it's not because he would say anything negative, but it's a time I feel vulnerable and overly emotional), I'm worried i'll lose my temper with the kids then feel self conscious about yelling at them with him in the house, or worse have a yelling match with my husband! (we're a loud family, that's just our family culture) And, uh... well, tea time pops into my head as another self consciousness issue that can be heard. The homeschooling is a non issue, he was homeschooled like me, he may actually contribute to music lessons or something. But I'm still nervous about making this work without feeling invaded or like my privacy is gone. There's a few things I'll have no choice but to change (I'm one of those people who walks around naked at times, lol) but I want to ensure our family still feels like it can be itself and not change too much. The kids are 6, 4 and 2 so I think they'll be fine, it'll be fun for them. I guess I'm worried about my own attitudes.

Definitely reasonable in a day, no doubt about that, just not reasonable in 2 hours. Firstly, free time fridays is for skipping chores, I wouldn't call school chores, I'd have them still doing at least some reading and their computer stuff that day. The only day I'd skip school is tuesdays for coop. So that gives you 4 days. I would have them do latin OR spelling, so each twice a week. I'd have them do typing OR xtra math, twice a week on those seems reasonable too. As for prodigy, I'd incoporate that into your actual math time, maybe once a week each kid gets to skip normal math and do prodigy, alternating. Or maybe they do it for 10 minutes before math or something. I'd also move chapter book reading until later in the day. Getting book basket and piano out of the way makes sense, but without the time crunch of the morning, doing the chapter book later on they might continue reading beyond their half hour. Eldest does hers after math while I work one on one with her younger sister. That seems far more do-able to me.

For a comparison, our morning routine is rather tight some mornings This is supposed to occur between 7:30 and 8:30, so, an hour. If they get distracted at any point, however, it'll take until 9. Breakfast get dressed and if I'm lucky they do their hair empty dishwasher clean bedroom (done daily this should only take 5 mins tops) quick clean bathroom (only eldest can do this, so she usually does it while the others do one of the above chores, again doing it daily makes it 5 minutes) We definitely couldn't fit more than that in without making mornings miserable. The 'wasted' time is spent talking and playing around (nicely, not actively wasting time) and other things which are building up that sibling relationship.

You have two hours between 7 and 9. 1 hour 10 minutes is taken up with reading and piano 10 minutes upstairs (which is pushing it a little for kids) 10 minutes for breakfast That leaves us with 30 minutes to feed dogs, tidy areas, do an extra chore, work on awana verses, and do 5 different computer programs which likely take 10 minutes each when you consider navigating to them, logging in and getting focus together. Yeah, I think that's a bit much. I would expect the 5 computer items to take an hour block tbh. Or maybe you just mean one computer item per day? Even so, that seem like a very tight schedule that doesn't allow for anything going wrong at all. Sorry :( I think you're overplanning those two hours. I would do all those chores the night before, and leave the chapter book until lunch. If you did those two things I think the rest would fit.

I totally agree, but I feel like, if I state it so candidly, I will inevitably be told 'well your husband might get sick or disabled or die'. Over and over. I get it, I don't know the future. But I also can't plan for the unknown. So I plan for the likelyhood that he wont get sick or disabled or die. And I don't tell anyone, because being constantly reminded DH could die actually rather upsets me. Especially since I am also disabled. I wanted to be a stay at home mum of a big family since I was 10. I loved kids, I never had any desire to work a job. The only job I had a real interest in was teaching! (a job which was out of the question because I'm legally blind). Homeschooling fulfilled all the good parts of being a teacher without many of the bad parts, in my mind. I got what I wanted. I married young, we have three kids and despite some health issues after our third we are still on our way to large family status. We homeschool as a lifestyle choice (having been homeschooled ourselves, both our parents sucked at it academically, but the lifestyle and advantages stuck with us. We are just doing the academic bit totally differently). I'm still far off from post-kids, but, I have no intention of going back to work. I do run some businesses from home, but that's different to me. Paid employment holds no appeal whatsoever, and DH likes having me at home, he likes the environment it creates, If we do have more kids, by the time I am finished with my last I will probably be close to grandparenthood from at least one older kid, and I want to be a big part of that too. My kids have missed out on grandparents because they're all still working long full-time hours, their only real relationship is with their great-grandparents. I want to be the involved grandma who does stuff with them and helps mother out. To be honest, I can't really have a backup plan for if something happens to DH. One would assume if he got unwell enough to no longer work he would also no longer drive. Well, I am legally blind and can't drive. Between the driving and the blindness I am ruled out of a huge number of jobs. I can work, but I am not employable, there's a key difference there, the blind have the lowest rate of employment of any high functioning disability (including high functioning downs syndrome and cerebral palsy). My only chance is with a skilled job, however my mental health situation prevented me from getting a degree when I was young, and while I am studying now (it's essentially free in my country for my situation), the distance options are mostly arts degrees, anything really practical requires practical, in person training. I LOVE what I am studying (sociology), but it has no practical purpose except as a social worker or social scientist, which I can't do because I can't drive. And even if I managed to find something, my mental health comes into play and I am not convinced I am mentally capable of outside the home employment due to the long hours of a shift (I take mental health breaks every 30-45 minutes while homeschooling). Of course, I'm ok with all this because I WANT to be home. But it makes those worst case scenario conversations uncomfortable at best. If something happened we would be surviving off disability pensions for both of us and whatever home business income I can generate, there's just not much of a way around that. Saying everyone needs a plan is great, but what if 'the plan' is already in place? DH has a chronic condition and can only work part time as it is, I can only work from home, there's no going down from here, there's this or bust. So, I'll keep dreaming of the most likely scenario thanks.

I don't know what can help... DHs family dynamic was much like yours. 8 kids, dad would be reading a book while mother washed his work clothes at 11pm because he forgot to tell her he needed them done that day. All I can say is the kids see it, and they love their mother for everything she did alone. Their father.... is another story. But kids aren't blind, they might be unappreciative at younger ages, but they see the dynamics themselves. For myself, we hope for a large family, but DH wants to be nothing like his father. If I'm honest, I'm more likely the slacker than him, he does bedtime routine and is responsible for house cleaning. He even homeschools two days a week (I do work part time, and study, and am responsible for any and all planning of everything and telling him what needs to happen each day, so it evens out, but he does a lot of the grunt work). This wont change as we have more kids, he doesn't even want it to change, at all. He loves being so involved, why else would he want a large family if he didn't want to actually be with them? (well he would like less chores lol, he has an eye to offloading them to our kids pretty quickly!) So I don't know how I'd even handle that situation, especially when it has become such accepted daily habit over many many years, which is even harder to change. Short of something drastic or absolutely putting your foot down (which it sounds like you don't want) I wonder if you just need to decide whether you're going to accept it or not, and if you accept it, do so wholeheartedly AND make it work for you, without guilt, however you need to. Hire a housecleaner, buy convenient food, outsource a lesson or get a tutor for high school math. If he's working so many crazy hours, surely there's some money there to make it possible. Carve out a little time for yourself, somewhere, and insist on it. Can you insist that he make sure he is home between x and y time on z day because you'll be going somewhere? I'm so sorry for the situation you're in. I couldn't do that, you're a stronger person than me for lasting this long! But those kids know it and see it and love you. And little ones get older. It wont be this hard forever.

Yeah I know one. They saw me being homeschooled and thought it was awesome, and their daughter was having severe emotional issues, so they decided to bring her home for 9th grade. Except, they pulled her mid-year so they decided she needed to do the entire year's worth of curriculum in the final 6 months. Also, they knew I was the eldest of a largish homeschool family and did my work almost entirely independently, and expected their just-out-of-school daughter to do the same, for a double workload, and somehow not fall into a worse depression for being alone in a room all day. Yeah. It didn't go well. Turned into a rather sad story actually, her mental issues got worse, not better. She went back to school 6 months later and in a worse position, and it was all my fault for recommending homeschooling to them (even though I was also game enough to tell them, repeatedly, that double work was insane, that she needed help because she had never done independent learning before, and that leaving her alone in a silent room all day was bad), and their daughters fault for not just being able to do double work in a room alone all day without hating herself. They told anyone they could that homeschooling was bad and they no longer trusted my education either, and mentioned more than once that I should insist on going to school. Sigh. I hated them.

Oh yes, I forgot this point. I havent been able to drink milk or eat much dairy since I was a teen. Not truly lactose intollerant but it makes me ill. Despite growing multiple babies the doctor tested my calcium levels recently and say theyre great! Lots of great veggie sources for calcium. I eat either broccoli or bok choy/pak choy most days. I dont even have the typical vegan sources like almond milk or anything, just veg has been enough for me even in pregnancy. (Though not for everyone, and magnesium is important imo too)

Aww thats a shame! I can get faint lines from about 9dpo on the cheapies and 7dpo on the expensive ones (in addition to the kids ive had a few miscarriages so this has been well tested!). I guess I create hormones quick and well. Good luck! The waiting always kills me, since I show clear symptoms within a day or two its a long week to wait (yes, im sure about the ovulation dates too. Im just that early! Lol)