I LOVE this and need to implement it, like, NOW (too bad DD isn't reading yet) As a kid I loved something tangible to earn or complete instead of a vague 'finish these books'. I think it works so much better when you have something you can hold and progress with, even if the progress is just getting holes punched. I heard about one lady who used 100EZ and she offered an ice cream for every 10 lessons done. Guess who wanted to do 10 lessons daily! My sister loved stickers, so getting a sticker was a reward all by itself. She had a scrapbook of stickers and mum would buy the fancy ones. They were almost like a currency around here for awhile. I have also heard of using play money, and being able to 'buy' things with the play money at the end of the term/unit/semester. This would work well for older kids I think. There is also the fact that there's no free time until work is done. When I was a kid, the school day did not end until all the assigned work (except for evening reading) was done. It was hard for mum some days, and it did result in sitting at the table at 9pm more than once. But, later, it resulted in kids who woke up at 6am, began school before breakfast, and were finished by lunchtime even in high school! Sticker charts on the wall seem like one of the best ideas to me. You could even divide it up (for example, if you're focusing on a character trait, have a separate section for displaying that trait) Or, if your child is someone who likes to see progress, just having a chart with boxes, matching the number of days in your current unit/term, and letting them mark a day off each day they have completed everything (and two days when they catch up) would be useful. Have a reward at the end of the unit, a special dinner out, and students who lag behind will see that, no matter how much they procrastinate, the same amount of boxes are still waiting to be checked off. When I was at school we used to earn tickets for different things, each thing was a different picture and colour, and you had to earn 10 matching tickets for a prize, or 30 (and save them) for a major prize. Tickets could only be redeemed every second friday.

YAY!!!! That love of learning is so precious :)

It's one that people are really divided on. You have to understand life of fred takes an entirely different approach to math, and the concept means that children aren't supposed to need more than those few review questions per chapter. The lack of questions is a very intentional choice, not an oversight of the program. Some families are happy with this (having bought the trig book for self study I believe the method works, and did not see any need to supplement) But others aren't comfortable with the idea, or their children truly do need more repetition, and supplement it.

One hour of skill subjects, one hour of content subjects, and a half hour of reading is the goal we would look to have

I finally learnt to tie them when i was 19. It hurts though! On that note, my husband didnt learn to whistle, despite a lot of attempts, until he was 23

I would actually spend it on being able to get my kids into specialized programs (which would probably involve moving somewhere expensive). When I was a kid (here in Australia) I saw robotics clubs doing contests and writing circles that resulted in actual published work. I was the only person in my state to receive a perfect score on a programming aptitude test, but because I didn't go to a fancy private school I couldn't do anything with it, there was nowhere further to pursue it unless I was in a private school connected with, say, the Olympiad team or something. There was a camp but it was by invite only. So I would find out how to get those opportunities for my kids. I would also buy all the curriculum I can't decide on so I could figure out what I want to use! With a lack of curriculum fairs in Australia I never get to see books in person before I buy them. So basically I would spend it on things many american homeschoolers already have available. You guys have no idea how jealous I am when I see the opportunities available in the high school board, or simply being able to attend a curriculum fair and look at the books you want to use before spending money on them. Heck, even the idea of an astronomy club is awesome, and impossible, for me and my kids. When I was a homeschooled child I often wished we lived in America so I could do all that stuff, and my parents certainly couldn't afford a fancy private school who could get me involved in it all. Don't take what you have for granted, many of us would do anything for the opportunities that some of you expect to have.

Thanks! I saw the lack of drill and kill and automatically assumed it would be quicker to complete. I was quite mathy in school, however, due to certain circumstances (I said I was a homeschooler, I never said my mum was a good homeschool teacher) I never went past geometry. Damn, so now I have to choose between two great curriculum. Well at least I have a while to figure out their learning styles! I'm just not sure which one to recommend to my friend or for myself. Being in Australia, it isn't as simple to buy one, and then sell it and buy the other if it doesn't work. I always feel like I/my DC will miss out on something if I have to pick one over the other, because they're both wonderful.

When I was homeschooling highschool I used to wake up an hour early and read, and I would also read before bed, as my mother kept me on an early bedtime with my younger siblings, and had me read until I was actually ready for bed. That usually gave me 3 hours a day.

As you can tell by my signature, I am no where even close to needing this stuff yet, however I LOVE researching these things, and I have a friend who is interested in self-teaching some higher math, so I wanted to make some recommendations.I am also interested for myself, going back over some higher level work. I have loved Life of Fred since I discovered it 5 years ago, and wished I was taught with it. I love the concept and I do think it could be used as a stand alone curriculum, however, I know one of the biggest problems people have with it is a lack of thorough explanation for struggling students and a lack of practice questions. I have just recently discovered Art of Problem Solving and it looks fabulous, now I can't decide whether I wish I was taught with LOF or AOPS :) I LOVE the idea of walking through a problem you couldn't solve as a way of teaching, as opposed to trying to understand a meaningless formula and then apply it. I got to thinking, would LOF and AOPS complement each other for a complete, thorough high school math education? I see flaws in both systems, as there is in any, but it looks as if they both seem to address what the other lacks, and in less time than a normal math curriculum, since they limit their practice problems and use alternative teaching methods. But would there be too much overlap? I hate busywork, I see no reason to spend an hour on math when I only need to spend a half hour and would hate to do the same thing twice by using two 'complete' curriculum, even though both are listed as being used commonly as supplements. So, does anyone do this? Would it be redundant, or a great 'alternative' math course?

Home ed does seem to look quite different here in australia. I notice we tent to move away from pre written curriculum, because we dont have much australian written curriculum. Quite a lot use unit studies. Also, distance education, both state and private, is quite popular. A LOT of people use ACE too. Australian homeschoolers do not have the huge conservative christian influence americans do. They exist but many of the first homeschoolers were doing so for academic or bullying issues. I seem to be somewhat in the minority, at least in my area, for importing my curriculum from america and dealing with the postage. Dont know any blogs though sorry

My mum used to ensure there were one or two subjects that could be done independently, but I am guessing your trips are on the younger side. Are they reading, perhaps there are history/science/lit readers they can read during that time? Or do you use a fun supplement, workbooks or something? Once we hit about 4th grade our math was self-taught so it was always available to 'go on with' In the end though, I think you'll probably find you need to explain everything two or three times for a lot of subjects, just like you would for 3 children of different ages.

Your signature indicates she is 3.5? Wow, she is talented. I would actually recommend going and asking on the accelerated learners board a bit further down, they probably have more experience with youngsters doing much older work and how to juggle that. I'd love to see their responses. My opinion is probably somewhere in the middle. I could have been classified as gifted as a child, I remember doing addition at 3yo. So from my experience I think kids who are as far advanced as your little one probably have a higher attention span and can stand more seat time than kids their age. Having said that, I wouldn't expect a 3.5yo to do a full 4 hour school schedule, which is what many h/s 3rd graders do. Really, I think she will tell you how much she wants. If she asks for more (and hasn't spent the whole day on books already!) I'd give it to her. If she wants to stop after a half hour, she sounds as if she will pick up a lot, books or not, and she is so far ahead I wouldn't worry. If I had to put a time on what I thought was appropriate given her age and curriculum choices, assuming she is wanting to do the work, I would probably figure out a core schedule which gives about 1.5 hours of seatwork, and allow her to do up to one more day worth of work on her own choice, so a maximum of 3 hours before I MAKE her leave the books to go play. (yeah, it means she might finish a curriculum in 6 months, but if she is capable, I'm all for it)

Excuse my longwindedness, I am trying to figure out what's going on and writing it out helps me process it in my own mind as well. I was originally planning on using the Rod and Staff ABC and GHI curriculums for my daughter during pre-k and k (because we live in Australia I need to plan in advance because of outrageous overseas postage costs, and my preference to many american curriculums). It is a beautiful curriculum and part of me really wants to use it! However, I decided I wanted to supplement with a logic program because this is a very important, core subject for my family and we wanted more than the occasional 'bigger, smaller, first, last' worksheet. In comes Beginning Thinking Skills. While looking at that I then found the critical thinking company's 'Mathematical Reasoning' with books written specifically for toddlers, pre-Kers and Kers. It seems like a perfect fit for our math oriented, logical family who focuses on why much more than how! My husband loves the look of them and can't wait for them to arrive, and it takes a lot to get him truly passionate about a workbook. I then decided that, because both my husband and I struggle with issues that result in neither of us being able to hand write without struggle and, in my case pain, that I wanted to supplement with some organized cutting, tracing and lacing exercises, and a proper handwriting curriculum in K, to help avoid the problems we had. I sat down to look at the rod and staff books for planning last night, and realized that, between logic, math and pre-writing skills, we are basically covering 75% of the curriculum with our supplements, and the R&S curriculum has, basically, become redundant! I think the issue is that we want to go deeper into the subjects than the R&S approach which glosses over each topic lightly, touching on a lot but not really delving into a deep understanding of it. for example R&S touches on the concept of halves for a page or two, but I'm not convinced that is enough for much to stick, and thus I see it as pointless. I think it should either be taught thoroughly enough for the concept to stick, or not taught at all, but not introduced and then dropped. It needn't be taught all at once, I am comfortable with the spiral method, but I only saw one or two pages total on the topic, across all the books. Despite my love of workbooks and formal early learning, I am not a fan of busywork. CTC books seem to be very intentional in each page, delve deeper into concepts, and each page only has a small amount of work. They're quick, easy, efficient, and yet, I hope, effective. Whereas R&S is striking me as a lot of busywork, as evidenced by the amount of colouring called for. It also seems to assume you already know most of the concepts, for example, in their counting book they introduce numbers 1 to 10 very quickly, too quickly, I think, for a child who can't count yet. So I assume the child already knows the numbers before doing it, in which case, why are we doing the worksheet? So I see the value in the R&S curriculum for some children, and I intend to hold onto it in case we get a little one in the future who does not have the attention span or readiness for the books that my eldest daughter does. It would be great for a child who can only manage a page or two a day, or who resists school. It may also be great to use if I enter a season of life where I cannot dedicate the same amount of time to K that I can now. Considering it's intended audience (large Mennonite families) it is perfectly written. ----------------------------------------------- Now that I am mostly over my guilt at not using a curriculum that I have planned to use for years, I have to figure out what I AM doing. The biggest thing I am stumbling on is language arts. I am very used to using a single, all encompassing curriculum for language arts, but I don't think that will work for our family, especially as I strongly desire the freedom to tailor to a child, speeding up and slowing down individual aspects. But I am really worried I am going to miss something! I should be the last person to worry about this, as a homeschooled kid myself, but I am. Here's what I have together, perhaps you can help point out anything I am missing and help me get a grasp on this. This is a TWO YEAR plan below, when we finish one thing we will move onto the next. I know K may change between now and then, but I need to try and plan ahead due to location. So please don't think she will be finishing three math books in one year :P She may well only finish the first one. PreK and K Critical Thinking: Building Thinking Skills Beginner and the first halves of BTS Pirmary and Hands on Thinking Skills Math: Mathematical Reasoning books Beginning 1, Beginning 2 and Book A Reading: Our daily read aloud times until she shows some readiness to read, which I believe will probably happen during the K year. When she begins to show readiness we will use Alphaphonics, and practice, without anything more formal until 1st grade. Handwriting: Originally I got a bunch of tracing and cutting worksheets free online, but now I am worried that, after dropping R&S, I should use something more formal. I only printed for a couple of sheets a week, will that be enough? All my printouts are lines and shapes, I intend to buy a proper letter handwriting book for K. Any recomendations for either pre-k or k workbooks for this area, or do I not need more than I have. Art: A project a week from a couple of books I got Science and History: Mostly whatever we read, I am not too fussed about the content subjects right now. We are not aiming for a history base. Does that sound like I've got it all? Do we only do reading and handwriting at this age?

The thing is, unfortunately, a lot of PS parents just don't care about disciplining their child because they don't have to deal with the child most of the time, it's either at school, or terrorizing someone else's house. (don't get me wrong, there's many wonderful public school parents, but I have lived in low income areas as a homeschooled child, and have friends who do also, and this is a constant problem for us) However, the mothers who are sitting there watching their children disobey your rules and not caring... wow. We have had problems but it has almost always been with neighbor kids who's parents weren't around on weekends (one homeschool friend ended up in a situation where he supervised and fed half a dozen or more neighbourhood kids every Saturday, it's a very sad situation, and it's unimaginable to me as a parent how you would become that sort of mom who doesn't even know where her kids are roaming on the weekend. These aren't teenagers, these are 5-9 year olds!.) I know I sound terribly harsh but I would discontinue friendships with those mothers who show no respect for your rules and property, and their children. If the MOMS don't respect you and your rules and property, there is little hope for the kids... I learnt this lesson the hard way when I recently severed ties with a few 'friends' who simply didn't respect us. When it comes to neighbourhood kids, the friend who's house became the weekend hangout fixed that problem by simply banning kids who had not been pre-approved from coming inside except to use the bathroom. Another consideration is your own children. Do they know and respect the rule? Do they go along with their friends and play in the room, or are they standing there trying to convince them to come out? In some ways your children need to learn to be responsible for their guests. If your child is playing in the school room with their friend, happily, then they are just as much to blame as the guest and should be in trouble for it. If they are trying to upkeep your rules, however, then this is a good opportunity to teach them skills in controlling the situation, and teaching them about true friendship and choosing friends wisely. Give them some phrases and words to use in bringing their friends out of the room. But, the bottom line is, and I know this is very harsh, but those sorts of children and parents simply would not be welcome in my home, and I would question my children's need to associate with them at all.

I wouldn't worry about it per-se, but I would look into something like a pencil gripper http://www.rainbowresource.com/prodlist.php?subject=9&category=2055 My brother and I are both visually impaired and have poor motor skills. My brother was fortunately given one of these and learnt a normal pencil grip. I, on the other hand, was the eldest and they didn't find these until much too late. I have never been able to get the right pencil grip and now, as an adult. I can't write more than a sentence before I begin getting pain in my hand. I just can't control a pen if I hold it the 'correct' way. So I do feel pencil grip is important. However, If I remember correctly, the 'experts' aren't usually worried until the child is around 6 or 7.

Thank you for the suggestion of Art Lab for Little kids! It looks awesome though I think I might give it a couple of years. But I did find these two books, Early Childhood Art. One focuses on collage and construction, the other on painting and printmaking. I think these will work great, and now I can't wait to use Art Lab when my little one a touch older http://www.rainbowresource.com/proddtl.php?id=052591 http://www.rainbowresource.com/proddtl.php?id=052590 Also, if anyone is looking at this thread for ideas, I found something else which looks really cool - Art with Anything http://www.rainbowresource.com/proddtl.php?id=046848

When I was a child being homeschooled we didn't do any formal science or history until high school. Now, don't get me wrong, we certainly did it through reading and life experience, but it never felt like I 'did' it, but I didn't pick up a biology or ancient history book until about 8th grade. I think it prepared me because my experiences with science and history were positive, interesting, fun ones, and helped me to get into it when it came down to actually studying it formally. Now, that method isn't for everyone, but she is in second grade, it won't hurt to put off formal content studies this year, or even for the rest of elementary school in my opinion. Lets look at horses. Get out some horse books, good, classic literature on the subject, and some equestrian science and horse history books. Let her go with it! Is she interested in wild horses? Maybe you can progress into other wild animal herds. Is she interested in competition horses? you can work a lot of history and science/biology into that. Also, have some general science and history books around. The magic school bus series is great (practically everything I know about outer space and the human body came from two of their books!) Do you do read alouds? Throw in some historical fiction. Definitely work it in there, but don't stress about covering it formally if she refuses. She will learn more if she 'begins' learning about science at 13 with excitement and motivation, or at least a positive outlook, than if she learns it from 7 but hates it every time and associates it with boredom. And finally, my sister was much like your daughter. Very negative, rebellious and opinionated but sensitive inside. She also adored horses and read everything horsey she could get her hands on, though she never really excelled at school in general and quit in 10th grade. At 15 she had the opportunity to volunteer at a local stable. That grew and grew until now, at 20 years old, she is working at a racing stable, trusted with some pretty high value horses, and on the way to getting her licence to drive in the trots (the races with the carriage at the back I think :D I was not a horse person!) - My point is, most kids will never do the sort of indepth study of horses my sister did in school, but she followed her interests and it has served her very well now. A child who hates history is never going to end up as a historian, but a child who loves plants may well end up as a biologist. We need to focus on their interests (while making sure they have some appropriate general knowledge of course)

Not exactly a curriculum but I have heard great things about Grammar Land - http://www.amazon.com/Grammar-Land-Yesterdays-Classics-M-Nesbitt/dp/1599153327

Well I haven't tried it, but Five in a Row and Before Five in a Row keep calling to me. I know they aren't for us. They do not fit with my teaching style, at all. I don't think they will fit with my daughter. They don't even match our educational goals and homeschool philosophy. Like, at all. Not even a bit. And yet I keep wandering back and looking at all those books and plans, and reading threads about it, and talking to people who have used it.

Thank you all for your responses. I guess I get caught up on the 'recommended ages' printed on the books, and my OCD nature hates to see something incomplete. I still wonder what I will do further down the track but I suppose, for now, I just need to let it go and see what happens instead of planning for something years away. And also trying to remember the good thing that gets done is better than the best thing which does not. If I am honest with myself, I would find it very, very hard to run a K'er and a 2nd grader on different art/science/other 'extra' curriculum. But thank you also to the ladies who said they keep subjects separate as well. Despite being two grades apart my sister and I never did science or history together when we homeschooled, and I guess I needed the reminder that it is possible, and also much easier once they're reading. Perhaps I need to figure out my own three or four year cycle for combined subjects in the younger grades, and then let them go their separate ways as they get older and can do the material much more independently. It's given me plenty to think about anyway

I think there is a big difference between seatwork time and the total school time. 3 hours of seatwork is far too much, I think, for that age. But if that includes read alouds, art, science, etc, it seems quite reasonable to me. I would think an hour or so of seatwork to be quite appropriate, plus an hour of reading, and a hour of hands on/games/art etc

I have a question about combining students. My parents never combined my siblings and I, but I do like the concept. The thing is, how do the younger ones get to do what the older ones have done. For example, memorization. Child 1 has been memorizing for two years before child 2 begins. They memorize the same verses, but child 2 has missed out on all the valuable verses from the first two years. When does child 2 get to do them? Same goes for combining, say, science. Child 1 does biology and astronomy, then child 2 begins doing physics with child 1. When does child 2 do biology and astronomy? I thought perhaps child 2 does them once child 1 has finished and child 2 is studying alone, but there would be years difference between child 2 beginning and child 1 ending. You would need to buy a whole new curriculum for child 2 to do. Or in the case of bible verses, they'd become far too easy. I guess it's partly because I am someone who loves sets and completing. I hate having a partial set of books on the bookshelf or only doing half of something. Do I just need to accept that those first two years for child 1 were good, but not nececary for child 2 to copy. I thought about combining art, but then worried that child 2 would miss out on, say, pastel art because child 1 did it in the two years before child 2 was ready. Or, alternatively, do some of you do schoolwork without any combining? We hope to have a few more kidlets eventually, and the idea of teaching 4 science curricula is kind of overwhelming, though, I guess I should know better than anyone that, in actual fact, I would likely only be teaching two of those 4, as the older children can become independent.

I feel it's important to encourage and facilitate creativity and I want to incorporate art into our homeschool so it is a little more formal and organized/encouraged, especially at this age when they need mummy to set everything up and make it happen. So it's mostly because of my lack of self discipline! But I am really not very good at coming up with things on the fly, I need a plan. Catch is, I am also adverse to spending a lot of money on an art curriculum, especially at these ages when things will be broken, spilt, and the project rarely done the way it's being taught (the height of creativity I suppose!) I see more value in a formal curriculum around 3rd grade upwards, when they're old enough to care for the materials and actually follow the concepts taught. So, do you ladies have any suggestions for art which are low or no cost? We are going to be working on a 6 week unit system, and my thought had been to focus on one medium for each of those units (for example, unit one might be collage, unit two might be watercolours, unit three might be paper mache) and work on a project once a week. I know I can simply google each medium and find a million ideas on pintrest. I guess I am just wondering if there are any pre-written lesson plans along these lines. Note, we are not interested in art history at this point. Thanks for any ideas you can put forward.

I am looking for some opinions on workbook heavy homeschools. I see so many people now saying that, especially in the younger grades, you shouldn't be using workbooks except for math, or should only use one or two sparingly. I agree with this philosophy to a point, for example I will be avoiding workbooks in science and history for the first few grades, but I am looking to integrate critical thinking very heavily in our homeschool, along with a number of supplements in math. It means that we would be starting out with a lot of workbooks early on (though we would probably have less workbooks than some later on) Now when I say a lot, I don't think it is excessive, or just busywork. It would be about 10-12 workbook pages a day at the end of K/start of 1st, 3 of which would be done in the evening with Dad. All of them are fairly basic pages with big pictures and words (such as items from the critical thinking company, which are just one or two questions to a page) I would be surprised if it took more than 10 mins a page, probably more like 5 not including time for colouring in, which gives 45min - 1.5h of bookwork maximum for the daytime work, plus bible reading, our fruit of the spirit study, and art/craft/cooking aside. I guess I'm looking to hear some arguments for and against workbooks in the early grades. I am trying to decide if this is the right approach.

I think copywork is more about consistency than quantity, i.e. the important thing is to do a little every day as opposed to finishing every sentence in the book. If it were me, and we were doing 2 lessons a day, I'd just choose one lesson's copywork, not both. Or half of each assignment. Each lesson has an appropriate amount of copywork for one day, and nothing is achieved by doubling that particular component of LA. It's not like grammar where each lesson is something new, copywork is the same thing over and over, so doing more of it does not produce better results faster.