Originally Posted by dragons in the flower bed I found that I could not skim over them easily. Because they're well-written, you'll be reading along, into the flow and then have to start stuttering and editing on the fly. Though they are written to children, I'm not willing to hand over any religious material for my child to read independently. I guess it depends on your style. I read the chapter ahead of my son, so I know what is being taught. My son, age 10/5th grade, then reads the chapter over a period of one-2 weeks, a few pages a day. Since my son is aware of our family beliefs regarding religion, we bring that up into discussion as we discuss the reading. For example, in a WHOLE chapter about the Sun (Astronomy book), it mentions at JUST the very beginning something about "God created the Sun"or something like that.......so in our discussion, I said, "So the book says God created the Sun, well, that's debateable, and not what other Scientists are saying, but let's talk about the proven facts, solar flares", etc etc, and then we get into the "Meat" of the chapter. We are currently doing the Swimming Creatures (Marine Biology) book, and in most chapters, the religion content is almost impossible to see. In a chapter about crustaceans, the only religion aspect was "and God gave the horseshoes crabs hard shells for protection".....again, let's just talk about the proven fact that the crabs have a hard shell for protection. I have advise my son to take the God part with a grain of salt and focus on the facts. It works for us because I have yet to find a science curriculum like this that works as well and is as engaging for my son.

I wouldn't rule out the Apologia series since they are Christian....the religious references are not too heavy-handed, and easy to "skim" over to get to the meat of the book. The books are very beautiful, written to the child, and you can do experiments if wanted, but not necessary. If your child likes textbook science, this is the way to go. I wouldn't have used these books ever, but the co-op we belong to used them for a class, and after seeing it and reading it, I fell in love. My son also enjoys reading it and is retaining so much from it.

BJU Math is just what you asked for. The TM is completely scripted, so you can do it word for word, or just use the parts you need. Each year of math has a "theme". For K5 is a Farm Theme. So they learn about Farmer Brown's farm and alot of the info is counting animals, etc. Lots of hands on stuff, and then a worksheet daily. Colorful, with farm themes, just "pretty" worksheets. I love it, although I am not a big fan of the BJU doctrine in general, the thing is, alot of the lessons do not mention religion at all. The ones that do, it is only a small portion of the lesson, so you can take it or leave it. I never would have looked at BJU until I kept getting people telling me how much they loved it....and now so do I. AND most of all, my son does too. hth

We do the colored Klean Kanteens, and also bought the carrying handle strap thing, so my children can just strap it over their shoulder if we go on a hike. I love the designs of the Siggs, but have heard that they tend to come off/get scratched easily, and with my three, these bottles take a beating. Didn't see the point of paying for a cool design only for it to be coming off. Plus Siggs didn't come with the type of spouts I was looking for, especially a spill proof Sippy spout for my DS2, where as KK does. Not trying to be an alarmist, but people talking about freezing the water in milk jugs, etc, freaks me out. The chemicals do leach out in the freezing process as that plastic was not made for freezing. Reusing Gatorade bottles, ugh, I would not trust the bottle manufacturing process enough to reuse plastics in that manner. You might not be able to taste the chemicals leaching into the water, but they are there, nevertheless. My children haven't lost their KK, as I am very diligent about making sure they have them and that has kind of worn off onto them.

We did U.S. Geography this year for 5th. I wasn't so much about having my son learn in-depth info about each state, but rather learning/memorizing each state "shape" and it's capital. I bought Trail Guide to U.S. Geography, and wasn't impressed, and basically do not use it. It has alot of busy-work, if you ask me. Some things I got out of it: I do break up the states by their geographical region, ie Northeast, Midwest, etc. I do have my son do the Fill in the Facts sheet for each state, but I used different facts, ones that I thought were pertinent. We will do the Lewis and Clark book reading/study at the end of the guide this summer....although not sure how much of the info from the Guide I will use at this point, haven't looked at that part in depth. Things We do on our own: -Create flashcards for each state and do these each day -Have my son read the Scholastic U.S. Atlas as we study each state, The atlas is really great and has a couple of paragraphs about each state, along with little interesting facts on a very colorful map. -There are FREE maps, of each state, of each region, etc all over the internet....do NOT buy a Map book or Uncle Josh's maps, etc.... We basically do a two-day study of each state: Day One: Read Scholastic map book, label the state on the regional map, label the state map with pertinents cities, rivers, border states, important landmarks, review all flashcards Day Two: Create flashcard, do Fill-in-Facts sheet, review all flashcards. Occasionally, throw in a quiz to label map of a certain geographical region. Overall, since we do not do most of the little extras in the Guide, it was a waste of money for me. Sadly, as I wanted to do a World Geography course in the next year or so, I won't be buying the World Trail Guide either...still looking for something for that.

We do year around here too. We take off whenever we need to, ie field trips, family birthdays, perfect day for the beach, etc, knowing we will be doing school work year round. We might take a 1-2 day spring break, that ONLY because the neighborhood children are knocking constantly, and my children are itching to go out and play. We start our traditional "new year" in August, ie moving up a grade level. But I don't start everything that first day, but instead stagger starting subjects throughout a month or two. So my son starts 6th grade in August, but it might not be until September before we start certain subjects. Usually by October we are full swing with all subjects. Then usually by March-April, we start to finish up subjects so gradually our schedule lightens up. For example, we are now done with Wordly Wise, Prima Latina, and K12 History (which we actually started last June) for this "school year". But I did add in Test Prep and Boys Health, both really just "extras" that take him a few minutes each day. Some subjects, ie Grammar, and Math, will probably take him right through middle of June, cuz we started those later. When DS10 was younger, we normally would save science for summer months, usually May-August, cuz it just feels like our schedule is lighter and then we can really slow down and enjoy the experiments. Now that he is older, his Science is a little more involved, so we do that on a more traditional calendar. History is usually year long for us, as it just blends into the next study, and we were doing K12 on a one year contract plan, so paid monthly, so wasnt' going waste those summer months when I was paying anyway. So normally, if everything goes as planned, History and Science were must do's for summer time, and it is also a good time for a good in-depth Literature study. My goal is to always finish up by August with this currentl level, so I can officially say they have finished that grade and are now in the next grade.

I think you would be pushing it for the younger children. I bought AAH Vol 1, and just read through the first seven lessons of Unit 1 a few nights ago. It all about the explorers. With so many names and countries being brought up, by the end of the lessons, I was dazed. Of course, I wasn't doing all of the extra's for help with retaining, just reading the book before we started it. That's with us having just studied several of these same explorers earlier this year while talking World History and Age of Exploration, so these names weren't "new" to me. The reading is slightly "dry" but I think my 6th DS could handle it...but I am breaking each lesson (on average about 10 pages, smaller print) into two days of reading, and using the rest of the week into all of the hands-activities. I guess it could be done, but it seems to me there would be very little benefit for the younger children.

I was just typing up our weekly lesson plan and it dawned on me how much my DS10 (5th) is doing independently, and wondering if it is TOO much. Granted, I tried to shop for curriculum for 5th that was independent-based, since I had a upcoming K5'er that I needed to work with and was unsure how that would go. Didn't want DS10 having alot of "waiting on Mom" time. This year for 5th, he does/did: -Growing with Grammar (independent) -Teaching Textbooks (indeppendent) -Apologia Swimming Creatures (about 75% independent, although we do discuss and do experiments together) -Apologia Jump In writing (mostly independent, about 85%) -Wordly Wise (independent, and done for "school" year) -U.S. Geography (about 50/50) -K12 History (together, and done for the "school" year) -Prima Latina (together and done for "School" year) -HWT Cursive practice (indepenent and done) -Daily Reading (independent) Next year for 6th, we will continue with much of the same curriculum: On his own: GWG Teaching Textbooks Apologia Astronomy Wordly Wise and then do together: Lively Latin All-American History Keyboarding (via FLVS) Memory Work via Veritas Press cards -possibly IEW History writing ...think I am forgetting some things I have planned too, but you get the point. Now I am usually in the room or next room while he is working and available for questions. I check his work almost on a daily basis and go over any issues with him, so he can correct. But I am just thinking, wow, that's a good hour or two (depending on his dwaddle) of him working on his own....shouldn't I be teaching him or something???? Am I putting him out on his own too soon?!?! What do you think?? Ugh, the self-doubts of homeschooling :(.

We studied the States this year. I had my son fill out a chart that I made, and I tried to include facts that I knew he would be interested in. We didn't really do birds or flowers, cuz honestly, don't think that is something you really need to know except for your own state. For each state, he had to Fill In The Facts: 1. Capital City 2. Population 3. Year joined the Union 4. State Nickname 5. State Motto 6. Professional Sports Teams (this was especially for my son as he loves sports) www.50states.com is a great website that had a ton of facts about each state. You could also go there and see what other facts you might want to include on your state study.

I just started to look at IEW, the American History Vol 1, as we will be doing American History next year (6th grade). I was trying to figure out if we could do the IEW History, if we have never done any other part of IEW. At that point, next fall, we would have worked about half way through Apologia Jump In...would that be enough of a background in writing for son who hates writing thus far, to do IEW?

That is a question that you would need to discuss with your school district, as every district, and state have their own standards and requirements. From the HS'ers that I know of, who have sent their children back to PS, they had to do testing to prove what grade their children should be in. I doubt anyone here can answer your question unless they live in your school district, used TT5 and tried to put their child in PS 6th grade math.

Although you didn't necessarily have to wait for the 1st person, I think it was pretty bravado of the 2nd person to pay without confirmation that the item was still available. To me, if you told the 1st person that you would wait for her to discuss with DH, the right thing to do was to contact her again to see what her decision was, give her 24 hours to respond and then proceed. This could be a real can of worms to let people pay who have not even confirmed the item was theirs to pay for. What if 1st person comes back and says yeah, DH said I could buy it. It makes you look like a bad guy, and frankly, not the position I would want to be in, especially since I am often a buyer myself. I know it's all online, so you don't really know these people, but it's just bad karma.

My DS10 gets $10, DS6 gets $6,weekly. It is not tied to chores, as they each do two chores a day regardless. But it is tied to attitude and behaviour, ie $$ taken away for bad attitude. "Fines" so to speak. I think it is important for them to learn about money, saving it, splurging, budgeting, etc. I never learned this and my college loans/credit cards certainly prove that. My children pay for most things that are not necessary themselves. I pay for meals out (but if they want to upgrade to milkshakes, that's on them). I pay for admittance to wherever we go, ie movies, festivals, etc, but if they want candy/souvenirs, etc that's on them. Often, they realize that maybe they didn't really need that souvenir so bad, or unfortunately they didn't have enough money to buy what they wanted :(. DS10 is really starting to realize, well, I bought this souvenir, brought it home and never touched it again, kind of a waste of $$$. They buy their siblings birthday gifts with their own money, etc. So I consider their allowance part of their on-going life education.

My oldest DS10, has been playing baseball since he was four. Plays every spring, and sometimes in the fall. He also plays other team sports, such as swimming, soccer (not anymore but when younger), basketball, flag football. He loves all sports and is naturally athletic. Going to his practices and games was often his motivator for good behavior. My middle DS6, has also tried T-ball, 2 seasons, and soccer. He does not really like either, would much prefer to sit on the bench and socialize, is not interesting in "competing" for anything. He is currently doing Karate, and loves it. He is not as naturally athletic as my older son. That being said, I think that participation in teams sports is a important skill to learn. It doesn't have to be hard-core, it doesn't have to be cut-throat, but it should be a learning experience that everyone has. The question is, has your son shown a interest? If he is interested, then why not give him a chance to participate. If it doesn't work out, then you don't do it again. It's only 3-4 months. At least he had the opportunity to give it a try. I always think that anyone could be a good singer, or dancer, or whatever, like all of those famous stars, if they had the training that those people did. In our five years of HSing, it sometimes makes me sad when I see alot of other HSers who just seem so uncoordinated and lacking in the team games/sports aspect. My older DS goes to Homeschool PE, and so many of those children have no idea how to play basball, flag football, soccer, etc. You don't have to be the best at it, but you should know the basics. Yeah, life will be hectic, but as your children grow up and start participating in different activities, that's just going to be life for a while. Whether it is team sports, or musical activities, or art, or whatever path, practices, games, recitals, etc will start to take up your time. As far as the other children, we have had a few that we weren't fond of , and a few that we loved. That's kind of life, and we can't keep our children away from the "bad seeds" forever, but instead just hope to be close enough when it happens to help our own children through the situation.

We have been using the history course for the last three years, and really love it. It does follow along the 4 year cycle as WTM recommends. It goes in depth as needed for that age range. You do sit in front of the computer with your child for the lesson. Sometimes they will have a bit of animation. For example, we were just studying the fall of the Berlin Wall. There was a actual audio clip of Ronald Reagan's famous speech. In the younger years, they have incorporated into the lesson the Reading Room, which is a short fictional story about the actual lesson. Each lesson ends with notebooking, either write a few sentences or draw a picture type thing. Lots of map work. There is very little actual book reading done with the History program, which I just solved by pulling books from the Sonlight catalog that matched our studies. As far as the science, it was okay. We normally do the History through the normal school year and then do Science during the summer months. They have an experiment almost every lesson. Lots of hands-on and again a little bit of animation on some lessons. Not like cartoons, but say, a picture of liquid turning into gas type thing. I thought they tried to cover too much for a year of Science, as I prefer the Charlotte Mason thought process with a in-depth study of one topic before moving on.

I did just that after signing up, I realized that for LA in 4th grade, the only thing on the OLS was the teacher stuff, ie schedule, lesson tracker. You can cancel within the first 30 days. I had bought my materials used from Ebay. People are not "supposed" to sell the Teacher's Manuals, but they do all the time. The info in the Teacher's Manuals is exactly what is on the OLS, at least for LA. There is also a K12 Used Books Yahoo group, but not supposed to be able to buy the TM on that site at all. I actually downloaded the four literature units that I planned on my son doing for the year. Saved them to my computer and then burned them to a disc. So I essentially had everything I needed for LA that year. Ended up not really liking a good portion of it by the end of the year. Having been doing K12 history for four years now, and will do the same for my upcoming DS6. The history program is top-notch and does follow the four year cycle in the lower elementary program.

There is basic grammar covered in PL....a lesson in nouns, a lesson in verbs, etc. But I don't think it is enough grammar for a young elementary student. Most grammar programs will talk about nouns, have the child diagram sentences with nouns, do a worksheet on nouns, and then as the program moves on, nouns are repeatedly discussed. Then you need to talk about Indirect Objects/Direct Objects, etc etc. You won't get this in PL. You could add it yourself I supposed but that would be alot of work. Might as well just buy a decent grammar program, so latin work could be focused on the latin, with a bonus of grammar reinforcement. hth

I think it is a bit of maturity issue, but also expectation issue. Here is what we did for my son, who sounded alot like yours. Perfect work if I was right there, but let me go do something else and come back and it was a mess. One: At the beginning of the school year, I am careful to give very good directions, lots of oversight, right next to him. Corrections are made right as errors happen. Two: Gradually back off. Give assignment, and check in through the work to see how things are going. Stop right then and go back and fix any errors. Three: Back off altogether. Do assignment, follow instructions, and I check it later in the day. It is known that assignments will be redone if not up to par. This is a two-three month process, but now my DS10 does alot of independent work with no problems. A constant speech of "take pride in your work, you should always be putting your best work out, etc etc" was given. We had several times where work had to be redone, there were alot of tears and angst about it, but he knew the expectations from the beginning. He still is not perfect, but it has definately become easier.

My sons have done multiple sports through various programs, ie City Rec leagues, YMCA, Upward, etc. The YCMA and Upward leagues are usually the most non-competitive, just trying to teach the kids the basics and have fun type of thing. It has been our experience that the Y's are usually unorganized, and just lacking. For that reason, we no longer participate in Y leagues (except swim team). We do still use Upward leagues at one of the larger churches in our area. They have their "stuff" together, and it is very organized. My younger son, who prefers the bench over playing in the field so he can talk to teammates is a perfect fit for Upward leagues. Now my older son, who is naturally athletic, prefers more competetive leagues, where he can try out for All Stars and traveling teams, etc. For your sons age, 7, he is at a good age to try any sport. Yeah, there will be some children who have been playing for a lot longer, but that doesn't mean your son can't pick it up quickly.

I would respectfully disagree with the poster who said you won't see any health benefits. I have heard many stories of people who had certain skin conditions (rashes, and especially warts) that disappeared simply by eating homemade bread, from fresh ground flour, on a daily basis. This is the only thing they changed. I went to a seminar by the BreadBeckers, Sue Becker, and the stories were amazing. She is, btw, a registered nutritionist or something along those lines. Now that being said, depending on what the cause of your rash is, it might not help. I am assuming you are unsure what is causing it, but more than likely it is a dietary issue, as the skin is usually the first signal that something is "off" in our body, it being the largest, most visible, organ, and all. Your rash could be caused by other allergens, ie dairy, gluten, etc. But it won't hurt to do the fresh milled bread and see what happens!

We always do something on the actual birthday just with our little family (we have no other family in town besides Grandma). We try to make their day very special by doing something they love and things we don't do often. Go to the waterpark, zoo, Chuck-e-Cheese's, Cosmic Bowling, Minor League Baseball game, all come to mind of things we have done in the past few years for our different children. This year we took DS6 to Nickelodeon Hotel, arriving on his Bday which was all about him and then rest of the weekend was about the rest of us. Then of course, their birthday dinner out. We normally haven't let them pick but instead surprised them. Actually, lots of times we have them weared their eyes covered from location to location throughout the day. Then, usually a few weekends later, we have a birthday party with their friends. We have done every theme, sleepovers, Poker party (with DS10 and not gambling for $$, just chips, asked for no gifts, just donation to his favorite charity), camp outs, scavenger hunts, location parties like at Ice Rink, Mad Science party etc etc. I just know that I don't really remember ever having a very special birthday growing up. Also, we don't do alot of these things normally due to budget and time. Plus so often in life, especiall in families with multiple children, the children must sacrifice for the good of the family, that's just part of life. So that is why we try to give each child their special day once a year where it is all just about them. There will soon be a time in their life, as adults, where their birthday will be not so much about them, so I am all about letting them enjoy it while they can.

There are two ways that you can use K12.com. 1. As a virtual school student. This means K12 is free to you, paid by your state/local governments. You are a public school student. In this case, the Virtual Academy will dictate to you what will be required for P.E. As K12.com itself does not have a PE curriculum, more than likely the Virtual School will either assign something else, or you just log your hours of what you do at home for P.E. Maybe a current virtual schooling family can comment on this and it will vary from state to state. 2. As a independent homeschooler. This means you pay for the program yourself, whether is one class or a full load of classes. But since you are independent, you decide how, when and why you do the curriculum. Again, as K12 does not have a PE curriculum, you would need to use your own resources for that. But it is not something that K12 will monitor. You are paying for curriculum, just as you would any other curriculum publisher, so they are not going to come in and question you on any of your HSing choices. hth

We use cloth wipes (made from old clothes) for everything, like cleaning kitchen, spills, messes, bathrooms, etc. I have pail that just inside our garage, that we just open the door from the kitchen and drop in. At first I was putting bleach water in the pail, but that was just a gross mess on laundry day. So now we just drop them as-is into a dry pail. I wash about every other day or so to prevent mildewing. I wash in hot water, soap and vinegar. After drying, I also microwave them for 30 seconds. Microwaving kills everything! But for the ones used in the bathroom, that just icks me out, at least the ones used on the toilet and tub areas, so we just toss those. Easily replaced, so no biggie.

I am in Florida as well, and you actually have choices: 1. You CAN, but don't HAVE to, send a letter to your county education board, registering your child as a homeschooler. You have to do this when your child turns 6. So it is not 100% necessary for K5 depending on how old your child is. When you do this, you then have the opportunity to take advantage of school services, such as extracurricular sports, classes, and speech. With this option, you have to show that you tested (do not have to send actual results) OR portofolio review once a year to prove your child is "advancing" each year. This option is actually very easy, it is what we do because it is just easy. I sent the letter of intent ONCE, and then once a year send in proof of testing paper. Done. 2. Or the second option is registering with a umbrella school. With this option, the state does not officially considered you a Homeschooler, rather a private school student. So they are not going to keep track of testing/portofolio, but you also do not have the option of taking advantage of extracurricular's at the public schools. There are lots of umbrella schools out there, each with different requirements (ie show proof of advancement, attendance, shot records, etc) With your situation and speech, I would call the school district, speak the HomeSchool office, most counties have one, and see what they have to say. I doubt you could use the Speech services if you go with an Umbrella School. But you have a while to before deciding, and here's the thing, either option is pretty quick and easy to undo. If you decide to register, and then she ends up not needing speech, so you want to go with an umbrella school, you just send that letter to the school district that you are no longer HSing and now attending a private school. Easy-peasy.

Each state has their own laws regarding HSing, registering, umbrella schools, etc. Couldn't possibly give you advice unless you tell us where you live first.;)