I teach 11th Grade ELA at the local PS, and my students always have the misconception that writing has to be grand. When we hit the narrative writing unit, I spend days convincing them that they do not have to write about this profound moment in thier lives. Anyway, I teach at PS very differently than I teach my kiddos at home, but I have found a book that has helped me become a better teacher in both places. It is by Penny Kittle and it is called Write Beside Them. It is a teacher text and shows how she teaches in PS, but I was able to alter several of the ideas and use them at home with my kiddos. I recommend it as a good read to help you, especially when it comes to how she helps students find topics to write about.

I do expect her to give 110% in class and take her school there seriously. But we focus a lot on other activities, and I don't honestly want homework to interfere with our life outside of school/work. I expect her grades to be excellent in class, but I could honestly care less about her doing homework, especially because I will be working with her. She seriously tested into 6th grade at the end of 1st (and we don't want her to be moved up a level), so I don't think the work in class is going to be difficult at all for her. I'm used to spending all day every day with them, and I want to do as much of that as I can when we are free. SKL, maybe I'll encourage her just to finish most of it up in class. Hopefully, it is minimal. I do see it being easy for her, so if it gets done quickly, I see no problem fitting it in while I am cooking or on our drive home. And I do know that I am being difficult, but I will not require my son to memorize lists of sight words. We teach by phonics, and he is already starting to read, so I will not change the way we have been learning for school. Yes, I am probably being more difficult than I need to be, but we have a good thing going and I don't want to lose progress because of a temporary necessity.

I'm thinking no...the teacher might not be happy, but she is well ahead of her grade level, and they will only be in school for 2 years. I just don't see how we could do homework, church activities, piano, and after schooling. I want them to have time to just be, too. I could care less about how they do in school, which is probably a poor attitude to have, but I'm not entirely happy with the whole situation to begin with. I mean, I care about their education, but I'm confident that she won't fall behind if we are working on school every evening and Saturday.

Sadly, it appears I have to go back to work full-time. My kids have never been in public school before so we are new to after schooling. I'll be teaching at the school where they go. My thought is to ignore any homework given and just do our own thing every day. Has anyone done this?

If anyone happens to have a copy of this, can you please send me a message or post the first week of Astronomy suggested readings for Grammar stage? I know all of the books are listed in term 1, but I just need to know which texts are used that first astronomy week. We are moving and my new copy was shipped to our new home across the country but I'm trying to order now everything for when we get there. We have prime so I just need the first week. Thanks a ton!!!

I thought that might be a good ideas, too. I also really want to help her build her mental math skills and I thought Singapore was good in that area. If we are using Singapore as a review, would I need the HIG? And which edition to you use? I wish I knew what she liked. Accelerated would prob be the way to go. She plays Reflex Math everyday:) That has really helped with her facts.

My DD is finishing up 2nd Grade CLE. It has gone fantastically. However, math is not her strong area and I don't want to just jump ahead to 3rd grade CLE. She actually "hates" math and just told me that she is "willing to work hard in other areas, just not math." :/ We school year-round so she has time to do another 2nd grade program to finish out our year. I'm thinking something "fun" and in color to keep her fresh and give her a solid review. We do RSC during Loop time (math year for us), but don't want to make that our new core math. So, solid math program in color seems like a fun idea. I'm thinking Singapore or Horizons...any advice?? We plan on picking back up with CLE in the summer/fall.

Just saw on the PeaceHill Press site that all downloads are 25% off.

I have the Orange book somewhere. Any experience with Farmland Math Mat Bundle from Timberdoodle?

Any favorite hands-on math for an almost four-year-old? I like RSA or Singapore, but would like something inexpensive. Thanks!!

Spanish for You has 30% off total purchase. Code is on site, but it is HOLIDAY30

Usborne is also having their Book Friday/Cyber Monday sale with books up to 60% off. Sale starts Thanksgiving Night at 10pm EST. My site is in my signature, visit their website, or ask your consultant for more information.

Bright Ideas Press has 20% off entire purchase Black Friday through Cyber Monday. Code is fridayblack Excludes bundles and clearance items.

I just got on here to see if anyone had started a Black Friday thread! Looking forward to hearing the deals out there.

Haha...if only. Wrapping up as in finishing making them ;) I actually don't have a single one complete. One is quilted and all, just waiting on binding. One is currently at my sewing machine. The others have not really been touched:/ Plus, since they are advent calendars, I need to get them out asap so they can actually use them in December. No sewing was one yesterday...again. Gah. Not good. I did finish all of our Medieval History stuff, though! Everything is ready to go for next week when she starts. We had a pretty decent school day yesterday. DS has been begging for school, so I have been working with him for about 30 minutes a day. A lot of it is just coloring along side him, but we are both having fun. I also sorted and mostly put away a huge stack of school papers. Today, we need to get to the library because I have some overdue books. I want to finish putting away school papers (they are currently covering craft table, which may be why I haven't been sewing much). I also need to catch up on laundry. Before any of this, we need to do our school routine. It is just my two lovelies today, so that does make things easier. MrsRobinson - hope everyone is feeling better in your house. My DS has a cough, too:( DD is starting to sound hoarse...

soror - right now, I'm wrapping up Christmas gifts for this year for family/friends. Everyone is getting a quilted advent calendar. I also need to finish the skirt for our tree...I started it last year and never finished. Aside from that, our main project is a design line for girls. I have one pattern complete and I am working on the final garment now. As long is it turns out the way the prototype did, I can grade it for other sizes and start selling! We have a good feeling about our idea, so hopefully it will take off.

MrsRobinson - Our winter weather is wonderful, but yes, it does get hot in summer. Our highs are still in the high 80's, so it's really only nice weather first thing in the morning/last thing in the evening. Try teaching your kids about winter and snow, though. DD still thinks we are in Summer. Planning on taking the kids somewhere cold next year ;) Yesterday, I got zero sewing done, so I was a bit disappointed about that. I worked yesterday, so it limited me in what I was able to do. DH did take the kids outside yesterday, and I got the kitchens and bathrooms in presentable (not perfect) condition. No Spanish or Art yesterday either, but our patio looks nice. I did manage to cut out and place in labeled bags all the timeline figures DD will need for Medieval. I also cut out half of the paper dolls and put them in the bags, too. Her shelf is set up and ready to go. She has 2 chapters left in SOTW1 to finish up this week, so I have the rest of the week to finish the dolls and print out maps. Today is our regular schedule. Daily plus 2 hours of loop time is our goal. A little extra piano practice to prep for her Christmas recital is also necessary. I need to get a good portion of the way through Around the World in 80 Days to prepare for my Lit discussion with high schoolers this week. I also really, really need to sew. I only have one little extra today, so hopefully it won't be too crazy around here ;) DH works late, so that will give me some time this evening, too. I hope you all have a great day!

soror - birthday parties are always fun and Happy Birthday to your little ones:) Critter - hearing your progress with your writing is hilarious. I love reading what is going on there. Jean - I do love a good schedule change ;) Hopefully yours goes smoothly! Can't wait to hear how it goes. Aurelia - impromptu lessons of any kind are the best. I feel you on the exercise bit, too. Yesterday, I decided DH and I needed to sleep in, so we skipped morning church. After we eventually rolled out of bed, DH and DS ran to the store for breakfast supplies while DD and I cleaned the kitchen and living room. Breakfast (at lunch time) was delicious, and we then cleaned a bit around the house. I worked on my November sewing projects that HAVE to be done by Thanksgiving and DH worked on our design collection. We ran to the store before evening church, went to church, ate dinner. Today, my goal is to have 2 projects mostly complete (lacking supplies to finish 100%). DH's goal is to get yard work done with the kids and clean off the back patio so we can have more wintery toys out there. No more pool. It is finally getting cold here (by that, I mean we hit 70 degrees F as a low some days). I will also bribe ask DH to go over DD's Spanish for the week and read both kids a few books in Spanish. I can, but he is a native speaker, so his accent is, you know, actually good. I might even be able to have him squeeze in an art lesson with her. Tomorrow starts our regular weekly routine. I'm still working on getting Medieval History set up.

Like many of the other posters, I just choose great, quality children's literature for DD to read. She keeps a notebook, and she makes a page for every day after she reads. Sometimes, I will have written in a question. Others, she just writes a part she enjoyed and draws a picture to go with it. At one point, I did look through Teaching with the Classics. I do really like that idea, and our discussions roughly follow the questions they posed. As a Lit major, I didn't really need that book to feel confident, but it is a great place to start. Starting with 7th graders, I teach a class using Excellence in Literature, so DD will probably start that in 7th, too. Before then, it is all about great books and a lot of open discussion.

We do use Phonetic Zoo, and I was scared away at first by the price. We ended up buying just the cards used and DD is doing great. I do have to say the words for her, but that is usually done while I'm doing something else (laundry, dishes, teaching DS, etc.). She then checks her own work. It takes about 2-5 minutes of my time, so it works perfectly here.

Margaret, me too!!! I was moved around every single year until I hit 7th grade, so I missed the teaching in school. I think that is why I'm so worried about NOT teaching her time. Because I missed out, I don't want her to. But, I agree that it doesn't mean she has to learn it now. I didn't learn until high school, and I'm just fine. I did break out my black marker and calmly marked clocks out of her Light Unit ;)

I found these for much cheaper! I don't know why I didn't think of Montessori cards...we use them in science all the time. Thank you for mentioning them. I think I will buy the ones I linked to and just set them up for her to use whenever she feels like it. I refuse to bang my head against the wall anymore ;)

We homeschool primarily because I know that I can provide a better education for my child than she would get at school. My DS would probably do just fine and thrive, but DD would be bored and miserable and we don't want her skipping grades because she is already young to begin with. Our local school is also notoriously bad, so it is just not the right place for her. We also knew we would homeschool before we even had kids. Another primary reason is because DH is off M/W/Su and works very, very long hours the other 4 days, so they would hardly see him if they went to a traditional school setting. That is just not okay for our family. As to how much time/effort I put into research, I had a school year plan done through grade 12 when I was pregnant with DD ;) Of course, the more I researched, the more my plans have changed and I have learned so much actually homeschooling. I no longer have a detailed plan through high school (I do have a road map of ideal courses), and I am not afraid to change things up now. I can probably tell you something about every.single.curriculum out there, but I now know what works for DD and for us as a family:) Pretty much every spare moment I have is spent in research about homeschool, which I am sure is unhealthy.

Meant to add that BA is in our loop time, so we just do it when it comes up in the loop. CLE is our daily math program. Sometimes, we do BA 3-4 days a week. Sometimes, it is just once. She will often secret away the book, but the worksheets are done when I bring them out.

We use CLE and use BA as a supplement. My non-mathy daughter really enjoys it, because she likes the comic-book look and being able to read it like a story book (she is a reader and would much rather read than do math). When it comes to the worksheets, I always sit with her and think out loud and lead her through some of it. I do not do this with CLE, so she enjoys getting that time with me to work on math.