Call the police and tell them what you said here. Taking the ostrich approach isn't going to do any good. And if, as a pp mentioned, your brother is into illegal substances and is picked up by the police, maybe it will help straighten him out a bit. In any event, you'll have at least done the only thing you really can do at this point. Oh, and prayers for you and your family. I can't imagine what you're going through.

It looks good to me, but I'm pretty laid back. ;) What is the Traveling the States free curriculum you're using? My daughter is so into geography right now. That's all she wants to learn about...this morning she said, "Mom, can we go to Nome, Alaska sometime?" Not sure where that came from. :)

My parents used to let me skip school to go on trips with my grandma. I learned so much from traveling the world with her....it's probably one of the biggest reasons why I chose to homeschool my own daughter. There's a whole great big world out there that exists beyond the classroom.

We've had pretty good success with inktechnologies.com. Good prices, fast shipping, and if you check out google you can probably find a coupon code too.

We'll officially start that Wednesday after we're all settled in from moving Labor Day weekend. Right now we're doing a lot of math and reading review to make up for doing nothing at all in June or July. Of course, by officially I have no idea what were going to do. I'm really taking a relaxed approach this year. I'd probably be an unschooler if it wouldn't freak dh out so much. :-)

The SL I Can Read books are VERY basic. I'd say skip them at this point . They were OK for teaching my daughter how to read simple words, but we went through them really fast and they're not the kind of books you would ever reread. You said you library doesn't have many early readers. Have you checked with your librarian? I thought ours didn't have many u til I found out that the librarian had pulled them all out of the regular "J" section and put them on a shelf by themselves to make it easier for beginning readers. Now I know we actually have a huge section. :-)

All very good advice! Good luck....it will all work out in the end.

In the past, I've spent too much time on fluff and not enough on the basics. So this year (2nd grade) we'all spend 80% or more of our organized school time one the 3 Rs. Science we'll learn at the beach and social studies will be in that remaining 20%.

Thanks everyone! Excited to be here. And happy to know that I'm not alone in my eclectic style, or my sometimes lack of social skills. :)

We started back yesterday as well. We're easing into things since we're leaving the country the end of August. Just sticking to reading, handwriting, and math review right now. Yesterday went pretty well. We got through the 1 hour worth of work that I planned in 2 1/2 hours, but I was expecting that. My dd is such a slow poke. She stays on track, mostly, but she is meticulous to a fault. She must have erased her handwriting 10 times before she was satisfied!

Thanks!

We started back yesterday too. We're easing back into school during the month of August. Just doing reading, writing, and arithmetic right now. We're moving at the end of the month, so I don't really want to get into much more than that until after we're settled, but I also wanted us to get started because I like to build in lots of breaks and vacations. Yesterday went well. The 1 hour of work that I had planned took 2 1/2 hours, but I expected that. My daughter is a slow-poke. She can't seem to understand that if she'd just do the work and stay on task she'd be finished in no time and be able to go play.

Hello! I'm not sure if I'm posting this in the right place. I looked and didn't see a place to post an introduction, but it just seemed rude to me to start talking without even saying hello first. I'm sorta new here. Actually, I've read here off and on for a long time, and every once in a while I'll see something that I would like to respond to or have a question that I'd like to ask, but then I realize that I've never actually posted anything here before so I just move on. Finally I decided that I really needed to just jump in. So, anyway, as my username says, I'm a mom to just one child. That in itself makes homeschooling a little more challenging. Sometimes I think it would be so much easier if I had 6 kids. But then I do a reality check and remember that if I think I'm stressed out and overworked now, I can't even imagine how I would feel if my husband and I were outnumbered! We're a traveling family. We like to go see the world and experience new things. In fact, I'm a travel agent in addition to being a homeschool mom. This fall, we will be staying in the Caribbean from the end of August through the middle of October. I can't wait, especially since temperatures here in Ohio in the mornings are dipping down into the 50s already. I HATE cold. Oh, and I suppose I should go ahead and acknowledge the fact that I don't strictly follow a classical method. While I really like and appreciate the classical method, in reality I'm much too laid back to make it work well. That's part of the reason why I haven't posted before. But, you guys have a lot of great advice and seem really supportive, so hopefully you won't mind some of my crazy ways. :001_smile: