I know there are some American Girl fans on this board, so I thought I'd post my initial impressions of the Wellie Wisher my daughter received yesterday for her 6th birthday. First of all, in case you don't know, this is a new line that was just released last summer. It's aimed at age 5+, basically girls who may have moved beyond Bitty Baby but aren't quite ready for an 18 inch doll. They have all plastic bodies, they're small compared to the big dolls (I think 13.5 inches), and they have the same high quality, wigged hair as the big dolls. They don't come with books, but there's a series of early chapter books coming out about them. It's about a group of friends called the Wellie Wishers, who love to play together in a garden wearing their colorful Wellington boots. Unlike the books about the other dolls, each book focuses a little on one of the girls, but features all of them interacting. We checked a book out from the library and my daughter desperately wanted one of the dolls as soon as she heard the book. My mother gave her Camille for her 6th birthday, which was yesterday. She also received Kit (18 inch historical doll) from my mother in law just after Christmas, officially as an early birthday present. We were at the Mall of America and she got to pick out Kit. Kit is beautiful, and I'm sure she'll have a lot of long term play value, but she's just a little too big for my daughter to enjoy playing with her a lot right now. Camille is the perfect size for her age, and she seems a bit more durable than Kit. The most she's played with Kit was last night after she got Camille. We pretended they were sisters, and I played with Kit while she played with Camille. If you have a young elementary age girl who really wants an American Girl doll, I recommend checking out the Wellie Wishers. The only problem I foresee is that there aren't nearly so many off-brand products for a doll this size. I got my daughter both a pair of pajamas and a winter outfit for Kit from another brand, and they're great. I knew my mother was giving Camille to DD, so I wanted to get a winter outfit for her too and the only choice I had was the AG brand one. It's a great outfit, but it was as much as the two outfits for Kit combined.

I would definitely do London, and stay in England or even stay in London. If you have a good carrier for the 1 year old it shouldn't be much of a hassle.

I'm glad we made the shirt and the project was kind of fun, but I have to say, I had lunch with Kittygirl yesterday, and I really liked some of the other kids' shirts better. In retrospect, I wish I would have encouraged her to draw 100 flowers with fabric markers. A friend of hers drew 100 hearts and another wrote the numbers 1 to 100. Their shirts were almost as cute and much more comfortable. Just for fun, yesterday after school she turned the Superman shirt she used for her Supergirl Halloween costume into a birthday shirt to wear when we went out to dinner for her birthday. Above the super symbol she wrote "Happy Birthday" and below she wrote "I am super six." Here's a picture. The writing doesn't show up very well in the picture, sadly. eta: I thought the cutest 100 day shirt I saw yesterday was a boy's. His shirt as covered in neon band-aids and in the center (in very fancy, clearly adult handwriting) it read "I survived 100 days of school." One of the other teachers (not Kittygirl's) had 100 sight words on her shirt. I thought that was a clever idea.

So I ended up using fabric glue, and my daughter helped. It really wasn't that bad. She also used fabric markers to draw 100 moons and stars (total, not 100 of each) on an old pair of jeans that she's wearing with the shirt today. Here are pictures. Sadly, you can't really make out the drawings on the jeans in the picture, but they look cool too. I ran out of room for all the flowers on the numbers I wrote on the front of the shirt, so we made a border of flowers around the numbers, which made it kind of hard to see them. DD thinks the border looks like a heart. Her brother thinks it looks like a pretzel :). As for the comments about teachers thinking parents have a lot of time.... I did wonder that at first, but, when I actually figured out a good method, it was maybe an hour of work total. I don't think that's too bad to help a kindergartener have a fun special day. It's also her 6th birthday today, so I'm sure she'll have an amazing day at school. I talked to several other parents' whose kids were completely taking the lead on the projects and just drawing 100 things on their t shirts, so, at least for this class, I don't think the project stressed any (or at least not many) parents out intensely.

Some of you helped me think through at 1950's outfit for my daughter's 50th day of kindergarten, so I'm hoping you can help me think through her 100th day of kindergarten outfit too. It's coming up on Tuesday, which also happens to be her 6th birthday. She's excited that the two coincide. Anyway, they're supposed to attach 100 things to a t-shirt and she decided she wanted a t-shirt with 100 flowers. We went and bought the t-shirt and the flowers last weekend, but I didn't actually try to do anything with them until today, and I'm completely overwhelmed. Is there any way to attach 100 cloth flowers to a shirt other than going through the painfully long process of individually sewing each one on? To make it even more complicated, she wants the flowers to form the number 100 so I can't even put them in rows of 10 or something simple like that. If you have a brilliant solution that won't take me all afternoon tomorrow plus a couple hours Monday evening, please chime in.

I want to reiterate both that you should research, research, research before you buy any curriculum and that it's okay to ditch curriculum even if you feel like you researched it to death after you start using it and it isn't working. I researched like crazy. I looked on here. I looked at websites. I talked with a local friend who has always homeschooled her kids and looked at her stuff. I went to a convention and looked at stuff in person. I gave my son placement tests. After all of that, we ended up switching Math programs one month in and science programs two months in. We ditched Spanish in week 2. We switched to a new language arts program this semester. We're still struggling with Math, and I may end up outsourcing it (or having DH teach it). Other than that, after a semester I've finally learned enough about how my son learns that I think I might be able to choose programs for 7th grade that we actually keep. You may have better luck with your choices than I did with mine, but keep in mind that there will by a learning curve and it's okay to switch or to change up how you're using something if it's not working well. The beauty of homeschooling is being able to meet your child's individual needs. Also, I had some recommendations on here to use a boxed program for my first year, but I'm glad I didn't. Everything I'm using gives me good directions, but I'm not following a dictated schedule day to day and I like that. If we skip a day of regular work to do a field trip or we spend extra time on history (his favorite subject) one day I don't feel behind.

My 11 year old really, really wants to see this. I do too. I figured it would be inappropriate (or at least boring) for the kindergartener, but now that I know at least one other person has taken a 6 year old, I may change my mind and take both of them tomorrow.

Hopefully some more experienced homeschoolers from Kentucky will chime in. What you need to do is send a letter to your superintendent officially saying that you will be homeschooling your child for the upcoming school year. Here in Fayette County there's actually an "office of pupil enrollment" that you send it to, but I've heard that in other counties it often goes directly to the superintendent's office. You'll need to list your child's name, your name, and your homeschool's name and address (presumably your home address). You should be able to find a model online. The only thing you need to keep track of legally is attendance. I think you need at least 170 days, but don't quote me on that. I'm homeschooling one and have one in public school, so we're just following the public school calendar, which is sure to give us enough days. There are certain subjects you're supposed to cover, but nothing you probably wouldn't cover anyway. It's recommended, but not actually required by law, that you keep a portfolio with samples of your child's best work. This will likely be particularly helpful if she does go back to public school for high school. My son attended public elementary school and, for a variety of reasons, we decided that no local middle school would be a good fit for him, so we pulled him out to homeschool this year, for 6th grade. Our plan is to homeschool through middle school for sure and probably send him back to school for high school, though we're keeping our options open and will reevaluate during his 8th grade year. You should expect some bumps in the road since your daughter has spent a long time being taught by others and having you just be mom. It took my son awhile to get used to the fact that, when I'm teaching him, he has to show me the same kind of respect he showed his teacher (not that he disrespects me in my role as his mom, it's just not the same relationship as with a teacher). Since your daughter loves to read, you may want to consider a literature based history program such as Sonlight. If you're looking for a strong Christian science program, check out Novare. We ended up giving up on it, but that was because my science knowledge was too weak to implement it effectively. It's a great program for the right parent/teacher and student. ETA: You don't need to send your letter of intent until just before the school year starts in the fall.

I haven't read this whole thread, but I feel the need to chime in to say that, while I love uncommon names (my daughter is named for a character in a Swedish children's book most people in the U.S. have never heard of), I'm not a fan of uncommon spellings of common names. My son was in ballet for a few years with a girl named Kassydi..... I heard her name for at least a year before I saw it spelled out on something, and then I thought, "Why in the world did her parents do that to her?" Kassidy I could have understood, but why, oh why, did they decide to have the y and the i change places?

It sounds like what you're doing is working for your child, OP. There's no reason to change things if they're working well and the student is motivated.

I tried this with my son this year and it was a total failure. We only lasted a week before he asked to stop Spanish and just focus on Latin. However, I think at least half of it was psychological. His little sister in a Spanish Immersion kindergarten and I think he wants a language that's his own thing so noone's comparing him to her. I think if your child is motivated (which it seems she is) and you separate the subjects it should work just fine. I tried to do them one right after another and I'm sure that was part of what went wrong. They really can reinforce each other. Occasional confusion may happen, but it shouldn't be too bad. When I was in high school I started out as a freshman taking both Spanish and Latin. My sophomore year I added French. Confusing the languages was never a problem for me, and they all reinforced each other in some ways. If I were you, though, I'd seriously considering combining French and Latin instead of Spanish and Latin, because your DD has a natural source to practice French with native speakers. Then you could add Spanish in a year or two if the interest remains. Also, as a former Spanish teacher, I couldn't stand Getting Started With Spanish. The logic of how things are presented makes no sense to me. I do mostly like Getting Started with Latin, which we're using. I just don't feel like the format lends itself nearly so well to a modern language.

Wow, now I'm feeling guilty about how little we do compared to the rest of you :). Of course, we're not Catholic, OR German, OR Dutch, so I figure just acknowledging it at all is a bonus :). We carried over the tradition from DH's family. He grew up in a part of Wisconsin with lots of Catholics of German descent. After he went to kindergarten and heard all the other kids talking about St. Nicholas Day his mom decided she better start acknowledging it. My kids put their shoes on the kitchen table and in the morning they find candy (never chocolate coins because they don't like chocolate - the horror!) and an ornament. There's also a book under the shoe. I used to always do a book related the season, or at least winter, but this year I gave up on finding such a book that my 11 year old would actually read, so he got an Eyewitness book about the Revolutionary War and he was thrilled. The 5 year old girl got a book about a cat that stows away in Santa's bag.

My son's first non-storybook Bible was an NIrV Adventure Bible and we really liked it. My daughter now has the same one, with the exception that hers is fake purple leather with a flower and his was fake green leather with a lizard. To be honest I've never looked thoroughly at the sidebars or anything, but, in glancing through, I've never seen anything I thought was wrong. At this age, I think the goal is to give them a Bible they can understand and enjoy reading. If it's fun and colorful that's more likely to attract some kids, mine included.

The long readaloud we finished most recently was THE MAYFLOWER AND THE PILGRIMS' NEW WORLD by Nathaniel Philbrick, which is absolutely amazing. It's nonfiction, but it reads like a story. We spent all of November studying Plymouth Colony, using BYL's Thanksgiving Unit Study as our base. To go along with history right now we're reading BEN HUR - not the classic, but a version that just came out recently. The author's great great granddaughter updated the language and made some other changes to make it appeal more to a modern audience. I've never read the original so I can't say how it compares, but we're loving it. I wouldn't read it to a child younger than middle school, however. There have been some pretty gruesome scenes. It's technically a book for adults. In between those two I read, in one sitting, THE SNOW QUEEN because Squirrelboy and I are going to see it onstage tomorrow. At some point I may try to add in BREADCRUMBS by Anne Ursu, which is a modern take on the story. For our family Advent observance we're reading a variety of Christmas/winter picture books plus last night we started THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF SANTA CLAUS by L. Frank Baum. I never knew this book existed until I was at the bookstore yesterday looking for books to give the kids for St. Nicholas Day (we always give them an ornament and a book on that day) and saw it in the Christmas book section. I made an impulse purchase, and so far I'm not regretting it. We're three chapters in (the chapters are really short) and both the 5 year old and the 11 year old are hooked. Once I dig out the box with the rest of the Christmas books, I plan to add KRINGLE by Tony Abbot to Squirrelboy's readaloud time. I adore this book and read it every year in December, but this is the first year I may have time to read it aloud to a child.

Thanks, everyone! I've looked over the copies of The Arrow that I bought and really like them, so I don't regret my decision to buy a few. I'll look over a copy of Partnership Writing at some point and decide whether it's worth buying through HSBC. Oh, and I already get the weekly email. My DH isn't ready for me to spend the money for an online class this spring, since we've already had to many misses that we spent good money on, but if the Bravewriter stuff I use for the rest of this year works well, I'll look into one of those classes for the fall.

After thinking more about it and talking to DH, I've decided not to use a discount as an excuse to buy a bundle of stuff that looks amazing but that I haven't thoroughly tested. I've already dumped too many things this year. I'm going to select a few back issues of The Arrow and call it good. I'll combine that with poetry teas and the free freewrites I already have and see what happens. I won't save as much money, but I'll save some, and it will give me longer to make sure Bravewriter really is the best fit for us. And who knows, maybe HSBC will have another discount in the spring or summer.

So I've just finished reading through a borrowed copy of The Writer's Jungle and have applied a few of the ideas to my son. We've played the communication game, down a few freewrites, and done one keen observation exercise. All of it has been a breath of fresh air compared to what we were doing before. I looked at Bravewriter when I was first investigating homeschooling material, but I decided I wasn't ready to take the plunge. However, the language arts program we've been using, while not a bad program in and of itself, has shown itself to be the wrong program for my son. I think Bravewriter is the tool I need to show him that writing is not his worst enemy. I want to get my own copy of The Writer's Jungle so I can have it for the rest of the time I'm homeschooling and I think I may want a few more things. Bravewriter is having a 30% off sale today, so I really want to make my decision about what to buy today. I wish I could have written this question earlier in the day, but I didn't have time. Even though he's past the official age for it (he's 11 and in 6th grade) my son is definitely in the Partnership Writing stage. He's not totally dependent on me, but he still needs a lot of help and handholding. So I'm seriously considering buying Partnership Writing, because I don't think I can pull together a good program and projects just using The Writer's Jungle. I also want to make use of the Arrow, but I can't decide whether I should buy the Partnership Writing Bundle and get this year's subscription to the Arrow or just choose a few back issues The Arrow to start with and make sure we like it. Any advice? If I don't get any advice I'll probably plunge ahead and buy the bundle, but I'm willing to be talked out of it.

Thanks for the tips, everyone! I should clarify that we don't actually do six hours of work. We do our with within a six hour window, but there's at least an hour of breaks mixed in throughout the day, sometimes more. Also, a good 90 minutes of "work" is him listening to readalouds. It's true that a typical 6th grader who has always been homeschooled would probably do a lot more work independently, but, at this point, I really do have to be at my son's side for almost all of his work. Part of that is due to his dyslexia and ADHD, and part of that is a combination of personality and the fact that he's used to a school environment. We're trying to work toward more independence, but it's an uphill climb. Kittygirl's favorite thing to do alone is coloring, so what I think I'll start with is to keep some coloring books on the school shelf that she can only use if she's home during brother's school time. I agree that a lot of the problem is that she hasn't grown up in a homeschooling family. Up until this year, except for three mornings a week of preschool, she was home with my undivided attention while brother was at school for 9 months of the year. She's still not really used to the fact that brother is the one home with me now and there are certain things we want to get accomplished every day. It also wouldn't hurt to have a shorter, more relaxed school day on those rare days when she's home. Maybe I could have my son practice his readaloud skills by reading some picture books to her, or go over some simple addition and subtraction with her. She'd probably adore that.

So, in case you can't see my signature or don't want to bother to figure it out, I'll outline our situation. This is my first year homeschooling. I'm homeschooling only one of my two children, my 11 year old son, for 6th grade. My 5 year old daughter is in kindergarten at a Spanish Immersion elementary school and thriving. I try to get all of my son's schooling done between 8am and 2pm and it works great. The time limit helps us stay on track, and we don't have little sis home to bug us and distract us. However, I have been reminded twice in the last two weeks that there will inevitably be a handful of days when she's home from school and I still want to accomplish homeschool with my son. Public schools here were out for election day because schools are polling places. I told both kids that DS and I would do some work in the morning and then after lunch we could go to a park. She did okay because she was looking forward to the park, but she still repeatedly asked when we'd be done. I finally resorted to letting her watch a movie for the last hour and a half. Monday she woke up with pinkeye. She was feeling totally fine, other than the fact that she could barely open her left eye it was so crusty. I couldn't in good conscience send her to school like that, though, so she stayed home. Since she felt fine, she was constantly interrupting us. We managed to get most of our work done and she didn't spend the entire time in front of a screen, but she had more screen time that I'd really like her to have ideally. I know the large majority of homeschooling parents have more than one kid at home, and some of you may have gaps as big as mine. So, if you have both a kindergartener and a middle schooler at home, what does the kindergartener do while you're teaching the middle schooler? I imagine there will be other days when she's home with us, and I'd like to be better prepared for that eventuality than I was in the last week.

Does he like fantasy? My son is currently obsessed with Merlin, which is on Netflix.

My son has dyslexia, and third grade was actually a really good year for him. Part of it was that, thanks to after school tutoring for 2 1/2 years at that point, he had finally reached the point where he could keep up in class. He was still just barely in the middle, but he wasn't way behind anymore. Part of it was also that he had an amazing teacher. When I told her that the homework was really hard and was taking hours each night, she changed his homework. Our district doesn't hold kids back for not getting a proficient score on the state test at the end of 3rd grade, but he did score proficient. I've never looked up the stats for what percentage of kids scores proficient or above, but I think it's higher than the ones you quoted for Florida. My advice his, keep pushing the school to get an IEP, keep helping him after school, and just see what happens this year. If it's going badly, it sounds like homeschooling is still on the table for you, so you can always pull him out before the testing happens.

This is only our first year homeschooling, but I've never had a problem the times I've taken Squirrelboy out during school hours. Our church's youth group runs a pumpkin sale from 11-7 every day during the last two weeks of the year. It's the group's major fundraiser for the year, and they depend on church members, mostly parents of youth, to staff it. Traditionally, 11-1 is the hardest shift to fill, so I signed us up three times and ended up doing a fourth because the youth pastor put out an urgent call about shifts the next day that weren't filled. We served about 20 customers total and only two asked why he wasn't in school. Both of those responded positively when they learned that he's homeschooled. We were, in fact, doing schoolwork during our shift because it was pretty slow. The crossing guard at my daughter's school asked one day where he goes to school because he always come with me to pick her up, and public middle schools here get out more than an hour later than the elementary schools. She was excited to hear that he's homeschooled. It turns out she homeschooled her kids, who are now grown. I do try to spend most of the hours while Kittygirl is in school doing schoolwork because we need that time, but we've run a quick errand a few times and, yet again, he's never been questioned. Maybe it's different in other parts of the country, but homeschooling is fairly common here. There are also so many different private schools with half days or off campus lunch periods or different days off that just the fact that a kid is out during the school day doesn't necessarily mean he/she is homeschooled. Kids who are playing hooky aren't going to play in their yards or hang out in public with their parents. That would be too obvious.

My son picked up the Titanic on at the school library when he was in 3rd grade because he was obsessed with the Titanic at the time and fell in love with them. They were tough reads for him at the time. He's dyslexic and had just barely made it to reading on grade level at the time, so he struggled with them, but he thought they were worth the effort. I think they helped spark his love of history, so they were definitely worth it. I agree that they might appeal to a kid who liked Magic Treehouse but is ready for more a challenge both in terms of content and reading level.

Don't beat yourself up about it. I sort have an excuse as first year homeschooler, but I've changed so many of the things I thought would be perfect when I was choosing curriculum last spring and summer it's getting ridiculous. The only thing I may end up keep for the whole school year is Notgrass history (I don't love it, but DS likes it a lot) and All About Spelling (which is the only thing I've used from the start that I have no complaints about). Sure, this is your 6th year homeschooling, but it's only your second year with this particular kid. You still need to get to know her learning style. We've taken a break from Notgrass history for November and we're doing the Build Your Library Thanksgiving study. We're loving it so far. BYL has good stuff.

I can still hardly believe it. I'm so glad it happened while my Dad, who is 78 and has lots of health problems, was here to see it! I'm not really a sports fan, but I'm a Cubs fan because of him. His grandfather had just recently immigrated to Chicago from Lithuania the last time they won the World Series. Think about how much the world has changed since then. Cars were a luxury item. Women couldn't vote. No one could have ever imagined an African American president. I've seen so many negative things on Facebook lately related to politics, it was great to see all my fellow Cubs fans celebrating instead. eta: My mom said my Dad has not watched a single game because he thinks he curses them by watching. So you may have him to thank for their win :).