We have eight kids and I don't serve breakfast. Pretty much ever. Maybe a couple times a year, for special occasions. When someone is hungry they get themselves food. When someone young enough to need help getting food is hungry I or and older child helps them. If they choose not to eat that's ok but they're not taking a breakfast break once we start on other things.

This is interesting since we just had to toss our hp printer. It was one of the weird 'instant ink' ones. The idea was that it would automatically order ink when you needed it (we were given it, I didn't buy it). We don't print much so when the year long instant ink subscription was up we were still using the ink it came with. It stopped working despite having ink and required our debit card number to be entered so they could charge us per month to continue using the ink that was already in it. Into to trash it went. What a waste. I'm not looking at brother printers but I'm interested to see what other suggestions come up.

This is the first I'm reading about these new books. Could someone please explain them? How they fit in with the other well trained mind books, grade level, continuation of other books or a new series, and so on.

We've done a lot of travel. In your shoes I wouldn't worry a bit about making the trip educational. Your kids are young. Very young for a trip like this. Just let it happen and they'll learn what they're able. Don't stress about discussing weather and making group packing decisions wth little kids or trying to teach European anthropology lessons to toddlers. I get where you're coming from. I've been there. I've tried to teach my then preschoolers about the geology of the national parks we were visiting. I've taken some of my younger kids to restaurants and explained the culture and cooking of the people for whom that cuisine is everyday food. Then I stopped. I just let learning happen naturally while traveling. We spend a month or two of every year traveling plus frequent long distance moves. The kids learn just as much if not more when I don't try to force it and I just talk casually about where we're going and answer or help research questions as they arise.

We've been out of the homeschooling loop for several years. My 11 and 12 year olds can hardly remember any of the cursive they learned and my 8 and under kids have never learned any. They all have atrocious penmanship and I'd like to start cursive with the ones that are second grade and up. I'm looking for suggestions of programs that are either geared towards older kids or would work for them. Nothing too time consuming on my part if it can be avoided.

We use maps, charts, and graphs workbooks although they're more theory and map reading than drill and memorization. I like to give the kids a road atlas and travel books and just field questions as they come up. Sometimes I require intelligent questions to be asked. Coloring books are good too, even for older kids. Dover makes some good geography coloring books.

This is a really good point and I can totally see this happening. The kids will all say they want their own then a couple weeks into the year everything will just be a big pile. The main thing I'm trying to avoid is carting around extra stuff. I'd rather not end up with six pairs of scissors to deal with when we really only need two. I think I'm going to just do communal supplies and if any of the kids truly want separate supplies I'll get a set for them.

I would think that's fine if it's your one copy, that's not really different than selling a book. You can't make copies of the book and give them away but you can give away the book itself.

Chickens I pay $3/lb for whole pastured birds. They're so expensive that I only use them for soup when the bones will be simmered for hours. For everyday meals I get less expensive chicken in bulk.

This is a really interesting comment. I totally agree that supplies should not be confiscated in a classroom environment. I do make an exception for kleenex since it would be silly for each kid to have an entire box in their desk. I'll never forget a couple years ago when the supply list had an orange folder with brads. The green folder was no problem but I had to go to two more stores with six kids in tow while pregnant on a day that topped 100 degrees to find that nearly $5 orange folder. I labeled everything with my child's name then at orientation the folders were pulled from the bag and his name was scribbled out from the orange folder and another child's name was written in. Turns out the orange folders were for the girls but they felt it was easier to give the same list to everyone, that way they would get enough to cover the kids who didn't bring a folder. Same with crayons, he was allowed to keep one box and the others were doled out to the kids whose parent sent nothing. I didn't mind that so much since crayons are dirt cheap during the back to school sales but it still really bothered me that they didn't come out and say what they were doing. If the list had said exactly what my child needed and mentioned that they expect half the class to not bring supplies I would gladly have bought an entire extra set or two, minus the orange folder. Travel, however, I've had a different experience with. Maybe it's just my kids but they don't like having to keep track of their stuff. Once they get to 7-8 years old and the novelty of having their own bag or suitcase has worn off they'd rather I keep track of everything. We travel a lot so maybe that's why. We spend a good 6-8 weeks per year on the road, in hotels, staying with family, and so on.

The youngest kids want their own supplies. I think because after a couple years in school where their supplies are taken and redistributed the first day they just want to have their own. The problem is those are the ones who are least likely to keep track of things and keep stuff in good shape. The older kids don't seem to care. They've experienced getting to have their own supplies at school and know it can be a hassle to keep up with things and would be fine with not having to deal with it. However, those are the kids who are old enough to take care of things and keep up with it all. It's not that I want to deny the kids the experience of having their own box of supplies (something I liked as a kid) it's that I don't really have the time or energy to pick up the slack and ask 'who does this crayon belong to' a dozen times a day and be constantly asking about and taking inventory of half a dozen supply boxes and coming up with consequences for not caring for things then needing to spend time and energy enforcing those consequences. Yet I still feel weird denying the kids their own supplies.

I see what you're saying here but at the same time they own all sorts of other things, it's not like a school where nothing belongs to them. At home they have clothes and toys and books and their bikes and all sorts of random stuff that belongs to them so I'm not sure ownership for the sake of ownership necessarily needs to be factored in. Having kids earn the privilege of getting to have their own stuff might work ok but, honestly, the last thing I want to add to my plate is coming up with a system in which the kids earn the privilege of their own school supplies. I'd like to at least start with something that is the same across the board, if that's everyone has everything to themselves or if it's I keep some stuff while they keep track of other items that's to be determined.

We're getting back into homeschooling after a couple years with the kids in school. This upcoming year six of the kids will be school age with another who will want to participate here and there plus a baby. I'm trying to decide if I want to give each kid a pencil box of personal supplies or keep everything communal. We've only done communal supplies in the past but the kids were all pretty young. On one hand things will stay neat and tidy if I keep track of it all plus we won't need duplicates of the same items all in use at the same time. On the other hand it won't do anything towards teaching the kids personal responsibility for their things. It also means the kids who tend to care for their stuff will have to use things that the other kids were careless with but this peer pressure might make everyone more likely to take of things on the whole. Personal supplies seems like it might be a good idea but am I going to be constantly dealing with someone missing something and my needing to keep extras on hand anyway? There would also be no motivation for the kids who don't care for their things to do so since it's theirs anyway. I also don't want to have to keep checking all those pencil boxes to take inventory and replace things as needed. So, what do you do? Personal supplies for everyone? Everything communal? Some mix of the two?

We have the games but don't really use them. A big part of it is having little ones around who will grab at the cards. The older kids like using an ipad app to practice math facts. It's a basic 99c app and I can select which types of problems to work on then see their time and score.

There are places that sell sampler packs of different grips which is nice to have to try out or to keep on different pencils to go between.

I'd say kindergarten because 'preschool' has come to be so many different things to different people. I know people who say their two year old is in preschool when it's really daycare. I think it's ok for groups to be for k+ kids and their younger siblings. There are plenty of parents of preschool age kids who have very real intentions of homeschooling but when it comes to really keeping their child out of school, implementing curriculum, and registering as homeschoolers they decide to send their child to kindergarten. That's ok but it's hard for homeschool groups to last or be helpful for children over 4/5 years old if there are lots of these families joining then leaving each year. It doesn't offend me but it is sort of funny when we say we are homeschoolers and someone else says they are too but we quickly find out they are 'homeschooling' their infant or 'doing school' with a toddler. Not really the same as having a conversation with someone who has a school age child.

I know it's a it's time of year for them but what other companies say 'sorry, we're busy right now, you'll just have to wait longer'? These were just some extra things to fill in for what we found hasn't been working. No dragging my feet or waiting to place big orders. Our main ordered were all done over a month ago, which was still the peak of the 'back to homeschool' ordering but there were no delays like this then.

It's a gray area for me. On one hand they are doing their schooling at home. On the other they technically are public school students who have decided to do their public school courses via a computer outside of a school building. I do agree with the poster who said they nitpick the age of 'homeschooled' children. Our group does not allow in 'homeschooled' two year olds and some parents get so mad over it. The reasoning is that the group doesn't consider children who aren't yet school age to be homeschooling. Maybe it stems from daycares now referring to themselves as 'schools'. I'm sorry but a one year old is not in school, even if they bring their diapers in a backpack.

Placed several orders a full week ago. The one from teaching textbooks arrived on either Monday or Tuesday. The one from rainbow resource arrived today. The one from sonlight still wasn't here today. I thought their website was just not showing the shipping information for some reason but I checked it again anyway. Turns out the shipping carrier just received the information to expect the shipment today. Nothing was back ordered, it's just taken a long time for them to ship it. It's not set to be here until the middle of next week. The order was big enough to qualify for the 'better' shipping for free. Our last order shipped in two days. I'm not expecting amazon shipping speeds but a nearly two week wait seems excessive and it's thrown a wrench in our plans. It's not that big a complaint but I purchased several books from them at their premium price rather than rainbow resource because I thought they would arrive sooner. My question is: at what point would you complain about slow shipping?

Crayons - crayola for regular coloring plus a set of block style stockmar beeswax crayons Colored pencils - prismacolor, the kids really seem to like coloring more with them Markers - we just use crayola when we use them but the scented mr sketch ones are fun Pastels - I think they're reeves brand oil, nothing really fancy Watercolors - crayola or prang for younger kids or playing, stockmar for liquid watercolor projects, pelican brand for pan/cake style; I really think the paper is the most important thing for watercolor painting, student quality watercolor paper works great, watercolor painting on copy paper isn't the same. Good paintbrushes are nice to have. Watercolor colored pencils are nice too. We've never bothered with fancy construction paper but we don't use it often. There are some that are considered heavyweight which are better quality.

We have community playthings desks and table. We picked the adjustable legs so they can be used for a long time. They're more expensive but nice looking, well built, have a guarantee, can have the legs replaced with different lengths if you don't want the adjustable style, and shipping is included.

I would also expect a teacher in a traditional school to always stay in the room, keeping kids on task, and not leave to 'do her own thing'. During school hours being a teacher is her only job. Homeschooling is not, generally speaking, school in a house. There are other children, including little ones to care for who need to be educated themselves or, at the least, can't spend hours a day watching TV unsupervised while I tap my pen at each problem for their sibling. Meals must be made. Laundry must be done. Spills must be cleaned up. Dishes must be washed. It would be wonderful to have someone tend to all these tasks so I can be focused on keeping one f the kids focused but that's not my reality right now.

They've been to school and know what it's all about. Sometimes they ask questions and I answer truthfully. I try to be matter of fact about it - no, you would not have to learn latin in school or yes, you would get to go out on the playground at recess most every day. I also occasionally help the conversation along so they're talking among themselves about how they wouldn't get to pick what kind of of art project to do or how they would have to sit and listen to things they already know if they were in school. I think it's reasonably balanced.

My question is about if using school as a threat will make the idea of school bad to the kids? At some point they my have to go to school. They certainly will take school style outside classes at some point. We would really like them to go to college. We use a big mix of things. Some parent intensive and interactive like AAS, some more hands off like teaching textbooks on the computer, some in between like handwriting workbooks. Here's the thing: I really, really don't have time to sit there and offer encouragement or motivation to write each word. It's also not fair to the other kids who generally do their independent work without complaint. Reminders that being sent to school is a real option I have which can and will happen if the work isn't done works. The work is done after the reminder. I'm just not sure it's a good idea to keep bringing up school as a potential punishment.