Thanks for posting this! I looked at these before, but couldn't justify the expense.

My dd6 was like that at two also, and she is still is quite sensitive and worries way too much. We have started "worry time" each day, 15 minutes where you can get all your worries out. I know your daughter is probably too young for that to work, but it might be a good idea if she becomes a worrier in a couple years. I think they are stuck on the details of what is upsetting them because they are trying to make sense of it. They lack the life experience to understand the reasoning behind things that seem so obviously wrong to them. At least for my dd, she gets upset that others would do these horrible things, as if everyone should be inherently good. It's very scary to her that people purposefully hurt or destroy. I think they are very logical kids, with a incredible reasoning skills, but they can't make sense of these situations and so they are scary or upsetting. They seem to want to go over it again and again in hopes to come to some sort of conclusion or answer. I have had quite a few friends and family suggest that I coddle her and she just needs to deal, but I honestly feel that she is unusually aware for her age and is extremely philosophical. I think the world would be better place if we had more sensitive, caring, thoughtful people. I try to answer her questions honestly, but also without too much detail. This doesn't always work, because she will ask more and more questions. But I really try not to get too graphic and I have chosen not to be dogmatic about certain things that have come up about religion and culture. I typically give her my opinion and tell her there are other people that feel differently, and that is okay, too. I think the discussion is more important than the answer. I have chosen to tell her we'll have to talk about certain things in more detail when she is older. She doesn't like that answer, but some things I just think she can't handle yet.

We've dealt with a lot of health and GI issues at my house, and I know this is extreme, but I would eat Paleo-style for a month and see what happens. My husband has Celiac and we all eat gluten-free, but it wasn't until we removed all dairy, grains and soy that my dd 6 started to have some relief from chronic stomach issues. Then you can slowly add things back and try to figure out what things are really bothering her. We have been told by both our naturopath and the allergist that often generalized stomach pain is from the inflammation caused from allergens. The problem is figuring out what is causing the reaction. I would also try a daily probiotic, but I would find one that is truly dairy-free if you are going to the effort to avoid dairy. If you can't figure it out, I would try to find a more holistic health care provider. In our experience, most physicians just chalk it up to "stress" when that really isn't the case.

Have you thought about Homeschool Spanish Academy or LanguageConvo? It's pretty inexpensive 1:1 instruction via skype with native speakers. I tried to research and figure out what programs would be appropriate for my 6 year old, and these two seemed the best. After emailing both with my questions, I decided to try LanguageConvo in the fall. Like you, it was really important that my child be able to move along at their own pace, and this (at least in theory) seems to be set up for this.

I just wanted to add that I have always had really quick and helpful replies when I've emailed Brian with McRruffy questions. So he might be able to give you helpful tips for working through the program with an older student. Just a thought. Good luck.

my daughter loved the rod and staff workbooks at this age. I am guessing the cle kinder would be about the same. They are also super inexpensive and have lots of pictures that can be colored, which makes the books last a little longer than a typical workbook.

I own the whole HAS set so we'll go through them, but so far (we've only done the K level, so I could change my opinion) they are just random art projects. Art is definitely not my strong point, however I did go to a public school that had a great art program. In my opinion HAS is fine for my child at age 6, when just creating stuff and getting messy is fun. However, in a couple years I'll be looking for an art program that offers more in regards to art appreciation and teaching techniques that build on each other. I guess I would prefer something similar to what I would expect if I paid for an art class in the community; HAS isn't really that too me. This might sound rude, but the projects remind me of art projects in a public school classroom setting (as opposed to the kind you expect to see produced in a school with an actual art teacher/classroom). Maybe I am totally off base though, not being an artist and all :)

I completely agree with this. My dd6 enjoys the majority of the K program so far; there have been a few lessons that just didn't interest her, so we skipped them. Overall, I am happy with my purchase and find it appropriate for a young child, but I'll be looking for something that teaches art more thoughtfully in a few years. If you do go with HAS, I would recommend just buying the supplies from Jerry's Artarama when they have a good sale, because we would never get it done if I was having to track down all those art supplies :)

I purchased mine through Jerry Artarama http://www.jerrysartarama.com/discount-art-supplies/dvds/home-school-art-studio-program/k-5.htm They have a supply list for each greade, so you could probably just figure out what would be duplicates. Jerry's seems like it is always having a sale, so the prices seemed good for the quality.

We learned the hard way to make sure the computer is in the main living area and has parental control/monitoring. Our oldest child was taking online classes, so we put the computer in the school room so she could concentrate...bad idea. We've since set up accounts with passwords, so my kids can't just turn on the computer and surf the internet without us around. My husband is in IT and I guess computers and technology are just such a part of our life I wouldn't consider banning it altogether, although I do think it should be used mostly for educational games for younger kids. I typically allow it only on the weekends and after school/chores are completed. For kids in late elementary school and older, I really think being able to search the library catalog, research topics, etc on their own is a great skill. It's just that too much information is available and it needs filtered in my opinion.

Our cello teacher suggested we use makingmusicfun.net at home. I have only used the flashcards so far, so I am not sure how much theory is on there, but it looks like a great free resource!

Anyone have experience with either 121 Spanish or Homeschool Spanish Academy and care to share what they thought of it? It's hard for me to compare the programs based on their websites alone. My dd6 was in a Spanish immersion prek/k program for 2.5 years but now that we are homeschooling fulltime she is losing her Spanish :( We aren't fluent at home, so we aren't able to keep it up by ourselves and hiring a local tutor is really expensive. And most of the Spanish programs for her age group are way too basic. My daughter has a lot of school related vocab (colors, shapes, numbers, letters, animals, etc) and was beginning to read in Spanish. She understand a lot more than she speaks. So whatever Skype-based tutoring we choose will probably have to customize it a bit for her in the beginning. So far it looks like 121 Spanish and Homeschool Spanish Academy are the two best choices, but if there are others I'd love to hear about them as well!

I am tempted also and have actually seriously inquired, but I can't decide if the pros outweigh the cons.

I used CLE with my dd, but I did consider AAR. Although I didn't use AAR, it seemed a lot slower and way more expensive. I agree that CLE can be a bit tedious, but we just skipped the parts that got to repititous. My daughter was reading fairly well after completing it so no real complaints. Those AAR readers looked super cute though...sorry, I probably didn't help much :)

Thanks everyone for the replies! I did finally get to speak to the curriculum person at the charter school and she provided me with a list of "approved" curriculum choices and explained the budget per student for the year and I wasn't impressed. I honestly don't think you could homeschool a child adequately on the amount per student ($500) they are allowing, given the limited choices they provided. I can see, where under the right circumstances, a school like this woudl be awesome; but this one doesn't sound so great :(

I like her. She does have a personality of a bubbly cheerleader, but most fitness instructors do.

Homeschoolers here in OR are required to take state testing during certain grades and it doesn't really bother me to have to take them annually as part of a charter. However, if they are marking progress through testing, I will need to find out how much testing will be required, as I don't want it to be huge hassle throughout the school year.

We homeschool independently, however I am considering using a virtual charter school for next year. One of my options in a new program where the student takes some assessment/learning style tests and then the advisor takes that information and presents a list of pre-approved options that the parents can select from. There is set dollar amount you can not exceed as you choose from the 4 main subject areas (LA, Math, Social Studies, and Science), there are also some enrichment electives. The parent is responsible for teaching, grading, etc and must check in once a week with a teacher and mark attendance. They are planning on tracking progression through assessments throughout the year and basing grades on that. My understanding is there is not formal turning in of assignments (a bit weird to me). This is the first year of the program, so I expect they'll be some issues and policies may change. I like the idea of being able to select from some options (without having the thousands of options currently stressing me out) and also that my daughter is allowed/encouraged to work at different levels for different subjects. And of course I like the idea of free curriculum with the options of online clubs, local field trips etc that provide a bit of community and peers for her. So has anyone particpated in something similar and did it work out? It sounds a bit too good to be true, but I know similar programs exist.

I have never used St Thomas Aquinas but I did consider it as well as Kolbe for Kindergarten and STAA does not seem to have the detailed lessons plans. If I have to pull all those resources together myself why use their program?

As someone that was accelerated, I think it's important to consider her personality and her need to "fit in" socially. I am not sure I was immature or not, but I was fairly anti-social and happy just hanging out in the school library during recess, whereas my older sister was very social and struggled fitting in after her grade skip. She was always socially behind and struggled to be accepted by her new, older classmates. It was very important to her to be included and she never really adjusted. Things like fine motor or being small/young, etc may not be as important as her ability to adapt to the social pressures. I do think accelerating as early as allowed is the best scenario though. Waiting until late elementary or middle school is much harder to adjust to socially (at least in my experience). Honestly, I found acceleration fairly useless though. It caused a lot of social pressure and didn't really address my academic needs (one grade level higher isn't that much more challenging, so a few years down the road you're dealing with another possible grade skip). If you have a descent gifted program I would try that before grade acceleration. I didn't want to face these decisions with my own daughter, because there are no easy answers, so we decided to homeschool :)

We've been using CLE for LA and my dd6 is not a huge fan, although I like the program. I am thinking she would like something more colorful like McRuffy or Abeka, but I am concerned about the amount of religious content in Abeka. Is there a lot in the lower elementary LA?

For what it's worth, we attempted Memoria Press K this last year with my dd5 and it wasn't cute and crafty (although I think they have added an enrichment guide) and the books didn't tie into the main curriculum very well like I was expecting.

Thanks for sharing. I signed up too!

I debated about a reading program for my first grader too. I chose the Beginning Literature guides from logos. So far I have just used them orally, but they are actually short comprehension questions for the student to write. I have been quite pleased so far.

Thanks for all the replies. I think I just find it difficult because my older child was always working at grade level so I could just buy a boxed curriculum and cross of the check boxes. It's much different to just go through the books, but I guess I'll have to adjust :) So far I've been doing what most people have said, and just have a plan for what books to use and just do x amount of time per day. But in 6 months we've flown through 2 grades of Singapore Math; I wasn't prepared for that. And some things (especially LA) I thought we would use were too easy/boring by the time I planned on using it. It just makes being organized more difficult. But I guess I need to learn to be more flexible and just take it a week or day at a time.