I've got cookies being accepted and it still won't work. Any other ideas? FWIW, I've tried IE 8 and firefox 3 on two different laptops and it just won't work...

I've got the same issues with my son. Since he grasps the concepts very quickly, I am trying to go deeper by exploring each topic in greater detail and from different prospectives so I am using MUS and RS. I am also adding in different number systems as a fun aside to go broader. Here is my plan, if this helps you, to give him the best foundation I can: Exploring Ancient Number Systems - to go broader and cover topics that he usually wouldn't come across Speed Maths - to improve his mental multiplication skills Math U See delta RightStart D Practice estimating and measuring (lengths, weights, volumes) The combination of RightStart and MathUSee is my attempt (since he is moving so rapidly) to make maths as concrete for him as possible. I figure you can't over-learn the basics. A child like this gives you the opportunity to explore these early concepts from many different angles. He'll work through Exploring Ancient Number Systems and Speed Maths as supplements. When they are finished, I expect he'll also probably be through MUS delta and RS D. Then we will work on LoF as a supplement and Singapore Word Problems while continuing on with MUS and RS to finish off primary school maths.

I've got one each in grade 1 and 2 this year, so I can only tell you what we've been doing. I haven't been following the WTM suggestion for science, though. We like Noeo's book suggestions for science. I actually find the activities aren't that great, and neither is the teacher's manual. So, I just use it for the book recommendations. RS4k is great for this age, I've used Chem but not Bio yet. This is more a 'textbooky' approach, but we really enjoyed it. Ambleside Online suggests using the "Burgess Book of Animals" and the "Burgess Book of Birds" for grades 1 and 2. I haven't used these, so I can't comment. For learning about animals, our favourite and most useful has honestly just been visiting the zoos and children's farm. We bought a yearly membership to the zoo so we have unlimited access to the three zoos in Melbourne. We'll just go and spend the afternoon there and spend ages observing the animals. We love listening to the keeper's talks that they do, and the children ask heaps of questions. We are such 'zoo junkies' a lot of the staff know the children and are happy to stop and explain things and chat to them. No better source of information on animals than a zoo for a city child imo!

English: Spelling: SWR Grammar: Shurley Grammar Latin: Song School Latin then on to Minimus Maths: MUS, RS and mathletics History: SOTW if I can ever get around to doing this (whenever I want to, I don't seem to have the right materials in the house!) Science: RS4k and Noeo And the ones I outsource: Arts: 'afterschool' drama, dance and pottery lessons, to Grandma's for art Sport: 'afterschool' tennis, swimming, gymnastics + occupational therapy for dyspraxia

I've tried on two different computers. I can't work out what is wrong. Now you've said that though I'm thinking that maybe the error is at their end. Hopefully they fix it.

It's easy to say but...you really shouldn't feel guilty for mourning over 'what might have been'. When I was 12 my amazingly wonderful, intelligent, vibrant father had a massive heart attack and has severe brain damage as a result. It has been part of my life since '94. I don't think I'll ever 'get over it' but I can deal with it most of the time. Most of the time I deal with it and accept it as being part of my life. Sometimes I get really down about it, particularly with big exciting changes. I wanted my dad to know that he was a grandfather. Actually, when I got married I wanted my dad to remember that he had a daughter. My graduation ceremony from uni was something that he wouldn't be able to attend, so I chose to graduate in absentia. There are certain other things that trigger my grief, but most of the time it doesn't bother me to much. I know you asked about a child. I think I would find it harder to deal with if it was one of my children rather than a parent. :grouphug:

We avoid any science curricula that is ID or creationist because this does not fit our family. We have enjoyed RS4K chemistry, though I take your point about a curriculum written by an ID proponent. We've also enjoyed NOEO. In Australia, the CSIRO publish educational material. If you go onto their website and look at Double Helix or Scientriffic you will find some good things on that. My son has a subscription (as did I when I was little) and reads it thoroughly when it arrives each two-months. It's written in an interesting manner, aimed at kids, engaging, informative and in the format of a magazine. They also have a weekly "science by email" that has articles and activities. HTH

My son loves to do the reading comprehension exercises in books specially designed for this purpose. Rainbow Resources and EPS books both sell these (eg Making Connections etc). I like to use non-fiction for this so I know they are absorbing factual information, and re-inforcing to me that they are understand what they are reading.

I seem to be having the same problem I have seen others post about on here. We are using Song School Latin at the moment with DD6 and DS7. We are about half way through and the kids love Latin. I plan on moving on to Minimus afterwards for a bit of fun. Minimus has only 8 lessons, which I didn't realize when I bought it, so I guess this will only take us about 2 months. It too looks like some fun for the kids. My aim for Song School latin and Minimus was to introduce Latin in a fun way so that they had a positive experience with Latin. My daughter will be nearly 7 and my son 8.5 when I expect to finish up with Minimus. Both are already reading well in English. DD is strong in LA. DS does not struggle with the mechanics of language (grammar, spelling, reading) but not so strong with creative LA. I'm not sure where I should go next. I had planned to move on to LFC at some point (being secular is a big plus here). However, I have doubts that it will be suitable at that age. I have been reading other posts on a similar vein and wondering if we should maybe do Prima Latina or Lively Latin after Minimus. I know Prima Latina is marketed at this age group, but from what I've heard it is extensively based on the bible. Would Lively Latin be suitable, or should I move straight into LFC? I don't mind repeating material as I figure that they can move quicker through material that they already know and use it as a good review so they have a strong foundation. Can anyone offer me some advise on where to move to?

It would be good to see it IRL. If you are in Melbourne, you are welcome to compare it to our SWR. PM me if you are interested.

I know our local ps uses this (in Melbourne). They seem to lean more heavily on Letterland, though. My kids use SWR and seem to have a far better knowledge of phonics and spelling rules. Whether this is for virtue of small group (mum and two kids) rather than classroom, or the method of implementation, I don't know.

I've had similar issues with DS7 and DD6 as there is 18 months between them. They are both bright, but DD6 is more mature than he is and a girl so they seem even closer. They are usually combined for most things ("the bigger two" or "the littlies"). It is easier to combine them for most things. Usually they get the argument that he's a year older and therefore he does more. He's more motivated so they usually take similiar lengths of time to finish their work anyway. Dh had a week off work and at the end of the week said in front of the kids 'why does ds always have more work than ds?' :confused: I was really pleased when the kids explained to him that it was because he was older. The other bonus is that dd always feels a great sense of achievement when she gets something or reachs a level that her brother has done when she's heard the big deal that was made over it with him. This usually motivates her more.

With baby 1 the hospital funded meals on wheels and a house cleaner for two hours a week for the first 2 months. I loved that, but it was no longer on offer when baby 2 was born the next year. My husband was back at work within a few days, she was colicky and I didn't cope very well When baby 3 was born my husband only had a few days off and I felt terrible. I had my mum to help a bit. With babies 1 - 3 I always had a huge amount of meals in the freezer ready to eat. That made a big difference. When baby 4 was born in November 08 I hadn't done that, but my husband has been doing all the cooking. Still, it means that one pair of hands is occupied at that time. I love to use the slow cooker because it means I can prepare the meal at a time that suits. I didn't want mother's help straight away, but after about 6 weeks with baby 4 I am desperate for it. I struggle to school dc 1 and 2, while taking care of 3yo needs and a newbon. I looked into it and found that the government in Australia will fund in-home child care to families that meet particular criteria (3+ children at home, a child or parent with a disability/illness (dyspraxia counts for us). Is there some way you can access something similar? Anyway, we have a girl starting next week when baby is 9 weeks old and will be paying very little out of our own pocket. If it had not been for Xmas, New Years, I would have liked it starting earlier at about 4 weeks (given us our own private time for bonding, settling etc). It will make a huge difference. I say go for it if in any way you can - its a good way of being able to meet dc needs because no matter how much time and attention they get they always want more.

Please excuse my ignorance, but I'm not sure exactly what these are? The idea of a co-op sounds interesting from what I've understood about it from posts, but I'm in Australia and I don't know of anything like that happening here or anyone who'd be interesting.

After some of the replies here and to my other post about DS, I'm thinking I'll cut out handwriting and Wordly Wise. The phonics drill is part of SWR (sort of) but I really need to work out how to condense it as it takes longer than I want it to. I'd like to put in more of the fun stuff, and it does feel like its a bit heavy to me, but she does well with it. She doesn't seem to have a problem doing it, its that I want her to be playing more but I don't want her to have any gaps in her basic skills either. What could I condense/combine in language arts? Her handwriting is not great at all, would it be OK just to say she's doing enough handwriting anyway and drop it or should I keep going with it? she does a LOT of reversals. I added in RS to MUS because MUS is going so slowly with waiting for mastery before we move on. It just seems like a drill now to me, so while I didn't want to drop it, I did want it to be more interesting before I killed her love of maths. MUS only takes about 5 - 10 minutes and it is essentially a drill. Would ambelside be a good add on for fun? We often miss getting to the history and science because I feel like she's had enough and just want her to go and ride her bike or play.

The language arts do feel very heavy, but I'm also aware that this is his weakness. Although he uses words appropriately and has a decent vocab, he is poor at defining the meanings of a word. When he was being evaluated for nearly everything because of the dyspraxia it came out that he did poorly on the vocab section compared to everything else. I was surprized at this, but that's why I added in Wordly Wise. I think I might drop it again though so things aren't so heavy. Would it be OK to cut out handwriting? It's not terrible, but he doesn't write very neatly either. The phonics drill is done (sory of) as part of SWR. Only prob is that it seems to be dragging on. We do it on a timer now. I've tried to think of ways to shorten it, but it really does seem to be making a big impact. I just itemize everything for them on daily checklist so that I have no arguments with dc about what to do. Maths is his 'thing'. We've added in the RS to try and go a bit 'broader'. He also loves maths. I just feel that things are a bit heavy, and want to do more of the fun stuff. But on the other hand, I don't want to miss anything.

We started homeschooling for a few reasons. Academics was one. Wanting the time together as a family was another. Wanting the kids to have more time to play and explore rather than being in a classroom. Ds7 is bright but has dyspraxia (motor planning disorder) so is inarticulate and was assumed to be 'dumb' in a classroom. My family is extremely supportive of hs. FIL lives interstate and he's the only negative one. My MIL and my mum both come over one day a week each to help out with schooling and the littlies. It makes an incredible difference. My MIL also does art classes with the kids on a Friday morning, which gives me a break and fills a gap that I have little ability to do. I figure that anyone outside of the family doesn't matter what their opinion is. I work 5 - 9 two days a week, and 3 - 9 Saturdays in a community pharmacy. This provides the extra $$ we need and also keeps my finger in the pie. Really, I'm not going to go anywhere with my career in the next decade or two. I'd prefer to work in hospital pharmacy than as a community pharmacist. More than that, though, I want to be there with my children and make sure they have the best childhood and the best education they can get. The kids went to school from Febuary - August 08. Now we've started hs DS7 is absolutely adament that there is no way known he's going back to a school again. DD6 says she misses her friends, but she doesn't want to go there again. They also tell me that they learn so much more now in so much less time.

I find that the timer works wonders around here! I use both the 'finish before the timer goes off' and the 'see how long it takes you as the time counts up' methods here. Could you get him to read a non fiction book or a book he enjoys to help with reading? DD and DS both read me two pages of a novel (at the moment it is Little House in the Big Wood) each day as a read aloud. They both enjoy this book, so its not an argument. At the end of each week I re-read what they have read to me. My kids don't like encorporating games into schooling (I don't know why, but we always end up with melt downs and temper tantrums if I try to make a game out of it). Does your son like or not like games? Maybe this could be something to try. I hate those days that everything seems to drag. I find that these days are usually the days that the dc are trying to work out if they can get away with things or see if they push hard enough if they can get out of it. I hate power struggles and I'm not a very authoritative parent, but I have to stand my ground or I'll never get anything done later unless they choose to do it.

My kids both fought and fought about handwriting. We are very new to home schooling (just started in August). I found two things helped - one is that I tried copywork and a Beatrix Potter copybook (google it) worked really well with improving the attitude rather than what I had been doing. Then I tried saying to the kids that the timer was on for ten minutes and I didn't care how much they got done, I only cared that they tried their best during this time. That improved things a lot. They still hate it, but it's not a fight now. I've told them that once I see that their handwriting is just as neat in all their school work as in their handwriting practice then I'll stop requiring them to do it. That won't happen any time soon, but it helped a bit for them to know where they stood.

I forgot to add that like Amber, I know that a lot of schools in Melbourne (where I live) use this.

I subscribe through our home education network Victoria. They charge $30 per child to access mathletics. My DS7 begs to play on mathletics, and the other day when I told him 'would you just go and play' he insisted that mathletics was playing. They love this, and 'live mathletics' incorporates a competitive facts drill which has paid dividends for us as he actually wants to do this and sits there doing it for fun. DD6 enjoys mathletics too, but is not as in to it as DS7 so she'll just do it in short blocks. That might be because he's hogging the computer and we have computer time equity issues between the two of them. She's not as motivated and as competitive with herself as DS is. DS loves 'beating his record' and finds this rewarding and motivating, DD enjoys this but not to the extent he does. If there is a lesson they struggle with they can 'visit support' to get a tutorial on how to do it. The only caveat to this is that you still need to teach it yourself later because dc seem to get very good at answering the questions without really understanding why. I made a deal with dc that if they achieve 90+ % in every category and subcategory then I will let them move to the next year level. This has been great for DS as it has forced him to do the categories he doesnt like as much as he is weaker at spatial tasks than number tasks. It only works because the idea of moving into the next grade level of work motivates DS, but this doesn't work for DD. There is enough other inbuilt rewards to make dd want to do it, though. I love this program, and even though I thought a webbased program wouldnt be enough I now think it's fantastic. I would not use it as a spine, but it is an absolutely fabulous supplement, particularly when they choose to do it in spare time.

DS is 7 (his birthday is in May, so 7.5). In Australia, he would be considered to have just finished grade one, so entering grade 2 this month. He does maths daily; a facts drill, MUS gamma lesson and a RightStart C lesson. He thinks mathletics is a great game and chooses to do this in his spare time. We try and get to history and science once a week or more, and I think I am going to maybe try ambelside because this appears to be something that would suit. For language arts we do: a phonics drill, SWR, grammar (Shurley English, minus the composition), Wordly Wise 3000, Song School Latin and reading aloud to me, handwriting practice and dictation. He also does a reading comprehension exercise such as from Making Connections, Claim to Fame or McCalls. Each of these is done daily (5 days one week, 4 days the next). He does dance, drama, art, pottery, swimming and gymnastics as afterschool activities, but only two days a week as art, pottery, swimming and gymnastics are all on Fridays, and the tennis and drama are Monday evenings. He loves these and does not find them too much. All this takes about three hours. Is this too much at 7? Is there something I should or shouldn't be doing at this age? He and DD6 do a similar load (I've posted the same about DD6) and I'm not sure how it would go having a big difference in what he does compared to DD6. For what its worth, he is a highly motivated, academic child. He is very fidgity, but he also makes comments frequently about wanting to have achieved/finished/completed x before date y. I insist on mastery before he progresses, so he is motivated to master one topic quickly because he wants to move to the next level. He is not competitive with his sister, but extremely competitive with himself and constantly wants to do better than before. Is there anything I can cut, or that I need to be doing? Please help me balance our day.

DD is 6 (her birthday is in November, so only just 6). In Australia, she would be considered to have just finished kindergarten. SHe does maths daily; a facts drill, MUS alpha lesson, RightStart B lesson. We try and get to history and science once a week or more, and I think I am going to maybe try ambelside because this appears to be something that would suit. For language arts we do: a phonics drill, SWR, grammar (Shurley English, minus the composition), Wordly Wise 3000, SSL and reading aloud to me, handwriting practice and dictation. She does dance, drama, art, pottery, swimming and gymnastics as afterschool activities, but only two days a week as art, pottery, swimming and gymnastics are all on Fridays, and the tennis and drama are Monday evenings. She loves these and does not find them too much. All this takes about three hours. Is this too much at 6? Is there something I should or shouldn't be doing at this age? It seems like a lot, she and DS7 do a similar load (I've posted the same about DS7) and I'm not sure how it would go having a big difference in what she does compared to DS7. She is not goal orientated like her brother, but still motivated. Is there anything I can cut, or that I need to be doing? Please help me balance our day

I know this may be a touchy subject, so I'm not sure if I should raise it but I would like some input. I remember my grandmother telling me that her parents sat her and her sisters down and said "We don't believe in God, but we want you to make your own educated decision about your beliefs. You will be going to spend six months at Sunday school of one religion, then six months at a different religion etc etc...". I have been thinking after a post on the LCC yahoo group that I would like my children to be educated about various religion's ideas, philosophies, rituals etc in the same manner that my grandmother and her sisters were. However, I have absolutely no knowedge or idea on how I would approach this. I would not want to present the ideas or paradigms of just one religion, instead I would prefer to give an overview of a variety of religions. Does anyone have any ideas on how I could do this?

I have heard some people say its busy work, but I really like a combination of McCalls-Crabb and some of the reading comp books by EPS books. The kids like these activities too, and I find it focuses them on what they are reading. I may be kidding myself, but I think I notice them finding it easier to pick out subtlties and also interpret what was inferred. It also gives me a brief insight into what points they struggle to interpret from a text as well as what comes easily. ie My son will always be able to answer accurately the things that were explicitly stated. He will often miss more subtle things such as the story was set in January and is an American book we should assume that it was Winter, not Summer, and therefore it was cold, not hot. These inferences are being picked up on more as we explicitely teach them rather than assume that they will be learnt by osmosis.