It just takes time and practice! The more she drives, the better she'll be. For the 'first time events' (i.e., over a bridge, in a city, on the expressway), I had her Dad go with her, as he's much calmer than I am! :D And our state requires 40 hours of driving to get a license -- my daughter drove for an entire year before she got hers...40 hours just wasn't enough, in our opinion! But hang in there! She WILL get better!

My oldest is about to start her second year at the community college and it's been a wonderful experience for her! She loved her first year! She had wonderful professors and met some really great kids. And she learned sooo many things that will be valuable, whether she is given college credit for them or not at a 4 year university. She learned how to take notes during a lecture! That's something that *I*, as a homeschool mom, don't do. She knew how to take notes out of a text, but I don't stand in front of her for two hours, talking, while she takes notes. She learned how to do that at the cc when she took US History. She learned how to manage her own schedule and turn assignments in on time without mom! I would print out a schedule of her assignments and hand them to her, but it's not the same as figuring out a class syllabus and being responsible for turning everything in on time without being reminded. She would agree with me that those are the two 'best things' she learned while taking cc classes in high school. I also think that those cc credits, and the independent transcript to go with it, will look better to a college admissions officer than "Mom gave me an A in US History in 11th grade".

As you can see from my signature, we have "two sets of children" -- or that's how it seems sometimes! :) My first two are 3 years apart -- then there's 5 1/2 years between my 3rd and 4th children, who are 2 1/2 years apart. On the one hand, it's been wonderful -- I have a built in babysitter in my oldest daughter, so my husband and I have been going out on a weekly date night for the past 4 years! But...it's really strange to be homeschooling my youngest, and teaching her how to read, an hour before I'm driving my oldest to the community college or taking her to take an SAT exam! All in all, I sometimes wish I had had them closer together, but I will be able to be a "mom" for a lot longer than some of my friends! Our friends who had their children closer together are all sending them off to college and then complaining that the house is too quiet. I won't have an empty house for another 12 or 13 years!! And THAT is nice, if you like having children around! And I had no problems with getting, or staying, pregnant. I had #3 the day after my 37th birthday and #4 at 39.

I conceived #4 at 38 and delivered at 39. My cycles were regular (and still are, 6 years later! Go figure!) It took 9 months of trying before it worked.

My oldest studied Latin from 3rd grade through 8th grade (using first the Latin Primer -- which *I* had trouble teaching! -- then with Latina Christiana I and II, followed by the Henle Latin series). She switched to Spanish in 9th grade and used The Learnables for 3 years (9th, 10th, and 11th) and her conversational skills are 'adequate', but there was very little writing and grammar instruction. She wants to study Arabic now (and for her own special reason: her #1 career goal is to work for a government protection agency after college -- i.e., FBI, CIA, etc. -- and she feels that by studying Arabic, it will increase her chances for acceptance). So I'm looking into Auralog's Tell Me More -- I sent away for the free CD for Arabic and for Spanish for my 14 year old. He hasn't studied Latin. I tried, once, but he has high functioning autism and Latin brought him to tears on numerous occasions, so I shelved it. We did go through the Latina Christiana series, but only as a vocabulary source, if that makes sense -- he enjoyed memorizing the basic meanings, but he just couldn't get conjugating the words. I've ordered Spanish for him simply because there are so many Spanish speaking people in the US now! He hasn't chosen a major yet, but one of the careers he's sort of thinking of is architecture or something in the construction field and I know he'll need to speak Spanish, at least on a conversational basis, if he's working in construction! So...those are our reasons!

I just saw an ad for these in a magazine. Has anyone used them? I sent away for free demo CDs in Spanish (for my upcoming 9th grader) and Arabic (for my upcoming 12th grader -- who plans on studying Arabic in college and I thought it might be a good 'warm-up' for her). I'd love to know anyone's thoughts on this program, as it mentions in the ad that it provides the equivalent of 4 years of learning, and it also contains grammar instruction. Thanks in advance!

My oldest makes $10 an hour babysitting. She's been through a babysitting course and a CPR / First Aid course, and she has experience with special needs children (her youngest sister has autism). She also has her own car and a driver's license, so there are no transportation issues in her case.

Here are my upcoming 9th grader's classes: English - Smarr's Introduction to Literature Math - Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1 History - BJU Geography Foreign Language - The Learnables First Year Spanish Science - Apologia Biology Art - Cathy Johnson's Sketching and Drawing Plays baseball (spring and fall) and basketball (winter) for the county

Wow....I wanna come to YOUR house!! It's been over a 100 for the past five days here and we're all melting!! :D

For my 9th grader - 6 classes this coming year (all at home) For my 12th grader - 8 classes this coming year (4 at the community college and 4 at home)

My Aspie son has made many friends by joining our local Little League Challengers baseball team. It's baseball for special needs individuals, ages 5 through 22. He LOVES to play ball! He started out at shortstop and he was just 'promoted' to 1st base this year and, boy, is he proud! :D You could check for a team in your area at the Little League website or by contacting your local parks and recreation department. And children of ALL abilities can play. We have some children on the team who have severe disabilities and they are given buddies, who help them to hit the ball, walk the bases (or push their wheelchair, if they're physically disabled). If they have vision issues, then they're given a tee to hit off of, no matter how old they are. There are quite a few Aspies on the team, and they are able to 'truly play ball', if that makes sense -- they have a pitcher to pitch to them, field their own balls, etc. -- it's all based on their own individual abilities and my son has made many friends who don't think he's "weird" at all. And WE have made friends with other parents of special needs children who understand what WE are going through every day out there in the "real world". We've heard about special camps, good local therapists, etc. They go to tournaments in the area, too -- we've been to Pennsylvania, Maryland, and my son's favorite is a weekend tournament in Virginia Beach. So I highly recommend giving it a try! (Another thing to look into is Special Olympics. They're just starting a local Special Olympics team here for basketball - which my son wants to play this winter - and soccer.) Hope this helps!

My 14 year old used Math-U-See from Kindergarten through 7th and switched to TT PreAlgebra this past year in 8th. He scored in the 84th percentile for math in 7th and in the 99th percentile for math in 8th!! Woohoo! On to TT Algebra I in the fall :)

I thought I replied to this one before...but I don't see it here now! I used Apologia for high school 7th - General Science 8th - Physical Science 9th - Biology 10th - Chemistry 11th - Physics 12th - Marine Biology The 12th grade is open for whatever each of my kids chooses to study - my oldest has chosen Marine Biology for this coming school year

It depends :) My oldest watches "Lost" ... and that's it. She's not a TV watcher My two boys don't watch much TV either. They don't have any favorite shows. They may watch it occasionally .. I'd say less than an hour or two a week. My youngest watches her three favorite shows once day -- are you ready for her favorites? -- "Pink Panther", "Wheel of Fortune", and "Jeopardy". :D So that's an hour and a half a day for her.

My daughter has special needs -- and fine motor delays. For her, I purchased the workbook, the music CD (she loves it!!), the wooden shapes to make the letters, flip crayons (to ensure a good grip) and the little pencils -- they look like golf pencils with erasers on them. (When my older children used the program, who didn't have any fine motor issues, I just purchased the workbooks)

13 years!! My oldest will be a Senior this coming year and graduating -- the first little birdie to leave the nest! :crying: But...I'll also have a 1st grader this fall, so I have another...12 years to go!! :D

My children do two lists per week. For instance, list 1 would be given Monday and they are to look up the definition in the dictionary, if it's an unfamiliar word, write it down, and use it in a sentence (the more often you write a word, the more likely you are to remember it). Then on Tuesday, they have a spelling quiz on list 1. Wednesday, they are given list 2, with the same things done for each word , and they have a quiz on that list on Thursday. On Fridays, they go over any words they missed on their spelling quizzes from Tuesdays and Thursdays. And so on and so forth. :)

This is just my own "pet theory", but I think it comes down to not giving kids a sense that they deserve to have everything they want or need. The "I'm entitled to it" mindset drives alot of it. Also...we can't start chores when our kids are 5 and expect them to enjoy it. We need to start when they're babies. My children started doing chores when they were old enough to walk -- of course, waiting while one of our kids took all the spoons out of the dishwasher basket at 15 months and handing them to you one at a time was like watching paint dry, but they learned at an early age to work and, at that age, they want to please you. And, when they're older, give them real work to do. My son was around 5 or 6 years old when he overheard my SIL say that she had just had a cord of wood dropped in her driveway and she was commenting that she and her husband were going to have to stack it when he came home from work that night. My son begged and pleaded to go over to her house and stack the firewood. So my SIL patted him on his proverbial head and let him come over and join them, thinking he'd work for 10 minutes and then come inside and watch TV. He helped them stack an entire cord of firewood. She said that he must have worked with them, side by side, for 3 hours straight. They were flabbergasted. Another case in point are the nephews of some good friends of ours. Their father had died and they helped their mom around the house. We had to move out of our home and to a neighboring state, at very short notice, and we desperately needed someone to come over and help us move. Our friend volunteered his nephews, who were 12 and 13 at the time. Let me tell you, they were at our house at 6am and they worked until 8pm at night. They hauled and they lifted and they carried and they answered "Yes, Ma'am" and "No, Ma'am" -- even though I told them they could just call me by my first name. We paid them $100 each that evening and they stared at the money...and I heard from their uncle that they went home and took their picture with it...before giving half it to their mom to help pay the rent. We moved an entire house - in one weekend - with the help of six children under the age of 14. Can work ethic be taught at a later age? I don't know! But I would find real work for your kids to do, not just "simple chores" -- have them tackle something big, like hauling firewood, or mowing the lawn, or vacuuming every room in the house, or scrubbing all of the tubs and showers -- and don't make it paid work. They live in the house, too, and it's part of contributing to the family. (No one pays me to cook dinner or do the laundry....I do it because I'm the mom and it's my "job") And it's done right or it's done over -- the same can be said for schoolwork. *climbs down from her soapbox* ;)

I can tell you what is working, and has worked in the past, for my Aspie. (He's 14, and finishing the 8th grade, and has been homeschooled all his life) Phonics / Reading -- he learned to read with Alpha Phonics, which uses a word ladder approach to reading vs "true phonics". Color distracted him terribly and he enjoyed the Pathway Reader series for 1st and half of 2nd grade. Once he got the hang of reading, he enjoyed the easy-to-read chapter books. I remember that he liked Frog and Toad and The Magic Treehouse and he *loved* Amelia Bedelia when he 8 or so!! He likes to read science fiction and fantasy, or real stories (biographies, action stories, etc.), and he loves to read science and nature books. Finding something he enjoys reading has made him into a reader, if that makes sense. We use alot of Sonlight in our homeschool, which has been wonderful for him! Handwriting - Handwriting Without Tears -- he used the entire series, from Kindergarten through 5th grade. Spelling -- Natural Speller -- I love this book! He struggled with spelling for years and I tried many curriculums until I realized that the trouble he had with spelling was the same trouble he had when he was learning how to read - he can't hear all of the phonetic sounds. Natural Speller is one book with short spelling lists, organized by grade level, and phonetic or spelling rule. He began with the 2nd grade list and worked his way up to the 5th and 6th grade lists this year (this coming fall, he'll tackle the 7th and 8th grade lists, which is the end of the Natural Speller book) Writing and Grammar -- Rod & Staff!!! Oh, what a difference this has made!! He loves the black and white pages, as they're not distracting, and the drill has been invaluable for him. We started late (with the 2nd grade book in 5th grade) and he's doing so well with it! He'll be using the 6th grade text this year in 9th History -- He loved the Story of the World series, along with the maps and coloring pages, and he loves Sonlight Science -- anything hands-on was great when he was younger. We used the Considering God's Creation, The Scientist's Apprentice, The Backyard Scientist, and the Janice Van Cleave books. He's now using Apologia science. Math -- Math-U-See -- we used this from Kindergarten through 7th grade, and then we switched to Teaching Textbooks for PreAlgebra in 8th. He loved both programs. He loves the TT book because he can teach himself math and the built-in review has been very good for him -- again, no distracting color -- just black and white pages and the CDs are great if he is stuck on a problem he can't figure out Art -- How Great Thou Art -- he *loves* art and we've used almost all of the books in this series! He also loves the "how - to - draw" type of books. I think that's everything! Hope this helps!

An hour sounds sufficient for Core 6. What I often do is all of the read-alouds, history, Bible, etc., I put into my schedule, and the readers are saved and given to the student at the end of the homeschool day and then they're free to read at a relaxing pace (they often read ahead, if they're really enjoying the book!)

We have two dogs: Buddy and Spunky We have one cat: Chloe We have one fish: Blue

My oldest shares the same name as my mother and my husband's grandmother. My second is named for my uncle (my father's only brother), and his middle name is my father-in-law's first name My third's first name is all his own, but his middle name is the same as another uncle (on my mother's side) My fourth is named after my mother-in-law's sister. Her middle name is all her own.

Mac -- the wirehaired dachshund I had when I was a kid! I got him for my 13th birthday and he died when I was 24 -- less than 2 months after I moved away from home :( Jake -- our shepherd / lab mix! We picked him up at the shelter when he was 6 weeks old. My oldest was a year old and they grew up together. We had to put him down 2 years ago, due to old age. He was the smartest dog!! We still miss him. When we were putting up our Christmas tree last year, we found his stocking and put it up with the others and the kids all cried. :(

We didn't circ our boys and, being homeschooled, they've never had to deal with locker rooms or anything like that. To them, it's natural and I can't imagine that it would 'freak their wife out'. I saw no reason to hurt a newborn baby just so he'd "fit in" or because he might "need to be circ'ed in the future". To me, that would be the equivalent of removing a baby girl's breasts because she might get breast cancer one day.

My daughter used years 1 through 3 and really enjoyed them. She's deciding between switching to Rosetta Stone or using year 4 right now (she wants to see both at our area's homeschool convention next week)