If we could afford it, we would definitely homeschool. My husband supports my decision either way. Our oldest is turning 18 and never wanted to be homeschooled. The twins are in third grade PS, and it breaks my heart to have to send them to school every day. They are very advanced (not gifted) and usually learn the material much faster than their classmates. There is a lot of busy work, and much sitting around. I also feel, that with the school day being so long, there is no time to teach them real life skills. Both younger boys come home at 4pm, homework takes about 1 hour until everything is put away and ready to go for the next day, dinner, shower, reading and lights out. No room for activities or afterschooling. That said, we could make homeschooling work financially, but there'd be nothing left for extras. No field trips, no gymnastics or swimming, no annual trips to my home country Germany. So when you weigh these options, I feel that our family benefits more if I work and bring in the additional income. It is unfortunate, but at least we can both say that we made one decision over another. If childcare was free, I'd homeschool in a heartbeat!

My twins' school also uses enVision. First and second grade gets to be extremely repetitive, but in 3rd grade I'm noticing a huge step up. We have always afterschooled with MEP, picking and choosing only some of the problems. I feel that this has prepared them extremelely well and both boys are now ahead of the curve. MEP is very challenging, but it increases the difficulty gradually. I don't think many young kids enjoy coming across a problem they can't solve right away. To them it is only black and white: I can either do it or I can't! I see it changing somewhat at age 8 almost 9 now, but this change comes with frustration. One of my sons will attempt a problem, have a meltdown and run off into his room, only to come back with the answer to his problem. Have you taken a look at MEP?

If nothing else helps, and you can't convince the young man otherwise, he could wear sunglasses in your class that are covered from the inside so he can't see anything, but still hear everything. Have him do an audio recording of each class with his own comments on it. Sit a student who is academically equally inclined next to him and have the student comment on what is happening. I have never btdt, but those ideas came to mind.

Another strong vote against Touchmath! Touchmath has the students count by the shape of the number, and it is virtually impossible to develop number sense this way. It's as if the Base 10 concept doesn't exist with this program. The kids cannot "unsee" the dots on each number and will just count on every single time. Please do not use Touchmath.

Typing web, now just typing dot com, is excellent! It has incremental sections and your DD could do one a day. They start out with letters, then words, sentences and special characters, and lastly stories. Best of all, it's totally free!

I work in a third grade classroom. They use envision as their curriculum and division gets introduced in third grade, shortly after multiplication. There are some times tests and facts should be somewhat memorized. I do believe that they will revisit the concept in fourth though. Long division is not covered in third at my school. If your son did fairly well with MUS, he should easily be able to see how multiplication and division relate to each other. Practice a bit with the blocks during the summer and he should be fine.

Gut gemacht!!! That is quite the accomplishment! I have the same question as wintermom: Die she study anything foreign language related previously?

Just listening in here. Could you elaborate on this please, Heigh Ho? Specifically on the difference of scoring well and writing well, and how you would help your child achieve one or the other.

I would suggest you post this on the accelerated forum. Some members have had their kids do the Russian Math Olympiad that is associated with this company/website.

If you are leaning towards MEP, you could try Step up to A-Level maths. It has 4 quick studyguides and is designed to give you a review of already learned material in order to prepare you for higher level mathematics. If you have difficulties with any of the problems, there are links that will bring you to the part of MEP where this specific problem is taught with more detail.

My twin boys are only in 2nd grade, so we are not very far into this journey. Initially, we were afterschooling mainly for reading, so that they could learn phonics instead of sight words. The boys are also learning German. Since there are 180 days of school, that left us with 185 days of afterschooling. That is at what we did in Kindergarten. This never took more than about 30 minutes a day, and we routinely switched what we did. Since we've moved, their school day starts at 9am, and they don't get home until about 3:45pm. There are usually two homework assignments, plus any pending projects. Our solution was to do our "afterschooling" before school. The twins get up at 7am and do 30 minutes of work while eating breakfast. They are now both very advanced readers and don't need more reading instruction. We have since switched to doing MEP math in the mornings, and German read alouds at night before bed. It is not ideal, since German gets left behind somewhat, but I noticed that I constantly have to remediate what the kids "learn" in school for math. This routine works for us now. I am constantly on the lookout for saving us more time, as school takes up so much of that. It helps that I walk the kids to school in the mornings as late as possible and pick them up again. It's a time commitment on my part, but less time for them spent on the long bus ride. Plus they get some fresh air and exercise. At this point in time, their only extracurricular is on Sundays, so thankfully I don't have to work around that. We also take bike rides, go for walks, and go to the playground. If your children have many extracurriculars, work around that by using the 185 days that there is no school. It also helps, that I severely limit the kids' screen time. One more thing you could do, if you are in the car a lot, is car schooling. Mental math, books, audiobooks, latin, all is game as long as there are no screens allowed. Same goes for any other wait times you encounter (doctor's and dentist's visits, DMV, waiting while another sibling is doing their sport, etc.). HTH!

Ask your local library. Many Students need volunteer time for the Honor Society, this is where you may be able to find them.

I've been looking at your job for quite some time now, but I'm in CT. I also need to improve my typing speed first. Working as a transcriber in a University sounds like a dream job!

Thanks Binip!

Binip, what German book are you using? We are also debating getting BA for afterschooling (instead of MEP). Now that you posted your update, and seeing how much you like it, we may just do it starting this summer.

We use "Planetino-Deutsch für Kinder". You can find it at hueber.de I really love all the games it incorporates. I haven't found a translation into English for it though, so you won't be able to use it unless you can already speak some German or know someone who can teach you. You can also try Deutsche Welle, there are different free online options. This would probably work best for your older two kids.

My twin boys started reading in preschool, chapter books in K. The teachers in K and first basically told me that they cannot advance my kids unless their writing is up to par with their reading :confused1: The most I was able to accomplish was that they don't have to take readers home but will instead choose something else to read. This gave us time for afterschooling reading, math, and German. They are in 2nd grade now and just about finished reading the ALL the Harry Potter books. 2nd grade is much better, since the focus of school is not so much the mechanics of reading anymore. My kids' teachers this year are fabulous though, so I am worried this may not last. I would homeschool if money wasn't an issue.

You and I must be twins! Same experiences here with my twin boys!

Our playset was barely ever used, and the kids don't miss it at all since we've moved. We did have a playground nearby though and now live right next to a park. I would say the only thing worth it are the swings, since you live quite far from a park. What has gotten the most use as far as outside play equipment goes was/is: Trampoline (this would be absolute #1 on my list!) Metal monkey bars with rope and trapeze Balance bikes Hope that helps!

:smilielol5:

We absolutely NEED this here!

I know some parents who charge their kids 90% tax daily on all acquired candy for Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's, Birthdays... All tax is to be paid immediately upon acquisition in the form of candy and / or chocolate. These parents have been seen at campgrounds on Halloween weekend during the month of September, just so that they can charge aforementioned Halloween tax multiple times!

I am sorry that I don't have advice for you. I had to chime in though, because having twins myself (I know you daughters are not twins, but rather close in age), I find it VERY unethical that their teacher is giving you one time slot for both of them! They are two different individuals, and therefore should be given separate conference times. I would definitely mention the fact that one of your daughters needs more time to complete work and you would welcome it if the teacher sent it home over the weekend. As for the yelling and putting kids down in front of the class, this can easily turn into a he-said-she-said pointing fingers situation, where your daughters will suffer even more if you bring that up. Instead, you could suggest that your daughter is struggling with the classroom dynamics this year and you would like to know where this stems from. You could then ask to shadow the class for a day, or help out one morning a week. The closer your bond with the teacher, the better your kids will get treated. It's just human nature.

MEP is fitted to print on A4 paper, not letter sized. I usually copy the problems I want my kids to work on as a screen picture into word. This will come out the correct size. If you do all the problems on a page, use Sherry's suggestion and make sure that your printer settings don't say scale to fit letter size paper.

If your son loved reading with you when he was little, but is now disinterested in reading by himself, I would not have him read 30min twice a day by himself. It may feel to him as if he's been put in time out, now that he has managed the very hard task of being able to read by himself. He may just be trying to hold on to his own personal mommy-time. My suggestion is that you popcorn-read, so him a page then you a page, for about 20min once or twice a day. Any selection of literature will do, sometimes he gets to choose, sometimes you will choose for him. After the time is up, leave him be. If he likes the book, he will keep reading it on his own, but don't expect this to happen magically every time. Don't ever stop this reading routine, unless he asks you to. Keep the popcorn reading at a maximum of 20 minutes, as it can be very exhausting on your son, and you want him to have the stamina to continue on his own after you leave his side. I have twin boys(7) and they love to read, but I do feel your pain as it can be very trying to keep the fire going.