I downloaded four spelling apps from Simplex Spelling today. They have a free one that you can download to sample it. Here is a video review of simplex spelling: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xks4q7_simplex-spelling-hd-ipad-app-demo-dailyappshow_school#.UVCTOz3D_IU The great thing about the app is the instant feedback, and the lower levels you can get a phonics hint. I also sampled the Sequential Spelling, and it seems like it is just for review of the actual curriculum, but I only sampled it, so I'm not certain. I didn't like the computerized voice in the app.

We have been using phonetic zoo. My ds loves it. I didn't buy the audio with it. We use it together. If you use the audio it makes the program independent. The concept behind the program could be used for any set of words.

She'll run out of things to sell eventually, then she will work or start a business. She sounds like she may be more of an entrepreneur than an employee.

My DS has his own login on my laptop. The parental controls are set to allow him on it for one hour a day at a certain time. When the laptop locks him out it's over. You can hear him moan through-out the house when this happens. When they get over involved with a certain game or electronic device I hide it for a few weeks and sometimes months (bad memory). I have been thinking of setting up a laptop just for school, with certain sites blocked or maybe no internet, and with no other programs other than those used for school. I'm wondering if we can download an encyclopedia CD-ROM that doesn't need the internet to work? I haven't researched the idea enough.

I think getting use to the new system is part of it. We have also worked odd one day then even the next to complete the mixed problems, taking two days for one lesson. When I slowed down the book for DS he stopped missing so many problems. Now he can get through a lesson every day. I give my DS the option of the CD, and most of the time he doesn't use it.

http://www.flickr.co.../in/photostream Obviously you would do weak subjects more often. I'm aiming for 40 weeks of official school, but toying with the idea of year round homeschooling. In addition to math and science lessons, he learns these subjects in a relaxed way year round. If you were to homeschool year round you could stretch the schedule further out. We spend more time per subject because it works for us. When I take a break we usually do four day weekends. Attaching breaks to the weekends is like getting free down time. When I take time off we just start where we left off. Our schedule has four lines. I'm trying to plan the subjects to rotate just enough to finish them by the end of the year, some of those can carry over, like grammar. Even though we are doing less daily we are still accomplishing the same amount of work. You could revolve content subjects with a living book too. One week science, the next history, and so on. I think consistency and a sharp focus on skills naturally promotes progress. I had to rethink the way we were doing things because my DH is active duty military and he is being medically retired. He can't drive because of medications. I am doing everything right now; driving, kids, house, school, bills, taxes, and will be adding moving to list soon. If you have an iPad you should check out the Logic of English Phonics app for the toddler, it's $2. ETA: Added the link to screen captured schedule.

We are also using a point system, he earns a point for every book or subject, and he earns a point for doing anything helpful or being generously nice to his brother. After so many points he gets a reward. It has completely changed DS10 attitude about everything. He kept track of every single thing for a few weeks now he is more relaxed, and the idea of doing the right thing has stuck. After doing well for a period of time I give him a reward regardless of how many points.

Naturally, I'm having technical difficulties with my laptop lately so I can't use quotes or paragraph. DH is on me to replace this laptop. I'm using a 6 day schedule so I can do some subjects every other day or every two days, and all the subjects revolve evenly. We are doing 3-4 subjects a day, and school 5 days a week. One subject at the end of the schedule that carries over, subjects that are done every other day end up alternating between two-three times a week. The skill based items like reading, writing, math take priority. The content subjects only have one line in our schedule, and I have one line of things we do once or twice a week. Next year I'm using mostly level based curriculum like MCT for grammar. I plan to start a few subjects earlier than the rest after our break this year, math and writing. This way we will be able to finish those in a year. We have been testing this out for the past few weeks, school is going well, the house is clean, and the DS4 is getting his share of attention. I let the DS10 take play breaks between each subject. We do one or two in the morning, and if we don't finish we do a few more after lunch. The thought occurred to me last night that I should make a journal of all the other things he accomplishes now as a result. He has a lot of free time to do snap circuits and other pet projects. Things that we were not getting to like art has came back into the picture. A lot of curricula is designed to be done every day for so many weeks a year, I refuse to conform to it. I have promised the DS we will blow up and/or burn the Hake's Grammar book when the weather changes. EDIT: You could use any number of days in the schedule I just needed the 6 slots for the books I'm using.

Fantastic post, Mango. I couldn't have said it better. I have began to focus on skills. Everything else branching out from that is enrichment. You can afford to do this with classical education because the knowledge is not being spoon fed in little chunks. Next year we will put reading, writing, and math above everything else. I plan to not to schedule every subject every day. I made a six day schedule to make subjects revolve regularly without doing more than we can handle in one day. Some books may not get finished, but they are not the skill based subjects. They are also not grade specific curriculums, and can carry over into the next level (we won't be missing anything). Plus what we are doing would technically be classified as a gifted program. I'm all about student progress these days. I don't want to drill every subject every day, and say that he completed everything. I would rather him be the next skill level in the areas that matter. Use the curriculum, don't let it use you.

I've done a little bit of everything. From traditional to interest-based baskets. Last year I gave the DS4 a little bunny puppet and the DS10 took up with it, the DS4 didn't care anything for it. This year the DS4 was snuggling a bunny in the store a few days ago because he has watched his brother do it for a year. I purchased plenty of bunnies this year. ;)

My oldest learned to read around 3 1/2 because he was ready. I didn't really push or do anything formal. My four-year-old is learning on his own timing. He plays all day long, and I point out colors, numbers, letters when the occasion arises. I do not plan to do anything more than that until he is ready for it. When they are ready you will know better than anyone else. I have found that it's much easier to teach a concept when a child is ready for it. You can spend a year teaching a child addition, or five minutes when they are ready. I feel my main job is to be a human balance between childhood and education. Today my ten-year-old was arguing with a documentary he was watching about dinosaurs because they got a few things wrong. I've never bought an official dinosaur curriculum. :smilielol5:

I found Evan-Moor workbooks when I began homeschooling in 1st grade. The workbooks are superior to most other educational workbooks. They don't contain loads of errors, like some of the cheaper workbooks. If you have a kid that loves doing map work the daily geography book is thick and will last the entire year if you want. I've never used these but I have heard good things about flash kids complete curriculum workbooks. http://www.homeschool-curriculum-savings.com/homeschool-review-flash-kids-curriculum-all-grades.html For the price of them you could use just what you need and leave the rest, they are thick because they have several hundred pages.

I keep a binder for our health records and personal items. I haven't tried putting manuals in binders. It would be nice to take them off the shelf, and flip through them when you need one on occasion.

This reminds me of a book I recently read called Record of a School. The school was skill based as well, history and content was added here and there, but not a focus. This is a good post. I'm glad you didn't delete it.

Everything I've read by John Holt gives me inspiration to think outside of the box. I think if you put everything he wrote about together there is a universal message that outweighs educational philosophy. The message for me is to not be confined to the box.

For us the playground has always been the best place to teach social skills. We took DS to the playground frequently since he was a toddler. I observed interactions he had with others. If he was not doing something right I corrected it immediately. Parents are the best curriculum for social skills. I have found that kids also need guidance about who they play with or befriend. Not everyone is worth your time. That holds true in adult relationships as well. I never had this sort of mentoring when I was growing up and have struggled with relationships. One day we were at the park, and there was a kid throwing the wood chips at the playground at my DS, they were flying toward his face. He was just standing there waiting for her to stop, so he could play with her. The parents (two adults) were sitting on the swing watching this, and said nothing to their child. I walked over to him and told him not to play with her. Instead of correcting the child on the spot, they picked her up and left the playground. We had another lesson recently with some neighborhood kids who wanted to befriend him because of something he owns. He can now discern a true friend from someone who just wants something from him. He also learned about how people use manipulation to try to get what they desire. I read Teaching the Trivium by Harvey Bluedorn a few years ago, and he suggest no unsupervised playtime with other children. I thought the advice about unsupervised play was extreme. I grew up running wild; the only adult supervision I had was during dinner. I'm beginning to see the wisdom in that advice. I think putting time in supervising the kids playing is time well spent. I think the pay-off will come later on when they are able to handle themselves without you. My DS has interest that are odd to other boys his age. However, through those interest he has attracted friendships from like-minded people. There is great advantages for a child with a sense of individuality. I think my own DS has formed skills as a leader through his individuality. He has other kids who follow him around learning from him. He teaches them like he is a retired professor. He has also formed a friendship with an elderly neighbor. They have long chats in the yard about everything. He calls her his friend. It's so sweet to watch them interact. I think he would be fine, and you could use the community to your advantage. I liked the advice in post #5.

You need to eat chocolate, take bubble baths, and drink wine... Maybe even call in a maid... This is the daydream I have about what I would do if I were not homeschooling! If I wanted to keep him in school I would look for enrichment type activites. Maybe some audio books, SOTW audio, and ect. You could throw in some memory work to work on at his pace. When my oldest went to school we didn't have a schedule or curriculum, but we did things together for enrichment.

I wanted to do nature studies and make beautiful journals, but I just could not inspire my DS to do it. He studies nature in his own way, and I have accepted that. He has literally memorized field guides. I also bought the books with nature call cd's in them. I have suffered through hours of those in my house. At one point the house sounded like the Amazon for days. I feel guilty about music. I have introduced various genres of music over the years, and he has developed a good taste in music. I think I would have wasted my time and money on music lessons earlier because he just wasn't ready. I think now that he has an appreciation of music; lessons with an instrument will be more productive. The truth be told about homeschooling; it's impossible to do a million subjects a year for years and years! Unless you outsource to other people, and have an exceptional support system. We have been a military family for the entire time we have homeschooled. I have learned to focus like a lasar beam on the most important subjects. I just read recently that children who have only had one year of latin test better than all others who have not. I can't remember where I read that because I read so much. So even if you did only one year of latin there may have been a benefit you can't see for your DC.

You could also try using the methods described in The Core by Leigh Bortins http://www.classicalconversations.com/articles/globetrotting-the-core-of-geography The atlas she recommends is bargained priced at amazon right now, I can't get the link to the product to work for some reason, DK Compact Atlas of the World. If they like drawing this would be perfect, it's simple and cheap.

The best things I have ever purchased for science have been field guides, experiment books, magazines, and documentaries. Just having these items around the house has been almost the entire elementary science curriculum. One study lead to another with almost no direction from me. Although I do make sure we have a fresh batch of science books on various topics regularly. Last year my DS made a request to replace field guides we had because he already knew everything in them. I replaced them with thicker field guides. I didn't start with the ones published for children. I began collecting them from the bargain bins at various book stores, our first set of books was probably under $30. If you don't have a subscription to Ranger Rick magazine I highly recommend it. Almost every week we watch the Nature program on PBS, this has spilled over into Nova and the rest of the evening PBS programs. I also grab documentaries at the local warehouse club. We started out using the library for science books, but now we purchase many as well. Some of the books I purchased a year ago look like they were dug up with the Dead Sea scrolls, because they have been carried around and used so much.

Thank you to everyone for the recommended books on this thread. I wanted to add a book I recently read to the list. It's free on google books as well. I gleaned a lot of insight from reading it. The book is called Record of a School and it's about Amos Bronson Alcott's school, he was Louisa May Alcott's father. http://books.google.com/books?id=-rsMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false If you have read everything else about classical education this book will make lightbulbs go off in your head. :)

I suggest letting him listen to audio books regularly, and study word roots. For the comprehension and reading she might try using a reader like McGuffey, or Elson Readers, to gradually increase his level. He may also benefit the most from spiraling curriculum since he needs regular review.

I got the idea from someone to use the language options on your DVD's for spanish or french. Use their favorite movies so they already know the english words to the story. Just let it play in the background like your listening to music. You could also try introducing a few words a week in context to current events in your house. I think after a gentle nudge he will be more open to the idea of learning a new language.