I agree! We traveled to Germany, Austria and Italy last year, and made stops in Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples/Pompeii. We actually didn't stay overnight in Florence. We took the night train from Venice and arrived in Florence at 6am, spent 12 hours exploring the city, then hopped on a train to Rome. It was one of my favorite days. :)

I thought this was going to be a comment from one of your kids! I guess mine are the only ones who "don't believe in" homeschooling (or laundry, or brushing their teeth) when they don't feel like doing it. :blush:

1. Right now I really like Beatrice, Amelia, Christopher, Walter, Peter and Joseph. 2. So many! I like nicknames, but I'm picky about them. William (don't like Bill/Billy), Henry (Hank), Charles (Chuck), etc. My sister also stole two of my favorites - Oliver and Simon. 3. Classic, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, with cute nicknames.

I agree with this completely. I don't worry about trying to make math drills fun, just short and consistent.

We usually stand. If we're going to be there for long, we do pull up stools, but I wouldn't want to have a table underneath.

I run, usually with the toddler in a stroller and two kids on scooters. It does the trick.

Like most of the other posters have said, our focus will be on reading, handwriting and math. She'll learn a bit about animals and US history/geography, but those will be mostly through picture books and the occasional hands-on activity. I don't plan to try to include her with my 4th grader, but if she wants to join in, I'm sure he won't mind. :)

Those are some interesting combinations! All three are in swimming lessons (1x/week) and gymnastics (3x/week for Ds8, 1x/week for the littles). Ds8 also plays baseball and takes piano and cello lessons, while Dd takes two dance classes and plays soccer.

The kids always eat together and Dh and I always eat together. We all manage to eat at the same time 3-4 nights per week, but when Dh is working late I have to feed the kids at a reasonable time. I do think that family dinners are important, and we'll try to keep them up as much as possible.

We didn't plan to homeschool, but made a very quick decision the week before ds was set to start kindergarten. I knew right away, from Ds's personality and my own, that we wouldn't be crafty or creative homeschoolers. I'm okay with that. Apart from some health issues that throw us off, our days are very happy and smooth. Ds really loves to learn and has a great work ethic, so we have a lot of fun together and get through the tough stuff without any tears. This could easily change next year when I begin kindergarten with Dd. She's a little more dramatic.

We had a good day here as well! Ds had an ophthalmologist appointment this morning, so we dropped the two little ones at my parents' house and picked up breakfast along the way. Ds did his math in the waiting room, then read a bit about espionage in the American Revolution. When we got home, we took advantage of the quiet house and did some creative writing together before lunch. After we ate, Latin, German, grammar and writing went pretty quickly. The littles arrived home just as we were starting science, so we dropped it for the day and I sent them all outside until dinner, which we just finished. Now it's just cello practice and American Idol before bed!

We started "fun" grammar (Grammar-Land) at the beginning of 2nd grade, and moved on to "real" grammar (Jr Analytical Grammar) in the spring.

1A and 1B were completely mom-dependent with ds. He started doing the workbook on his own somewhere in 2A.

I don't think it's too unusual. I took a class in developmental psychology a few years ago, and while I can't actually remember anything from the course material related to this, I do remember the professor asking everyone to write down all the memories they had from before age 5 and which of them was the earliest. I had 25+ specific memories, and the earliest was just before I turned two. Several people in the class had absolutely no memories from that time, and two girls said their earliest memories were from middle school. My dh remembers when his sister was born (he was 4) and nothing again until he was 8 or 9.

At 6? Yep, normal. We lucked into the right math curriculum at 5, but it's only been in the last year or so that we've settled into a good rhythm with the other subjects. My plans for my upcoming kindergartener are very vague and will still likely change a few times over the next year.