I would not. I did CC last year with my 4/5 year old and drove 45 minutes away. My daughter is very good at sitting and listening but even with that CC wore her out and she was sick of it half way through most of the community days. It helped with the social aspect for sure, but it was not worth the cost and time investment.
Lord of the Rings, DH and I have tried reading it to one another aloud and it is so difficult. The poetry and other languages don't come across the same!
Ditto OntheBrink, the brands she suggested are good and even for a cheap model the brand makes a HUGE difference. A cheap Janome is going to function way better and make sewing more enjoyable. A bad machine will put you off of sewing forever!
We recently watched We Were Soldiers from Netflix... I liked it, though it had some pretty graphic scenes violence-wise. I also watched Austenland, which was very dumb, but I thought the ending was cute.
Last movie I saw in the theatre was Divergent... I loved it.
I had it passed down to me and didn't even try it. It didn't seem to flow well for me and being that I already had three years of Saxon Phonics (also a hand me down) I was much more comfortable going with that.
Our local school is holding their annual scholastic book fair and I'm going tomorrow. Is there anything in particular I should look at? My kids are ages 5 (girl) and 3 (boy).
I like a lot of the same shows as your daughter.
Psych - it can get dumb though if she likes more intellectual shows (like Sherlock)
NCIS - love this show, especially before Ziva left
Covert Affairs - this one is pretty good too, love Augie, the blind tech guy :)
Monk - old but funny and fairly clean for a tv show
My Aunt and two cousins lived with my Dad after a divorce in their family and my Dad saw what the influences from public school was doing to my cousins and decided then he never wanted to send his kids to public school. When he married my Mom he told her beforehand he wanted to homeschool his kids, even though he knew no one that did it and my Mom said okay (late 80's). To some degree you could consider that religious I guess, but that is the reason I was HS. I'm not sure exactly why DH's parents chose to HS. Probably similar reasons that included more religious reasons as well.
I've always wished I could be someone who didn't need a boxed curriculum, but my personality just wouldn't be able to do it. I always loved reading as worksheets growing up. The year I did unit studies I hated it! I hope though that I will be able to adjust to my children's needs as well, even though it might not fit me!
Oh and my Mom used a very eclectic assortment of curriculum with all of us. My education included Sonlight, R&S, Saxon, Beautiful Feet, Writing Strands, unit studies, ABeka, and etc. I got to try a lot of things!
Mystie, like how you said that, "Our parents homeschooled when homeschooling was unheard of and now we're merging classical into the good points of unschooliness." That would explain how DH and I have approached it as well.
It is very interesting to hear all of your experiences! I was super social growing up and sometimes wondered what it would be like to "go to school" but I knew I would probably not like it (I'm an against the grain type lol).
2ndgenhomeschooler, it is nice to hear your family survived ATI. ;) My husband survived an extremely conservative upbringing (and mine too, although not for so long) as well. Surprisingly enough all of my DH's siblings and himself have done fairly well in life despite some setbacks from unschooling and my IL's are now using Saxon and IEW with their youngest (16yr old) as they see the benefit of a more structured education.
I find it interesting to see how many current homeschoolers were homeschooled themselves. I was HS K-12th (unschooled through high school) and DH was as well (although unschooled the entire time).
I am another INTJ, although as a child I was an ENTJ, but as I've gotten older I've become more introverted. I have never seen so many INTJ's in the same place in my life! Makes me feel welcome lol!
Thank you for the Let's Read and Find Out suggestion! It looks like exactly what I want for my K-er and I just requested a whole set from our library system!
We just finished our first year in CC with my daughter who turned 5 half way through. I also agree with those who have said that it is a lot for the younger kids and while I don't completely regret it I don't see the point unless you have older kids enrolled as well.
But in our community they had no problem with me and other moms keeping our younger children with us. Later in the year our tutor would even allow my newly 3 yr old DS participate in some of the games or coloring activities.
I think it is partially not being ready and partially just a mental block. She seems like she CAN do it if I work with her over and over practicing, but she doesn't like to try. I did let her just skip that part of the book for a while, I think I'll go back to that and get the HWT Pre K book to work on it with her. I'm glad to hear it is all tracing, I think she will like that better. Thank you bakpak for that link, I'm sure she will enjoy that a lot and it might get her more interested too!
My 4 yr old DD is using Book A of the Explore the Code series and doing fairly well with it except for the writing portion. She can't seem to get the hang of writing the letters, yet can trace them just fine. Does anyone have a handwriting curriculum suggestion? I've been looking at Handwriting Without Tears and using some of the manipulatives, but am open to any suggestions!