DS8: Singapore Math 3 - continuing in 3B Pentime 3 - continuing SOTW Vol. 1 - continuing, should be done by end of Feb though Reading - living books continued.... will be reading second semester: -The Cricket in Times Square -Everything on a Waffle -The Whipping Boy -The Hundred Dresses -Farmer Boy Apologia Zoology 2 - adding IEW Ancient History - will revisit in late Spring DD5: Continuing beginning early reader books aloud to mastery (finished Bob books and many many scholastic phonic readers) Apologia Astronomy - continuing Singapore Math 1 - continuing onto 1B SOTW Vol. 1 - continuing, should be done by end of Feb though Adding Pentime 1 book 2 in late Spring --may revisit teaching a child to read lessons as we get to more complicated reading rules if needed When we finish up SOTW 1 we will be doing some state studies and presidental studies the kids want to do until the end of the year. We will start SOTW 2 next fall.

Good morning! It snowed last night so I got doughnuts this morning and moved my van inside to the warm garage, hehe. We have girl scouts this afternoon, no bible club. School goals for today are basic, I am trying to get us to our end of semester goal point.... and all I really want to do is pack moving boxes (we close on Dec. 30th on our home): DS: Math (last lesson in Singapore 3A)! Reading DD: Math Reading ...Yeah, I know, not much goal wise...

We decided to head down to the river with a big ziploc bag and a trees native to us printout today. Impromtu homeschooling, right?

Whoever made the schedule this year was crazy. A week of Thanksgiving break then 10 days of school then a month of Christmas break?? HOW am I suppose to get me or the kids to focus for two weeks?! Oh, wait. I made the schedule. SMH Well, made it through the day. Got 98% done with what we needed to get done. Dec. 11th is our last day before break. DD isn't going to be at our goal in math but we will just do a couple lessons a week on breaks/summer and she'll be fine so at least I've got that. I have to come up with a new science curriculum for DS in the Spring too.... I let him go on his own the last couple weeks and it's been a disaster, ha.. Today: School, Gymnastics, Drop off items to realtor (we're buying a home!! closing dec. 30th yay!!), get assignments done for my college classes Tuesday: School, No activities (YAY!!), hope to hear back from realtor regarding our requests on what we'd like fixed...oh, and going to meet in laws for a festival lighting of the square Wednesday: School, Girl Scouts Thursday: School, Friday: School, my birthday...

Good input ladies!!

We are getting ready to buy a home. We have been looking for a while and want to be closer to DH's work (we are an hour away currently). He works urban, we live rurally currently. We have found homes that meet our needs/wants near his work for $135-150k, which would be $1100 a month payment wise with taxes and insurance. All the homes were built in the 1960s or 1970s. We saw a mutliresidential property come onto the market in a rural area 15 minutes from his work. It meets some of our needs and lacks in others. They are asking much less, around $90k and we'd be looking at $700/month after all taxes and insurance. It has a 1 bedroom/1 bath attached to the main home (2300 sq ft, 1876 victorian home, remodeled and updated, was a 3plex and they combined the lower and upper level into one giant home). The apartment is currently rented for $525 a month. Taxes are higher due to the multi residential zoning and we would need to build a garage as the property does not have one and we want a garage. We are going to look at the home tomorrow with some others on our list...but I'm torn. The entire concept of having rental income, even if not consistently, is very appealing - but the age of the home combined with having someone in an attached apartment (versus another home on the property) when I have kids all day at home makes me zoom into protective mode with who is living there. I need some thoughts and opinions on this. Would you consider this property?

#1 We are pretty relaxed on our style of homeschooling, but definitely gravitate toward the Mason style in most of our ways. DS8 is very advanced in science. However, I have purchased McHenry's Elements, Brain and Carbon Chemistry. I feel that he would enjoy them all. We started the year with a joint anatomy unit the kids really enjoyed. I expected to take until Dec break with it, but they loved it and flew through it - we finished with a complete bullfrog dissection last week that was a BIG hit and demonstrated they had indeed retained the information we learned throughout the months. So... I let DS go in his own direction science wise for the next month with a pile of field guides and notebooks that he can jot down notes/pictures in about his reading. The kid loves to read, so it fits and he is enjoying it. I also gave him some catalogs for experiments/resources and told him to let me know if he wanted/needed anything for his science learning. Should I let him continue after break? Or bring him back to a more structured curriculum? I'm trying to plan out the 2nd semester and am stumped with him. I am using Apologia for DD and that's great, but it's not for him --- he needs more meat...the closest Apologia that will really challenge him and he will enjoy is middle school level at the minimum, though it looks like high school really after I have borrowed some texts from friends..

I think it is all about your teaching methods and your child's learning methods for reading. My children are dynamic opposites in their learning styles with reading...and much of their interests/personality. My DS wouldn't touch an emergent reader. He wanted concrete phonics rules, with which we went to typical leveled readers right away and SLOWLY plugged through them. My DD found great success in Bob Books and other phonic emergent readers and we spent about 5 months on a variety of them before we moved gracefully into typical leveled readers. I really think it's all about the teacher/student :)

This week our schedule is off with Wednesday (no regular school, only Vet Day learning) and DS has a birthday Friday so there's no school - we are spending the day at the Science Center then with family to celebrate. We also went from gymnastics on Mondays and Fridays for the kids (different classes) to getting them both on Mondays as a spot opened up! Today we got all our school work done, I even was able to do some accountability to see if we'd be where we hoped we would be come our winter break (Dec. 11-Jan 11). Everyone is on schedule or ahead, hooray! DH and I are going to look at homes to buy on the 17th, so I need to plan next week to make up some of the work we don't get done that day. We're hoping to make an offer on the 18th.... and wonder how crazy Christmas will be this year with a likely move in progress :P

http://awana.org/where-we-serve/missionaries/ I used the missionaries on this page, printed out a picture of different missionaries, taped them to their books with a quick paragraph printed about their "who we are" as many have that on the website.. with the assignment of working with their parents at home to fill out the information requested.

I have a selected amount of required books for my advanced reader as well. I require a chapter a day of assigned reading and then we review vocabulary and comprehension for that chapter, which often is simply a verbal narrative from my child of what the chapter was about. The I allow him access to his twaddle (which is what I would consider most of your daughter's free reading books). My child is the same age as your daughter - we do IEW and Pentime as our other language arts curriculum. No spelling until age 8/9 at least as we have decided to wait till our children's brain development is on par for spelling instruction. We have covered many grammar concepts in normal conversation (nouns/verbs/plurals/etc) as well as through pentime/copywork. I feel that our language arts "curricula" is more than enough. We have done formal R&S grammar, and he had no issue comprehending any of it but it was very time consuming and I feel that he will enjoy reading/language arts much more if we wait and simply do formal grammar studies at 5th/6th grade.

Today was a good day. DD was struggling with a lesson in math yesterday. Today she flew through it and 3 more. THAT is why we take a day break when everyone is frustrated, yay! ...And DS didn't complain at all about Math. It must have been my birthday and I didn't know it - these days don't happen often :D

I hope you feel less stressed soon Tawlas! Rule #1 NEVER skimp on alone time ;)

We use pentime. We like it as it offers a 2nd grade year that shows transition to cursive. Short but effective daily work. We are doing 3rd grade (all cursive) this year with the 7 year old and it's going wonderfully. Highly recommend and it is very easy on the budget.

That is how my son was taught to read in public K before we pulled him to HS. He came out struggling. We started over completely and now he can read about 4 levels ahead of his grade.

Love the honesty! We had a late start today. No school planned for tomorrow, we have a field trip to the local Creamery. Still feeling guilt that we aren't doing formal grammar this year... and have no plans to do it for the next couple years. Going to start IEW on Monday to ease my guilt, mostly because I want DS to do some guided writing before I let him loose so he has some bearings. House needs a new air conditioner and it's been noticable the last couple days. We need to wait till Spring to purchase a new one if possible so we can complete finishing the basement this winter. These insanely humid 90 degree days need to stop! Also, completely utterly forgot about bible group last night. I thought it was Tuesday. Sigh.

Love it.

Stepping in, I'd love to join the weekly accountability thread. I love reading all your goals and watching you meet them! This week has been to get our normal studies done, start a new read aloud and need to decide when DS should start his IEW writing curriculum. Adding in a couple videos this week.

My kids would be enrolled in a school (private or public) but neither can keep bullying under control in our area and having my children beaten to an emotional and physical mound due to the inability of parents, teachers and administrations to do their human duty is not something I will allow my children to be riddled with again.

I started on the nieces and nephews.. I have a few stocking stuffers stowed away too. We have Santa here for another year or two at least and each of kids get to ask him for one thing. DD said a full drum set and DS is leaning toward a Playmobil castle. We gift them each a book, an outfit too. We have a lot of fall birthdays so I have been trying to do that as well - 3 nieces (they each get an outfit or book) and my DS all have birthdays before Christmas and we will be buying a house by the end of the year.... so yeah.

Fun. We study this subject completely and every day.

When did you choose to introduce latin to either child? LOVE the success stories!!!!!!!!

I just don't see the point of DS on his R&S English book. I feel like he does learn the lessons, but he is 7. He loves to read. I'm tempted to toss the English book out the window for a few years. Tell me your success stories if you did little to no formal grammar instruction in elementary years... please!!!

Hello!

I never require independent reading, they have assigned readings. Their assigned readings become silent when they are able to read, retain, narrate and understand the text maturity wise. Usually at 4th grade reading level I start assigning silent readings for school. They are reading on their own silently long before this point - but I don't require it.