We don't do one of the expensive standardized tests but a diagnostic test from Let's Go Learn called the DOMA and ADAM. ADAM is math and DOMA is reading. I don't care about the reading right now because he can either read the book without fighting or he can't. I'm pretty confident that reading is fine. ADAM helped us have confidence in the acceleration that took us by surprise. It also gives us a great detailed picture of his progress. It's done on the computer for $10 through homeschool buyers coop. I liked giving the results to my in-laws over Christmas when they (as every year) say "when are you going to stop this nonsense of homeschooling." We live in a state that doesn't require it but I think its wise to have done it at least once.

ELTL is great. Especially when you download the free LibrVox recordings for most books. Three days a week.

My mom was the president of our council plus a leader to many troops over the years. I totally resent the time she spent at meetings and not helping me with my homework, reading to me, or tossing a ball. Yes, we did fun things. Including a trip to England, Paris, and Georgia. Tons of museums. But it was all shared time with other girls. My homework was done in the middle of the night. I went to school exhausted and feeling like it wasn't important. The important thing was all the after school activities. She has since apologized. She was the leader everyone wanted. She did the paperwork (which there is lots of) and my Grandma did the crafts and personal stuff. They were a great pair. They helped other troops, too. But the expense was their family. Most signs of family problems didn't show till high school or later though so people thought everything was great. We were public schooled. I couldn't imagine doing it as homeschoolers. I hope you find a balance.

We pay $25 a year because our township voted out of paying for the library. I like paying myself. Our interlibrary loan has saved us a ton of money. I get 10 books at least every week during History semester. I would pay $65 if it wasn't an out of the way library. Car side service...I'm so jealous!

I've used Saxon Phonics k-1 then I quit because he was reading and grade two looked like it was half review. Now I wish I would have finished it because I'm a person that likes to complete things. My son loved the attention from mom it required. We were doing Saxon Math at the same time. It made him very solid and confident. He became bored of the little books though. I am not a craft person and liked that this was dry. I'm using Learning Through Sounds now with my next son because its dry and straight to the point. We wouldn't want something that takes as much time as Saxon now. It's a big bulky program but makes solid students for many different types of learners.

My biggest regret was buying Saxon k-3. Huge expense and it taught him nothing that I couldn't have taught him around the house and on a white board. I had PS Teacher "friends" telling me I couldn't possibly hs because it's a professionals job so I had no confidence. Now I realize Ruth Beechick's The Three R's is what I should have done in some form. I would use life examples and maybe some school zone books. Then I'd get MM1-6 as needed with Beast as my main. Verbal Math was great during the summer car rides to Dairy Queen too.

We are going to Disney for two weeks starting Sunday.... :leaving: We went to the indoor waterpark hotel, down state, for two nights during a school week last month because of the discount... :leaving: We went to three museums and mammoth caves in Oct during a school week... :leaving: We save a ton of money by not buying name brands, the latest back to school crap, and the most popular Christmas gift in the __ grade. We started homeschooling just because we wanted to have more family time. We are also going camping for a discount week in May before the ps kids get out. We also go out to the woods on State land once a week or so during the school day for hunting and fort building during school. On a serious note, I do agree that this is coming from their parents and not the children. The only good responses would be "and what is a good education?" or "do you always repeat what your parents say?"

We are going to finish BA3 at the end of Feb. We started in Sept-Oct? I'd say we went pretty fast. 2 wks per chapter. I only skipped on page 65 the nonstar problems because after doing the circles before it he was toasted. Beast is really lean, especially because it covers some 4th grade and problem solving skills better than anything I've seen. We will be doing BA 4A this year and maybe BA 4B over summer. My son can't get enough. Oh, we also only school 3 weeks and then take a week off so we've only done ~15wks of school so far. Daddy did add review using Khan Academy just to be sure he's remembering. He started level 3 Monday and he's at 35% today. He works for 15 mins a day on that. I feel like we couldn't have moved any faster. Every other day or so he'd come to me and say he needed the next section in the guide read to him because he was done with the wkbk pages. His math facts are not prefect or lightening fast but graph paper and learning to write down his mental math was something I wanted him to learn now anyways. Extra info: We came from MM1-2. I ordered Zacarro's Primary Challenge Math as a filler if needed and I made my own BA 3 review packet for him to do in March.

We have done some Kindle books but his face gets red if he reads on it too long. Do you think the originals are ok to have a elementary student read directly from? To be honest I have not read the original versions of any of these level 2s. I found an Aladdin series on Rainbow Resource. I also found out that Classic Starts by Sterling makes a separate Sterling series that is the same price. It has more words per page with smaller type. Does anyone like these?

I am trying to find a nice brand of books for my son to read the ELTL level 2 (and beyond) reading selections from for next year. He will be done with Pathway Readers grade 3 this year. He read some of the ELTL level 1 books this year. Beatrix potter, Jungle Book, and Pinocchio. The last two were Treasury of Illustrated Classics by Modern Publishing. He likes these better than the Classic Starts by Sterling that he has read for history. (Greek Myths and The Odyssey). We did Libervox for Five Children and It while he followed along. The lady that reads it is much better that I. I want him to enjoy the readings but count it as his improving reading as well. Is there any other brand of books for elementary grade readers to read the classics? Next years selections are: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz The Blue Fairy Book Peter Pan The Wind in the Willows Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys I know there are not as many chapters in the Classic Starts as the originals. We made it work this year.

We did these sections in November and we had no problems. We used the toothpicks like it suggests for the one section.

We did Saxon k-2 in prek-half of first. Then we switched to MM1 and it was a bit of a transition. Saxon is so manipulative heavy and MM isn't unless you make it. I would do Saxon 2 if he's liking it. The first half is review (it's a slow and steady program). I agree with the post above to take the placement test for CLE. Why change what isn't broke though?

We loved MM but we became bored with the style of the page. We switched to Beast for a break and I don't see us going back. It is so much fun. We play games together for "recess" and have very few problems per topic. If he doesn't get a topic as quick as they expect, I have MM to pull from but that hasn't happened yet. Math does review itself. For example, this week we started division which naturally includes multiplication, subtraction, and place value. Other hits here are Murderous Maths for early readers, Verbal Math (library), Khan Academy (free online), Zaccaros (library)

I would not allow unsupervised visits but also I worry about the supervised ones as well. I don't like extended family commenting on our parenting style/choices around my children. It under minds my authority in front of my children. BIG NO! I would not do that to my dh and he doesn't do that to me. Extended family are not strangers. Their opinions carry more weight with my children so them having an opinion around my children is a no. They are call me or wait till my children are outside to talk about their concerns. I had similar things happen this Christmas. They waited for dh to be out of the room to bombard me with socializing and sports questions. My children were at my feet playing. Long story short, dh had to make a phone call to his parents, sister, and grandma the next day about boundaries.

We use eltl1 with wwe2 and my son is 6. No problems. He loves the dictation. It brings the punctuation and spelling into the big picture. We did spelling workout a and b last year and it felt like a waste of time. We will be using eltl2 and www3 next year, second grade, at 7. Very happy.

Word up it's word girl! Ugh I didn't have to look it up. I'll be saying it all day!

I hate my dyson. Too expensive! My husband bought it. Hair is stuck to the roller all the time and cutting it off is a pain. It doesn't suck up like my mom's Kirby does. The dyson is hard to carry up the stairs and I hate having to unroll the cord all the way to use the hose. The front is so fat it doesn't go under beds very far either. The only thing I like about it is it's bagless but most vaccums are nowadays.

My husband loves yoga pants too. I get mine at Izod. He does get a little upset that my fitted t shirts are a little thin. I like Eddie Bauer sweaters because they don't seem to fade and are really thick. They look fancier then my old hooded sweatshirts. I love The Loft sun dresses for the summer. I get everything on clearance only.

We did a big survey of our county and found most 10-30 yr olds said they were Christian. When asked why they said because they were American or because they were white. We had a great laugh about that. Mainly because of that I don't call myself a Christian but a sinner trying to follow the bible.

SSL1 is great fun for us as a family (dh included). My kids started out thinking it was cool to have our own secret language. It sets a great fun mood to our hsing this year. We will definitely be getting SSL2 for next year. My DH and I like the derivative river. I haven't seen SSL2 yet, besides samples on the website. Based on SSL1 thought, my boys are doing it two times a week and will finish in less than half a year. It's easy and we play games and speak it everyday. Your younger might like it if your focus this year is reading or math and this is just a fun extra. But as a serious "I want my money's worth" person, I would choose SSL2 at least.

This person would consider me her best friend. I know ALOT about her. There is a difference in not educating and saying your not educating to pass the bean dip. I wanted the dip not the truth in this case. My husband just said the reason why I feel bad, irritated, about this is because she started homeschooling because of me. It was the caring mom thing to do, she thought. He bets she'll quit soon. I'm going to drop this because I didn't want to leak too much information. I just wanted to vent. Ets I posted here specifically because I wanted understanding that I didn't expect the same results for effort. I figured my son's accomplishments would be held against me on other boards.

I am for delaying starting school till 6 or later!! Especially it your state allows it. I do it because my husband said start now or put them in daycare and get a job. My only problem is legally the older daughter could easily be found as truant. She is of age to legally have to be in school. My vent was simply why push the issue? If she's legal age I'm not saying sit for hours I'm saying color by number or count cereal! This mom is proud to not do anything. I get relaxed, time off, school didn't happen o well for some of the time but this is months and about to be a year late. Don't hurt my freedom to homeschool because your lazy. We live in a small town where the school is currently making inquires about homeschoolers because of the other family that didn't school their children and the school got stuck with them right before state test time this year. I don't think results will happen if there is no effort. We don't have to show results just effort in this state. I don't want that to change. I'm not saying my way I'm saying do it the states way.

We did the doma (math) test mentioned above from homeschool coop. It was $15 I think and very informative. It gives you a great breakdown of skills and scores. It does have an order to it that might not match your curriculum exactly but it isn't too noticeable. We did it in October to get a base score and we will do it again in May to see improvement. It helped my confidence and hushed the grandparents. We will add the Dora (reading) this May also. I'm more confident in reading though because he either struggles in one grade or flies through the book in a lower grade. Thus I work in the both grades. One for confidence and the other for stretching.

I live in Michigan too but one of the county's that people can manage to live off the system just fine in. Places for rent prefer people on the system because "it's reliable." A couple of families move in together and pool the money. I love it when they invite us over for dinner. If you want preschool it's easier to get it in this county if you are on the system because they "can charge more and it's reliable." My cps worker neighbor says the state pays the business directly and not the person. Once you get on the system you don't get off. The part time job you would get doesn't pay as nice as the state because of the hours being cut back (so they don't have to pay benefits). Any money in the bank and any income counts against you so it's not a good thing to save or work unless it's a GOOD job but those are few up here in northern Michigan.

I live in Michigan. Grew up close to Detroit. You have to understand the people. I will be first to admit I don't get it fully but we have discussed it a lot growing up. We hear constantly about how the school can't give homework because the child doesn't have a safe place at home to do it. They made study halls for everyone at the beginning of each day. The child can't learn because they are under fed and don't have a safe place to sleep. Poor schools get free breakfast for all and free or reduced lunch for a lot more. Students put parents against the teachers with every discipline being racially motivated. There is a point where nothing is good enough. Michigan has school of choice. They can go to a different district. Schools are making bus stops based on demand in some areas. There is also public transit. They need to allow grouping by instructional need. That's a good idea. Most parents of public school students believe schooling the children is squarely the schools responsibility. It seems to also have the responsibility of teaching manners and discipline.