Thanks for all these resources, I have lots to look at now! Hopefully our library's homeschool resource room will have a few that I can test drive before ordering.

Only kind anyone in this house will use. Definitely worth the extra price, IMHO.

My dad bought my nephew a little motor off craigslist. He has had a great time taking it all apart to see how everything works. I think eventually they want to put it back together again and see if they can make it work. I believe it was a gas motor from a weed wacker or something like that.

I guess I worded that wrong. I really don't know what I'm talking about here, so I am going to head to the library to check out TWTM book this afternoon - I've only read the articles posted here and probably need to mull over the whole book for better understanding. So, I want to start preparing for formal logic study and add that into our curriculum this year. The problem with the puzzle books is that they seemed like visual puzzles which I don't think my dd will do well with because of her visual motor perception problems. I'll take a look at the Prufrock Press to see what they have. Thanks for the resource.

What would you recommend for a fifth grader who has never had logic before? I was looking at some samples online last night, but it seemed like the beginning books are visual based, and DD has some visual-motor issues that might make those too frustrating for her. I just don't understand enough about the study of logic to know where to begin. Any help is appreciated, thx.

I had one other thought to add. My older DD barely managed to get through math fact memorization with TONS of work, but they just didn't stick with her. There was potential for her to get really frustrated by it (especially since her 5 years younger sis knew them better then she did), but we just kind of joked about it and laughed it off. Ideally, kids learn all their facts but it just didn't work out ideally for her. She is the kind of kid who always had trouble with memory work (at 15, she still doesn't know my cell phone number :banghead: ) but she is very good at understanding concepts - beyond what her peers could understand, even. Concrete math facts - not her thing, really complicated, abstract concepts - thrives. She has excelled in math (going into honors pre-calc./trig for her sophomore year of H.S.) and still couldn't tell you what 4 x 6 was. Last year in honors geometry, when her friends were all complaining about proofs, she was taking to me about how much she loved them and how much fun they were. She has a math/science mind that she needs to take advantage of, even if she can't memorize things. At one point, we kind of threw our hands up in the air and said, "she just isn't going to get this, and that's okay." And thankfully, it hasn't seemed to hold her back at all!

When I was taking classes at the local college in pursuit of a teaching degree before we started homeschooling, I had to create a set of games to present to my class. This is what I came up with - it's written in terms of being used for a public school classroom, but if you ignore that part, there are some nice games and ideas. We have a math fact drawer at our house and I ask dd to pick an activity several times a week to keep on top of her facts. It includes game ideas, game boards you can print, and a record sheet to keep track of progress. In the document is the post-it note game, I think that was the single most important game we played for both my children. If a child is having a really hard time with memorization, the post-it note game kind of 'steps' them towards working for memorization. I think for some kids it is hard to make the jump between a teacher showing them the factors with the product (the stage where you are showing them 4 x 4 = 16) and then we all of the sudden ask them to know what 4 x 4 with without being able to 'see' all of the products to choose from. The post-it note game lets them see both parts and then match them up before asking them total recall. There is a second document for a set of mult. bingo cards that have the product on the game card piece and the equations on little strips of paper. We play cooperatively, one person draws the equation and we all try to think of the products and then place a counter on our cards if we have that number. The game is made into multiple sets to isolate the facts into several families (which is how I taught facts - memorize 2's and 3's before moving on). I printed the game cards and strips of paper for 2's and 3's on one color of card stock and laminated it, 4's and 5's on another color and so on. Color coding makes it easy to find the sets you want to work on. I'll try to attach both pdf's here. *edited for typos - hit post too soon, sorry about that. MultiGames.pdf MultiBingo.pdf

Last year (our 1st homeschooling year) I used the wing it method. I can.not. do that again - I always felt like I was scrambling to put together our week's work on the weekend. I want to start the year off feeling well-prepared, so that I can relax and enjoy the learning. This year, I figured out our number of weeks (we're following older D's high school schedule), days off, vaca time, etc. and popped it all into Homeschool Tracker Online. Then I created simple tables of each subject with the week number and divided up the units and chapters to be sure we covered what I wanted to cover. This is our American History outline. Then I took the course outline and input it into a set of tables I made in a two page spreads format for each week. I added as much detail as possible to make the year move along smoothly, including dates, links to online resources, library call numbers, chapters, page numbers, etc. I still have to add in Bible studies and health, but I'm just about done. I'll print these out and comb-bind them so I have a hard copy to look at. From here, I can easily make my lesson plans in homeschool tracker and create a weekly task list for DD as we move along the year. The planning spreads look like this: I know that I won't get to all of the books, activities, projects and such that I have planned, but I feel better knowing that there are lots of options for each week. I'm not going to feel bad if we decide not to read out of the text because we found a better book at the library or we changed a project, worksheet, and the likes. And since my DD's task lists come out of homeschool tracker online, I can adjust as we go along. I do need to stay on schedule for the weekly topics, though I have several catch-up weeks if I absolutely need them. I don't have anything planned for Fridays because dd is taking a couple of afternoon classes at a coop, which leaves the morning open for work we didn't get to. Some subjects I limited to 3 days per week to account for my tendency to think I can fit in far more work then is actually possible. I'm that girl scout leader that has 3 hours worth of activities planned for an hour meeting - I just can't help it. :D

Oops, I think you were responding at the same time I was! :001_smile: Well, I'm glad to see that things are looking more positive.

My DH was against homeschooling. We started with a private Montessori school as sort of a happy medium and then ended up at public as the economy pushed our income down. It seemed okay for our older dd (now I wish I would have homeschooled her, but I didn't know, what I didn't know then) but our younger just didn't do well. We struggled through three years of ps with an incredible amount of frustration before pulling her to homeschool. Public school might seem like the easier option, but that isn't necessarily the case. You may still want to have your child involved in extra curriculars, sports, scouts and such, but now they all have to happen at the end of the day and you find yourself running all over the world through the evenings struggling to get dinner on the table, homework done, and fit in quality family time. I found the easy A's on everything was a detriment to my younger. She didn't learn how to work through challenges well because what she was doing at school came easily for her. Then, when something didn't click instantly she experienced frustration and negative thoughts about herself. Overcoming incremental challenges on a daily basis builds confidence in oneself to solve problems and raises self-efficacy. Bright or gifted kids oftentimes don't have that opportunity in many gen ed classroom settings. There are even studies that show that the percentage of gifted student dropouts are higher then the percentage of average student dropouts in high school. Our district does offer gifted and advanced classes, but they don't really start until middle school. I did a quite a bit of research about the lack of needs being met for gifted students and found some alarming statistics such as gifted students already know 50-60% of the material being covered in a typical gen ed classroom, 61% of gen ed teachers do not have training on meeting the needs of gifted students, 84% of the activities gifted and talented students participate in do not have any instructional differentiation (from the National Center on the Gifted and Talented). Here's another biggie, and relates to your post about knowing if your child is getting what they need. Learning can not be adequately measured for gifted students because testing focuses on minimum standards. Our dd received 95% or higher on just about every standards test she took - the number looks good but that's about it. The language arts program was far below her level, especially in the area of reading, and math was moderately below her level, so she was essentially completing busy work for seven hours a day - not growing her knowledge base and skills - not progressing in a meaningful way, and being bored each and every day. She was also picked on for her nerdiness, which further lowered her self-esteem. When we pulled her out of school, we had a nine year old who honestly believed she was stupid, incompetent, and 'messed everything up'. Her little spirit was crushed by being forced into an environment that didn't fit. When we pulled to homeschool, my DH had some of the same concerns as yours - with a need to see proof of growth. We had the benefit of being in a public system first, because he could compare the quality of the work she was completing at the public school with the the quality of work she is doing through homeschool. He no longer needs to see a report card or test score - he observes her instead and is satisfied and feels comfortable that she is getting what she needs. After we started homeschooling, it was impossible not to notice the spark that started to build within her about learning, the pride she took in sharing work she completed, and her academic growth. I absolutely realize our experience isn't the experience every child has, and that many people go through public school enjoying their education. Nor do I believe in any way that homeschooling is the best option for every family. I fully respect anyone who is thoughtful about the way they choose to educate their children, regardless of the particular choice they make. I'm just sharing our experiences to give you another viewpoint. Best of luck to you, it is such a very hard decision to make. Just keep in mind that nothing has to be permanent and you can always reassess at a later time.

I am a perfectionist when it comes to organization, so much so that I don't get things done because I want it just so. My dad closed up his printing shop and gave me equipment he thought I could use which included a comb binder. I've been trying to think of something I could bind to justify the space it takes up in the closet (well, on the dining room floor right now, because I have to clean the closet to make room for it). Then I found the idea of a daily notebook, which I thought would be great for dd (going into 5th grade) but more as a weekly notebook. This is what I was thinking it would contain: Weekly task/assignment list Spelling words Vocab words Bible study Mult/div fact practice Maps, Charts and Graphs work Personal reflection journal page I wouldn't include our main subjects because her work is stored in a binder for each subject which creates a book of what she has learned. At the end of the year, all subjects get transfered into one 4" binder along with my record keeping and it goes in the basement on a shelf. I like how this works for us and don't want to change it. Here's my issue, I can't just cut the bindings off the books I bought and pop them in a weekly format because they are printed on both sides of the paper, so I would have to copy everything to place it by week in the notebook. That's a lot of paper and printer ink. Also, what if we get behind or work ahead in something or I change my plan through the year - it's all stuck in a particular week. Then I came up with this idea: Make each weekly notebook section as we go along through the year as an editable pdf file that she can click check boxes, type in answers, etc. I email her the document at the beginning of the week, she completes the work and emails it back to me on Friday morning. This gives her an opportunity to practice time management skills. I have Adobe Acrobat Pro, so it is entirely possible to create the editable documents. It would be a bit of work, but I could spread it out through the year, and I don't see it as any more work then creating a printed, bound notebook. Maybe I'm just over-thinking this whole thing. Of course, this defeats the original purpose of justifying the comb binder, but one idea led to another. Has anybody done anything like this?

I don't think I understand project or problem based learning very well as a whole curriculum. I'll have to look at the library for a few of the mentioned books because it does seem interesting but I'm not sure that is the direction we want to lean towards. I guess I was thinking more in terms of - your child learns a new set of skills, concepts or information and then you give opportunities to demonstrate that skill or explore a topic further through a project. The projects are an extension of the curriculum, not in place of the curriculum. I also view projects as an area that the child gets to have some choice and take ownership of their learning. An example would be, studying a unit in history and the child picks a particular element that seemed really interesting, completes further study, and then creates a project to present to others (most likely dad, grandparents, sister, etc). I was thinking this would help cement the new knowledge because dd would be more actively involved; she is a hands-on kind of learner and loves crafting/building things. The trick for us is going to be not allowing the project to take over and become what the lesson is all about - extension is the key, I think.

I'll be anxiously watching the answers you receive to this question. I wanted to use a mix of projects with a student text for my hands-on dd and couldn't seem to find a curriculum that fit what we were looking for. I've spent an incredible number of hours lesson planning my dd's 5th grade American history course (4 weeks left to plan and I'm done - phew). I ended up buying a student text to use as my outline, have checked out many books from the library, done lots of web searching and managed to come up with my own plan. We'll read a selection from the text at the beginning of each week and enjoy non-fiction and historical fiction from the library through the week while she is working on a related project that will hopefully bring history to life. Then on to finishing up half a year of science lesson planning. I keep thinking I must be making this so much harder then it needs to be.

I just checked the link above, and it looks like they aren't carrying them anymore. The link above worked when I posted it, but now they have removed it from their website. When I went to the store, I had originally planned on buying the Glasholm glass/white table top and using mirror installation hardware to attach it to the wall. When I got there, I found the $29 whiteboards and bought them instead. They do still carry the glass table tops, so that could be an option. If you google search, "ikea glass whiteboard" you'll find instructions and photos of other people having made them.

They are actual whiteboards sold at ikea for $29 each - a bargain compared to others that I had found. I didn't want to get another typical whiteboard because the ghosting of markers drove me crazy. The glass cleans up so easily, even when it sits for a week. They are a little on the small side, so I bought two and hung them side by side. I was replacing a larger board and was worried I wouldn't like having a space in the middle between the two boards but it actually works out really well. Sometimes DD and I work side by side each on our own whiteboards and other times I'll post a basic outline on one and we'll brainstorm on the other. And, my very-picky-about-hanging-things-on-the-wall DH liked the clip system, they are firmly installed with no worries of them falling. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90198025/

Zeus on the Loose is now in my Amazon shopping cart - I know DD will love it. Thanks for the idea! A few that we like: Make it or Break it Quirkle Circulo Jenga Jishaku Slamwich We LOVE Spot-it and Set. Both are often in my purse for when we might have to wait around somewhere. Uno - a classic but never gets old (at least for me, I have to beg my kids to play it) A friend brought over a game, called Morphology, that was super fun. It's kind of like pictionary, only you have a pile of odd little objects that you use to 'build' the word. It does a great job of bringing out players' creativity. I haven't seen it in the stores yet, he bought it at a game and toy convention.

We are homeschooling our younger dd (pulled last year) while our older daughter continues in the public school system. Like all things related to education, quality of teaching varies greatly. She took honors English and read Romeo and Juliet - the real, unabridged, not translated version. They also read passages from other Shakespeare works and quite a bit of Robert Frost. They read the first part of the Odyssey (again, unabridged) while having to choose aspects of the original and relate it to contemporary works. And they read Frankenstein. Not dumbed down for a 14/15 year old IMO. For sophomore honors English, she had to choose from a list of books including authors such as Bronte that must be read, fully annotated in the book, and complete a written book report turned in a week before school starts. She did say that the reading and writing requirements in the regular classes are much less rigorous, but I am pleased with what I've seen so far in all of her classes (which are all honors). Overall, the quality of her public school education has been strong and suits her learning style well. My younger dd is a different story, though.

Writing had been a struggle for my dd who is now going into fifth grade, while reading and vocab are some of her strongest subject areas. At 10, she has read an impressive amount of literature but that didn't seem to filter into her writing. She was in P.S. up until last year (4th), and the little bit of formal grammar they were teaching was disjointed and severely lacking. We pulled her abruptly in the fall to homeschool and I ordered all the books she had been using at school. By the springtime, I didn't think I could stand to open up the language arts book one more time, so we threw it out and switched to MCT town level. DD had become resistant, frustrated, and anxious about all things language arts. The fastest way to elicit tears from her was to tell her that we were going to start a writing project. In order to 'push the reset button', I stopped all teaching and assignments for any part of language arts other then concentrating on completing Grammar Town, doing a bit vocabulary, and reading Lord of the Rings together. Within a month of working in Grammar Town, dd was writing in journals on her own before bedtime, something she has never done before. By the time summer rolled around, she had spontaneously produced several unassigned, beautifully written essays about topics she was interested in. We couldn't believe it, the same child who would start sobbing at the mere mention of writing was upstairs researching and writing about vacation spots and animals she loved - all on her own! When she proudly presented her writings to us, they were beautiful and the best writing she had produced. For my DD, having a couple of solid months of formal grammar opened up a world of writing that had previously been inaccessible to her. Even though she was receiving NO formal writing instruction, her writing skills improved tremendously through formal grammar instruction. I can't wait to add in the rest of the MCT program components this year and she how she develops as a writer and lover of books.

We have a darker, ferny green that Dd and I picked it out together. I wanted something soothing and a shade that would bring out the wood of the few antique pieces I have in the room (seems like paint can either make the wood beautiful or contrast with it and make it seem orangy). Other furniture is painted either a distressed cream or a light celery green. The room has a big window and light carpeting along with multiple sources of lighting so that we can pick if we want light and bright or draw the curtains and work in dim, cozy, soothing space. What's funny is how we use the homeschool room more now then we did when it was a little living room. Dh and I sit at the table and have great conversations, all of us cozy up in the comfy chair to read or talk on the phone, and teen Dh sits in there with her friends and they talk, draw, or play games. It's the smallest room in the house and seems to be one of the most used.

Feeling accomplished! The homeschool room is sorted out with all books on the shelves, and lesson plans are finished through Christmas. Dd and I decided we didn't like sharing a desk, so I found a cute kid's sized desk for her. The size probably won't last her for more then a year or so but she really liked it and it was cheap. Already have it sanded, painted, and freshened up the top with a coat of poly. It's drying in the garage while I move on to repurposing two little lamps for our desks that came out of one of the girls' bedrooms. I want to find some magazine style holders for each of our subjects to keep the bookcase a little neater, and I have a few more little crafty things I'd like to make. I'm not usually so good about finishing projects, but this thread is inspiring and I feel like I'm getting a lot done. Can't wait to post completed pictures.

Drawers are emptied and ready to be gone through. I need to make lists of what supplies are low and I have organization stuff I want to add to the room before we start up again. Horizontal surfaces have accumulated non-homeschooling junk over the summer and need to be cleaned. I switched to a bigger bookcase and need to find a new home for the old one that has been sitting in the foyer for more then a few weeks now. Dh has a few things to hang on the walls that we didn't get around to putting up last year. All in all, it isn't too bad. I do need to finish up because if dh comes home from work with my curriculum planning stuff spread across the kitchen counter one more time, he may come undone. He has been understanding about late dinners with the ridiculous amount of time I've put into planning out this year instead of tending to our family, but his patience might be waning. Time to get the room cleaned up and the lesson plans finished.

My dad's name is Dick and, after my parents had been married for awhile, one of my Mom's brothers had a set of baseball caps made up for them. Dad's said "I'm a Dick" and Mom's said "I'm with Dick", which was pretty hysterical. If I hear "really" one more time I just might pop. You might as well say "that's stupidest idea I've ever heard, you idiot" because that's what you mean when I ask you to do something and you say "really?" with that tone. My brother uses it all the time, even though he is a grown man. And he says it every.time. his kids do something annoying, so now they say it all the time. Then I hear my kids use it - makes me crazy.

I second MCT from Fireworks Press. We switched in the spring (4th grade) because I was so frustrated with how disjointed what we were using felt. It jumped all over the place and you never really had a chance to master any one skill. We started with the Town level and we are going to continue with that this year for fifth grade. I am using the whole curriculum for grammar, writing, vocab and poetry. DD has a greater grasp of grammar in the short few months that we used this program then in the years she spent working with typical texts at the public school. The format for MCT grammar book is to read together, I find this isn't quite enough for my visual/kinesthetic learner so after we read a section, we usually summarize together on the whiteboard by making a chart and do some examples. The different books of the curriculum sort of step in through the year and the website gives a guide for how to do this. I love, love, love this program as it is a really good fit for both me and dd. I think there are some literature guides available but we decided to do that on our own. DD is REALLY into horses this year, so for literature we are using Beautiful Feet's The History of the Horse as a guide. I worry about finding something with a bit more substance for Literature, but our goal is more about continuing her love of reading then anything else. For spelling I bought a Rod & Staff 5th grade workbook as sort of an afterthought. I'm less worried about spelling then the other stuff. Plus, she sort of gets spelling though all the vocabulary in her other subjects. MCT is expensive, but I mostly bought the teacher's editions. You don't really need the student editions except the practice workbook. I'm sure I can sell it when we are done and recoup some of the cost.

Good rotary paper slicer - seems like I use mine at least weekly for making material, notebooking, or art projects. Buckets and buckets of whiteboard markers - we use them up quickly. Also, I have glass whiteboards from Ikea that i LOVE. Lots of work space options. My DD is wiggly, so she has an comfy chair, floor cushion, or exercise ball with lap desk or clipboard she can work at in addition to a table, or small desk. As long as she is working, she can pick where she sits. For me, drawer and cabinet storage. We have one open bookcase that is neatly organized and the rest of our storage is closed and pretty. I couldn't stand looking at a cluttered mess all day, every day. I don't have a huge budget, so Craigslist and my parents' castoffs have helped us accomplish a beautiful room we both love being in. I buy my core books, and try to check the rest out at the library at the beginning of each week. Less to store that way. Library books stay in a basket in the homeschool room for easy return each week. I like binders for each subject. After work is finished and we look at it together, it goes into the binder as a record of what she has completed. At the end of the year, I combine the year's work from all the subject binders along with my master schedule, and other record keeping into one 4" binder that goes into the basement for storage. A good quality 3-hole punch is a must. I use a weekly workplan system to encourage organization, time management and put some accountability on DD. I have a master schedule of the year's lesson plans (working on this now - taking a break here at the forums :)) At the beginning of each week, DD receives a chart with lessons/assignments to be completed for that week. Monday thru Thursday are work days, and Friday is set aside for extra curriculars and other fun stuff. If she works hard, doesn't dawdle, and gets all of her workplan finished up by Thursday, Friday is free choice. If she doesn't use her time well, then she is stuck home working on Friday. She also knows I have two catch-up weeks scheduled in the master schedule. Stay on track and she has three weeks at Christmas time, if not, then only a two week break. Same goes for the end of the year, summer starts depending on how hard she has worked.

We've been down this road also - it's just so frustrating and sometimes very disheartening. My suggestion is to keep seeking the right doctor, because then you have guidance you can trust. Our DD was enrolled in public school at the time, and their educational assessments were really good, but we needed a medical doctor to confirm for insurance purposes. It took us quite a few attempts over a period of three years to find a person who could see our daughter for her strengths and challenges accurately, who was willing to call and talk to the staff at the school, and then assess her in a way that felt right to us. The Dr. confirmed what we knew - that she didn't quite meet the Asperger's dx, but fit into PDD-NOS with severe ADHD. We were also lucky enough to find a social worker who has a private practice specializing in kids with autism and ADD and has been a great resource. I agree with a previous poster about a dx helping you to become a better parent. Reading about and understanding how our DD was affected by autism and adhd led us to pulling her out of public school, changing the types of activities she was enrolled in and seeking services to help her continue to grow. Neither DH or I can believe how far she has come along, how happy she is, and how much easier it is day to day to parent her. We also elected to gently tell our dd with the help of our social worker about her dx so that she could develop some self-awareness. It was hard for her to accept at first, but I think necessary so that her opinion of herself wasn't just that she was a "failure at everything" (her words). We hope that she is able to be comfortable enough in the future that she can disclose to those close to her and advocate her unique needs in order to continue to be successful. Best of luck to you, it is certainly an interesting journey!