Just to clarify, I wasn't really asking for an "appropriate" age level; I was curious to know when others have enjoyed reading these with dc. I have never read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, or The Spiderwick Chronicles, so I just wasn't sure about which age group would typically enjoy these as RA.

The Hobbit The Lord of The Rings series The Chronicles of Narnia series The Spiderwick Chronicles

In Ohio, there is a public charter school called Ohio Virtual Academy. If you enroll your children in it, they are enrolled in public school. You are given K-12 curriculum free of charge, and a laptop to use for as long as your kids are enrolled, if you don't have a computer at home. You don't have to notify the schools that you are hsing, because they are enrolled in a public school. You are assigned a team of certified public school teachers who you can contact anytime for assistance, and they will check in with you periodically to see how your kids are progressing. They provide you with all materials you need and give you a suggested timeline for completing assignments. The kids take computer assessments periodically to check their mastery of concepts, and at the end of the year they are required to take standardized tests, just as all public school kids are. But, they do all of their work at home with you. And the curr. is high-quality. They also organize field trips/social opportunties for families enrolled in the virtual school. I know a family who chose this option because the dad was dead-set against homeschooling until he learned about this. If your state has something similar, it would be worth discussing.

The following is a quote from Chickenpatty. I tried to do the quote option, but I guess I didn't do it right, so I edited it to add this. "I guess I feel like I am 'fessing up to this & it's kind of bothering me. So many on the board are very quick to separate themselves from people who might look like me. Ouch!":cool: Oh, that is very sad. I really feel a kinship with all hsers, no matter how they choose to dress or what their faith is. And I have to admit, that, although I wear pants and have my long hair cut and styled, I have a lot of respect for women who choose to wear only dresses and not cut their hair. I have respect for all people who truly live by their convictions, despite what society might think about their choices.

I tend to do this, too! But, I think there is a huge difference between assuming that a large family, dressed in the way you described, out and about in the middle of a weekday is a homeschooling family, and assuming that all homeschooling families are large, Christian families, in which the females wear only skirts/dresses and don't cut their hair. I think that many people are truly just not very knowledgeable about the diversity of homeschoolers. Many people may not know a homeschooling family personally. When people that dh works with find out that we homeschool, many of them are shocked at first because we don't fit that stereotype. And then they are usually very curious, asking how we know what to teach, etc. Most people that we have encountered so far have a positive attitude toward the option when they are given more information, they just don't often know much about it initially.

I hope that you haven't had too many past experiences that would cause you to feel this way. I definitely don't fit the stereotype, but I am a Christian, and I love talking to any homeschoolers we meet, no matter what their faith. In fact, in our old hometown, I felt a lot more comfortable in the non-Christian, hippy crowd of homeschoolers than in the faith-based homeschool group. Interesting, huh?

I haven't been a curr. jumper so far. This is only our second year hsing, and dd is only in first grade, but so far I have researched extensively beforehand and used what I chose. We have been using Miquon and Singapore math these two years, and dd is doing fine. She understands addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, time, money, etc. And she is memorizing her addition facts pretty solidly, but somehow I just feel as if we could maybe do better with another curriculum. It's hard to pinpoint a specific problem, but I just wonder if there is something better out there. I am not planning on using Singapore with ds when he does K5 next year because I don't think it would work well with his personality and learning style. Right now I'm thinking about using Rightstart math for him. I just don't know what to do about dd. Any suggestions?

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Health-Nut-Blueberry-Muffins/Detail.aspx These are very good!

a little over a year ago I started reading again, just for my own pleasure. For five or six years my reading had mainly consisted of parenting and homeschooling books, cookbooks, organization/home management books, etc. I started reading classic novels again and non-fiction that wasn't so bogged down in the nitty gritty details of everyday life, but is more philosophical and mind-stimulating. This has been really good for me.

Susan Wise Bauer's writing program? The LCC, 2nd edition? I'm holding off on planning for next year until I can see these. Does anyone know for sure what month they will be coming out? Thanks.

Dd6.5 will finish the second grade work for FLL this spring, so I'm trying to decide what we should use for grammar in second grade in the fall. I have liked FLL, but dd doesn't enjoy it so much. I'm wondering if it has to do with the format of FLL, or if she just isn't disposed to like grammar as well as other subjects. It comes very easily to her, and she understands it well. She just doesn't count it among the subjects she likes to do. This is okay with me, as I know that not everything in life worth doing is going to be enjoyable to us, although, I wonder if a different approach might change her perspective? I need to decide if we should use FLL3, Primary Langauge Lessons or just Latin? My inclination is that we should use a formal grammar program in combination with Latin, but several people have mentioned that Lively Latin incorporates English grammar review. I don't know anything about Primary Language Lessons beyond what I could see on Amazon, but it sounds interesting. Any recommendations?

Do you have a math copybook, or do you just have make up your own? How many facts do you have your child copy per day?

Wow, I guess it does sound like more than I thought when I read over it. I have never been really intentional or scheduled when it comes to memory work. It just sort of happened within the flow of our lives and the course of other studies (or it just didn't happen, as in this year!) I'll have to check Ambleside. We are doing cursive, as well, and I have been searching for a good copybook for it. Thanks for the input!

It is primarily for dd, who is in first grade, but ds4 loves science, so he tags along a lot. We love that it uses living books, rather than a text book. I like that it comes with a 36 week schedule, with reading, experiments and notebook work all scheduled in. (Although I have adjusted the schedule and assignments, as necessary.) It also comes with reproducible lab sheets for notebooking and recording experiments. And it comes with the Young Scientist Club's experiment kits, which contain almost everything you will need to conduct experiments. The teacher's manual lists all additional items that you will need to have on hand for experiments, but most of them are truly common household items.

I am feeling bad today about the fact that we really aren't doing any memory work this year. In preschool and K5, I had dd memorize a lot of scripture because our church in our old town had a great scripture memorization program for the kids and it helped me to be organized and work with her. She also picked up a lot of nursery rhymes, songs, and little poems just from our reading and daily life. Last year she was doing the first grade work for FLL, which included several poems and sayings. We also listened to A Child's Garden of Songs cd throughout the year, which included several of Robert Louis Stevenson's poems set to music. She had a very favorite Bed in Summer, which she memorized just from listening to it over and over. This year, we just haven't done much. The FLL second grade work doesn't have much memory work, and I guess I hadn't realized what a large black hole memory work has become this year. I know that I need to help her memorize scripture, so I'll work on a list of memory verses. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to do. Any suggestions?

And skip counting, multiplication facts, etc. Also, what other kinds of supplements do you use to help dc learn math facts? We have been using flash cards, but I'm looking for more ways to reinforce. We use Singapore as our main text w/CWP and IP as needed. We also use Miquon to complement what we are learning in Singapore.

Both of the dc take gymnastics classes and have met some kids they like there. But we threw a Valentine's Day party to try to get them together with some friends they wanted to get to know better. We rented out the local gymnastics center (very popular for parties, here) because our little house was too small. We ordered pizzas and made cupcakes, and the dc decorated Valentine's boxes and filled out Valentine cards. And only two children showed up of the 13 we invited. Dd had fun with the two girls that showed up, but said sadly that it wasn't worth it to work so hard making a Valentine's box for only 3 Valentines. I reminded her that it was a lot of fun to make it, and that it was better than no Valentines, but it was still sad. Dd is in a Brownie troop. She had great fun selling Girl Scout cookies, and she enjoys the meetings, but it is difficult to get to know the girls very well only seeing them once a month. And it doesn't help that they all attend the same private Christian school and already know each other (which we didn't find out until the first meeting). There is one little girl that she really likes from Girl Scouts, but she is just starting to get to know her, and I don't have any contact information for her parents. We have started getting more e-mails about hs activities here. We try to attend every one that we can. Dd did meet a little girl at one recently, and I followed up with her mom on e-mail trying to get them together. It hasn't worked out so far, but hopefully soon they can play together again. I guess I just thought we would be a lot more established by this time. I am putting ds in preschool next year, just so that he can be around other kids. He already knows two of the little boys who will be in his class from gymnastics, and this will give him a chance to play with them on a regular basis. I guess a big part of the problem, now that I evaluate it, is that we don't really have a sense of community. We live way out in the country, so we have to drive 30 minutes to get anywhere. And it seems that the people we meet are from so many different directions. So, they might not live anywhere close to us. Where we lived before, if we met someone at the library or church, we could invite them over, knowing that no one lived more than a few minutes away. We only had to drive 10 minutes to get anywhere in town, and we saw familiar people everywhere: at the park, the community center, the grocery store, the library, etc. I miss that sense of community and belonging.

I would love nothing more right now than being able to move back. Unfortunately it's just not possible. We moved here to be closer to dh's new job. It is a 1.5 to 2.5 hour commute from our old hometown, depending on traffic. It is a 45 to 60 minute commute from here. Our old hometown is a small college town nestled in a very rural area with few good jobs. Even if dh could find a job that paid well enough there (He has been looking, btw.), we now live in an area where the houses are very difficult to sell. Since our old house was in a college town, houses sold fairly quickly as new professors and graduate students moved in each year. Here it is almost impossible to move a house quickly. Four of our neighbors have tried to sell their houses in the past few years in order to move closer to the city, as gas prices have increased. Two of them took their houses off the market after their realtor informed them it would take over a year to have any chance of selling. One down the street has been on the market for a couple of years, and the one across the street has been on the market for months with hardly any showings. Three of these houses are much bigger and newer than ours. Our house was on the market for over a year when we bought it. We were planning on being here long term. We didn't know it would be so difficult to find a church and hs community.

I'm just curious. I have been thinking a lot about curriculum and about prioritizing subjects, etc. Is there anything that makes a math program more suited to classical education? I know that Miquon math, for instance, uses a rather Montessori approach.

My 6.5yo first grade dd usually copies a sentence or two for handwriting daily. We do copywork/dictation for FLL most days that it is suggested, but not if I can tell it is going to overwhelm her and push her to tears. We usually only do one or two of the three suggestions.

I am lazy and untidy, too, as was my mother. I so badly don't want to pass this on to my kids, and I'm feeling the same need to get my house under control. I've tried to start FlyLady a couple times, but I never get past the sink. I did scrub my sink very thoroughly according to her directions (at our last house, where it was stainless steel). It looked great. And I kept it that way for awhile, but I didn't get into any of the other routines. At this house, the sink process didn't work as well. My sink is a different material, and I think it is permanently stained. I was so discouraged when I spent the time trying to clean it and it still looked bad, that I gave up. Anyway, I'm thinking that most people who have used FlyLady successfully say it's really about small steps and routines. I do have a question about your post. Why does living in Asia automatically mean that you have a housekeeper? And what chores does your housekeeper do? I know that getting into a routine of running the dishwasher before going to bed at night, and starting a load of laundry first thing in the morning is helpful to me in keeping the dishes and laundry under control. Establishing a definite day of the week to change and launder bed sheets has ensured it gets done weekly. But I'm still horrible at the tidying up aspect. We have a lot of piles of stuff (mostly paperwork and books). I think my biggest problems are that we don't have enough space to put everything, I'm too indecisive to know whether we should keep something or toss it, and I'm too lazy to put things away right away. I guess I haven't really been much help, except in commiserating. I hope you get some better answers. I'll be watching this thread, too.

We have had no luck in finding any kind of social networking opportunities since we moved 1.5 years ago, and it is getting really depressing. The town where we used to live had a great hsing community, and it is just an hour away. In the past we have tried to find something closer because we wanted the kids to be able to develop friendships with kids close enough to get together with on a regular basis for playdates, parties, etc. But it just hasn't happened. And we have to drive 30 minutes to get everywhere anyway, since we live way out in the country. We also haven't found a church since we moved, although we have visited *so* many. We loved our church before we moved and we drove back there for quite awhile. I'm thinking about doing that again. But then I think about all the time we would waste driving, and the gas prices, and I don't know if it is such a good idea. Any thoughts?

I have bought some at Walgreens, too, in the small mesh bags.

use it for very little.:) I would love to go to graduate school! I look forward to the season of my life when it will be possible for me to get my master's and doctorate degrees, and possibly become a university professor.

The Reading Lesson by Michael Levin, M.D. and Charan Langton, M.S. We loved it! It was so incremental that it was painless. From the very first lesson, your child gets to read words and short sentences. It has cute, fun, simple line drawing illustrations which enhance the text, but aren't distracting or overwhelming, and your child can color them in if he enjoys that. Beginning in Lesson 3, your child will be reading very simple "stories". There are some fun activities throughout the book, such as connecting letters or words to the right pictures, matching words, etc. Overall, we really loved the book and used it with great success. The introduction to the book claims that upon finishing the lessons, your child will be reading on a second grade level. This was true for dd. I plan to try using it with ds next year when he is five. If you look it up on Amazon you will be able to find other products available to use with the book. I think there is a dvd and a cd-rom. We did not have either of those, but I can see where they might be useful when I teach ds.