I don't have any more experience than you do (we too have Done LFC A and B) but I hadn't considered moving on until the LFC program was exhausted. The format is familiar at that point, and it specifically builds on A and B. Personally, I would (and will) just finish up C before moving on.

I've got an 11 year old entering sixth grade. She's done Latin for Children A and B (then A again, and half of B again) and would like to add French this year, while continuing LFC. I'd love to hear suggestions for French courses that are similar in style to LFC. Preferably with a video/audio component, since pronounciation of a modern language is much more important than Latin, and something that requires zero prior parental knowledge of French. Definitely not an "immersion" program. Also, I know that having a native/fluent speaker available to practice with is important to learning a language. How far do you think you should go in a foreign language before seeking out a fluent speaker for tutoring?

Thanks, all, for the input!

Oh my...Haven't been here in ages and everything looks different. The Medieval and Early Modern World Seven-Volume Set Does anyone have experience using this as a history spine? I'd love to get the whole set, but I can't even come close to affording it this year. I was thinking of getting The European World, and possibly one or two others if I buy them used, as well as the Primary Sources book. Then I see that they also have teachingand studentguides, and those look really good as well. I really want to have quality history books this year, as my daughter's interest in history is really going downhill. I need things that will keep her engaged, but I'm already breaking the bank. History is also a huge weak spot for me as a teacher, so I'm really relying on the curriculum to tell me what she needs to be learning about. So if you have any experience with these books can you please let me know if they will work well as a history spine? How useful are the teacher/student books? They look awesome, but they ARE very expensive. Which should I buy if I can only afford a few of them? Thanks!

Oh fantastic, thank you! That makes it so much simpler. =)

Sorry about my complete lack of experience in this area. We just moved here from NJ where homeschool laws and requirements are as minimal and unobtrusive as they get. I understand that we have a choice of sending a letter of intent to a public or private school. I also understand that we need to hire an evaluator or take a standardized test at the end of each year. We'll probably go with the evaluation. What I'm not clear on, and what Google has failed to help me with, is what you do if you don't follow a traditional September to June school year. We absolutely do not. We just took almost 6 months off in fact to enjoy my daughter's last time with her NJ friends. I'm sure I won't have trouble with the notification, since they allow for people just moving in, but evaluations have to be done, it seems, by June 1st, and that will fall, this year, right in the middle of our school year. We're not working ahead of the traditional school year, but behind, due to our super long break, so I can't have them evaluate last year's stuff. Anyone out there able to tell me what to do? Also, if anyone knows of any good homeschool get-togethers or groups in the Claremont/Newport area, we're looking for ways to meet new friends!

Thanks so much, everyone! =3

More pictures! It's so cool seeing all our books on shelves like this. Our previous school area was a tiny corner of a room with very little shelf space. The last picture is my daughter's side of the table. I did my best to keep all the computer cord mess under control.

We recently bought a house here in NH and are in the process of unpacking and getting everything the way we want it. The house is small, but BEAUTIFUL. I love looking at school room photos, and since I'm so proud of finally having a dedicated room I thought I'd share. The school room is the first room we've completely finished furnishing and unpacking, and we're so happy with it! Soon we'll start school again after a veeeeeery long moving break (we packed the school books in the summer, when we thought we'd be moving a lot sooner). The furniture (except for the chairs) is all Ikea. Billy bookcases, Poang chair, and Gallant table. The cages in the corner house our zoo. A rat, two parakeets, a sugar glider, and a rabbit. The map in the fourth picture is neat. I got two dry-erase peel and stick maps and put them on either side of a piece of foam board, so you can flip it around for a world map.

Bumping (Is that okay here? This is the only time, I promise) because I really hope someone out there has some guidance for me. Thank you.

Without going into too much detail, I am looking for book ideas for (sexually) abused children, appropriate for ages 5-8. Most of the books I've come across regard preventing abuse, and I need books for children recovering from abuse. Also if there are any good books not dealing directly with abuse, but that would be helpful or encouraging for an abuse victim, that would be great too. I have found books on amazon, but without being able to read them myself, personal recommendations are most helpful. Thank you very much in advance.

I'm going to vote "other" because it was our intention to homeschool before our daughter was even conceived. I believe that intention is enough to label yourself, if you choose to. :001_smile:

We have a large B&N near us, as well as a large Borders. The B&N bathrooms are located near art and architecture and children's games. Our Borders is a huge problem, however. To get to the bathrooms at borders you have to pass directly by the adult books, which are usually very brightly colored, with large, bold-faced titles. The adult books go all the way to the floor, so they are at eye-level of any child. To add insult to injury, right around the corner (actually connected to the adult books) are the parenting/education books, including pre-school toys. Directly behind the adult books is the children's section, so the adult books are directly in the path between the kid's section and the bathrooms, so it's a very high traffic area for kids. I've written to them about this, and complained to an employee we're friendly with, but of course they're not going to change anything.

Thanks, all. This is our first experience with any sort of team sport. We're on a HS bowling league, and she takes TaekwonDo lessons, but that has all been extremely positive, and done professionally and pleasantly. I'm sure this woman is a volunteer, and she seems to have been doing it for a while. I personally think she enjoys "being in charge" more than actually instructing. There is obviously no love (or even like) for the game itself, but I get the impression that there is a great love of being the boss. We're probably going to quietly sit through this week, and bring up our complaints with the people in charge at the end. That was our plan all along. I admit that we should have been a lot better at keeping our mouths shut. Letting it become known that we had issues was totally our fault. I underestimated the politics and the willingness of our classy coach to take out her damaged ego on a 9 year old girl who's just trying to make friends and play a game. EDIT: my husband would have made a fantastic coach, as he has a lot of past baseball and coaching experience. Joining this team was all very last minute. We're planning on moving out of state, but if we were staying I would totally be willing to volunteer one or the both of us to coach a team. I'll chalk this up as a learning experience, and a warning to be way more selective in the future. I naively assumed that if someone was in a coaching position they. at the very least. knew the game they taught, and preferably were somewhat decent people.

I am so very angry right now! My daughter joined an instructional league softball team last month. It only runs from April to the end of May (this is the last week). She was interested in learning a new sport, playing on a team for the first time, and (by some miracle) this particular team's schedule didn't interfere much with the various other things that we do. Turns out the coach is, to say the very least, incompetent. I understand that it's a recreational league, and not to be taken super-seriously...but it's also supposed to be instructional. How can they learn anything when the coach... Doesn't know the rules (and admits this freely with an "I don't care" shrug) Doesn't know how to practice (inefficient is an understatement...and consisted mostly of catch. They never once went over any rules and nobody ever learned how to run bases or field). Never knows if she's home or away, never knows the line-up or how to find it, and doesn't know simple things like how far apart the bases should be set. Mocks the other teams when they do things like stretch and warm up. Only stays for half of their allotted practice/learning time. Seems to look for opportunities to cancel games. This last one is what bothers me the most. With such a short season there is very little chance to reschedule missed games or practices. Yet if there is a cloud in the sky she's jumping to cancel. Granted it's been a rainy spring, but there were definitely days when we've been canceled just because she didn't feel like being there. Last Saturday, for instance, we had an 8pm game (for which Coach openly whined about the time). We didn't get the cancellation email in time, so we were there. It was cloudy, but not wet, and the game before us went on to the end with no problem. We stood out on the field and it was in great condition. But the coach had decided to cancel the game "because they (meaning she) would have been miserable out there". These girls, of course, have never won a game. While the other instructional teams are learning the game and getting better, ours are embarrassed by not knowing anything about how to play. They've also started celebrating when games are canceled because their coach's poor attitude has rubbed off on them. The strive for mediocrity extends to the parents as well. I heard one mother tell the coach that with any other coach she would have felt obligated to show up, but with her she didn't feel bad about skipping out (part of the reason the team struggles to get enough girls there to qualify to play). The "don't bother" attitude bothers my husband and me, and apparently us talking among ourselves was overheard by the clucking hens in the stands. So this super-classy coach does what? Appeals to the president of the league to kick my daughter off the team. Lovely. I would have been happy to switch tams for the last week, but the request was denied, and apparently she made us look extremely bad in an email to the league president, prompting him to berate us for creating a negative environment (we weren't. and even if we were, how is complaining about incompetence worse then the incompetence itself?). Ugh....Sorry for the vent. I had to let it out somewhere before I exploded.

Thanks for the input. We're using WWE 4 this year for the same reason we're using Saxon Grammar. That being that we're waiting for the 5th grade SWB book (Writing with Skill? Style?) and I finally decided to drop Writing Strands. It just wasn't doing it for us.

Yes, I believe Saxon Grammar is Hake Grammar re-branded. Today was our first day using it. We copied the dictation for that week (it took an internet search to discover that this and the journal prompts were there in the back). We read through the lesson, then did the practice set, then the review set. Then I suppose tomorrow we'll do the same, only there will be a journal entry instead of copying dictation. The day after We'll do the same again, but doing two lessons and the dictation entry AS dictation, rather than copying. Then every five lessons after lesson ten there is a test and a writing assignment (or two or three, according to the schedule. This program seems like a maze. I hope there's an exceptionally good bit of cheese at the end!

We LOVE NOEO Science. We've used Level 1 Chem. and Physics, and are just starting Level 2 Bio. I find them to be a great blend of hands-on and book learning. I didn't like R.E.A.L. Science (Pandia Press) because it was an elaborate, time-consuming set-up each day for a lesson that took five minutes (and I thought the cartoony sea-stars with googly eyes was a little too inaccurate for science). NOEO uses beautiful, colorful, lively books for level 1, and for level 2 we've gotten the big Usborne Science Encyclopedia and just a few additional books. They also come with fun (and totally complete) experiment kits. Can you tell I recommend them highly?

Can anyone give me a daily/weekly rundown of how you use Saxon Grammar? I THINK I know how it's meant to be done, but I'm not totally sure I'm right. We're only doing Grammar for 3 days a week (doubling up on the last day so it makes for 4 lessons a week). I hope this works, but if not we've only just started fifth so we can change things up if need be.

Science, hands down, is the most expensive subject for us. We use NOEO, which is all-inclusive and a great program, but costs well over $100, about a quarter of what we spend. This year we are reviewing the first two years of Latin, rather than going for the third year. We use LFC, which costs about $115 for the Mastery Bundle each year. Everything else costs about $50 or less per subject. I wouldn't mind paying more for a grammar program as good as FLL, or a math program as good as Saxon, but they just happen to not cost much.

My 13 year old niece, who sees my daughter a few times a year, has the impression that she's some kind of uber-genius. "She's got to be super smart...she's learning LATIN!" More than anything else, though, people ask me whether I get my curriculum from the local school or from the state, or some other distributor of ready-to-use boxed curriculum. I find it remarkably hard to find a way to tell them that we research the choices for each subject and choose what's right for us without it sounding like we just wing it.

The idea of fundraising for a business makes no sense to me either. Our dojang charges us directly for participating in some optional events like board breaking, and some for-fun events. They also foot the bill themselves for a LOT of things like academic achievement parties for the kids, weapons events, public demonstrations, etc. I'm happy with this arrangement, and wouldn't feel comfortable asking other people to give them more money. They already get nearly $200 a month from us, it's not as if they're volunteers!

The web browsing on the Kindle is slow, and of course it's in black and white. I would not suggest using it for everyday browsing, but it IS great for checking email, getting directions, and other simple, in-and-out quick things. It's definitely not just for downloading books. I expect that they'll continue to improve the browser so it's more usable, and I read that there are no plans to discontinue the free internet access....so for my money the extra $50 or whatever it is for completely free emergency internet access for the foreseeable future is a good bargain.

Another good reason to have the 3G version is this....while reading, you can highlight a passage and automatically upload it to Twitter or Facebook if you find something you'd like to share. The only down side to this feature is that there is a limit to the length of the passage that you can share, and it doesn't tell you when you've hit it. Rather, it just cuts it off if it gets too long. Hopefully they'll fix this in a software update, but it is neat to be able to share things you find interesting. You can, of course, do this with WiFi and it will upload it when you get somewhere it picks up the WiFi, but with the 3G you can do it instantly from anywhere.

One more try! Sorry for the self-bump!