oops! double post. Can't find a delete button. :tongue_smilie:

WOW! What a deal! It seems odd though to put 8 year olds in with adults. It would be kinda cool to be in the same class as my daughter...but it seems a little dangerous to have big adults swinging around where there are kids. Do you ever have collisions? :001_huh: Our school has 3 age brackets. 5-7, 8-12, and 13+, and the kids are usually separated by ability, though there are some mixed classes. Only a few 12 year olds are allowed to take class with the adults, though.

My daughter and I both take taekwon do. I think the single most important thing is to have a good chemistry with your instructor. The do-jang we go to is further than other schools, but we were instantly smitten with the owner/teacher. He is FABULOUS with the kids. The perfect mixture of big brother and tough coach. I think most places give you free introductory lessons to feel the place out a bit before committing. In our school they do some sparring at lower levels, but it's mostly for green belts and up. I don't know if that's true everywhere, but it isn't until green belt that you're required to buy your own set of sparring gear (which seems to include chest protector, head gear, mouth-guard, and a cup for the boys). The cost for us both is about $170 per month. Her classes are 45 minutes and mine are an hour, twice a week each, though they barely added anything to our cost when I joined. Prices vary a lot though, and I live in a very densely populated area with a lot of very high income neighborhood. It's been great for us both physically and mentally. Dedication, respect and obedience are absolutely required, and it does wonders for self-discipline and confidence. This is the only sport my daughter has participated in, but there is a sweet (but not particularly athletic) boy in her class whose parents tell me he's tried numerous sports and this is the only thing that he's enjoyed. Though you're required to give 100% of your effort, and to constantly improve, the atmosphere is not competitive and everyone seems to be very supportive of everyone else. When the school hosts events or parties it's easy to tell which kids are students and which are friends, because the students are respectful and non-judgmental (and always say "yes, sir").

Sounds like an awesome idea to me. More people are choosing this route, so it's not only the super-dedicated go-getters anymore. There are probably a whole lot of people who would like a little guidance, but who don't want to attach themselves to a charter school or something.

Virgin Mobile is the cheapest pre-paid service, I think. It's $20 every 3 months, rather than $10 every month, which seems to be the norm. Phones start at $15-$20. http://www.virginmobileusa.com/

We're in our second year of using NOEO and we LOVE it. It sounds dry when you describe the process, reading, notebooking, and a few experiments...but the books are gorgeous and FULL of info. They're really excellent books. The experiment kits are fun, and there isnt an experiment EVERY DAY, so there isn't lengthy set-up and clean-up times, which is something I didn't like about R.E.A.L. Science. NOEO uses a 4 day week. Most weeks there seems to be at least one "fun" thing to do, and some weeks it's an activity every day...but they're short and sweet and to the point. My daughter adores science (says it's her favorite subject). She's very much into crafts and art and activities and she's not been turned off by the smaller number of experiments either.

I've implemented a rewards system this year (we're in week 7/36). I made a collection of "star dollars", which she can use to buy goodies from the school store, which is a box I've filled with items that cost between $1 and $4, like play-dough, small puzzles, packs of her favorite gum, a coloring book, etc.. I stuck each item with a number of those foil star stickers to show their value in star dollars. After setting this up I made each star dollar worth only a third of a dollar. This way she has to collect more of them, but I can hand them out more often. I give star dollars when she goes above what's expected. Showing a really good attitude will also get one, since we've had some attitude issues lately. She'll also get one sometimes for doing her chores without being asked (rare), or brushing her teeth at night without being asked, since it's something she hates doing (also rare).

Ah, you're welcome! I love messing with schedules and other tools, so hopefully I can add to what's there shortly. I may put up the replacement sheets I made for use with Saxon 5/4....the ones from the book didn't copy well for me at all.

I created this for our fourth grade, and I've been tweaking it over the last few weeks. It's turned into something surprisingly useful. I really like having everything I need to know about the week in one view. I uploaded it to my blog if anyone else wants to give it a try. :001_smile: http://greencarrot.wordpress.com/tools/

We just did the tests for the first few dozen lessons of Saxon 3. I would definitely not skip right to Saxon 5/4. Saxon 3 is very meaty, once it finished with the review portion.

Latin for Children has been awesome for us. You don't need any background in Latin to use it. It's not scripted, but it's so self explanatory that it doesn't need to be. It is mostly secular, and offers classical pronunciation. Most importantly, it's enjoyable.

:iagree::iagree::iagree::iagree: NOEO is amazing. It's a little expensive, but you get so many cool books and experiment kits. I like that the information is in books rather than a guide book. books stay on the shelf and can be pulled down and re-read any time, rather than putting everything away with the rest of the curricula at the end of the year.

I just downloaded History Scribe, and I realize there is no good way to find what pages are appropriate for a given SOTW chapter. Searching didn't produce anything. Does anyone know of some place that has integrated History Scribe pages with SOTW 4?

I second Martha Speaks and Dinosaur Train. Also, Curious George is good and quite educational. Sid the Science Kid gets on my nerves with the singing, but apart from that it's decent. Word Girl is also good, but might fly over a 4 year old's head. I would NOT suggest Word World, unless you want to experience your ears and eyes ripping themselves from your head and running away (it's THAT irritating). Also...Pocoyo. I don't know if this appears on tv anywhere, but you can find it online, and Netflix has it. It is ADORABLE. It's for pre-schoolers, but my eight year old and I both love it. It's just too cute.

I have to plan pretty rigidly, or I won't finish anything "on time". It would be too easy for me to skip a lesson here and there, and find myself at the end of 36 weeks with some things finished and some things half-done. Not only does that put us behind, but I don't think it models a good work ethic for my daughter. When I get the books, I figure out how many times per week I have to do each subject to finish it at the end of the 36 weeks I plan for the grade to last. Then I divvy up the work among the four (now five) school days in each week so the load is fairly balanced each day. I try to keep the schedule every day. If I have to skip something I try my best to make it up by the end of the week. It sounds a little anal, but for me it's a lot better than falling behind. As long as she's keeping up, of course. If she NEEDS to slow down, I'll modify the schedule.

I wanna join! http://greencarrot.wordpress.com/

Like you, I had no Latin experience. I found Latin for Children to be a great way for us both to learn, and it required no planning on my part. Just pop in the dvd, watch it, and get to work in the workbook or activity book.

What was the main thing that attracted your husband to homeschooling? He's not home right now to answer, but I'd say that he's mostly unhappy with the quality of PS education, as well as unhappy with the social climate. He (like me) has no tolerance for disrespectful bad attitudes. What is his favorite thing about homeschooling? Our daughter not behaving like the wretched brats he sees every day at the mall. Were the two of you in equal agreement from the start, or was one of you more "pro-homeschooling" than the other? Totally equal. Neither of us considered PS as a possibility, even before we discussed it. Has he ever had doubts, and if so, what helped him? If either of us has had doubts, it was me on days when it became just a little too much. Was there ever something that made him have a definite shift in his perspective about homeschooling? If so, what was it? Nope How often does he look at the kids' work? When he does, does he usually give feedback about what he likes, or what he thinks they should be doing differently? He trusts me to make the decisions regarding school. He looks at her work periodically, or when we show him, but not to approve or disapprove. What does he consider to be "proof" of your family's homeschool success? The proof, for him, is the quality of her curriculum, and that she never has trouble learning what's put infront of her. Comments from family and even strangers regarding her fantastic behavior is also a good sign.

If you need help. PM me. My husband is a genealogist, and has a friend whose business is finding people.

I like it well enough, but I have to modify it sometimes. Writing strands 2 and 3 seemed to cut assignments up into such small steps, that it was a lot of extra work for my daughter, who is a more natural writer and is capable of getting to the meat of the lesson right away. My only other criticism is that it doesn't offer anything in the way of examples, other than what the program writer has written himself. It would be better if there were passages from actual literature to read as well. But we rather like the casual tone.

What curriculum did you use and in what grade? Latin for children A What did you think of it? LOVE it. The dvds are low-budget, but charming and personal. You never feel like they're talking down to you, and the pace is good, but challenging. The workbook is also user-friendly, and the activity book is enjoyable and humorous. The program as a whole has a real sense of humor, and never makes Latin dry or boring, but it also treats the subject with respect. It makes Latin feel relevant, and not something that only lives in the context of ancient times. Which pronunciation did it teach? It offers both. We used Classical, as we're learning Latin for academic purposes, and not for any religious reason. Was it religious or secular? I get a christian vibe from it, but the program itself is pretty secular. a lot of the history reader has to do with early Christianity, and a few of the Latin phrases and translations are biblical, but there's nothing preachy about it, and it shouldn't offend secular learners who accept that learning Latin is going to involve learning about the time period it's from, which will include early Christianity. Loved this program and we're looking forward to starting LFC B very soon.

We do between 6 and 9 weeks on, followed by a week off (sometimes two at Christmas). We only take a week or two off between grades. It works great for us. Since our school year ends up being very short (and since we're starting and ending WAY before PS) we have the flex-time to put in break-weeks whenever we need or want them.

starting grade 4 next week here. Tentative goals are: Do about half of Saxon 5/4 (much of it seems like a repeat of 3) and begin Saxon 6/5 Do latin for children B, while retaining the vocab from A get through SOTW 4, but I'm not placing a huge priority on this. I may well focus more on the major events in history, and skim over the more obscure parts of the world. will try to do a LOT more fun projects. Have a lot of fun with NOEO Physics. last year I placed too much emphasis on the writing and facts, and I forgot that elementary science should be enjoyable Do FLL 4 and Writing strands 4. She's got a very good head for English, so this shouldn't be a problem. actually DO spelling wisdom READ. My library is a half hour drive away and we never seem to get over there to supplement history. also we need to start making those notebook pages that we haven't done since first grade. Require neat handwriting, and really encourage the use of cursive STICK TO A SCHEDULE. We're going from a 4 day week to a 5 day week, so we'll have more time. Falling behind is a REAL pain. require her to learn to touch-type, so she doesn't end up three-finger-typing like I do...

I discovered a very easy solution for the same problem. The office chair my daughter uses doesn't stay in its raised position, so it's much too low for her when she's using the full sized writing desk. Since she turned 8 she doesn't require a booster seat in the car anymore, so we're using that. works perfectly. http://www.carboosterseatsonline.com/images/BoosterSeat.jpg

It took us a little while to get the hang of timed drills as well. Have you considered offering a prize for beating her personal best? I always give my daughter another minute (or whatever the time limit is for that sheet) to try to beat her score with the remaining problems, as long as there are enough. Or....you could try using a stopwatch instead of a timer. Time how long it takes to do the first row, and then try to beat that time for the second row. Is this the first time she's had to work against a clock? If so, it may be stressful. Play with a stopwatch while doing other activities to get her more used to the idea. I also don't worry about erasing mistakes. If she makes a mistake, my daughter writes the correct answer on top of or next to the first answer, and then takes some time when she's done to clean her sheet up. Don't give up! Timed sheets feature heavily in Saxon 2 and 3, and they're great practice and a good mental challenge.