I don't set a daily requirement at all in terms of quantity. Mine struggles with writing also. I stop when he's had enough. We're doing 1 1/2 years of K and we're at the end of it... for a bit of a time map... When we started I had the 1 page per day kind of rule... but he was reluctant. He became MUCH less reluctant when I didn't push at all... but suggested. I will suggest a page or activity (I find changing it around helps) and he has slowly started focusing REALLY well on it. He'll focus well, and I can tell he's trying. Then his body language changes and I can see that he's working hard and it's getting harder for him. Inevitably at some point I can just tell he's done. I try, try hard, to finish JUST before he is done, as in DONE! :) He likes workbooks so after HWT K we went and did Zaner Bloser K... Now we're starting Zaner Bloser 1... I wouldn't if he didn't like workbooks. I also do a sort of form drawing kindof like Waldorf does. In my own drastically altered way, that is... We'll read about a story with something in it that I think I can make a stick drawing of... I draw the stick drawing on the board and my kiddo tries to copy it. I started this as a sort of intro to doing Draw Write Now which we'll move into when we're done with it. The thing that has helped my kid enjoy, focus and improve writing skills has been to not push writing skills, truthfully. It's been a long road but he's starting to really focus on execution, going slow, and forming the letters, rather than trying to make this letter page go away as quickly as possible (all the while being tense and uncomfortable)... Any of that help or make any sense at all? :)

I don't... but I used to have a kid's sized tent in a big hallway off our living room... It was my son's reading tent (not reading yet... but looking at them)... He really needs comfort/cozy/isolation sometimes to calm down, dream, get space to himself. If he's not by himself reading he is VERY chatty, very dependent on other people, and very social... so I think it's like a decompression time or something. He doesn't have a desk nook now... But he has his own desk that I've isolated into a little cubbie sort of with bookcases back-to-back around him. He is a similar age... ETA: I think it also helps him get away from the younger "energy" of his sister...

Sorry to hijack sorta... But I have always LOVED simply Charlotte Mason's materials... I LOVE the laying down the rails book... I've been meaning to put together my own progressional study with it... my kiddos are really small... so with picture books, passages, activities and the like... I keep looking at hthe Companion book sample, the student book with the lesson plans. I REALLY want to try it... but it is pricey... if anyone reads this as a follow up, how prevalent are the bible passages and Christian habit training or morality? We read some bible stories and I am completely fine with some... but I need something that is also somewhat adaptable to our multi-faith family... (Catholic and an Eastern religion)... Thanks! OP... the original Laying Down the Rails book (the one for parents) truly might be enough for you to start... I find the way she organizes her books really wonderful, and they are all very inspiring... It might work as a sort of parent plan... Basically you could use it as a loose lesson plan, in terms of your inspiration and organization, then just pick out books or sources that you think would encourage that habit. Also focusing on certain aspects of that habit you want to improve. It might work really well for such a big age difference... Requires some planning still though. It's what I was planning on doing but I'm really feeling the need to focus on habits again and need a bit more of a hand to hold in the planning/strategizing... :)

I was similar with the noise as a kid... every single field trip I brought headphones, and soothing music. There was special music that would soothe me, and with the headphones the rest of the chaos was muffled... Obviously wouldn't work during any instruction time... but for work time... In college I used nature sounds or ocean waves. I still use headphones to help with this to this day...

My favorite job ever was as a tutor at a college. I was in a special group of tutors that were specially trained to work with LD kids. I also worked with continuing students (or the older ones)... Anyhoo... I did workshops and groups to welcome all the incoming freshman. I often had a handful that I would tutor that first semester (particularly the LD kids)... I think honestly it helped with the transition into college classes more than anything else in particular. Just wanted to throw that out there. We were a tiny college and it was a long time ago... but there's definitely a possibility that there's some kind of center for academic excellence, support, or tutoring center that may have people that specifically work with freshman adjusting to college level classes... hugs!

I've read all John Holt... I've read Classical stuff... I was trained to be a PS teacher... I've studied Waldorf books... I had a brief infatuation with all things Montessori... I've read basically every possible "kind" of education... I wanted a rigorous Classical Education that was somehow discovered through John Holt or Unschooling kinds of ways. hmmm... Kids are all different. No matter how excited I was to be able to homeschool my own kids with all my exciting ideas (yes I cheekily said exciting twice), my 1st really loves workbooks. Who'd a thunk it... I found reading Charlotte Mason (her original books, not the books about her books) to be incredibly useful in helping me to imagine what the education I had in my head might look like. If you haven't read her books, it might be worth a shot. There's a beauty, gentleness and love of children that I somehow feel from her books that helped me to envision a sort of structured way of allowing education freedom... if that makes any sense at all...

Coming from someone who is just beginning much of this... sounds to me like you're doing awesome... Just wanted to add... FWIW... I used to live across the border a ways (US/CANADA) from Quebec..... I absolutely would have focused on French as a high priority had we stayed there. As it is... Teaching my kids fluency in 2 languages is one of my main priorities... we plan to travel later. So if that's a priority to you I wouldn't push it aside... Just wanted to honor that desire as I share it! :) But for what it's worth... I only took Latin for 2 years, and didn't start until 5th grade... and I still feel like I benefited from it... It particularly helped me cement grammar understanding... so maybe if you took a break with FLL or latin you could pick both up when things smooth out or become easier? (sorry if I've missed anything you've already said... I tried to read all responses but my kiddos are asking me things and I have to run)

I am mostly no help... am much less experienced than you and with only 2 kiddos... but I do have a lot of other farm responsibilities... One thing I've done this year is condense "activities" (I mean even grocery, bike/running, etc...) So... Our school days are condensed into a short morning. There are other activities I rotate around in the afternoon or evening (we do audiobooks and music at night)... So basically pretty much EVERYTHING happens Mon-Thu..... By thursday I'm slightly grumpy and tired... Then Friday is often rest day, or field trip, or catch up, or run around the farm like crazy people day... Really whatever we need. With the exception of a grocery trip or a bike ride/run at the park NOTHING is expected of any of us on weekends... We have an alternative/strange schedule due to DH's work schedule and I was getting SOOO drained last year. (And I was only teaching K - so basically if nothing got done was fine with it)... I can't imagine myself being able to maintain that kind of schedule - using all 7 days of the week - without getting drained... So this go around I've very specifically said NO to opportunities or activities, and have REALLY had to stick to my guns about our Mon-Thu schedule (2 days we have activities/classes in the afternoons... but there's no time for more than that... so I don't see other people or schedule ANYTHING else for 2 of those days)... It has been awesome... and we all get the space that we need for rest/adventure/exercise/dreaming/twiddling our thumbs/etc...) Giving myself ONLY those days has made me a lot more efficient, because I have to keep myself focused... so for me I think it's been a good thing... I know I don't have NEAR as much to handle as you... but I can see myself in the future having a very similar schedule... so in case any of this might help you think it out I wanted to add something. Good luck! PS... I'm also a firm believer in "if it ain't broke don't fix it"... if it's working... I wouldn't mess with it. I changed ours around because I was definitely getting spent with our schedule before. Edited for spelling since apparently I can't spell when I've taken cold medicine...

Thanks all! I might just try it out at the regular time and see how it goes. If it doesn't feel right I'll wait till the littler one is ready and we'll do it together. I don't think I'm ready to switch him to it now... He's already learning printing and starting to get a handle on it.. I used to be a learning difference tutor and I think more than anything else it's just a bit of late-bloomer motor-dexterity 6 yo boy stuff. Thanks so much! :)

Does it make me a complete nerd if I admit that instead of for the purpose of procrastination I'm excited to maybe buy materials for 2016-2017?

following... I'm doing FLL super lightly with my K/1ster... but mostly because it's so sweet and gentle and I like the super easy going narration style stuff and the poetry... (I'm not doing WWE or any other formal narration yet... he's 6 but a young six and we're technically doing K with some 1st grade work) I'm probably going to delay grammar because for me personally as a kid... it was learning latin that actually made grammar make sense to me... so I sort of plan on doing the same thing with my kiddos...

I need to hear some stories of kids who've been there, done that I think... I keep changing my mind what to do. For any kiddo that struggled learning printing (due to whatever reason)... did you introduce cursive earlier, later or when you originally planned on it? I was planning on introducing cursive in 1st grade... but I wonder since he struggles printing (it's his learning style, and will likely improve but will not all the sudden be easier for him within the year) whether I should wait a year, just teach him when his littler sibling learns (probably in 2-3 years)... or maybe even introduce it early so he has more time to work with it before proficiency is needed? Any and all advice/stories are welcome... or if there's a thread already feel free to send me that way (I thought I remembered seeing one at one point but couldn't find it)... THANKS

I've used clear shelf-paper (the kind with the stick on the back) to cover paperbacks before and it's protected them for life so far....

wow... I SOOO don't want to know what bacteria is in our creek... but following for a time when I might be brave enough to find out...

I tried it (only doing K work... so not really any pressure at all) due to my husband's yucky work schedule all last year.. It never really worked. Now he still has a similar schedule but we wake up nice and early and have a light breakfast and go directly, directly, into school... Sometimes this means under blankets huddled together (DH is still sleeping... so we stay on an enclosed porch to keep the noise down... Wood stove doesn't light itself and some mornings I don't wake up early enough... :)) Some days we do schoolish projects in the afternoon... some sort of waldorf inspired circles, arts/crafts, science (cause my kid's a science nut and we read science books to pass the time)... or this is sometimes when we listen to stuff - spanish, music, etc... But in terms of getting skill work done we have to do it first thing in the morning or frankly we're all just grumpy and unpleasant. Including myself. BUT... I did it, and made it work, for almost a year... Try it... but don't give up until a week or two has gone by... It usually took us 1-4 weeks to adjust to changing our schedule dramatically, which we've had to do several times due to shift work. Hope that helps. good luck!'

Sounds like a good plan! Kinda what I think we'll end up doing too. :) I'm glad to hear Bill say Primary Mathematics might be a good follow up... that's what I've leaned toward whenever we end up switching... but we'll see in a few years. Thanks for this thread! it's helped me too as I've been doing lots of thinking and planning on math plans this week. :)

To be honest if my own brain worked in that Spiral math way I think I would try to do it... But I tend to be a bit of a check-the-box kinda person... So while my son seems to flow from lesson to lesson very well, I myself sometimes struggle to maintain the whole picture, (train of thought/progression of the lessons)... does that make sense? I MAY still try to do it. I really like the idea of switching to AOPS or maybe Singapore... If my son (the older) is at the point where he could do some of Beast Academy independently, I plan on doing RS C then moving into BA, then into AOPS... The schools nearby me use Singapore, so I have considered using that because for any classes, transcripts, whatever it would be so easy to "explain" what we do... Rightstart for me is really the only lesson that we do that if I get derailed or completely interrupted I have a hard time picking up again. We're doing sort of K/1st grade stuff... so it might be different in later grades... but I find I really need a chunk of uninterrupted time to do it, whereas with language arts, LOF or Ray's math, I can pause, take care of whatever disaster a kid or animal created, then pick up where I left off (this is probably just my issue with the spiral thing though... so others might be fine with it). Right now finding uninterrupted times for each kid feels impossible... although in a few years it might be simple. The other reason, to be honest, is that I TRULY want a VERY good solid math foundation... but we're mostly science, story, and music people in my family... so if I can simplify math I would like to. The other reason is that we often do the Rightstart lesson itself all together on the carpet. I'll get out the manipulatives and often my littler one wants to sort of join in. The way it works in our family right now it seems like it would feel very disjointed doing 2 separate lessons... Whereas if my son (older) was doing a different curriculum at least partly independently then he could join in for review on the littler's lesson if he wanted. Hope that helps! What grade are you looking for?

I think they can both be awesome... I use and adore Rightstart. I started out wanting to use Miquon... 2 things made me switch... 1) I had a baby, a farm, about 4 hours sleep a night, and WAY too much on my plate to spend the time and attention to understand how to teach Miquon effectively. Rightstart, after the initial investment, makes it so that I can open, skim, and give a good solid math lesson. We don't do the games with the lessons, but those are rather extras we pick out as we want... And without the games I can easily cater the lesson to his attention span... So if it's a rough day I won't review what I know he knows, won't do the songs or intro stuff... but just get the right manipulative, and get to the lesson. So far he's retained everything as long as I go at the right pace.. 2) This is vague and I don't fully know how to explain it so pardon my random language... But I was fortunate enough to go to a very good elementary school. Looking at the Righstart manipulatives... the way they teach... the focus on understanding of 10 and 5... ALL of the program contains the things that I remember helping math "click" with me as a kid. Math was always just naturally easy for me to understand later on... and I feel like it is because of this kind of mathematical presentation and my immersion in music... I don't plan on sticking with RS past C... because there's something else I want to switch to (by then I'll have another one starting A/B and RS is very teacher intensive)... Some potential downsides ... RS A didn't work for us... it was too slow... We're doing B for both K and 1st, working through it slowly. There are days I wish for something simpler (less to pull out, less scripting, etc....) But I stick with RS because with everything else going on in my life I know without a doubt that if I just take the time to do it, and do what it says, I am giving my kid a really solid math foundation... which to me is invaluable. To be honest I wish I had the gumption to stick with RS as long as it lasts. The 2 main reasons I won't are because the mastery approach I think will suit us best (rather than spiral)... and I want something that they can do more independently later. (Plus I have a slight addiction to Ray's and Life of Fred that I can't rid myself of... I want a "git 'er done" math so we have enough time to work with those)

I would say no... but there is a possibility of something wrong with her. Is she eating? drinking? acting fine otherwise? It takes mine a bit of time to deflate so to speak. I've never heard of any actually kidding 4.. Is it possible to have a vet visit her to check her out? The 2 hour wait for the third one makes me wonder if something might be a bit sore/messed up/etc... but I only talk from my own experience because they usually go quicker than I notice anything is happening. I would mostly just really watch her and see if she's feeling ok... and if you have a vet to do a call maybe give them a call. Sometimes they can give you some info just over the home... and many have a very low fee for a home visit... partly to encourage people callin' if they need to I think. (at least that's how it is near me...) Also... Have you wormed her since she kidded?

My kids are still tiny, and we're really just doing a sort of K/1st year... AND I'm pretty unschooly... but my life is so insane I spent a day making an entire year's worth of daily checklists and printed it off... I can't tell you the relief that it gives me. It's set up to still be flexible... it will just say "1 lesson ____" and not give lesson numbers... but it is set up so that if we follow it we end up where we want to be with everything. It makes everything so clear and easy and every day I don't even have to think about it... I am SOO surprised at how much it has helped us.

I looked into just this thing, online companies, stapes, all my options, and when I realized how expensive it would be to do this on a regular basis I bought myself a laser printer ( on a HUGE sale... I kept my eye out for a while) and a proclick... :) I think if you get the refillable toner it would pay for itself in a few years... For some school work I had to get stuff bound and used staples...

I use it off and on... I use it as reading reinforcement but also handwriting practice... My kiddo needs curriculum breaks and needs things to be changed up.... For phonics exclusively I love the incremental nature of OPGTR much better... But it turns out I have a kid who sometimes responds well to a workbook... Who knew!? â˜ºï¸ I did not have their classical phonics book to go with it... I do love their materials and will probably use some in the future...

I was looking through the HS board for something else entirely but wanted to pop in.. My kids are TINY! So I'm no where near thinking about this... BUT... I will say that what your kid wants to do is what my plan/hope is for my kids. My DH hadn't finished high school... at one point he got his GED and went to the local community college... particularly to a really good program there. Within 2 years of finishing he's completely transformed our lives. He had never been to college... had never studied really ever (he's super smart and never really studied in school cause he didn't need to).. (To compare... I have a PhD and he's making more money than I ever have) He's obviously a father... so for all the right reasons took it really seriously... And he's read more than I have even if he hadn't been to college before. But his experience absolutely sold me on the community college experience and the ability it has to put you ahead and get through transitions... It's seriously my new goal to graduate my kids from homeschool with a 2 year associates degree... If possible in a practical or journeyman field. My DH got several scholarships offered him to continue his Bachelor's based on his grades. A lot of the students took the classes very seriously... were balancing work or family... and didn't have most of the pitfalls or distractions that most 4 year universities offer. Therefor maybe a good transition point from homeschool to the big, bad, awesome world of university? Best of luck!

My son is really into the drawing books... Usually because they teach ME how to draw dragons or dinosaurs... BUT I realized I could use it just as copywork... which I was looking for later this year... I think the drawing and copywork would be too much for him in one day though... We'll see how we do...

As a kid I was taught piano by an extended family member who was a professional piano teacher. I learned with him from age 2 to I think maybe 12. I loved it. He taught rigorously but with fun and support, making it fun when I was tiny and letting me explore my own musical passions and interests later on (along with what he thought would be good for me)... I liked certain composers... the person I took lessons with loved jazz... so he let us explore these. I was doing recitals at a very young age, practiced happily a lot, and on a track where I think I might have continued playing into college. I'd had a hand injury earlier so I'm not sure... but it was a good, healthy path. He moved away and I started taking lessons with another teacher. During the second or 3rd lesson I hadn't memorized the half page she had recommended... because I had been really inspired by another song and had learned all 5 pages of that song instead. I remember being so excited to go in and show her I'd learned the whole song because it moved me and I loved playing it. She reprimanded me for not learning the 1/2 page she'd told me to and put a "bad job" sticker on the page. I quit taking lessons entirely 2 weeks later and never really practiced consistently after that. I am trying to re-learn as I teach my own kiddos... I was taught theory, (even starting at 2), but that second teacher would have done more for me musically if she had just sat there and been kind and supportive, and known absolutely nothing about music. Do your research and find out what methods you might like... but from a kid's perspective... from my perspective... music is an art... and if a kid taps into it deeply it will be emotionally important to them... so find someone that will treat that tenderness with love, respect, and kindness.