Okay the Dummies reference is to Moi not my yahoos...but I would like to spend our summer learning basic latin. I do not intend to carry this through the rest of the schooling but would like to cover the basics so that the kids get the sense of the roots of language... I'm looking at Prima Latina but suspect there are others out there worthy of my reseach. So as usual...where do I turn? To the forum of hive minds where I always learn something new.... So what do you think?

My youngest daughter is begging me to learn french. She is obessed with all things France and she is only five years old and we are NOT francophiles so go figure... she wants to learn french and I am interested in a DVD type of program that we can play in the car for conversational french. I am not all that interested in diving into it seriously as part of our study but hey who know down the road if that changes...espcecially since it makes sense with me having studied it for four years. It would be a lot easier to teach the kids than the mandarin that I want them to learn. So anyone have any ideas of play in the car french lessons??????

You ROCK!!!!

Not sure what state you live in by here in CA Kindergarten is optional. Kids do not need to start until first grade. Here you can have your child tested to determine grade level placement.

It has happened twice this year in at our school. The parents pushed for testing and then they did it. My daughter has been homeschool for preschool and preforms at a second grade level for reading and end of first grade/begining second for math. While she is advanced she is five and and acts like five. I was conflicted but know that come thrid grade many of the pushed up early kids struggle. So I opted for having her pulled out for first grade math and reading and kinder for the rest. I will do the same for first grade moving her up to second grade. In second grade she can move to gate. I would check with the districts policy first then approach the principle then the teachers. Good luck

I second Kumon it has worked wonders for my four yahoos. The math program has served as the foundation for my kids math and it is amazing what it has done for their school math. We also do their reading program which is great up through level F. Feel free to email me if you have any questions.

My two cents as a mom to two sets of two...meet with the teacher and let her know that you want to work with her as a team. Your sons want to be in public school and you need her help to transisition your son. Yes he was homeschooled and that for the one son it question it might be the best for his learning style, but that he has requested to be at the PS and now you want to support him and not damage his love for learning. I know a lot of PS teachers get yippy skippy about home schooling but that is HER issue to deal with and if you approach her as a "team" to help teach your son it may disarm her negativity or prejudgement. Just my two cents...:lurk5:

Hummm...quite interesting...as a CA girl we are used to earthquakes out here. I grew up in San Francisco expecting them. But Illinois? Yowza! samba in sac

Have you looked at Waldorf? My two sisters are HUGE Waldorfians and it mimics some of CM philosophies and approaches. It is not for everyone and not for me...but I know many who love it. For me it is too laid back and not based in the real world...but it does hold some merit for some of it's approaches - nature, and literature like CM.

:iagree:here to second spellingcity.com My kids LOVE it and like to play their phonics and spelling games. I love that it is free!

IRL I have NO one that shares my parenting style, goals or philosophy. I am on an island alone. I cringe when I listen to friends talk about their parenting approaches but they are theres not mine and thank god my children are not raised in their households. I hold my children to a high bar and believe that they will rise to their expectations as they have and do. We have more fun in our daily life than anyone else around us. I am strict yet loving. We have boundries and guidleines....we have strong values and morals... We are not crunchy and are realists. Education and learning is HUGE in our house. Intergrity and Charactor are huge too. It is my goal to raise self sufficent children that will surive and thrive in the world when they leave the nest. That being said, I was a schedule mom and still am. It is how I manage two sets of twins. My children like the predictablity of a schedule. They have been on them since birth and I too like the person mentioned feed my children on a schedule and not on demand. I also did not pick up my infants everytime they cried. You get know their cries... If you know that they are not hungry becuase you feed them 30 minutes ago and so their blood sugar is still fine and that their diapers are dry then they are okay. Babies do cry and will cry and heaven knows I had it in stereo with twins. I put my kids to sleep on a schedule and to this day they are the best sleepers I know. My early approach to parenting has paid off in my book with babies that ate healthy, developed on scheudle, slept through the night early on and always went to bed when it was bedtime and stayed in bed....things that my friends children did not and some still do not do. There comes a point in life when you say que sera sera and let those that are different be different and learn to respect each others differences. I can agree to disagree. samba

Well I never had a name for it but now that one is on the table so to speak it does fit... My highschool dropout rather spend his time getting stoned and growing green plants in his home half brother (hummmmm can you tell I don't talk to this brother anymore????) and his wife (who he hooked up with when she was only 15 (yowza--TV talk show material here))...well they had one child that they "homeschooled"... now this is the boy who never went to school, never sat down with his parents to learn anything except how to fetch a beer... I was horrified for this little guy. Last time I saw him was five years ago and at 13 he was illiterate. His parents were too lazy to teach him anything. They just did not want to deal with the responsibilty of getting him to school. There were NO books in their home...just TV and video games...He had no friends and was socially off. My sister who is closer in age to my brother finally stepped in since I was too far removed physically and emotionally, and offered to teach our nephew to read...bless his heart he was so excited to have his own books and the prospect of reading them. My brother and his wife would be what I would now call imposters samba

We are huge Kumon supporters. All four of my yahoos use the Kumon program for math and three of them for language arts and math. It is amazing what they have mastered "all on their own" as it is a self paced program that allows the kids to master skills at their own pace. It can be a little frustrating for the parents from time time since it is a daily---yes you read that right---DAILY program. We get five days off a year that is it.... But each day should only take about 15 minutes. samba in sac

My little guy had this happen to him when he was 9 months old. He had his surgery and everything is fine now. No probelms....

I am an adoptive mom of two children from China. We looked into adoption domestically through the county but was not able to do the foster to adopt thing--just could not stomach the ups and downs and uncertanty. We had bio children and our county was pushing us in a direction that we were not comfortable with taking so we put adoption on the back burner. The thought never left us and we met some people who had adopted from china that sparked our interest. We had freinds that had adopted from Russia and the Romania and they told us crazy stories about having to pay bribes and such once they got there...They also paid 30K for each adoption. We assumed international adoption was out of the question due to costs until we learned about China. We learned that we could adpot from China for less than 17K which made is very managable for us. As a former nurse with cleft kids I was drawn to adopting what is called a "waiting child or special needs" cleft affected child. Both of our children are cleft affected and were adopted at 3 and 6 years old. Our first adoption took only 11 months from start to finish and the second took twice as long due to our agency closing its doors and having to start all over again with the paperwork. What I liked about China was that is was very black and white and very very predictable. I cannot speak for the non special needs kids as I understand the wait for the traditional "as young as possible healthy baby" is quite long. The china program offered us what the domestic could not and that was peice of mind from start to finish. It is not for everyone but for us...it was right. In the end we paid 16K for adoption number one (for everything including fees, paperwork homestudy, and travel costs) if you subtract out the two weeks of travel we would have spent roughly 11K. The second time around we are looking at 18K mostly becuase of we took the whole family with us and so our travel costs were more. When you subtract our the adoption credit you get when you file your taxes, our costs for adoption were less than 6K. I know of some families have paid upwards of 30K for China which seems insane but it appears that while everyone that adopts from China pays the same fees...the big difference is in what the agency charges for their services. We used Chinese Children International Adoptions which is known to be one of the lowest cost agencies. That we can attest to twice. I cannot say enough great things about being blessed via adoption. samba in sac dawn in sac

We just got home two weeks ago from our adoption journey. I wish you the very best with yours. Here is to a blessed family day. samba in sac

Well i would be considered one of those advanced maternal age moms.... as I fast approach 47...yikes it is even painful to write it!!! And I am mom to 2 8 year olds and 2 5 year olds. Since I was a late starter I have no idea what it would have been like any other way. For me the first set bio twins at 38 were enough for me to turn off my body to kids but not my heart. Thats when I decided to adopt. dawn in sac

Well I have known a january, march, april, may june, august, september, so why not a december? Now my thoughts of names that are months...well I will keep that to myself... samba in sac

I have two sets of two and am not able to work with them together as a group. Both are boy girl and the girls take off on their own and theboys need much more hand on care. I find the girls move through levels faster and the boys take their sweet time. samba in sac

Wordly Wise (I bought the series for my yahoos) was too remedial for my 8 year old "word boy" of a son. I've been curious about the vine. My son thought wordly was not worthy of his time:glare:

Oh my if I actually added up the figures, I would depress myself...so I just continue to stick my head in the sand... Anyone else want to visit my beach? Yes, hello my name is samba and I am a curriculum junkie....

Yes, Catholic school was the REASON we decided to afterschool. All schools are different and our catholic school while highly praised for its academics was not up to par with my expectations. I hold a very high standard and found that it was smoke and mirrors at our catholic school so I started with math reading and history. I added language arts (grammer and writing last year) We have since moved them to our area public school becuase after indepth comparison between the two the public school had much more to offer including personalized education and not one size fits all 36 kids in a class that catholic school offered. For us it was a hige improvement academically to move to PS but I still afterschool and it has placed my kids in the gifted programs at their school. Something we did not get at our old pvt school. It comes down to what you value. Education was more important the being in a controlled environment. I miss the religous aspect, but can fill in those holes at home too. samba

I cannot say enough great things about story of the world on CD. they are painless and quite enjoyable...even for adults samba in sac talesfromthebigtomato.blogspot.com

I do not own the book but I have been sneaking veggies and fiber into my yahoos diets since they could eat. We are a family of adventurous eaters but they still could use to eat more veggies and fiber. To be honest the biggest target of my sneakiness is DH. He is not a veggie eater and he has fallen to my tricks for the past 14 years..... It is a way of life samba in sac

One of my favorite goodies to give to my kids friends are homemade CD's of music. I let me yahoos pick their favorite 15 songs and then we burn them onto CD's They are a HUGE hit. WE pick high funk music from the 30's 40's 50's you name it. Clean cut yet fun. songs like jimmy buffet volcano song, moon in the sky - that's amore, banana boat song, purple people eater, herb albert, go you chicken fat. They are such rediculous songs that they work for five year olds to 15 year olds... samba in sac