Please help me choose a book for my one year old niece's birthday. We want to get a book of fairy tales, more of the classic than the Disney variety, but they can be twists on classic tales to a certain extent. The two big requirements are that each story should be fairly short and the whole thing should be pleasant for adults who don't love reading to read aloud. It's a bit of a running joke that we give their family books because the parents are self-avowed non-reading engineer types and our family loves books. Still, we want each book given to have a possibility of sparking enjoyment, even if not a love of reading.

Since I think the literal answer to this is highly political, I don't think it's going to be possible to answer this following the rules.

We use Beast Academy as our primary math for my almost 8 year old and the 6 year old will be starting soon. We've stopped for a time and filled in with Math Mammoth, partly to get more practice and partly because level 2 ramped up so quickly my daughter needed to grow into it. She handled 2a easily as a young 5 year old, but by 2c it wasn't a fun challenge, it was miserable. I think one reason it's being recommended to everyone and his brother right now is that there is a high demand for online math programs amongst new homeschoolers especially, and most such programs are really weak and/or really dull.

Great! It sounds like you are working with a very bright child, which I know takes the pressure off in some ways and intensifies it on others. I'm not too much help for finding an overarching online curriculum that would work, and it could well be that those you've already selected would work best My daughter did Beast Academy and we recently moved to doing it online rather than in the workbooks. Your daughter would probably either like it a lot or despise it. It focuses on understanding math by puzzling it out rather than lots of rote practice of math facts. It also has both the online and the workbooks, and each book is very slim (one year divided into 4 sections with a comic style textbook and a work boo for each section) so they could be carried around without much trouble. There are some other online math programs, too. This is just the only one I know well enough to talk about. If she likes to read and watch documentaries, I would make that the bulk of her science and social studies, just getting booklists that span the areas you are considering and getting a mix of e books and physical copies to meet your needs. Then you could do science days with fun demos when it fits in your schedule and take advantage of the travel to get in some fun geography, history, etc. That leaves language arts stuff. You have a plan there, I see, and ib know nothing about online programs for that, but you may want to have two strands going to keep things from getting dry. The tour tutor could help her with the things you listed, then maybe when she's working with you you could help her with a writing project, maybe related to musicals since that's her passion. The two of you could write (and you may take turns doing the physical writing if she had lots of ideas), then you could help her revise the work's grammar and spelling, and then she copies it with her best handwriting and illustrates it. This could be reviews of plays, instructions for being a good actor, a plot for an original show, summaries of shows she's seen, or anything else. Over time you would segue into discussing things like word choice and sentence structure, but that doesn't have to happen right away. I hope more people who have been in your shoes chime in with suggestions. It sounds like y'all have been doing great so far, and I hope you both enjoy this next year homeschooling full time!

Welcome! My eldest just finished up second grade and another will be there in a year, so I have that freshly on my mind. Could you tell us a little more about your daughter and her strengths and weaknesses so we can help you choose? Also, is there a specific reason you need an online curriculum? I've noticed a lot of times when people first switch from public school, they get time of ads for online programs and so they assume that's the way to go, but at least on this forum it's very rare for any family to continue on with such a program for the long term, though certainly many use lots of online components. I am not trying to discourage your plan, just learn more about your reasons to help you choose. If you give us some idea of your own strengths and limitations, that can help, too. (A stay at home mom with a PhD in biology and an unlimited budget might need something very different from someone in a more typical circumstance)

I'm planning to try a schedule for this coming year. I'll have a 1st and 3rd grader along with a prek kid who loves having lessons and a toddler. I tried making a schedule once before, but the little ones were too unpredictable so it was more frustrating than helpful. This year, though, I need to at least have a strong idea of who I'm working with and have clear expectations for what the oldest is doing when I'm not right with her. I'm going to try to balance this by having the kids take turns playing with the little one. I'm thinking of having a list of activity ideas for them to do with him, and every activity they do gets a check mark. Then, if they get a certain number of these, they earn a weekly movie night for the family.

I started writing and erased because I was just rambling with sickened, pained, fearful rambling from the wife of a LEO who is similarly sickened. I hope the officer, and any officer who knew what was happening and could have stopped him, are arrested soon. How dare they kill and make all those people watch helplessly! And everyone who watches the videos in that same helpless position. Someone commenting on a friend's post asked what sense it makes to loot and destroy instead of protesting peacefully, and others said they couldn't understand either. I can. If we call those who looted and destroyed "Patriots" when they did it to protest taxation without representation, how can we claim others should remain calm when their lives are in danger, when they live and die without representation?

I wish I had transferred colleges, or chosen a different one to start. I went to an excellent high school and then to my denominational college, which was really very average but had a decent regional reputation. I had no idea how different the academic level could be or how miserable it would make me. I took the hardest classes I could first semester, hoping to earn a B so that I could focus on learning rather than maintaining the highest possible gpa. When I got a 100 on my first exam that many in the class failed, I had an "oh crap" moment that should have had me looking to transfer, but I pushed it down. I made some great friends and grew in many ways, but I spent loads of time being ridiculously bored and it shut a lot of doors for graduate school. There are still plenty of open doors, so I'm ok with that, but I was so ridiculously bored and certainly learned less than I should have. I learned to appreciate the library and the resources of the internet, which was also good.

That is a good idea and certainly puts me in the "slightly uncomfortable" range. I'll have to choose my timing carefully to avoid too many helpful adults, but I can think of a playground with a hiking trail that would work for that. I'd probably send the older two together and include a walkie talkie.

I try to give my kids slightly more freedom than I feel comfortable with, which helps my confidence grow along with theirs. Some books encourage you to always go with your gut, but I know mine can be overactive. I ask myself "what's the worst thing I could reasonably expect to happen?" not "What's the worst that could happen?" I let my 6 and 7 year olds run, bike, or scooter to the end of our cul-de-sac and back and sometimes let them take the 3 year old along. Yes, there have been minor issues and once I had an interesting talk with a neighbor thanking him for his concern but assuring him everything was alright. I wish I could let them go further, but in the other end of the street there's a hill that creates a blind spot for cars and I don't trust the kids not to cut the corner yet, and it is a real risk they could be hit my a car. In normal times, I let them lead the way at the museum or zoo or hiking trail and sometimes let them take one route while I take another. I've stood at the door of the men's room coaching my 6 year old how to help the three year old wash his hands. From time to time my kids have been separated from me due to miscommunication, but they've handled it well and grown in ability and confidence. I'm not sure if what the next steps are at this point, especially as there are fewer opportunities to test things in public right now. I want to let the oldest plan a meal, shop, and cook it, and clean up soon, but that will have to wait until she can go to the store again. I can add responsibilities around the house, but I don't want to give more work without giving some corresponding freedom. I have a friend who keeps her kids much, much closer and the oldest began having significant anxiety once she was expected to do things on her own, like go to the bathroom without an escort as a second grader. When the mother saw this, she did begin more intentional scaffolding as well as attempting to hide her own fears.

Your are right that others are thinking of this, too. I have 4 kids, ages 7, 6, 3, and 1, probably all at least gifted, and I very much don't want them to gain the "I'm smart, so I don't have to work" assumption that I have seen hurt many bright children as they get to the teenage years before meeting a challenge. I agree that time is extremely beneficial in children's maturity, though. My current six year old has grown by leaps and bounds in the last year while I've intentionally been very gentle. I could see that adjusting to life was his hard task for the past year (the previous year my husband's deployment and adding a new baby had thrown him off). We still did school stuff, but it was all at a relaxed pace that accommodated his wiggly self. I don't know if it was in spite of this or because of this or just independent of it, but he's learned a lot of academics at the same time as he has gained the ability to play games and lose gracefully, or win gracefully. He can now control his impulses, usually, well enough to judge when to engage adults in discussion or play, and how to walk away when a situation with other kids is headed south. This coming year I'm going to try to stretch him more with math and encourage his increased independence as well as reading for fun. Those are my main goals, and I look forward to seeing how he grows in unexpected ways as well. My current seven year old, almost eight, is a very different child. She has always had tons of determination and perseverance, but only if she sets the agenda. The Corona Crisis has interrupted the work we were doing to help her see the value of working in a group and caring, at least some, what other people think of you. We have academic goals, but she's so far ahead in most areas that I'm not going to push her harder than she pushes herself, except in writing. She has the writing stamina you'd expect in a child her age, but it's frustrating for her because that's too slow and limited for her to get her ideas down. That will be my area of academic push in the coming year. None of that may be directly applicable to your son, but I wrote it out because it helps me process and I hope it can be of some use to you too see someone else's thinking on this subject.

We are big re readers in this house, so reading things too early isn't a big deal. Right now my husband is reading The Fellowship of the Ring to the kids (ages 7,6,3,1). Before this, he read a history book about the development of the ship board clock and how important it was for map making. I'm going through the Chronicles of Narnia and Ramona books. Our deal is that I read the on and slightly above she level stuff to them, he reads the way above, and they read themselves, too. The oldest has heard me read Ramona and Narnia before, but she's still impatiently sneaking the books and reading ahead, then listening again. The youngest isn't getting anything from it except that he loves to see the pictures and be near us during cuddly read aloud time. I do agree with the above idea that you don't want a kid to think that they know all about a book because it was a read aloud when they were small, but we just talk about how fun it is to re read books and notice new things each time. Still in early days of the experiment, but I'm basically replicating and expanding on what my dad read to us, and that seemed to have worked.

The people around you who are recommending unschooling, what do they do about these exams and turning in of assignments? If their children are managing to unschool and still meet the requirements, maybe you should look at their plans for some ideas. Most of us don't operate under such tight control, so while we can give ideas for how to cover different things and measure progress, they may not be helpful to your situation.

I get your point and appreciate your enthusiasm. I like paying attention to these sorts of things and at one point imagined buying an old church building and setting it up as a homeschool resource center. Now, however, my kids keep me very busy and my dreams tend to be about a chance to eat my lunch in peace, haha. From what I've seen, it's very hard to make money off of homeschoolers. There are some who are financially very well off, but more have far less cash than they would have if they hadn't chosen to homeschool and so are very careful with finances. Many of the profitable businesses serving homeschoolers seem somewhat predatory, focusing on the insecurities new homeschoolers have by offering to grant them access to a special community or give them everything they need to have a successful school year with happy children, or show them the one right way to meet their children's needs. Obviously, you wouldn't want to be like that, but if you were operating a struggling business it would be hard for most to market in a way that is both completely honest and profitable, at least in most markets. There is a homeschool curriculum store in the wealthier party of the suburbs that seems to be popular with some of my friends. They love to go there and browse, even if they don't live close. The store offers used books as well as new. I assume it's profitable enough since it stays open. That particular one intentionally doesn't carry curricula that disagree with their personal beliefs, so I don't benefit from their services, but I would spend time and some money in a similar store with a wider variety of curricula. I don't mean to be discouraging at all, and I think whatever you do, yourv own children will likely benefit from the way you are exploring curricula and the homeschool community now.

Yes, if you have a computer and decent internet connection. You sign up for a time, then go to the website and phone in when your time is close to starting, they give you the password to get started and also remind you that your child can take as many breaks as they want and even snack or room around outside as needed, but parents need to be careful that the work is the child's own.

I chose to use the MAP because it's familiar to the schools in my area and because it's adaptive so it can give some indication of my child's actual level.

We've got to figure out what to do because our 7 year old was sent a full check. She earned enough as a five year old to file taxes, but not enough to pay taxes. Her date of birth was obvious on the return. If we cash it and have to pay out back later, we'll be fine with that. If we don't cash it and they still ask for us to pay it back, I won't be happy.

That's such a contrast to the attitude of this board! No one here is encouraged to be highly critical of Peace Hill/Well Trained Mind Press choices, but it's just seen as rude, not forbidden. And it's perfectly fine to say that they aren't working for your child and ask for other suggestions. I've bought Well-Trained Mind stuff because of reviews here. I know that I can trust them because they haven't been heavily moderated. Also, some times the criticism one person makes let me know that the product is likely to be perfect for me.

I'm with you on thinking this is important for those reasons. My kids are naturally more quiet than most kids (though still sometimes SO LOUD!) and one set of cousins is naturally more loud. Our family has also worked on appropriate nose levels from the beginning, which is easier with quieter children, but the cousins only started after it was a problem. The kids' grandfather prefers to be near my kids because of this, though he tries hard to not make it seem like that. If he didn't try hard, or if the other family wasn't improving, this would certainly cause problems long term.

To be fair, schools here end in mid May. The people saying this, who included teachers, were perhaps trying to paint things in as rosy a fashion as possible to reduce stress, but it still seems crazy. 8 weeks missed should not be just 2 weeks of instruction missed. I've heard very few complaints about teachers, though. The technology has been frustrating, but schools are working on that.

Some people around here have been passing around "don't worry, they only lost two weeks of instructional time." Schools here got out mid-March as well, and the way they figured, there were only two weeks of learning left before test prep was to be in full force, then testing, then after testing haze. Of all the things that maybe this will affect long-term, I'm hoping that someone noticed that and said, "hey, that's unacceptable."

I said I want my state to give information about our state's scope and sequence automatically to homeschooling parents, along with a letter explaining that parents are perfectly free to come up with their own objectives and suggesting they list them. We don't ask permission to home school here. We just tell them we are doing it. I don't expect that my state will make any changes as it would be politically difficult, thanks to both knee jerk reactions from HSLDA types and knee jerk reactions from the Harvard conference types.

If you believe the government should have no role whatsoever, I understand your not liking this idea. I find it funny, however, that you say the information is both readily accessible to all parents right now and utterly impossible for any government official to come up with. You know some of those government officials are parents, right?

I'm thinking out loud here, not giving real advice because my oldest is the same age as the child you are describing. When she hit a wall with Beast it was because she hadn't gotten a good handle on the multiplication facts (she understood very, very well). We stopped, took a turn in Math Mammoth for a chapter on multiplication, and now we're back in Beast with much more satisfaction. I would hate to stop doing math all together, largely because it would possibly be hard to convince the child that it's time to start back and that we're not going to drop it every time it feels boring. An unconvinced child is not giving their best effort, to say the least. I might try substituting in logic for math, so she's still doing something analytical every day, and also reading math to her, as you describe.

Many do, some don't. If this were out there, parents would have better, more informed, questions to ask each other. Instead of "what do I teach my kid?" which is simply too giant of a question for park day (and yet gets asked frequently), they can have looked at the list ahead of time so they can ask things like, "I notice that teaching capitalization happens every year in public elementary school. Do you think that much repetition helps your kid, or can you teach it once and be done?" Sure, they could also get this from looking in a book and we have books that cover that information in our public library. There are plenty of people who don't realize this, though, and have trouble sifting through the mountains of information on the internet to figure out what is gold and what is chicken scratch.