Hi, we also live near DC (in Frederick, MD) and near a lot of Civil War sites, such as Antietam and Gettysburg. I just posted a full listing on the social group with a photo. Beth

How do you join the social group? I would love to join! We are also listed on the helmtravel site and just set up a swap for this June with a family in NC. We live just outside of DC in Maryland. Helmtravel is nice because all the listings are from homeschoolers and the woman who runs it verifies that you actually own your home by checking the property records etc. Beth

I have plantar faciatis too and was thinking of trying these sandals by SOLE. http://www.solesandals.com/index.html I started to wear their insoles in my winter shoes and my heel spur finally heeled after a year. http://www.yoursole.com/

Please post here what you hear from Gander about the samples. I am very interested as well! Thanks, Beth

Thanks so much for these suggestions!! I will try both, and were things I had never thought of, for sure! Beth

Heidi, you mentioned the workbooks for Visualizing and Verbalization. Can these be used without buying the teacher's manual for V/V or are they self explanatory?

On the curriculum board there is a thread about memory work. I can't imagine my kids memorizing the volume of facts they are discussing, or even a whole poem. My 10 year old twins are of average intelligence, but have a hard time remembering any kind of facts. For example, the months in the calendar were so hard for them to learn and math facts are extremely difficult. Lately I realized they totally confuse the concepts of city, county, state, country and continent. They may answer 'Maryland' for "what country do you live in?"or Asia for "name one state in the United States". Please help with any advice on how to help them learn or remember these basic geography concepts. We have tried maps, flash cards, and lots of reading about geography. After reading Madeleine, they could tell you a lot about Paris, but forget it is in a different country, or that France is not a state.

Tuckabella, that site has exactly what I was looking for! It will be a breeze to type in a few sentences and print out. Thanks so much for all the great ideas, everyone! Beth:)

Thanks to you both for your good ideas! Katharine, I was struggling with how to insert a dotted line in Word for a primary grade handwriting format and found a great tip on-line...if you just type *** and Enter, it will give you a dashed line. (When it did a normal dashed line, it kept converting to a smooth line when I hit enter). Also, the suggestion about fonts gave me the idea to see what I already had and I have a font called "Schoolhouse Printed" that lets me type the copywork sentence in a ruled format! So, it seems I am all set. Thanks ladies!

I would like to create my own copywork pages for WWE using text from what we are currently reading. Does anyone know where to find lined handwriting pages in a word doc so I could modify the sentences each week? I looked online and can only find pdf files for handwriting paper. My handwriting is horrible so I would prefer to type the sentences rather than print them. Beth

They went to a public Montessori charter school for five years, so they were taught phonics. I think that is why they can decode so well. But just to be on the safe side, I am thinking about trying All About Spelling or your suggested programs to find out if there are gaps. Thanks! Beth

Boy, Alanae, your son sounds just like my daughters! Thanks everyone for all the advice so far. Do you think structured, sequential readers are necessary, or just picture type books at their reading level? Beth

I have 10 year old twin girls and we are in our first year of homeschooling. At the start of the year they did not like to read at all. With encouragement, they select picture books at the library but mostly just look through the pictures. When they read aloud to me, they can decode very, very well, but struggle with comprehension. They hate independent silent reading and really just look at the pictures or flip through pages. I have spent most of the year switching between reading aloud (to them) quality picture books and small texts (Beatrix Potter, original Poohs) and high interest chapter books that are above their own reading level (Dick King Smith, William Steig, the Doll People etc.) They have come to love read aloud time and sometimes will read to me a page or two, but struggle with many words and fluency. They do good narrations of the read alouds. My question is, are readers at their own level (like McGuffey) necessary or is it better for them to hear me read books slightly above their own level of fluency? I hate to mess with a good thing since they now love to have me read to them, but wonder if they really need to do more independent reading or reading to me. What readers would you recommend for this age? Thanks!

I spent all my childhood/teen summers in Rehoboth. As a family of six tht can't afford hotels or rentals in Rehoboth any more, we camp at Cape Henlopen in Lewes alot. If it were summer, I would pick Rehoboth with kids as there is a nice Funland on the boardwalk that my kids love. But it doesn't open until May. So you may be limited to shopping or maybe some kite flying on the beach, and great food. There are also outlets on the way into town and a movie theater. If you are into nature activities, Cape Henlopen State Park in Lewes is fabulous. Gorgeous beaches (much nicer than Rehoboth's) for walking, dunes to explore, a nature center etc. It would be easy to drive over there for an afternoon..just 15 minutes or so away at that time of year. Both towns are great and either one is highly recommended by me. Oh yeah, I LOVE Grotto Pizza in Rehoboth (and on the highway by Lewes, called the Grand Slam, but with Grotto Pizza):)

Hi, I am having the same issue with my twin daughters. We have tried just about everything, but I was just reading about a book called Times Tales that we haven't tried yet. Apparently, it is the thing that just cements it for some kids. See the reviews on Amazon and see if you think it might help. Good luck!

We used it for a few months with my twin 10 year olds. They really enjoyed it, and I think the reading program was very good. They loved the story writer program but it drove me crazy as they are still narrating and the typing interface was not very user friendly. The math segments were good, but did not provide enough repetition and reinforcement for my girls. I ended up using Saxon math to go along with it. The scope and sequence was impressive and I liked how you could just pick areas from science and history that you were interested in. The record keeping aspect was phenomenal and I could easily keep track of what they had done and what they needed to re-do etc. This would be a great program for a hands off mom that doesn't have a lot of time or desire to teach, or for one that is working at home with a job or lots of little ones. If I had more money, more than two kids, or kids in different grades, I probably would have stuck with it as a supplement. Try the free trial and see what you think;) Best of luck.

I bought a bunch of touchmath books on ebay recently and have been using it with my twin 10 year old daughters. For kids that have trouble memorizing math facts, it is a godsend. Their speed at computation has increased and we have just been using it about a month. Right now we are using the addition and subtraction worksheets as supplements to Saxon math. The materials are expensive, but are much cheaper on ebay. One daughter's accuracy is about 100% using touchmath, while the other one still counts the dots incorrectly sometimes so it's not perfect, but overall a really helpful strategy for them.

Could this program be used as a supplement to Saxon or would it be confusing to students to learn both methods at the same time? I am also considering using it as a summer math activity to take a break from Saxon for the summer for my 10 year old, math dreading twins. Thoughts?

I have 4 kids that attended a public charter k-8 Montessori school. Two thrived while two did not. It seems to depend largely on whether a child is self motivated with a lot of curiosity. My one son spent his entire 3rd grade year devouring National Geographics on a bean bag in his Montessori class. The teacher worked his NG interest into all of his writing, math, history lessons etc. I was worried he wasn't getting a balanced education, but he learned so much and his reading skills jumped tremendously. It all worked out for him in the end. On the other hand, my twin daughters sat quietly in class looking at books for a few years before anyone noticed they really weren't progressing at all. By age 10, they still couldn't do the most simple basic math, and had no basic number sense. Somehow we all missed this thinking it would come eventually, but we now are homeschooling them. The desire to let kids learn and discover at their own pace can mask the fact that some kids need direct support and instruction. The advantages: multi-age class rooms, respectful adult-child relationships, respect for environment and your own space (kids cleaned classrooms, etc.), less tolerance for "meanness" and bullying. My other son who was very shy in regular PS, was forced to interact with other kids in the Montessori setting, and eventually became very confident and social in this safe environment. The disadvantages: Not many. Just use your gut and you will know if it is right for your child.

Since last spring, I have been using Saxon 2 and 3 with my 10 year old twins. We took them out of a public Montessori school last year after 3rd grade. They were not progressing at all in math, even with all the manipulatives work over 4 years (did kindergarten twice). Saxon has helped them tremendously because they have some memory problems and need constant reinforcement of what they have already learned. They also need the many pages of practice they get on new concepts. The problem is they hate it, especially when a new concept is introduced and it becomes hard. Math facts are a nightmare for them and so all the practice is slow going. They really dread math each day. I have been reading many positive things here about CLE math, which also has the spiral approach. I looked at samples and liked the clear instructions/examples on each page. Examples are a big help to them. Self directed and independent work is important to me too since I work from home. Can anyone share why you switched from Saxon to CLE and what you like or dislike in about each curriculum? If my girls hate Saxon, would it be a waste of time to switch to CLE? Thanks!