I would go in with your DH and be firm about not wamting to hold him back. Bring a list of points to go over with the principle. There are a lot of good points on this thread. Hime being a 20 year old graduate, repeating material he doesn't need to repeat, bullying possibility. See if they will give you the option of raising him to a certain level and letting him continue. You can't be wishy washy or they will discredit you. I haven't heard you respond to the public school comments so I will assume it's not where you want him? Maybe look into another private school in the area? You may have to do all the remedial work yourself though since there may not be services avaliable for him. I would definitely get an evaluation.You need to know how to help him and which tacticts are going to work to get him to where he needs to be.

I am considering the Upper 2 bundle. There really isn't much else I want. Maybe the Quark Chronicles book, Sir Cumfirence books look cute and the Ellen Mchenry stuff but we are doing Physics next year so none of those would be used but the would be nice to have. I would definitely buy if you could mix and match the buy 2 get one free build your own and pre assembled. I'm going to hold out and decide over the weekend. I keep looking at the picture smart bible which is normally $40 so just for that the upper bundle is worth it. I just can't decide if I would really use it or not.

My daughter just started youth digital's minecraft mod design 1 and loves it so far. The videos are very engaging and she's had to email for help and they responded in a few hours.

I loved it last year. We are using Ellen Mchenry's Elements right now and the kids love it! I also bought some books I was interested in but not sure about. I like having physical books also but the this sale is so cheap I can buy it, try it out amd either buy a hard copy or print it. If I don't like it I haven't lost a ton of money.

I wasn't disputing the results or validity of the study linked. I was only pointing out the OP was asking about instruction for children that are 4 and under. In children that young a year makes a big difference. I think the majority of people start reading instruction in kindergarden but very few begin before kindergarten. I value your opinion because I know it's your field so I was hoping you would comment on that aspect of it. I think many people think if teaching reading at 5 is good and has advantages wouldn't 4 be better. Also has anyone considered Finland? I know they've been discussed on this board but their reading instruction begins later (I believe around 7) yet their PISA reading scores are higher than ours. The public schools in my area all have the children reading by the end of kindergarten but it is a combination of sight words and phonics so methodology might be part of the problem we are having (maybe all of our problem).

Ultimately I believe everything would even out when accounting for IQ's. I agree with the discussion upthread about controls needed for IQ. This study was about starting reading in Kindergarten vs First grade. The OP mentioned reading by the age of 4 which would be in pre-school for most children. Do you think starting reading instruction at 3 or 4 would be beneficial to children?

I read Ed Hirsch's book and what I understood was the importance of early exposure to vocabulary and an educationally rich environment. Not necessarily that they needed to read early. It's been a while since I read it so maybe I'm remembering wrong. I try and expose my kids to vocabulary through reading alouds and talking to them as I would talk to an adult. We also have a lot of educational items (magnifying glasses, bug identification books, squishy body, rock collection) readily available. We also for the most part ban electronics other than coding or prodigy math. I don't think the research out there is contradictory. There's evidence that early exposure to vocabulary is helpful but that doesn't mean you need to push them to read. There's evidence that some children who pick up reading early are gifted. Those children will outperform their peers due to them being gifted and having above average IQ's. There is also research confirming pushing children to sit for too long at a young age increases instances of ADHD. I prefer play based learning. If they want to sit and learn I will allow them to but I don't ask them I let them ask me. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201505/early-academic-training-produces-long-term-harm

My plan is Foresters for my oldest and AoPS for my younger daughter. They are both very different in the way they think about math. One is very analytical and the other struggles so I don't think AoPS would work for both of them. Maria Miller suggest Forester along side Math Without Borders. I have noticed the reviews for the Math Without Borders videos are mixed so we will see how that goes.

I'm so ready for summer. June is my purge amd reorganize month and I'm already makimg plans for each room. There's so much I want to do but have no time for during the school year. I've cut back to the bare minimum already. Every single thing on our looping schedule has been chopped. I am also looking forward to lazy beach and pool days.

Wow this is unfortunate. I was already on the fence with using Omnibus because of all the controversial issue's with Doug Wilson (federal vision, racism etc) and aside from that I was re-thinking my great books approach. Now with this new information I can make my final decision to not purchase it. In all honesty my pull to the curriculum was the self paced option which would free up my time but we have so many options as homeschoolers. I'm glad this came out while I was looking into it and praying about using it. Makes my decision much easier.

We are using MM and BA for my ADHD daughter but she is very good with math. I don't think their is a specific curriculum that would work across the board for an ADHD child. I have to stay with my daughter while she works to make sure she stays on task. I will often do other things in the room keeping an eye on her to remind her to work she I notice she has gotten distracted. I've also recently started using an app that has a timer on it. I read a suggestion to use a Time Timer and I found an app that used the same concept. I set the timer for the amount of time I have allotted for a particular subject and put it where she can easily see it. I have found computer classes don't work well with ADHD children (at least my children). They need more of a hands on approach which is time consuming but in our house it's the only thing that has worked. My daughter did not advance at all in math at pubic school but with one on one instruction at home she has really soared.

I don't think it would be a problem at all. VP has suggested books to go alongside the self paced course but you could replace those books with the BF books. We only used about 3 of the suggested books and added our own literature for the self paced course this year. Next year I'm going in an entirely different direction for our literature and I won't be using any of the suggested reading books alongside. The course doesn't talk about the reading books at all. It's just suggested literature to supplement what they are already learning in the course.

We do both. My daughter is in MM4 and she's using BA3. She does 8 pages of BA doing every other problem. She finished MM early so she moved onto BA. My daughter is a very analytical thinker and she does really well with BA type puzzles and we are using it a grade below her so I don't know how it would be using it at grade level. BA is about a grade level above in some of the concepts. 3rd grade covers simplifying fractions, variables, exponents. Some of the stuff it covered was also in my 5th grade daughters MM book.

One would be ideal for me especially since I'm an introvert and I feel exausted after spending a long time out. Co-ops wipe me out. I have allowed 1 activity for each set of my kids. My girls get to pick one and my twins get one. Right now it's dance and jiu jitsu. Dance is 2x a week and jiu-jitsu is 2x a week. We also attend a womans study 1x a week. I take summers off other than swim for the ones that need to learn. Eta: i forgot about the peaceful part. I do feel like my house is not as clean as it should be and I have majorly slacked on keeping the kids on top of chores. I have a checklist for them that I was great about at the beginning of the year but now it happens maybe 25% of the time. I think 2x a week would be our max to feel like I have time to keep on top of everything but I will deal with the caos realizing eventually things will calm down.

I am really behind on this thread but last night I finished Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I decided to read this books since so many books on education point back to him. It was very interesting and, although I disagree with him about the natural state of man (that man in inherently good but broken down by society which creates vices in him), I found some of his statements to be true. Rousseau was heavily influenced by John Locke whose writings also influenced the founding fathers of the US. He lived during the late 1700's and was a major philosopher in the Age of Enlightenment. I can see why so many educators were influenced by him. It is a nice thought to believe that in order to create the perfect human being all we have to do is let him/her be themselves and grow without outside influence. I noticed many of Charlotte Mason's idea's in his book and noticed in this article http://www.welltrainedmind.com/the-classical-side-of-charlotte-mason/ it states she borrowed from many of the popular educators one of which was Rousseau. Dewey was also influenced by Rousseau. I loved reading some of the original thoughts that spurred a radical change in our education system. I find it ironic that this man had 5 children who were all sent to orphanages yet he seems to feel he has all the answers to how to raise a child. I wonder if the people who were influenced by him knew that little tidbit. I loved Voltaire's (another influential philosopher in the enlightenment) Response to Rousseau's Book: "I have received, sir, your new book against the human race, and I thank you for it. You will please people by your manner of telling them the truth about themselves, but you will not alter them. The horrors of that human society--from which in our feebleness and ignorance we expect so many consolations--have never been painted in more striking colors: no one has ever been so witty as you are in trying to turn us into brutes: to read your book makes one long to go about all fours. Since, however, it is now some sixty years since I gave up the practice, I feel that it is unfortunately impossible for me to resume it: I leave this natural habit to those more fit for it than are you and I. Nor can I set sail to discover the aborigines of Canada, in the first place because my ill-health ties me to the side of the greatest doctor [1] in Europe, and I should not find the same professional assistance among the Missouris: and secondly because war is going on in that country, and the example of the civilized nations has made the barbarians almost as wicked as we are ourselves. I must confine myself to being a peaceful savage in the retreat I have chosen--close to your country, where you yourself should be." Anyway I'm off to read Herbert Spencer and Scientific Education. In the introduction of Emile the translator listed great educational classics that he believed were in line with Rousseau. I was able to find many of them on google books for free! Probably my greatest takeaway from this book. Also the free amazon prime books are up for the month: http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/kindle/first/ref=kf_surl_rw

Thank you for this! You really helped me sort out my idea's. I think I will look up further up a d further in. I've heard of it but I've never looked into it. I love the idea of 2 tracks also, I don't know why I get stuck in an all or nothing mindset.

This is what I'm really torn on. This year we combined reading, writing and history and I think it was helpful for ancient history since there is so much to cover but I feel like we are missing out on some fun reading. I love Anne of Green Gables and would love to do a study around those books but I've also wanted to do Lord of the Rings and Narnia with a unit study type approach. My problem with Anne of Green Gables is I want to make sure my girls are at the age they can really enjoy the books and it's not just me pushing it on them. It was my favorite series growing up, a series I read over and over till the spines were falling off and I'm thinking it would be more suited for a 6th/7th grade study vs 5th/6th grade. Even if we did some history inspired literature I think I can still fit in some fun books though and middle ages really has some good books like Arthur, Robin Hood. I was all set to base my books on middle ages but then I started thinking about all these cool unit studies we could do if we ditched the history books and just did our own thing with literature.

I have a 5th and 6th grader next year and I'm torn on what to do. We will be studying middle ages for history but I don't know if I really want to align up our literature with history. I'm considering: a study of Grimm's fairy tales Lord of the Rings Trilogy Anne of Green Gables books C.S Lewis Narnia Series Any tips, opinions? Has anyone done a literature unit study using these books? Favorites of your kids? We are considering Omnibus by Veritas Press or Tapestry of Grace for 7th grade so this may be my last year to combine my girls and do just a fun study with literature.

I'm really surprised they claim to be aligned with common core. They are so far off from the normal sequence that other curriculum providers follow. I agree with the previous posters, I don't pay attention to common core or not common core with curriculum. My biggest advice would be to investigate the standards, their history, their implementation and decide exactly what it is you feel you need to avoid. I was really against common core and finally investigated it. I still do not agree with wide spread control of the schools but I don't really have a problem with the math standards. Singapore math, which is very popular among homeschoolers, is being used in a lot of schools now. It was popular among homeschoolers before it was used in schools. It isn't a bad curriculum all of a sudden because it is being used in schools.

I finished "Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform" . I feel like I learned so much from this book. I felt a bit like I was trudging through it at parts but I really wanted to know what the terms we tend to throw around like "progressive education" and "child centered education" actually meant. The book chronicles the entire 20th century and all of the reforms that brought us to this point. All I can say is what a mess they made of our schools! I do think we have come quite a ways from where we were. It's interesting that Rousseau's theories have influence so many idea's in education. He fathered 5 children all of whom were placed in care and he never saw them and was not involved in their care. Apparently at one point he said he was never meant to be a father. Dewey and Karl Marx were heavily influenced by his ideas. I am thinking Emile by Rousseau will be my next book in order to try and understand why so many people would want to follow the idea's of this man. After reading this book I feel much better about my choice to provide a liberal arts/humanities education to my children. If the schools can parade in one idea after the next, throwing out history, then geometry, saying that a class is needed to teach children to be popular and labeling every new idea that seems to come along as progress then I feel certain what I'm doing can't possibly harm them and is almost certain to be better. I'm still planning on reading more books on school styles but I feel like I was really questioning everything I had come to believe in with our homeschooling style and now I am satisfied that there isn't some secret pedagogy that I am missing out on by having my children at home. I'm never satisfied with simple answers and I always want to know the why behind things and I think this book has settled that for me.

:grouphug: :grouphug: I'll be praying. My uncle who is like a second father to me has prostate cancer also. It is metastatic prostate cancer though because it was caught too late. It sucks because it's such a treatable cancer. He starts another round of radiation in a few weeks.

Oh my gosh thank you so much for this! I am in pacific time zone so it starts pretty early here. A lot of times the night time is the only time I can get on but it's been getting so overrun with spam it's frustrating. I keep thinking there has to be a software or something to prevent it.

The hardest part for me with whole30 has always been the social events. At home I can plan and have everything ready but eating my salad with vinaigrette while everyone else eats pizza is hard.

I need to get back on it. I need to plan out some meals though.

For some reason I had 3 books from Samuel Blumenfeld on hold at the library. I returned How to Tutor. I thought it was a book with tips on tutoring and since I consider homeschooling closer to tutoring than teaching I thought it would be helpful but it was mostly lesson plans in each subject. I did read his book on homeschooling but I found it outdated and I disagreed with him on several points. I loved "Is Public Education Necessary" though. I am currently reading "Left Back: a Century of Battles Over School Reform". I think subconsciously I don't want to read it because I keep misplacing it lol. It is very informative so far and is really helping me understand education in the 20th century. One thought that keeps coming to my mind reading all these books is regardless of the debate on things we've done wrong in education we have made so many advancements in the last century. You really can't say all of that just happened. We have to have some stuff right in education even if it's not all right. You can't throw the baby out with the bath water so to speak. I only got 20 pages into Voyage of the Beagle before putting it to the side. I am too focused on trying to figure out my educational beliefs. I think once I nail that down I can expand my reading list.