So far, I threw the Saxon 1 TG across the room, scolded my 5yr old for calling a worksheet "dumb", decided we all needed to get out the house, ended up riding bikes the rest of the morning, and microwaved left-over Chinese food for lunch... Is it too late to redeem this Friday? redeem this homeschool?!?

Still a work in progress, but here's where we're at. ;) Mommy's plan for herself for K5: Read through CM Vol. 1, 5, and 6 Mommy's plan for working-with K5-er: AAR 1-2 Saxon 1 Zaner-Bloser Handwriting K CC - Cycle 1 - Memory Work Daddy's plan to read & narrate with K5-er: AO Y0 CJS booklists from seminars If we can get around to it: Math-It We Choose Virtues SCM - Laying down the Rails for Children On his own: Chores (unload the dishwasher, set the table, do his own laundry, clean his own bathroom/toilet) Kiko's thinking time (App) What's in the Bible? (DVDs) Mathtacular 1 (DVDs) Somewhere between 1-6 hours of outside time per day And, *most importantly* (for me) quiet time every afternoon (45 minutes in his own room to think, pray, sleep, and "read")

I recommend Logic of English - Foundations! We're going to get it this year for my Kindergartener and my 7 yr old son starting 2nd grade. :) I've been looking into it for over a year and just heard Denise Eide speak at the Great Homeschooling Convention. My husband and I even think we might learn something new after going through the program. ;) We'll probably wait until next year to start IEW. Although I did have someone recommend IEWs PAL Writing for my 2nd grader.

This is how we made 1st grade fun :) I let my complaining-artsy-7-year-old start the day with a quick drawing class every morning (http://www.draw3d.com). There was usually less complaining after that. :) I let him do his copy work and handwriting practice in whatever "color" he wanted, sometimes every letter was a different color, sometimes he used a highlighter pen, but he always finished and rarely complained. His piano practicing time often turned into music composing time. Instead of using prompts for writing, I let him free-write all year, and he wrote a 10+ page book (complete with very detailed illustrations) about the many adventures of his "Bunny" (digging a burrow, planting and harvesting a garden, buying tools, etc.) The artsy ones need a lot of time before, between and during "school" to get their creativity out, and they need reminding (more often than your average child) that part of "growing up" is doing things you don't want to. :)

We survived our first year of homeschooling! It was hard. The issues I struggled with the most were the ISOLATION and FATIGUE. Have you experienced either of these? And, how do you deal with it?

I LOVED the Right Start Math webinars that they used to hold every Wednesday at noon. I watched them every Wed at lunch with my 1st grader and preschooler. We already had MUS Alpha and all the blocks (in nice wooden cases), but after watching the RS webinars for a cpl months I felt compelled to get the RS2 Level A for my 4 yr old. It didn't work out as well as I thought it would. I LOVED math when I was in school and I thought I'd be excited about teaching it or at least as excited as I was about watching the RS webinars. I don't know if it's the scripting or what, but it really hasn't been that fun for me to teach RS math. And watching the MUS videos and working with the blocks was really killing my joy for teaching math. We ended up getting our third and final math curriculum for my 1st grader: Math in Focus (the Americanized version of Singapore math) and the workbooks are really fun for him and it doesn't require a lot of work on my part and I can see that he's retaining a lot of the information :) I regret spending $265 on RS2 A and $219 on MUS Alpha :(

I agree. The article is a bit vague. I would love to have more detail on what they're implementing and how it translates into success in "industry and modern society" (as the article mentioned as their goal). The article also talks about how they're going to focus on changes in education to promote character, resilience and communication skills. I had a brief stint as a project manager in technology and worked with all kinds of "characters". Despite their character flaws, and lack of communication skills, many programmers were highly successful because of their ability to understand how complex systems work, and how they could add-to or change these systems without introducing new issues into the existing system--more of an "ability" than actual "knowledge". Changes in how we educate that would grow and enhance this "ability" would be interesting to me :)

Anything by Zimmerman, Andrea :)

We use both. I started with Math in Focus, which is supposedly the "Americanized" Singapore math. It's fun. We like the text books and worksheets and it's well organized. Just a little pricey. Then I started watching the Right Start free webinars and got hooked! I ended up ordering RS2 Level A for my 4 year old. He loves the songs and the manipulatives. Sometimes I regret spending so much on RS2 manipulatives, you kind of feel "committed" for life....and I haven't been as consistent teaching it. It's so much easier to pull out the MIF text book and give my son a worksheet (which he actually enjoys doing) :) We'll probably stick with MIF next year. But reading this thread, I feel convicted to giving a little more effort to scheduling in RS more regularly!

This is all fantastic clarification. We were trying to figure out how to use HOD and MFW with our two boys 4 and 6. We're also in CC Cycle 3 this year and wanted to work in MFW Adv. After reading all the suggestions, I'm committed to watching ALL of Sonya's SCM conference on DVD! ;)

It doesn't seem like you're doing too much. We're in CC and we supplement with an entire box-set curriculum the charter school assigned to us. I've been thinking about adding MFW Adventures in Jan after my son turns 7; we thought he might be more ready for it then and MFW offers free shipping between Nov - March :) We've also looked into the BJU distance learning quite a bit and have thought about adding some of those courses as well. I'll have to check out the science! We just started Pat Knepley art classes today and the kids are highly motivated so I'm going to continue with that as well. We also do Sing Song Latin when we can fit it in. So, no, I don't think you're doing too much. Just keep an eye on how you and your kiddos are doing stress wise, and cut back when you think necessary. I would think as long as you're nurturing them spiritually and expanding their minds, you can't go wrong with whatever and how much curriculum you're using ;)

My oldest loved being "read to" so I dragged that out as long as I could :) He didn't know how to hold a pencil and he didn't even know the entire alphabet before he started Kindergarten-Prep at a private Christian school. He was just shy of 5 when he started school and by the end of the first school year (about 8 months later) he knew how to read and write an entire sentence. I've heard stories of people starting their children earlier than 4, but, typically, the earlier you start them, the longer and the more work it takes to teach the child. I guess it just depends on your goals and what you value. One reason I recommend waiting until they're older is because their eyes need time to develop/mature. My friend's son was an early reader, he could read by age 3 and spent up to an hour a day reading independently, but by the time he started Kindergarten, he needed glasses!

Coco_Clark love, love, love what you're doing. I just told my husband I might just have to borrow your schedule. I have two boys similar ages to yours and my oldest is also working on MIF and LOE Foundations :)

For Math, we've been using Math in Focus, which someone already mentioned above, but I wanted to add that we discovered you can access samples of the ENTIRE curriculum online on the houghton mifflin harcourt site and keep your access for a YEAR. I just bring up the workbooks on my laptop and put a plastic report cover over my screen and my boys can do all their math right there on the computer. Scott Foresman Reading Street is also somewhat open and go the way we use it. Again, you can access samples online on the Pearson website and see the whole curriculum. For an all-inclusive grade specific curriculum, "Journeys" is very "open and go", or in our case, we access the samples online and it's very "scroll down and go" ;)