I would want to get him out of that class and keep working with him as you were before- you were making progress, and that's great! But like the other poster said putting him into an algebra class before he's ready, especially if he already has severe math phobias, probably isn't helping him or you. If he's REQUIRED to take it in 9th grade, what if you teach it yourself, not online through the public school, or use a much more friendly program (what about Teaching Textbooks for example?) What are your reporting laws like where you live? Here we only have to show samples from each subject in our portfolios at the end of the year. So I'd even consider helping him with just a few algebra worksheets, turning them in as "samples" at the end of the year, but NOT really making him to a full algebra course- I'd just keep working with him as I was (which was obviously being quite effective!) and work him up to algebra again when he WAS ready for it! Another thing to consider, don't you get to decide his grade level? What if you were to say you felt he wasn't ready for 9th grade work and you're putting/holding him back to 8th again? You'd just keep working with him at his level, but for the purposes of the school knowing what "grade" he's in, he wouldn't be in 9th yet?

Oh, the "One Year Adventure Novel" is a great idea! Mine is still a little young for that but I want to look into it in the future :) Also, there's a book called "Talking Pictures" that you might want to check out- it's about watching movies together (which are divided by age level and topic, including sections for teens) and then all these different discussion questions, all geared around morals and ethics and understanding peoples' differences and relating to other people and so on. http://www.amazon.com/Talking-Pictures-Everyday-Problems-Children/dp/0762408030/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295357538&sr=8-1

I'm in Schuylkill County, and my district is closed today, too!

I think she's too young to assume she's a non-reader. At her age, she doesn't really NEED to read to herself. Just keep reading to her (it's great that she loves library books and being read to)! Sure she has to learn to read at some point, but it REALLY doesn't have to be at age 5. By the way, my son's 5 (as of this past November) and we have not even BEGUN to teach reading yet, other than some letter recognition stuff/watching Leapfrog Letter Factory etc. He's not interested yet, and I just don't think it's worth pushing. We're waiting til next fall to start Kindergarten (which is when he would have been eligible for public school K too, because of the cutoff date)... he'll be a couple months shy of turning 6. And when we start our curriculum, it's a gentle one that doesn't push heavy academics in K. He'll probably be 7-ish before he's really starting to learn to read- and I'm fine with that. Some experts, by the way, even recommend that. You could check out "Better Late Than Early" by the Moores and see what you think... BTW I don't know what OPGTR even IS but if it were annoying my kid, and causing them to potentially dislike reading, and my kid was still only five, I would absolutely be dropping it entirely and picking it up again in a year or two. But, then, I'm a pretty relaxed homeschooler and not big on formal curricula for 5 y/o's to begin with, so take what I say with a grain of salt :P

Mine is in 5th grade right now. We DO take off summers, for almost every subject. Over the summer is when we do SOTW, taking our time and doing it for fun, though. I don't do that over the school year when we're busy with our main curriculum. We continue with lots of reading, because we like to read. Both independently and read alouds. But that's about it in regard to "schoolwork" type stuff. Other than that, the kids take various camps, classes, lessons, continue with some of their extra curricular activities, etc. There's usually two weeks of swimming lessons and two weeks of art camp. We'll be continuing with Judo for my older, tee ball for my younger, and things like that. There will be lots of field trips and tours and get togethers and so on with our homeschool group. There will be a couple of mini family get-aways. And of course lots of free time! In your case... there aren't any classes or camps you can sign him up for? At a local community college? The YMCA? Scouts? 4-H? Library programs? Volunteering at a local hospital, nursing home, library, food pantry, day care center, etc? A program at a history or science museum? (They often have camps, classes, take teen volunteers, etc). A small theater that might have a drama class? A Council For The Arts that might do art camps and classes? Is there anything he's good enough at to offer summer tutoring to younger kids? Would he be interested in trying to write a book/long story? At home, would he utilize different "how to" type books from the library to hone his drawing skills, to learn magic tricks, science experiments, anything that gets him into things other than video games? Is he close enough to any of those friends who live a half hour away that their parents might be willing to meet halfway to give the kids opportunities to get together? Or take turns with the driving/whose houses they play at?

My kids would end up in public school, I'm sure, and my brother and sister-in-law and/or mother would probably help with watching them while my husband worked. My husband works from around 1 PM til around 8 or 9 PM or so usually, but he owns his own (small) business so I think he'd probably cut his own hours and leave an employee there so he wouldn't be gone from the kids so much. I'd hope, anyway! Oh, and I've told him I want to be cremated, not buried. For one thing, it's WAY cheaper and I wouldn't want my family stuck paying thousands of dollars just to stick me in the ground, and for another, being burned is less creepy (to me) than being put underground! And I'll take up less space that way :P

I can't find it now but I thought that recently I read a few posts asking "how do I tell what my child's reading level is..." I came across this today and wanted to post it, in case anyone was interested: http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/articles/060899.htm There are two different Reading Level Assessments there, plus a list of "Award Winning Children's Books" to take a look at once you've determined reading level, and further links on the "More On Reading Assessment" section.

In fourth grade, my daughter worked her way through a Handwriting Without Tears Cursive Success workbook. She also kept a journal that year (for school, not just because she wanted to), and her journal entries were all to be written in cursive. Everything else was done in print. This year, for fifth grade, she's working her way through a Handwriting Without Tears Can Do Cursive workbook. But pretty much all of her schoolwork is done in print. Sometimes when writing to a penpal or some such, she will write in cursive.

Six is SO young. And six with learning disabilities no less. Maybe you should try reading "Better Late Than Early" and consider holding off on doing any sort of curriculum with him for now. Or drastically cut back on your expectations for "worksheet" type stuff and keep learning interest-led and hands on and creative/fun. Do I think a 6 year old with learning disabilities needs to do 12 math problems at a time? Nope. Cut down to one or two worksheets if you have to do worksheets as opposed to real life/practical applications or manipulatives. Instead of "a few simple grammar exercises," do ONE simple grammar exercise a day. At his age, I think school should take about 1- 1 1/2 hours. And right now, he's probably feeling/sensing your frustration, and that's not good for either of you. Kathleen summed up perfectly how I feel when she said: "I'm not a rigorous homeschool mom so if I were having many days in a row like the one you've described I'd back off a lot and just try to reconnect on a non-academic level. I'd play games, cook together, do a craft or two, take a walk, read aloud, etc." and "The most important thing is your relationship with your children - not the schoolwork. I realize there has to be a balance, but I'd opt for less school and more togetherness for the sake of maintaining sanity, peace and a warm, loving atmosphere in my home." You're frustrated with him, and you need to focus on reconnecting with him and enjoying him and having fun with him. He needs to focus on bonding with you, his vision and speech exercises, and doing a bit of learning based around his interests or on ways he works best- if you want to cover something, maybe instead of covering it with writing/worksheets for now, you can cover it with something you know he will enjoy. That might be a read aloud, a craft, a conversation, an educational show, a field trip, making a recipe together, building something, etc. And, yes, he should have LOTS AND LOTS of time to play at his age! But having him sit at and work for six hours at age 6 while mom gets more and more upset/frustrated is a recipe for disaster IMHO. And when he's 10 or 12 or 16 or 21 or 40 do you think that it's going to matter whether he was made to do worksheets starting at age 6 or delaying til age 8? Whether he was made to do four worksheets when he was 6 or whether he did just 1? And when he's older and you look back on when he was 6, do you think you are going to say "I wish I had given him more worksheets back then," or "man, I'm glad I made him stick out those worksheets even if it took all day..." I think you should ask yourself those questions. Me personally, I just don't think the worksheets are the most important thing right now.

Oh gosh, how scary! I'm glad you got to the hospital okay and that he got the help he needs! I hope he recovers quickly and remains in good health from this point on!

I'm so superior to you all. I've been doing this since ELEMENTARY SCHOOL! I can't believe you all wait until college!

Oh, I didn't realize that!! So what did I do, start with book 2 of a series? Blah! :P Okay, I'll give Oryx and Crake another try in the near future then!

LOL my "list" looks short, too, for my 10 y/o 5th grader: OM5* TT5 (math) SCFES (Do we get to abbreviate Sentence Composing for Elementary School that way? heh. This is a very recent add-on that I wanted to try out because I thought it sounded really good). (*OM5 covers English (grammar, vocab, spelling, reading, writing), Science (Environmental this year) and Social Studies. Social Studies includes geography and civics. It also includes handicrafts this year, and that is our "art" for this year. Although, for fun, we also read some of the books in the the Getting To Know The World's Greatest Artists series and my daughter utilizes "How To Draw" type books on her own for fun.) She also has a cursive workbook that she does a few pages of a week. And once a week for "Music" we read about a different orchestra instrument on the website makingmusicfun.net (its history, how its made, how its played, a fun fact, etc), and then we go on Youtube and watch that instrument being played. Last year we used the same site but did the "Meet The Composer" section, where each week, we'd read a mini bio about a different composer and then listen to a sample of his music on Youtube. Next year, in 6th grade, she will start guitar lessons. Other than that, we watch educational shows, play educational board and computer games, have lots of conversations, read lots of books (both together and independently), my daughter might do various crafts on her own, has several educational magazine subscriptions, helps around the house, and has LOTS of free time to just play, imagine, create, follow her own interests, be a kid... She also participates in several extra-curricular activities (and those cover her "P.E." requirements among other things). In the summer, when we're not busy with our main curriculum, we work our way through SOTW taking our time with it and just having fun with it. It's not a big list, it's not overly time consuming, but it does feel fulfilling and effective and we're all happy with the way things are going. Let us know if things improve over there for you :)

Oh, my! Hey, I live only like 45 minutes from Reading (PA, right?) Could I get the tootor's number? Just last night my daughter asked me how to spell amethyst and I had to think about it for a minute! My response went something like: "Amethyst? Uh.. Ama... no, wait. AmE...thy...st... I think... yeah..., Yeah. Ok. That's right." So, I don't know, maybe we could USE a tootor!

LOL I agree with SO many things in this thread!

Give him a little time- my husband wasn't AGAINST home schooling but he wasn't as gung ho about it as I was and he was a little more worried about it than I was, too. (Of course, I was the one who did all the research). But once we started doing it- he enjoyed having more time with our daughter (who I pulled out of public school toward the end of third grade), and he saw us doing neat things together, and since we have to have an evaluation at the end of each year here in PA, he saw that I was getting good feedback on what we were doing from our evaluator (and weren't getting problems from the school district in regard to our portfolio, etc). I don't think he's at ALL worried or reluctant anymore. You might want to join some sort of homeschool group, see if you can meet some people that you think your husband would click with, and get together with them now and then. Seeing that "normal" people, people he likes, are homeschooling too might be helpful for him. (Heck, if I'm being honest, that was helpful for ME when I first started). Is your husband a reader/intellect type? if so, there are plenty of good books out there you might want to suggest or leave for him- things by John Holt and John Taylor Gatto, things that address all the many, many problems with our "education system"- maybe that will ease his mind about the fact that you're doing the right thing, that public schools really aren't such great places. There are books and articles about homeschoolers who have gone on to do great things when it came time for "life outside of their homes." Point out to him that many homeschoolers apprentice themselves in their field of interest. Many not only get into but are recruited by colleges of their choices. Many become self-employed. They don't spend 12 years "preparing" for life shut away in a classroom- they live life. They end up MORE "prepared" if you ask me, because they've been in the real world all along, not shut away their whole childhood and teen years "preparing" for it. I don't know what your local districts are like. But around here, the newspaper comes out every year with results of standardized testing at all of our local schools. Considering that's all they teach in school these days- the test- their scores are dismal. In most grades, subjects and instances, they don't even meet state average. If yours are similarly bad, and many are, show him that. Because, believe me, this reassures myself (and perhaps my husband) that I could not POSSIBLY do a worse job with my child than the school would. And I certainly have her best interests at heart. And I certainly give my kids a lot more one on one instruction and attention than a busy schoolteacher with 30 kids in her class could. If you have to provide standardized tests, go with the CAT-E from Seton. It's pretty short, pretty easy, pretty inexpensive, just covers the basics, etc. Your kids are very young- when does he expect you to START testing? Here in PA we're only required to test in 3rd, 5th, and 8th grades, and I don't think he should make you test a 1st grader... so maybe you can say to him "okay we'll test each year, but not starting until third grade, 1st is very young" and see if he'll agree to that. When you order the test- especially if you're ONLY doing it to appease your husband, and especially if you have to do it at a young age, look it over first. See if there are things on there that you haven't covered yet. Then go over those things. Schools "teach to the test," why shouldn't you- if only briefly and if only so your husband doesn't freak out and make you send the kids to school :P Or- if that doesn't sit right with you- tell him you agree but that you want the first year used as a baseline, not something that's going to be used against you or the children. Even if they don't do so well with their very first test- that's not what matters. What matters is if in subsequent years they are MAKING PROGRESS. If they do better the second year than they did the first- great! OK that's all I can think of off the top of my head and I probably just rambled a lot so I'll shut up now. Good luck with everything! :grouphug:

I'm not familiar with many of the things on your list- I've pretty much stuck with just Oak Meadow with very minimal supplementing from my first days homeschooling on. It does look like an incredibly long list for any grade, though, and especially for a 7-8 y/o so I'd definitely narrow that down. But anyway I wanted to say that we just started Sentence Composing over here with my 10 y/o who is in 5th grade (who would have been in fourth if she'd been born one day later), and I find this to be a good age for it. In that she can get what they mean without a problem, is a good reader etc, but she still needs some help with composing the sentences. I'm not sure she would have been able to do it at all in third grade. I'd wait til 4th or 5th on that if I were you, but that's just a suggestion. :)

We used Oak Meadow last year for fourth grade, we're using it this year for fifth grade, and we'll be using it next year for sixth grade (and Kindergarten for my youngest). We love Oak Meadow over here. I DO think it is "thorough," yes- but with that said, it's NOT textbookish and it's NOT big on worksheets or busywork...it's not going to take hours and hours a day to complete. Yet, it allows for really good discussion, provides titles for supplemental reading, offers choices of really interesting writing assignments, provides hands on activities, and I really do feel that we get lots out of it, without it being dull and dreary and overly time-consuming! I don't supplement- much. This year for 5th I added on a cursive workbook, and very recently the "Sentence Composing for Elementary School" worktext because I thought it sounded really good and I wanted to check it out. We do Teaching Textbooks for math only because my version of Oak Meadow is an older edition, which I bought used, and in the old version, from 5th grade on, they didn't have their own built in math curriculum and suggested Saxon. I knew I didn't want to use Saxon, did some research, and decided Teaching Textbooks would be a good fit for us. But other than that, no I don't go and supplement with second programs for Language Arts or Math or whatever.... How teacher intensive it is depends on you and your kids and your preference. For fourth grade, I stayed with my daughter for most things. A lot of it we just ENJOYED doing together, and a lot of it like last year's math and writing assignments, she needed more hand-holding with or just liked company. This year for fifth she's starting to get more independent with a lot of those things, so there will be some things she does on her own, but other things we still do together. I use the complete curriculum (except for math as described above because of the older version I have). If you want to check out my blog (see sig), you can see what our typical days are like using OM for 5th grade. But you can also see the sidebar to the left of my blog for a 4th Grade sample schedule which showed how I broke down a weekly lesson into daily ones, and I included some pictures of some of the things we did, and I provided a link to our first day of 4th grade so you could check it out and click "next" as many times as you want to see what our days were like then, too.

We "do science" twice a week, using Oak Meadow's Environmental Science book for 5th grade. My daughter really loves it (but it is secular).

2-3 hours a day for my daughter, both in 4th grade last year, and this year for 5th. Sometimes a little longer if we're doing hands on projects/activities.

That's pretty neat. What did you write in the "text" box? (where it says "bio, credentials, etc.")...?

A few things :) The first year is sort of a learning curve. It's pretty common to go buy a bunch of stuff you don't need only to find it isn't working, and you ditch it. And YES it is "okay" to do that in the middle of the year. If what you are using isn't making you happy and it isn't making your kids happy, it's fine to say "this isn't working for us" and to find something that will. With that said, I do want to say that at that age, I provide a lot more hand-holding than you are describing. I sit with my daughter and provide feedback as she goes for the things that I know she'll need help with OR that I just enjoy doing with her. I'll tell her what to do for the things I know she can do independently and then I might wander out, but I'll come back to check on her, or I'll tell her to let me know when she's finished with that particular thing, and then I check it, and then we move on to the next thing. So- again, we check as we go- from subject to subject. Not here, do this today and then expect it to all get done. (My daughter is also 10 and we're doing 5th grade- she, too, was in public school originally- I pulled her out toward the end of third grade and I homeschooled her for the rest of third grade, all of fourth, and now we're halfway through 5th). I don't think it would be at all "bad" to take a different approach to learning, but I consider myself a pretty relaxed/eclectic homeschooler to begin with. We use the Oak Meadow curriculum which I really love. But if a curriculum doesn't work for you, you could piece together your own stuff. If you want to do an interest-led thing, ask your kids what they want to learn about. Then help facilitate it as much as you can with games, crafts, recipes, books, videos, interactive websites, field trips, discussion, hands-on activities, looking up "unit studies" for the topic, etc. You CAN sort of do a mix of that and more formal stuff... you can do what works for YOU. You'll start to learn what works for you, what works for your family- it's okay to try to make this fun, to take a more relaxed approach, especially as you find your way and figure out what their learning styles are and what works for your family. Good luck, I hope things fall into place for you all! :grouphug:

Wear 'em for a while. Eventually make cutoff jean shorts out of 'em for summer. The kids will use them for a while for play clothes, they don't care!

In fact, thanks for the reminder :) We just finished talking about it a little bit, reading the speech together in its entirety online, and then making the "peace dove" craft I mentioned in my last post, from enchanted learning. It was quick and easy and my daughter enjoyed making it.

You could read the "I Have A Dream" speech and then ask your child to tell you or write about his or her "dream" for a better world. You could do a "dove of peace" craft: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/newyear/dove/ You could do a "Freedom" or "Dream" Acrostic Poem.