I use HST+ to plot my year, then I print out assignment sheets daily for my kids. Each kid gets their own shelf for books and notebooks. I do print out all of our worksheets (for subjects where we have them) and file them according to subject, but I just pull them out when we need them.

My dh was homeschooled so my in-laws were/are quite supportive. I was public-schooled, but my parents thought homeschooling sounded like a great idea. If they had any reservations, they never expressed them to me.

Sign in to your Account at Peace Hill Press and click on My Downloadable Products. I've never tried it, but my Account shows I have 4 downloads available on all my stuff.

Hmm, perhaps I ought not go poking through the General Boards today? I haven't run into any of the mean spiritedness of which you speak yet, but it has been unusually hot lately and heat is known to increase aggression. Oh, and I've never worn a bikini and I cannot wear high heels...they make me fall down. :lol:

:iagree: This is what I do, too :lol:.

I have made an observation. My children seem to work faster if I stay in what I think of as "teacher mode". By "teacher mode", I mean, facilitating work with their siblings, correcting work, sitting as my desk, checking in on them periodically, etc. If I try to switch to "mom mode", doing laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, etc., they begin to dawdle and are more likely to get off task. Is this a weird quirk with my children, or is this typical? Do I need to wait until school is over for the day before I begin housework? Will they outgrow this when they are all working more independently?

Red Beans and Rice - I love this. I could eat it weekly.

James and the Giant Peach Charlie and the Chocolate Factory The Trumpet of the Swan Mr. Popper's Penguins Those have been the biggest hits with my ds 6 (almost 7) thus far.

Here

My children write in the workbooks. I have them copy their problems from the textbooks into a separate notebook. There isn't space to use the textbooks as a consumable, at least not at the end of the series. The only way they could use the text as a consumable in 6A would be if you had your child ONLY write the final answer in the textbook while showing all their work on separate paper. Personally, I'd rather have them copy it out then.

I also began homeschooling research before I had children... I attended my first homeschooling convention when my oldest child was only 6 months old. Like previous posters, I'd recommend self-education first. You won't have as much time to read later. Attend a homeschooling convention to get a look at the curricula you are interested in. One book I'd recommend that I haven't seen mentioned yet is Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma.

My dd tells me she likes to diagram.

I wonder about this sometimes... From my own experience as a child, I didn't read much "twaddle". It's not that it was forbidden to me, I just didn't care for it. I can't stomach adult "twaddle" now. I don't know if that is because I didn't read much twaddle as a kid, or if I didn't like it then and I don't like it now. Perhaps it's some kind of personality thing? I try to steer my kids away from twaddle, but I let them read some on occasion. Moderation and all that.

Not here. For my 10yo, school, on most days, goes from 8:30 - 3:00 with an hour break for lunch. She has managed to finish before noon before, but that is a rarity. She's my daydreamer though. My ds6, on the other hand, is like a machine. Very intense and focused little guy. Time will tell. His current workload (spread thoughout the day since I need to wait for naptime to do my one-on-one with him) takes about 2 1/2 hours each day.

I do the TOG lapbooks with my kids. For my ds6 I don't require anything else from him (no student pages or map assignments). I think it would be too much for him right now. I think the lapbooking with his sister is sufficient for now. I may change my mind later this year or next year though :001_smile:.

This is totally just my experience with my dd 10 last year using TOG Year 1: She's a strong reader so I knew Dialectic would be closest to her reading level, but just like you I thought some of the UG books just couldn't be missed. I went with D for the most part. If I really, really, really liked the look of the UG selection, I skipped the D selection for that week. This worked for the most part. My dd enjoyed the UG books I had selected, but they were a tad easy for her.

:iagree: My dh's hard drive crashed not too long ago (only 18 months old). Thankfully he had nearly everything backed up on another computer on our network. We have four PCs, so he just picks a different computer to back things up to. All four would have to crash simultaneously for us to lose everything and he figures the odds of that happening are too slim to worry about. Oh, and he handles all that technical junk. I have become lazy about all things technical since marrying him :lol:. Also, I could be wrong, but I thought for each purchase of a PDF edition of a Peace Hill product you got more than one download to your account ...or am I confusing them with another curriculum supplier? In my case, even if I lost the electronic data, I have already printed out all of WWE (TM and Student Pages), so if I lost the file, I would still have my paper copy to photocopy. I'd be back at the same point I'd be at if I had purchased the print copy.

I bought the PDF versions of WWE 2 and 4 this year. I'm glad I did. I like printing PDF files from my computer better than photocopying. I'll be using WWE for multiple children. With the PDF version, you could also save shelf space and paper by just reading the Teacher portion directly from your computer and only printing the Student Pages. I chose to print the TM out because I prefer paper generally for such things.

I'm currently on my third run through with VP Phonics Museum. With my firstborn I followed the TM script pretty closely. I skipped all the games and I took turns reading with her for the Readers since they were meant to be read round robin style in a classroom. It took her a little while to get used to the writing portions of PM since I began when she was 4 and she had a little trouble holding a pencil. She caught on eventually. With my second born I pretty much skipped the script and stuck to just the worksheets, readers and free-play with the letter puzzle pieces. I am starting slow with my dd4 now. I'm once again sticking to the worksheets and readers for now. For her I have pulled out the old museum set-up with the hanging artwork. She likes that.

Our school room is in ...the foyer. It's a little odd, I know, but it's the only extra space we have. I used to just use our dining room, which was kinda hectic now that I look back on it. We'd have to clear breakfast dishes before school would start, and we'd have to clear "school" from the table in order to eat lunch. We had been using a breakfast nook-style table in our dining room (a carryover from our old house where we had an eat-in kitchen). We decided to upgrade to a real dining set and didn't know what to do with the old nook. After going back and forth about it, my dh suggested we move it to the foyer and use it as a school table. I was skeptical, but it fit perfectly into one corner of the foyer. I have room for one bookcase, a stereo for CD's, a cart with school supplies and a small desk for my 4yo. Off to one side of the foyer there was enough space to stick in a workstation with a laptop as well. It's cozy in there, but it works for us. My "teacher's desk" is still in the dining room. That would be my only quibble with the set up. It would be nicer if I were in the same room. Because of the size of the room, we do have spillover into other areas of the house. I have other bookcases throughout the house that hold our books from other years. I keep my TMs in a bookcase near my desk. I really like having a separate schoolroom.

We do Latin daily. My dd is on LC2 now, but I scheduled both in a fairly similar fashion. We do use the DVD, so first my dd watches the Lesson presentation. I set aside one day for her to then familiarize herself with the flashcards for that lesson. Then I schedule one section in the workbook per day until the Lesson is finished. After that it's Quiz day. Rinse and repeat.

I started with my firstborn when she was 4. I hadn't planned to. I was itching to get my hands on the curricula I had been researching for years, so I ordered everything for Kindergarten one year prior to when I thought we'd begin. I thought I'd take a year to leisurely plan everything. My dd saw the big boxes of books and begged to start school. So we began. I began with Egermeier's Bible Storybook, a Bible story coloring book, Ready Writer Pre-Handwriting worksheets, VP Phonics Museum and Singapore's Earlybird workbooks. I gradually added in read-alouds and little kiddo science books. Once we started, I insisted on some school every weekday. I didn't want her to forget everything we had done by taking a protracted break. I kept things fairly light. My dd liked workbooks and worksheets though. There was also lots of free-play with pattern blocks and number tiles.

Rod and Staff is what we use. It's very thorough. R&S also includes writing assignments. Since I use a different writing program I skip the writing assignments or just read them.

Totally off-topic, but they do not make TV theme songs like they used to. I miss cheesy 80's theme songs. <insert nostalgic sigh>

Ditto on the Pampered Chef Stoneware pans. They are great for homemade bread. I have taken a break from making my own bread, but I was using these almost daily for about a year. Fantastic pans, worth every penny.