I'm glad. Rules are always slow to change in the Senate. What was it, 1993 before women were allowed to wear pants on the Senate floor?

I think some of what is woven into the Waldorf philosophy isn't sound science. It's simply the other side of the coin of pushing all kids to do things too early. Children aren't lock-step robots. Each is an individual and should be treated as such. I have had a rule in my home that I will never tell a child no, and I will always have things available. That doesn't mean we keep going when something isn't working, though. There are a lot of different things a child can learn and you can substitute activities as needed. And there's a whole world out there beyond the three Rs and crafts, not to mention an entire set of skills woven in each one: sound discrimination: learning to play with music, tempo, hidden bells or tools and guessing what is making the sound (small margarine tubs are great for this), nursery rhymes visual discrimination: learning to see art, play with color/texture, looking at things upside down or like ants and giants fine motor skills: chopsticks, tweezers, eye droppers, paintbrushes, sticks, knitting needles (or a knitting spool), lacing, sewing, hammering, using a screwdriver, puzzles.. narration: imaginative play, art play, puppetry, using voices.. These are all things you can weave into table time. There are tools to help (I like the organization of Developing The Early Learner, BambinoLuk, and Wee Folk Art), but it's enough often to just pick something and go with it. We did nursery rhymes and folk tales one year. The folk tales were all the repetitive kind (Little Red Hen, Three Pigs, Billy Goats Gruff), which made them easy to play with and retell over and over again. I never drop something without offering another thing in its place, you know? Otherwise there's a hole and it's felt, but moving to something different is just another step.

The activity book has maps and explores different governments in their context through history. To get situated for SOTW, we started off with Evan-Moor's Daily Geography and bought Geopuzzles for play, then added in SOTW the next year. I don't think it takes an entire year to learn how to read a map, though, and we still use the Geopuzzles during history, not to mention all of it comes under review every time we meet a civilization that has branched out. Right now ds is learning about the explorers in book 2, so we added in how to use an astrolabe, how to read a star map, and longitude/latitude. Science covered landforms and biomes. These are things I'm sure he would have gotten to in a geography book, but are easily taught within the other subjects.

Check to play around with Netflix settings. I was grumbling to my 8yo this morning that I liked Wakfu better when it was in French (it was something we could enjoy together, French in an anime-ish style cartoon with fighting and magic, totally up his alley!) and he turned and said, "Oh, I can do that." Turns out we have the ability to change the language on it and probably others, adding subtitles if needed. And when I say we, I totally mean him, because I never would have found it on my own.

Sounds kinda like the one from OurCosyDen, but I don't think you color her dress on those.

What about a meal subscription box? Most of them have a 2 person plan, and even if you only do it for a short while it helps to break the rut.

I think sending a child with anxiety to school would be my last resort. Some other options to maybe explore: -shift the high schooler's work to late morning/evening and work with the youngers first thing in the morning. -find a co-op or outside class in the area for him to try. -engage him in the process and finding solutions. He may surprise you with what he comes up with if you present a clear agenda of your time needs and what he's been showing you he needs from you. He may even choose to go to school.

I can say that we tried Mobymax and it was a bit dry, but completely hands off for the parent. I mean, I could set it up if I liked, setting assignments and whatnot, or I could just let my kid go and the program would assess him and place him where needed. I have friends and family using Acellus and the complaints so far are that the Spanish class isn't great and language arts lacks actual writing assignments for the student (which is hard to do with an online program). DiscoveryK12 I have an account for, but I never really poked around much beyond the initial set up. We keep gravitating back to Charlotte Mason, too, but it's nice to know that the others are out there if we ever need them. I do use Mobymax to do assessments on my kid at the beginning and end of the year because it is very comprehensive, but I don't think my kid's ready for online schooling. The science portion was so boring!

American school is not. It's a full curriculum. The rest adjust to the student and are either free (mobymax, discoveryK12) or pay monthly (acellus $10 for tutoring mode).

They might be interested in Mobymax or DiscoveryK12. Maybe Acellus, too. If they want accredited, maybe American School.

Not here, either, but I don't know if it is how it was presented or how he just intuitively got it. I made a point to say "first we're going to divide the biggest units, the hundreds. How many hundreds would go in each group? How many are left over?" It didn't take more than one or two lessons before he was on his own.

NixPix, one of the aids we used with Gamma was a set of triangle flash cards from TheToymaker. They're free and I printed them on cardstock to make them last longer. It was just enough of a visual reinforcement when he was memorizing in Gamma to make Delta go super quick at the beginning. (and if you poke around on the Toymaker site, they have other free toys including Thinkin' Logs (stacking Lincoln Log-type flash cards) and a lot of general fun ones.

We decided against a children's dictionary in our home and went with a large print version instead. Same thing, but more words. However, I think your 6yo is correct in refusing to write things wrong, and I'm not sure he would have the speed to go through the dictionary quickly. Our solution here has been a notepad where I can quickly write the word he's asking for. But last year my son's only writing instruction was copywork and dictation. It's only this year that he's beginning to be expected to do written narrations on his own. His confidence in his own writing had to be built before he would make that step.

Normal. In addition to the IvyKids idea above, I'd suggest Wee Folk Art (first edtions) and Homeschool Share. Get yourself into a rhythm with them of library, theme of the week, and lots of play. Forget everything else except working on rhythm and routine.

Maybe start Delta halfway through Gamma? Otherwise the review problems will stump him because he should have had all of it already.

In addition to the above, we cover the lost states, Hawaii, the fur trapping/industry, child labor, and the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Kids go through stages of being self-absorbed and being community oriented. I think it's my job to take those self absorbed times and continue to make them aware of their community and surroundings. I would never let my kid walk past a dropped item without picking it up. Your dh is right, it has to be a constant affirmation of your family values and expectations until it's internal in your kids. Every.single.time they miss an expectation, reinforce it. Stop the child, steer them back, and point to the offending object. For example, my kids also get taught from a young age that when they walk into a gathering, the first thing to do after greetings is to ask the host/leader, "how can I help?" . It is our family/cultural expectation that everyone pitches in to make things run smoothly, and getting them to learn that young means that they put community first without realizing it when they're out and about. As far as games and toys, I was the child who suffocated under too many. It made me feel helpless. For my own kids we do a bi-annual clean out. Things that have no home (we don't do toy boxes here), or are broken/missing parts get trashed or donated. Children like orderly environments where they are sure of how things work. I can't stress that enough. So we focus on that to help us bring order to the toys in the home: open shelving and baskets/open containers make it easy to put things away. Having a home for everything helps keep them neat and take care of them. We also separate "toys" and "tools". We have two sets of art supplies, one for play, one for art instruction. If a tool is broken or wasted, then the child is responsible for replacing the tool. Right now my 8yo is going through a strange phase of repetitive destructruction (think of something like stimming, where he focuses on the action and can't/won't stop on his own). He's got a mini-list of things he's doing chores for to replace the items he has broken. I don't care if he breaks his toys. They are his. But the tools belong to the family. In your shoes I would start by instituting 10 second tidies. Get the kids to work for a few minutes, or pick up 20 things to put away, or something similar. Then ask them about reorganizing their toys, since they're finding it hard to put things away, and start with one shelf, asking the kids if they want to keep it, toss it, or put it aside to see if they can find the rest of the pieces to it. Then organize what's left. Make sure they clean that one area after each tidy-up. Then slowly do more. Eventually, as they're expected to continue taking care of the areas you've done together, they take responsibility for all of it. Your husband is working off of helpless feelings when he saw his toys taken and thrown away. You don't have to do that to get the same result. You can include them in the work and let them make the decisions - even what to go in a rotate box so they can play with it again in a few months.

The program is made up of read alouds to expose them to good writing and copywork based on that. RLTL uses Elson Readers, and that's what we ended up choosing to go along with ELTL - not the whole program, just the readers. The Elson Readers from 3 on up have discussion questions in the back and a variety of stories/poems. The grammar in ELTL is sufficient, with daily practice in diagramming and looking for the current lesson's focus in sentences - about 3 written exercises each day but encouraging word play orally - at least that's how it is in book 3/Cultivating. I did make cards for my kid with each new grammar rule to memorize, but those are listed at the top of the lesson. Our daily pattern goes like this: copywork, I read the long story, he does the grammar work, I read the poem, he does dictation, and he reads to me/we discuss/he narrates. On the art days we start with that, and the written narrations built in about every 2 weeks change the dynamic. We usually skip the short story since he's narrating from the reader. Ultimately this year I wanted something that felt light, but was constant and built upon itself slowly. ELTL is doing that just fine for him and other than one or two of the Shakespeare stories, every book has been well received. (Romeo and Juliet and I think Twelfth Night made him groan)

These are the things that drew me to it. Ultimately I'm glad it had a generous free pdf for the different levels, because I had huge reservations after reading through levels 2 & 3. I found what I needed in ELTL: good books, writing, art study, grammar (we did our own dictation). History has geography already so I didn't need that added in. I'm thrilled with the progress my kid has made this year and the books he has been introduced to.

It is still early here, but I'm trying to break down the numbers. I don't think a lack of gain between 4th graders a few years ago and 4th graders now says much, does it? Doesn't it say 4th grade is still 4th grade? The other numbers are worrisome - the gap between the worst and the best. I think our country's lack of investment in public education is hugely at fault for that one.

We've done it with a sedan and a large truck. It was tight enough that we weren't doing it every day, just in severe weather. The rest of the time one of us parked in the driveway.

Do what you like. :) We have had exposure to a variety of poets this year thanks to ELTL and Elson readers, and my son is always thrilled when he recognizes a poet's name from a previous selection. I've had him memorize 6 short pieces (one nursery rhyme, one Bennett, one Dickinson, one Rossetti, and one Stevenson, and one fun one) this year. Next year we're going to pick two of the Poetry For Young People books, one per semester, and pick out three poems from each book to memorize.

My kid has trouble with long gaps like that. We would spend the first part of every month reviewing what was lost in the previous month. Right now we have a similar schedule (2-3 days of science, 3-4 days of history) and I like it because I can highlight things from one lesson in another. Like in history, the lesson is on Henry the Navigator- I can bring in the astronomy being covered in science class that week and he can see how one influenced the other. I'm not sure he would be making the same connections if we dropped a subject entirely for a month.

I'm not sure if you can get ahold of them, but he'd probably love the Science of Imagineering dvds. Discovery Education has a dvd, too, but it isn't broken down like the SoI ones.

Without being sure of what each is covering, I'm not convinced the numbers equal waste. When I was a kid we had 3 school districts in driving distance of my town (2 K-8th, 1 K-12th), but for a long time my high school covered a huge area of land. Students bussed from up to an hour away because they were literally in the middle of nowhere and we were the closest to them. The elementary districts continue to feed into the K-12 for high school. A lot of it is location. My elementary school was 10 miles away from our house, if I went to the other district it was 8 miles away, but the high school for all of us was 3 blocks from home. Where I live now each town has its own school district and the towns are all close together. But different taxes go to each one, so it's not like they're ever going to combine two different towns to save on superintendents.