I stressed about this when my oldest was in 1st grade, but now I look back and wonder why I wasted my emotional energy. Formal, traditional school style desk work was 1-2 hours/day. One on one help with projects, interests, chores, instructions in proper behavior or manners, and instant answers to random curiosity questions-endless. Read alouds, trips to the library, community classes, library puppet shows or other programs, PE skills (swimming, bike riding, playing ball, tumbling, games with other kids), family board games, Sunday school lessons, extracurriculars, free days at local museums, educational TV programs (thank you PBS kids, Jack Hannah, and Netflix!), alone time to create something out of Legos, pretend play dramas with dress up clothes or stuffed animals, and quiet walks to soak in all that can be seen, heard, touched, and smelled in nature-endless.

I cannot seem to find the answer to this question in the search box even though I am certain it has been asked and answered 10 zillion times. We are moving from Easy Grammar 4 to R&S English 5 next year. The switch is mostly because I picked up the R&S student book at a great price and like it. Is the TM necessary? I can buy it used online if needed, but don't want to waste money and space if the student book has most of the teaching info to get the student to understand the lessons.

We watched several YouTube videos about the Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Ratio today as an extension to a math lesson. Something I NEVER learned in school. And I was a decent math student. The Fibonacci sequence applied in nature covers patterns, addition, algebra, numbers squared, angles, ratios, the order of nature, and beyond. We counted spirals on our pineapple, petals on our flowers, and branch patterns on our trees after watching several videos.

Apple device here. I'm not interested in subscribing, but out of curiousity I clicked on the Great Courses Plus website and have the $49.99/mo rate or $29.99/mo for a year subscription.

How old are the children? I don't have answers, but if I did it would vary depending on age.

I love the larger screen 128gb iPad Pro for homeschooling. The memory allows me to keep audiobooks, Ebooks, photos, and PDFs installed to my heart's content without using cloud space. The screen size is great for my kids reading or sketching. The processing speed is faster than my regular iPad 3. I love the split screen function on the larger screen and use it often. It's like 2 iPad mini screens side by side. The touch keyboard on the iPad Pro has a regular qwerty keyboard screen with numbers and shift functions at the top so I don't have to switch to different keyboard displays while typing. I like the size of the touch keys better on the bigger iPad. It is almost, but not quite, like typing on a regular keyboard. More like it than on the smaller screen touch pad at least. The PDFs I download for school curricula are about the same page size as reading from a full sized book. I never liked reading PDFs lesson plans on a smaller screen. I used to print my PDF lesson plan downloads when I had the smaller screen.. I have artist prints and maps saved in photos which make artist print study and geography more handy. The speakers are louder and nicer for listening to music, audiobooks, or podcasts. Sometimes I pull up a YouTube video related to a lesson in the middle of a subject, and the screen size is nice for viewing. I have the notability app. My hope is for my children to "write" answers on PDF worksheets for some subjects as they get older to decrease the amount of paper I buy or print. I think the price is a little high for being a tablet, but I needed more memory and was considering getting a higher memory iPad anyway when this came out. The bigger screen on a tablet was what I was wanting for homeschool for years. I highly considered buying a Microsoft Surface instead since the iPad Pro doesn't replace a computer 100%, but my husband begged me to not spend that much money on a Windows device. We have a cheap laptop at home for the 5% of the time a computer is needed.

Just wanted to chime in to say I am sorry your children are dealing with the asthma and allergies. I have a child who gets asthma attacks related to whatever and it is no fun. If you do end up being able to replace the flooring, it would be nice if you could send your children somewhere else for a few days. We just replaced our very old downstairs carpeting with click-n-lock floating engineered flooring. The dust that got released into the home during the flooring change was awful. It even gave me mild breathing issues for a week afterwards and I don't have asthma. I should have worn a mask. My son had to use his emergency inhaler a few days after the carpet removal even though we made him play outside the entire day of the change and his bedroom was upstairs. Now we want to change the flooring upstairs, but I am waiting until grandma invites them to stay at her house this summer. Having just taken up carpet and carpet tackstrips off concrete-which was a pain BTW, the LL may not want to change to hard flooring because if he is a fan of carpeting, reinstalling carpeting later may cost more because the carpet tacks strips are no longer there. It may not be a big deal, IDK. I wonder if he will let you get newer cheap carpeting installed. It is probably not ideal, but my guess would be new carpet and padding without a bunch of chemical treatment, if that still exists, would be better than old carpet and padding that has years of dust and dirt. Not the best option, but maybe a better one. You should have seen how nasty our carpet pad was when we removed it, and we bought the house brand new 12 years ago. Plus we are relatively clean people. I shampooed with the Bissell shampooer every 6 months and we had a pro shampoo once.

I did not read all replies, so forgive redundancies. Going to a hospital that is known to be staffed male and female in all roles, it is much easier to state gender preferences upfront. The hospital likely couldn't guarantee female only, but they could tell you ahead of time if they are logistically able to try to honor your request if at all possible. Stating your preference in the middle of the night when the female RN may be delivering pain meds in another room, monitoring someone with unstable vitals or receiving a blood transfusion, dealing with the patient who got up by themselves after surgery against the doctor's orders and passed out in the floor, calling a family notifying them that a patient just passed away, and other things is not the best time. I really don't understand the shock that a male caregiver on a hospital floor might show up to help with hygiene needs. I do understand many people preferring same gender caregivers for hygiene assistance, but with all other things a nurse has to tend to, being sure to ask every patient if he or she is okay with a male or female assisting them to the bathroom is burdensome. 50 years ago, normal. Today, most people know male nurses and nurse assistants are common. It is easier for patients with special requests like gender caregiver preference to state that on admission to the unit. I wouldn't expect that to become a default question to ask all patients with the 10 million other questions on the nurse's admission questions. Even if the female patient has an emotional reason to be extra sensitive to male caregivers that she wants to keep secret, the middle of the night on a hospital's skeleton staff is a difficult time to ask for accommodation. If it is known ahead of time that you prefer only female caregivers for hygiene needs it is easier for everyone. If staffing will not allow for your preference, at least then they can explain to you at the start of the shift that Sue, CNA is sick and Bob, CNA was the only available replacement. Then you are prepared and have time to call a relative or friend to come assist you if possible. Expecting only older, college educated staff to assist hospital patients with bathroom needs is unrealistic unless we want to see medical costs rise even higher. In your defense, it does sound like the nursing and nursing support staff don't like their jobs, are understaffed, and don't work well together. The middle of the night surprise of a male attendant may not have bothered you as much had you been pleased with the staff's care the previous day. The CNA saying to you, "nurse so and so is tending to an urgent matter at the moment, I am the only one available to assist you, I am trained and competent in this, and I am sorry you weren't aware this isn't a female only staffed unit" would have been a better response. Usually the nurse and CNA assigned to patients are supposed to introduce themselves within the 1st hour of the shift so patients know who will be delivering care for the shift. It would have been nice to know this before you were in the uncomfortable position of having a male stranger offer to assist you to the bathroom in the middle of the night. . If they were irritated, thinking your request to wait for a female staff was unreasonable, they should not have been rude to you. Going through something as vulnerable as surgery, anesthesia and pain meds that screw with your emotions, likely being sleep deprived from increased monitoring, and having to advocate for yourself while you weren't in the best position to do that as a post-top patient deserves tons of grace from the staff. I would complain about these things. One thing I never understood with gender roles in the medical field: When I worked in OB, a female staff had to be present when a male doctor performed vag exams. When I worked on the regular medical floor, a male staff never had to be present when a female nurse put a catheter in a male patient. Go figure!

We used dominoes quite a bit. Usually adding one side to the other. Sometimes I would pull out all the number bonds on the domino face for a certain number, let's say 10 would be 0l10, 1l9, 2l8 etc..., and add in a few that didn't belong. I would have dc pull out the correct number bonds for the focus number. A deck of cards can be used instead of the RS "Go to the Dump" cards for learning addition facts for 10. Later, dc counted quite a bit with cards playing blackjack (21). The RS abacus is great for visualizing sets of 5s and 10s. We used nickel and dimes or the RS abacus for skip counting by 5s, and 10s. Real coins for counting money or exchanging ones/10s/hundreds using pennies,dimes, and Susan B. Anthony dollars. A yardstick or meter stick was used as an enlarged number line.

Excellent!

My 10yo has used his own mental methods to solve math problems since the beginning of his math education. I have learned from him! If his way works consistently, I just let him roll with it. If his method is different, I show him the way the book teaches the solution and the way I was taught to solve similar problems. He usually understands alternative solution methods.

I highly recommend recruiting 2-4 others to lead the group with you. One could be in charge of play date communications, another to manage info files and getting new members aquatinted with the workings of the group, another to recruit existing members to help with events, another to set time/place of Mom's night out or special events if applicable. and have group field trips be spontaneously led and arranged by group members.

I am currently reading Treasure Island to my 9yo. We are loving it.

How about the adult aged students all get together and buy pads in bulk at the discount someone mentioned the college would pay for buying in bulk, divide them out among themselves, and use the savings to give away feminine products to their fellow community? That's like what some women do who can't afford bulk necessities on their own, can't afford the retail price, and don't qualify for "free" aid. Then the males could go in on a bulk group buy of Ramen noodles, divide it out, and give away the extras they saved in the budget by buying in bulk to those male students-without cell phones or eating out budgets-who don't have enough money for that next package of Ramen noodles. I single out Ramen noodles because Ramen noodles came in handy many times when hubby couldn't afford a complete meal and college fees. I can't believe a hundred years ago 16 year olds were getting married and running a household without asking anyone for a free feminine product. Today 20 year olds complain the college admins are thoughtless to not provide for women's feminine product needs since college+basic life necessities cost too much. I love freely giving to those in need. I love freely receiving things when in need. I love that WIC, food pantries, social services, food stamps, general good will of citizens, and public aid exists. Colleges being held morally responsible for providing something other than a quality education to its consumers is over the top. It's like telling the grocery store owners the price for groceries is so high, the tampons should be free since it is also a basic need. Don't these same students need groceries, clean clothes, transportation, and other toiletries? Why not tell colleges they are cruel to not provide for every other need not directly related to offered courses for successful completion of a degree? And where would it end? If it is mean for businesses to not provide complimentary feminine products in restrooms for those taken by surprise, unprepared, or those who couldn't afford tampons that month; it is equally cruel to not provide extra diapers in public restrooms with a diaper changing tables. I get that it is most difficult to make it through college on a shoestring that is about to break. I don't get that the college admin needs to buck up and find the money to put tampons in every female restroom without raising costs. For that matter, they should throw a free Ramen noodle vending machine in every male dorm to make things fair. Some male students do need calories they can't afford to purchase to make it through the next exam now and then. It is community working together that can help provide for the needs of others. A demand that a business marketed to provide the service of educational classes pay for the other basic needs of their adult consumers isn't going to work for the long haul. This is spoken by someone who paid about 2c for 2 squares of TP and the use of use a not clean, not private restroom in another country when I had little funds. I am so thankful for the sanititation required by health codes in our country's "free" restrooms. I could not imagine demanding a free tampon be provided in all places that provided a free place to pee as a basic human right. If colleges were morally obligated to provide this to students without increasing fees, shouldn't all businesses who provide paid or unpaid services to women between the ages of 11-60 have an equal obligation? Women who can't afford feminine products on top of other needs exist in uncountable places besides colleges. Shouldn't all businesses that allow babies on site also be morally obligated to provide diapers for those parents who either didn't prepare for an extra blow out or couldn't afford that extra diaper? I am not insensitive to those who can't afford diapers and freely give to those in need, but I don't expect businesses to provide free diapers to babies who use their changing tables anymore than I expect colleges to provide free tampons to women who use their toilet paper. forgive the sarcasm as I try to figure what the next petition for change will be once colleges wake up and realize they have been neglectful of the reproductive adult female population by not obviously providing for their every sanitary need. End rant.

We did field trips, random library books, community nature programs, and informal nature study. I had the kids watch Magic School Bus on Netflix or YouTube, WildKratts on Netflix or PBS kids, and a new one I would add would be Ready, Jet, Go on PBS kids. For field trips, we visit a science center once a year locally or while on vacation. We also went to NASA while visiting family in Houston. If you want a book with age appropriate project ideas, the Fun with Nature or More Fun with Nature books are simple and fun. I didn't follow WTM.

Grammar-Rod and Staff English 5 Spelling- Spelling Wisdom Writing-cursive copywork or cursive spelling dictation (alternate), journal, start written narrations. History/Bible/Geography-SCM Ancient Egypt, Genesis-Deuteronomy, Visits to Africa Math-MEP year 5 Science-Considering God's Creation Reading-reads to me 5 min or so from assigned reading 1-2x/week for elocution. Also, reads aloud in short rotations with evening family read alouds. Spanish-Duolingo supplementing with online videos, Spanish library books, and light conversations with Spanish friends Music-a local music foundations class. Piano lessons. PE/health- informal except basketball for 3 months. Art-TBD Other-poetry memory work and recitations, English from the Roots Up (flash cards only), a few family read alouds and independent lit reading assignments. This looks like a lot when I write it out! I will have to carve out some downtime. Not everything mentioned will take place the entire school year.

Looking at your pros, I don't see any that couldn't be accomplished through homeschooling. Except that tutors for foreign language, year round enrollment in sports, and the trip to China will be expensive. You could still do those things on a smaller scale as able. In our state, it is possible to graduate with an associate's degree from a state CC via dual enrollment with tuition covered through a grant. I am not sure of the particulars on that, but know homeschoolers are eligible.

I think either is fine, but voted Vitamix due to loyalty to the product I already have and love. If I had to buy another power blender, I would go for the one with the best deal.

Add me to the list of curious about what she said even though it is none of my business ;)

We are in the early stages of using Duolingo for elementary Spanish.

We have a DVD "The World of Peter and Rabbit and Friends." It is the BBC version of the Beatrix Potter tales. I love it so much, it is true to her writings, VERY calm, and the cartoon is true to the original illustrations in the book. My kids have outgrown it, but I am keeping it because it is one of my favorite children's DVDs. We also had The Little Bear movie when the kids were very young. I also loved Oswald and Maggie and the Ferocious Beast when the kids were young. My daughter just discovered a show called "Franny's Feet" on Netflix. She is 7, but I think it is suitable for much younger as well. The Lala Loopsie (sp?) shows on Netflix are very calm.

I'm boring. While in college, I bartered babysitting for my cat's vet fees. Later, I got reduced rent for babysitting the landlord's children in the attached house.

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IMO, all workbooks are not created equal. I do not use many workbooks. They do come in handy for reinforcement or drill in things like math facts, writing lists of things like contractions or state capitols, and handwriting. All that could be done w/o workbooks, but workbooks can be a help. I love teaching through hands on lessons, reading books and asking for narrations, using a white board instead of a workbook when possible, and spontaneously as real life happens. Easy Grammar and handwriting copybooks are the only workbooks we currently use. I have looked at some grammar workbooks that I would consider only busywork, but that is not my take on Easy Grammar. For me, EG is beneficial because it covers material more systematically, concisely, and thoroughly than I could do on my own. Handwriting copybooks have been beneficial for me since my handwriting is not that great. If I had great penmanship, I wouldn't bother purchasing copybooks. I would instead teach penmanship from the white board and have my children copy my writing. Our math program is not workbook based, but we benifitted from math workbooks during a busy life season last school year. Using only math workbook instruction for the long haul would drive my children and me batty, but I can understand how a good workbook based math program would be the saving grace for many teachers not as confident in teaching math concepts. ETA, I also know a few children who thrive on workbook based math.

You can't figure out the math problem someone on the board asked about even after other posters explained the solution.