I'll take a look at Vocabulary From Classical Roots to see if it looks like something we could add to our day. We actually tried HO when my 7th grader was in 5th grade so I have it in hand. That's how I know those History Pockets ruined it for us, otherwise it was great for us. Is there anywhere to see samples of Atelier? I looked at the website but I couldn't find any samples. We have and use Draw Squad, Draw Write Now and Drawing with Children. We are using Jr AG because a) we already have it and we're on a limited budget so it's one less thing for me to buy and b) I figure it can do that this year and I will budget AG into next year's budget and do it over 2 years. I figure using that when we already know we like it is better than no grammar at all or something we don't like just to fill the gap until I can afford AG. Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions. :D

We run our school years January - early November. So our new school year will start in January. I'm a bit worried about "doing enough" with my 7th grader (all my kids really but I'm most worried about my 7th grader right now). What am I missing, what should I consider, what critiques can you offer? He's 12yo, will turn 13 in May. He likes to read for pleasure but has never really been one to rush to the table when I announce it's time for school like some of my other kids do. He has expressed an interest in college but other than video game designer he has no big ideas about what he wants to do. English Lightning Literature 7 Write Shop 1 Junior Analytical Grammar SWR (on the fence about this, his spelling is pretty good but I would kinda like him to finish the program) Math (He's not ready for algebra or even pre-algebra, I want to spend this year getting him ready for pre-algebra next year) Math Mammoth topic books Life of Fred Fractions and Decimals Hands On Equations (try and get some algebraic thinking going) Logic I have the Logic Countdown/Lift Off/Blast Off series. Not sure what I want here. Something secular for sure which makes it a bit difficult. Open to any and all suggestions here. Science/History (Doing this with his 4th and 5th grade sister and brother. We are starting the history rotation fresh as we come back to WTM) CPO Earth Science (we've done lots of Biology but little Earth Science) History Odyssey Level 2 Ancients (skipping the History Pockets assignments because we hate them and adding our own projects) Other Continue studying Japanese as a family computer course (computer basics, typing, word processing, spreadsheets, some programming) piano lessons and music history Art classes (trying to find these for him, may have to go with a curriculum though, any suggestions? He loves to draw and wants to improves his drawing skills) Homeschool PE at the Y So what do you think? Anything I forgot?

I remember naturally coming up with the making tens or otherwise manipulating numbers to add and subtract them. I wasn't taught that way, it's just the strategy I came up with because I couldn't seem to "just memorize it" like they wanted me to. I remember trying to explain to my parents and teachers how I came up with an answer and being scolded and told that if I would just memorize the facts it would be much easier. Problem was, straight memorizing the facts wasn't working for me. Just numbers and nothing to manipulate just confused me. I just learned to not tell people how I got my answers or tell them what they wanted to hear not how I actually did it. The first time I saw Singapore Math, I finally felt like I was doing math right all along. It was exactly what I had always done on my own.

Well I was using SWR, switched to AAS and then went back to SWR, does that count? :lol: I switched back to SWR because I missed the flexibility that SWR provides. I'm able to tailor it to my student much more easily than I can with AAS. I like and use some of the ideas from AAS but I just prefer the customization that SWR gives me. Also AAS moves so slowly whereas with SWR I can cover material at whatever pace I need to and not worry about whether or not I can afford the next level yet or not. Also, I thought my kids would enjoy the letter tiles in AAS but they didn't and it was hard trying to find somewhere to put that big white board where little hands would not enjoy pulling and scattering all those colorful tiles and both the kids and I found it extremely tedious to reorganize the board every single time we wanted to use it whether because a toddler found it or if we removed the tiles everyday so they wouldn't mess with them. Oh I almost forgot the cards. All those cards drove me batty! I much prefer having just 70 phonogram cards and 29 rule cards to keep up with than the hundreds and hundreds of phonogram, rule, word ... ugh! Much easier to me to have the kids write their words in their spelling book (we've even made our own spelling books before with just plain lined paper and a binder). For us, AAS sounded like a good idea in theory and maybe if I was not already really familiar with Spalding from having been taught as a child I would have found AAS more helpful but in the end it was a big flop here. I still recommend it for someone whose not sure if Spalding is for them and not sure they have the time to learn a program like SWR, Riggs or WRTR or don't have the money for Phonics Road.

:grouphug:

We are fairly new to our current city, only lived here about 18 months, and I'm curious as to where to find art lessons. The local homeschool group suggested the local art museum which is associated with the local university and has what they call Art Lab. It seems to be geared at younger students though, my child wanting art lessons is 12. We are going to check it out Thursday or Friday and I plan to ask them if they offer classes or know where to find them but if that doesn't all pan out, where else should I look? What should I google? All our local craft and hobby stores offer painting classes (he would rather have drawing but would settle for painting) but he doesn't meet the minimum age requirement of 16. I'm trying hard to teach him myself with Drawing with Children and the Draw Squad book but he's already exceeded my abilities. So what now? (The local homeschool co-op doesn't work for us. For one they have a craft class but not an art class and we don't meet their faith requirements anyways. Sigh.)

That Thinking Blocks Math on this website is awesome!!! Perfect for some daily work problems. ;)

We use the light blue series, not the grade level series, but the way I do it is I look at how many actual teaching and workbook pages there are, not counting the front matter and the answer key at the end. Then I decide how long I want to spend ideally on the book and divide the number of workable pages by the number of days I want to spend. If I come up with some crazy big number of pages we would have to complete in a day, I consider whether or not the child in question can work at that pace and add days if necessary. On average, we do 4 - 5 pages a day but some days we've been known to only do 2 or 3 if the topic is particularly tough or do 8 - 10 pages if they are just whizzing through it. Some times the number pages I want us to do in a day makes us introduce only one page of a new topic, I just adjust for it and add the extra page to the next day. We don't do flash cards around here for math. I let them play games for their facts. We are working hard on mastering multiplication facts. Timez Attack and Multiplication.com are my new best friends. The kids have one 20 minute session on the computer each day just for fact practice (something for them to do while I work with their siblings) and before they can spend their free time on the computer, they have to do one round of any math fact game of their choice. We also have the Right Start card games and some other mathy non-computer games.

We have used FIAR and SOTW together. It worked out very well for us. We listened to the audiobook version as a read aloud and discussed things when it seemed appropriate and did a project every now and then. My kids learned a lot just from the informal presentation. Now those same kids are all logic stage or almost logic stage. We are doing HO level two and listening to SOTW again just for fun. I did try for a while to use SOTW as written; review questions, full narrations of every chapter, coordinating readers and other read alouds, projects....oh my how it burned us out! But FIAR with its geography and culture and SOTW as a read aloud only worked perfectly for us. ;)

We use MM Addition (the light blue topical series) with my 4yo and she enjoys it very much. I'm thinking of getting her the MM first grade books but I'm not at all hesitant to stop for a while and just play games when she hits a wall or back up and printout some previous pages and do them over until I feel she has a firm grasp on the concept. I think it's all in how you use it. ;)

We knew each other for 3 years before we got married and dated for 2 of them. He asked me to marry him after about 6 months of dating. We've been married for 12.5 years, through thick and thin, good and bad, for better or for worse. For my kids, I'd like to see them be friends with and/or date their potential spouse for at least a year or two. I'd also like to see them wait until their early to mid-twenties before getting married. I realize that's not for me to decide but that is my wish for them. ;)

We rarely do. Desserts were special occasions, holidays and once in a great while just because when I was growing up and I've followed suit. We have lived in cultures and countries though where desserts are a daily thing but they are rarely like American desserts. Desserts might be a piece of plain fruit, a small confection (think one marshmallow type thing or gummy candy or one petit four), about 1/4 cup of ice cream, sorbet or jello, one small cookie or something not sweet at all but is a treat nonetheless. An American type dessert, like an ice cream sundae or a whole slice of cake or pie or cobbler would be an extra special treat for very special occasions.

If you have the WWE instructor's guide, all the written out for you lessons in the instructor's guide are in the work texts. The only difference is instead of having you find your own selections after that, all the selection are chosen for you. So whatever section in instructor's guide is working for you is the worktext I would buy. For what it's worth, my 5th grader and my 4th grader are doing WWE 2, they seem to be in the same place as your fifth grader. Copywork is easy but dictation is still a bit hard for them. WWE 2 introduces dictation in the first week. The still copy before they do dictation but I find it really helps with the dictation.

I am also a military child who married military. I've moved 10 times since the age of 18 (and counting) and about 20 times lifetime total. I've never understood how attached I've seen some people become to a house. It's just a house to me, completely and utterly replaceable. If you move, you find a new one. If it's burns down, you find a new one. If you are foreclosed on, you find a new one whether it be a rental or moving in with a family member. I've just never understood the emotional attachment some people have with a house. We've been in our current house for 18 months now with no foreseeable move in the near future. I am so ready to move :lol:

What I do for K: Five In A Row Math (whatever seems appropriate for that child, my upcoming K'er next fall will mostly likely be doing Math Mammoth and some MEP) Spell To Write and Read Listening in on older kids' lessons when they want to Read Alouds, mostly from Ambleside Year 0 What I do for 1st grade: Five In A Row Math (again whatever is working for that child) Spell To Write and Read First Language Lessons / Writing With Ease Read Alouds (mostly from Ambleside Year 0 and Year 1) Listening in on older kids' lesson as they want to I like to keep things simple when they are young and focus on the 3R's. We start the science and history rotation as early as 3rd grade but no later than 5th grade. We do get a little science and history from FIAR so it's not totally absent, just not addressed the way WTM addresses it. Spell To Write and Read is second nature to me so it was no problem to implement even when I had lots of littles. I would suggest All About Spelling or some other "all laid out for you, no planning necessary" phonics program. We did Headsprout for a while when I was really really strapped for one on one time with my kids. I wasn't thrilled with it, but it did the job and kept them moving forward with reading when life was throwing us curve balls for a while.

I try to balance it. Sometimes we all work together. Sometimes I send the littles off in another room or in the backyard to play if we need some quiet. Sometimes I ask the young noise maker to quiet down a bit because they are distracting others. Sometimes I tell the person being annoyed to learn to deal with the noise or go in another room with their work and call me if they need help. I think young children need to learn that sometimes even happy noise is inappropriate and inconsiderate of others but big kids also have to learn that it can't always be perfectly quiet and they have to learn to work through some distractions. We have 5 kids in a 1200sq ft or so house. The only time it is absolutely quiet is when they are all sleeping. So at our house, it really is a necessity that they learn to be considerate of each other and learn to deal with noise.

:lol: I have more than once threatened to duct tape a particularly naughty toddler to the ceiling....we always seem to be out of duct tape when I really feel I need it though. :lol:

:lol: I was thinking the same thing as I read your post. :D

I can do it. But I also play flute and piano, maybe that accounts for some of my manual dexterity?

Other - We have no photos of our marriage ceremony (we didn't have a wedding) Dh opened the back of the camera as we left the Justice of the Peace to make sure it had film in it :banghead: Can't display pictures that don't exist

I have kids who were not ready for Kindergarten even though they were kindergarten age, kids who were absolutely ready for K level work (and anything more difficult would have frustrated them) at 5 years old and now I have one who has already mastered all K level work at 4.5yo and is doing mostly first grade level stuff. I do not call my 4.5yo a first grader. She's a preschooler. She is doing first grade math because she told me she wanted "hard math" and "adding numbers math with no pictures". Those are hard to find in a preschool curriculum so I looked until I found it. It happened to be a first grade book and we do modify it a bit for her and only work as long as she is interested (though if she is losing interest mid-problem I do ask that she finish the one she's on, she usually does so without complaint). She asked me to make her a copywork sheet like the big kids using her current read aloud book. I found her a short sentence. She did it quickly and easily and told me next time to make it harder. So this morning I gave her a slightly longer sentence with bigger words. She did it in two sittings (we copied the first few words, then later did the rest of the sentence.) and was pleased with the level of difficulty. We are informally learning Japanese and doing memory work just by using our Japanese with her and by reciting our memory work piece together throughout the day. All this to say, even though she is doing first grade work, I do not have her "come sit and do school". We blend it into our day and I let her tell me when she wants to do seat work. This means that she does not do seat work everyday. But she makes up for it on the days that she wants to sit and worksheet after worksheet after worksheet. I would not be doing any of this with her, even if I knew she was plenty capable, if she were not interested. One thing I took away from "Better Late Than Early" by the Moores was that they advocate no "formal schooling" before age 8 or 10, not no learning. They seem to assume that you will be talking and playing with your children and they will have a natural understanding of basic math and heard enough beautiful language through read alouds to quickly and easily pick up reading and writing. It has been a while since I read "Better Late than Early" but I don't recall them saying anywhere that a child who asks for a lesson in reading or writing or math should be denied. It was more just because a child is 6 years old doesn't mean they need to start spending time everyday doing lessons and it may even be harmful. Personally, I only partially agree with this. I think the way public and private schools, particularly ones that are very academics oriented from the beginning, can be harmful. However, I do believe most 6 year olds can give up 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there for basic math and phonics and the more organic and less textbooky, the better. If they obviously are struggling with the content, I have no problem waiting until they are a little older. Ok this got way longer than I intended. :lol: Honestly, they are only 5 once. At age 5, they are usually still in the "anything to please mommy and daddy" stage. I find that this time is best spent instilling morals and values and good work ethic. These things get much more difficult to instill once they are older. If after these character lessons are taught, they still want to do academic things, great, if they just want to play, that's fine too.

It's a computer game from Singapore Math. Rainbow Rock Vroot Vroom Wiggle Woods

We used playpens, high chairs and baby gates even once they were fully capable of climbing out on their own. I gave the little one their own activity in the playpen or high chair or room they are confined to. We also utilized nap times while they still napped. And a well timed half hour or even hour long kids show never hurt anyone. We didn't use markers when my kids were all early elementary and under. No one suffered any trauma from not having markers to color with until late elementary or middle school. Crayons we just monitored and kept a large supply of magic erasers and had the offender, not mommy, erase their artwork. I would supervise to make sure the magic erase was not put in their mouth and help apply enough pressure, but they did most of the work, even as toddlers.

I've not had the instructor's text very long but sometimes I pre-plan and sometimes I just see a perfect sentence in what we are reading and use it for the next day's copywork or narration (or that day's if I haven't planned it yet :lol: ) My kids that are working through WWE are doing it accelerated so we do copywork one day and dictation the next with my 9 and 10yo and just dictation 3 - 4 days a week with my oldest. They narrate literature, science and history and always have so I don't see a need to do it with WWE also.

As much as I love cuddling with babies and toddlers, I love the freedom of having older kids. A few reasons: - I don't always need to be prepared with a change of clothes when I go out with just the older kids. - I don't have to stop at every restroom we come across, just in case. - I don't need to worry about bringing enough diapers with us when we go out. - I don't need to worry about possible meltdowns because we missed someone's nap time. - Older kids are some of the most amazing people to have a conversation with over cocoa and cookies or hot pretzels in the food court. - I don't need to lug a stroller, everyone is capable of walking even long distances. - An older child who desires independence but every once in a while still shows you that they need their mom is just as cute as any toddler (shhhh, don't tell my big kids I said that, lol). - You get to see some of the early fruits of all the parenting you did in the toddler and preschool years and what wonderful young people they are growing up to be. :)