This sounds like something that would happen to me. Try to buy yourself 15 min of peace and end up with a 2 hour debacle! I'm so glad you managed to get it out :)

I am really struggling with teaching writing to my 5th grader. She's a reluctant writer to begin with. We started hsing her 4th grade year, so we're really only a year and a half into me being in the driver's seat. I attended SWB's writing workshop last May and I've tried to follow her plan this year. Here's the problem- without an actual curriculum for me to follow, I'm doing a terrible job of keeping her on track with dictation and narration. I'm also not really confident about what to do or expect from narration, because this year is our first year doing it. I feel like I'm really letting her writing skills slip. I feel bad that I'm this dependent on an actual curriculum, but there are so many things going on right now (we're in the middle of a big move) and I just need to find a little more accountability. Is there any writing curriculum out there that roughly follows the steps that SWB spells out? I've looked at CW and I'm thinking if we used it, we'd start right at the beginning. Any feedback on that? Thanks,

I highly recommend buying the CD recording of that seminar. It's totally worth it.

It's not easy. School has been a relative term for us and we're lagging way behind my schedule. For us, I just keep reminding myself how impossible this move would have been if we psed. For example- we're moving from Florida to California. We arrived in mid November and lived with another family from our church for a little over a month. Now we're in a furnished cabin, but not our permanent residence. By the end of next month, we will be in our new home. All 3 of these locations are in different school districts. I don't know what we would have done if we were psing. Have we done all that I would have hoped school-wise during this time? Nope. But we have had the freedom to discover our new home, do some sightseeing, ect. The one thing I've tried to consistently do is go to our hs group's park days. Right now, I feel like the best thing that I can do for our kids is get them plugged in with other kids. The school stuff will still be there once we're settled and I'm just trying not to stress about it in the meantime. I feel your pain!

We have been a homeschool fam for a year and a half now. We took dd out of ps after her 3rd grade year. I'm now hsing dd for 5th and ds for K. DD is using SL, MUS, Abeka and a few other odds and ends. DS is using MFW. DH and I have been married for 10 years (high school sweethearts) . We both grew up in SoCal. We lived in New Orleans for a year, Orlando for 7, and have just recently moved back to Northern Cali. We're neck deep in transition at the moment, and not even in a permanent home yet. Dh is a Youth Pastor, which makes life very interesting at times. I have pretty much always been a sahm. We have 2 other kiddos- our 7yo Tyler, who is severly disabled, and a 3yo dd.

The way we've handled this in the past was to let others put in all of the effort. I'm happy to meet up for a couple of hours, but I'm not driving anywhere or changing our agenda. We happen to do a lot of beach vacations, so it's pretty easy to let people just meet us at the beach and have lunch or dinner together. Now, if she's looking to visit for more than that, then you'll probably just have to come out and say it. Good luck,

My kids wake up famished. We don't do any chores before school either. Our mornings are- wake up eat get dressed (brush hair, teeth, ect) start school

How about this one. We went on a vacation to a cabin in Georgia. My 10dd comes running out of the kitchen, completely amazed. "Mom, look at these cool plastic things that I found in the freezer! I think if you put water in them, they make ice cubes." What?! How is it that my daughter doesn't know what an ice cube tray is? I was dumbfounded.

Which really bombed my dd in math, before we started homeschooling. They must have a great sales team. So many ps's use EM, and yet so many people hate it. Shannon