I'm just starting out myself. I didn't want to purchase Photoshop Elements until I knew that I was going to like it, so I got a free 30-day trial. I looked around at several of the site from the last post and downloaded as many freebie kits as I could. Then, I did a free on-line tutorial. My favorite one was the set of five lessons at 2 Peas in a Bucket. This has been a steep learning curve for me and I consider myself to be computer savvy. I've made two pages that I'm not entirely satisfied with yet, but the beauty of digital is that I can fix them later when I learn more techniques. I'm pretty sure that I will stick with this, but what will I do with all of my papers and scrapbooking supplies? :confused:

Yes, the second "d" is always means "daughter". The first "d" can be "dear", "darling", or other things depending on the situation! :001_smile:

I got my best ideas from this board rather than from any particular book. Reading the WTM gave me the confidence that I could give my dd a better education than she would get in school. The most valuable information that I received early on was to understand my dd's learning style and customize our education to meet that. These two books are helpful for that: Discover Your Child's Learning Style and 100 Top Picks For Homeschool Curriculum: Choosing The Right Curriculum And Approach For Your Child's Learning Style. A few things that helped us get started successfully: 1. Know that you are not going to ruin your kid. Think about the worst-case scenario and how you would handle that. "My child won't learn anything and I'll need to put her into a different program." Re-evaluate how things are going every year. 2. Start out slowly. We started one subject at a time. We began with natural science (I didn't need to teach reading), read lots of books together and made notebook pages about our subjects. Then I added in math starting with Miquon, then Singapore. Finally, we added our other subjects including history and language arts. 3. Make school fun, especially while she is young. Take lots of field trips, do experiments, make crafts and play games. My dd was certain that homeschool was far better than public school! ;) Now that she is older, I've had to make her work a lot harder and we don't spend as much time with those types of things. 4. Don't try to do "school at home". You are teaching your daughter at home for a reason--don't try to replicate what she would get at public school. Follow your daughter's interests. It's okay to let her move ahead in subjects even if you have to do it orally. (Just know that at some point, her output will have to catch up.)

We have the book, Then Sings My Soul, that has the hymns through history with its story. Our church does modern music too, but my daughter knows hymns quite well. All we did was sing a hymn to her every night before bed.

Thank you! I just ordered a set. There was only one left in stock by the time I checked out!

History of US makes a great spine. There are some corresponding lesson plans on the PBS website.

First, is it secular or christian? The authors are Christians and use several passages from the KJV as models. There are also hymns studies for poetry in Beginner Poetry B. Second, will it work for the ultra-conservative? I noticed that the stories used in Aesop are fun stories. That is fine. However, some of the topics mentioned would be inappropriate for some of my students on religious grounds. Is it just a small amount we can work around? Or am I going to be struggling against "evil wizards" and such all year? I am not ultra-conservative, so I can only guess. You don't need to worry about evil wizards, but there are many stories from Greek and Roman myths. You could substitute your own models for anything that doesn't fit your beliefs. Is each book slated for a couple years? Could a student go through faster? Is it unwise to do so? I did not use the workbooks for Aesop, but it could be done in a year or stretched out to 2 years. Homer would need 2 years unless you are using it with an older student. If a student went through WWE 1-4 first, would they just jump into Homer? I see placement info that suggests otherwise, but I'm assuming they are assuming you haven't had the same kind of program previously? I think that you could go right to Homer. It is a big jump even if you have done Aesop. What kind of time is required? of parent/teacher? of student? For the student, you should schedule at least an hour every day, four days a week, once you get to Homer. You should add another set of time for grammar. Aesop can be done in less time. For each program, you need to spend some time before school starts to understand the program. For Homer, reading the Student workbook along with the Core really helped. I needed about 15 minutes to prepare for each week after that. If I were to use my own models, it would be considerably more time than that. I have needed to be with my dd while she goes through her workbook (around 30 minutes a day). She works on the writing portion alone. And finally, my son is 14. Has anyone done the 22 week Aesop/Homer study? No, we started from the beginning.

People who live in MN do not all sound like the characters in Fargo. I really was going to ignore this post! I grew up in MN but have lived in other parts of the country too. Everytime I tell someone that I came from MN, they say "but, you don't have an accent"!!!! Then they try to find reasons why I don't have that Fargo accent. I'm about ready to scream, but I try to be polite and tell them that none of my friends in MN have that accent either.

My dd liked History Pockets, she also really liked some of the paper doll books from Dover. She usually cut these out when I was reading aloud. For lapbooking, have you looked at Hands of a Child?

We've used this site too. We've stayed at the Windsor Palms Resort twice and really like it. (Different owners each time.) I don't know if you can get a better deal if you wait until the last minute--I'm not that brave. Prices are cheaper in January, though, and you might be able to negotiate a bit on price or get them to throw in the pool heat for free.

I don't know about a freezer made in the 90s, but my freezer is from my grandmother and it is at least 30 years old and going strong.

I don't think that LOF Fractions and Decimals make a complete pre-algebra program, but they are a great supplement. (Or you could supplement them with something.) I'd want to be sure that she had her basics down. However, once you get into LOF Beginning Algebra, with the Home Companion, you have a complete math program.

Last year, when we were doing Homer A, we followed the authors' suggested schedule: 10 weeks of Homer, then all of Poetry A, then the final 10 weeks of Homer. It worked pretty well, but Poetry is definitely easier than Homer, so I decided to break it up more this year. My plan is to do 3 sections of Poetry--one at the beginning of the year, one around Christmas and the last to finish out the year.

I used all three of the books with my advanced 4th grader this year. I used the Guerber histories as my spine and added in SOTW for the subjects that Guerber doesn't cover (mostly Asia). I also used Monks & Mystics and Courage & Conviction. There is some overlap with Guerber on these, but C&C is decidedly Christian, while Guerber tries to stay more historical. I used SOTW2 solely our first time through history. The chapters are much shorter and the language much easier than Guerber. My dd is sensitive and there were a few places where I needed to ad lib and skip over too much violence. Let me know if you have any other questions.

This drove my dd crazy too. She also is a perfectionist. Irrational numbers are messy and imperfect. (Or perhaps they are too perfect?)

We've used the free French download. Each lesson is a list of related words. You need to say them and then type them--first translating from French to English and then English to French. My dd really enjoyed it. It wouldn't take the place of a complete language program though.

I think that one textbook is fine. The textbook can be done together orally as the lesson. The workbook is mostly self-explanatory though you may need to give extra instructions here or there. The only thing that would be more difficult is writing definitions in their grammar book. (I highly recommend doing this.) You would have to supply the definition to them somehow.

I'm not sure about the Earlybird books because we never used those, but you should definitely get the textbooks for the younger grades. That's where you'll learn the "Singapore method". Around levels 4 and 5, I've found that we don't use the textbooks as much, but I have them just in case.

Good question! I'm in the same postion as you are wondering how to schedule these books. We're doing early modern next year too. Can you share your reading list?

I always thought that history was boring. We learned names and dates mainly for American history--I suppose I ought to be grateful for that. Now, I've learned about history as a story. I knew virtually nothing about world history from ancient times through the renaissance. I actually knew more about Biblical history, so it has been fun to tie it together with the other cultures of that time. I love integrating literature with history. I'm in the process of planning our literature through high school. I may have read five books out of the entire list. Reading the great books will be a huge education for me; I'm really looking forward to discussing them as a family. I'm learning some Latin and a lot more about grammar. I'm not so crazy about having to understand all of the imperfect and perfect tenses, but I'll slog through that. I haven't had to relearn math yet--I'm hoping my college degree will get me through most of it.

We started Aesop early too. I didn't use the workbooks, so I was able to do everthing at my dd's level. With you son, you might want to combine Aesop with some creative writing. We took two years to go through it by using our own models. We started Homer A (with workbooks) at age 9. Homer is a quite a step up from Aesop. The most difficult part for dd is the additional output that I am requiring. The writing is not especially difficult for her, but Homer introduces some new ways to begin the writing process. The analysis is challenging, but fabulous.

I was ready to write the same post! I've only had dd take the ITBS at her age-grade level even though she is learning far above that. The results don't tell me anything either. However, they make her feel good about herself (and she needs that right now), and I turn these scores into the state. I may use them to get into special programs as well. I'm planning to have her do the Explore test the next school year so that I can get something useful for my teaching and so that she can start getting used to taking a harder test. I'll continue with the ITBS at grade-level for the next year or so for the "official" results. For now, I don't plan to do an official grade bump. If she wants to graduate early, we'll deal with it then.

We have the same issue. I have certainly examined my dd's behavior (and our own). My theory is that we are "inviters" and most other people are not. They love to come to our home, but they don't typically invite anyone to theirs. (DD does get invited to birthday parties--the one time of the year when most parents will make an effort to invite others.) Continue what you are doing and enjoy it! Think of all those people who would have to stay shut up in their own homes other wise!

I've got a intuitive child who is stronger in language arts. She has done most of Singapore, but definitely prefers LOF. It fits her learning style perfectly. Right now, I am considering using both NEM and LOF for algebra, but if I have to choose one, it will be LOF. Since your son is in SM6, you could get the first two LOF books (Fractions and Decimals) as supplements to try them out now.

Dividing your iris helps them grow better. They are actually really hard to kill. I've done it, but can't explain it as well as this link which shows you how to do it in great detail.