So, have you guys seen it? She's come out with a writing program for kids 9-10 and I'm . ..tempted. I'm liking having organized LA for Raven, since it does not come naturally to him. We're slowly working through LoE ,and while he says he hates it, i like the structure and I think he's doing well.

I'm a little tempted to try the Arrow for Phantom Tollbooth, because we just started reading it, and see how that goes over, and buy Partnership Writing if I think he'll respond well to her stuff . . . tho of course, its totally different, right? Creative writing vs copywork and such. grrr.

decisions decisions.

NEW Partnership Writing (ages 9-10)

There are only two GoT episodes left :(

Dh and I need something to tide us over till the next series of Homeland.

Here's what I've liked in the past - The Tudors, West Wing, Spooks, Big Love, In Treatment.

So I want quirky thriller or quirky historical or plain old quirky drama.

Any suggestions ? It doesn't need to be family friendly. No sci-fi.

I count this as a homeschool issue because the kids are here all day and into stuff all day (and some days I'd like to send them off somewhere so I could clean and organize all this stuff) *sigh*

So we have our "school" stuff in the dining room. It's all the games, puzzles, blocks, playdough, letter tiles and magnets, and all of the craft supplies and workbooks. And books. Tons of books. I'd like to move some of this stuff to their rooms so it's not sensory overload in here. We have 2 sets of small shelves and 2 giant bookshelves and it's a full-time job keeping this stuff organized.

In their rooms is... everything else. A lot of it is stuff I can't remember the last time they played with, but of course they can't bear to part with. We have gone through this stuff a million times, putting all the pieces of various things back in one place (like pretend food) but I just left their rooms after looking in their closets. I'm just disgusted.

I'd like to send them to school for a week so I could purge 90% of the old toys they don't play with anymore, but instead I came here to ask how you deal with all of the toys.

Help?

This weekend Ancestry is offering free access to their military records:

Family Foundations

Might be a fun learning opportunity if the kids want to sit down and look up grandparents or greatgrands in the military records. A good way to remember those who served and tie it in to a history lesson. ;)

I have an autistic second grader who I am going to be homeschooling as of next fall. He is very good at mathematics, but he is very rigid, so I would ideally like to start homeschooling off with some resources that he is familiar with from the school environment. I would prefer not to spend too much money, especially if I end up weaning him off the old stuff and transitioning him to new material.

That said, my son currently uses Pearson enVision. My son absolutely loves it. I am trying to figure out which of Pearson's products for 3rd grade is the most economically practical, and looks the most like what he is doing now. I have tried their customer service and they are very unhelpful as they are trying to push a large "homeschooler" package that I really don't need. What I really want (for those familiar with it) is the equivalent of the colorful "interactive lesson" worksheets with the "home connection" material and colorful examples and problems to go through.

The customer service rep answers all my questions with terse answers and I have to follow up with another question and it has been taking a week and I still don't have an answer as to what, if anything, looks like that.


I did finally get out of her that the worksheets are not available for 3rd grade but that there is a hardcover book. I have no idea if it looks the same or if it more grown up and less visually appealing. I can't find out from her if any of the CDs or workbooks they offer, would be a cheaper alternative, or even info on what the textbook looks like. If it is not visual enough (because it is for an older grade) there would be no point in getting it.

Anyway, sorry, I know, TL; DR, but for anyone who has made it this far, does anyone have any knowledge about enVision Math for 3rd grade, who could make recommendations? I don't care what state it is for or if it is the core curriculum because we are covering our state's requirements plus whatever makes sense for me to extend it with. We are above grade in a lot of it already, other than the "explain your answer" part where we are below, due to communication deficits.

Next year my oldest will be officially a 9th grader. I am working on her curriculum now because it seems like it will all be very custom. It just tends to be that way with her. She wants to sort of design her own history/geography/culture curriculum based on the religions of the world. She plans to compare and contrast the various beliefs as well as analyze the impact those various beliefs have had on creating the world we live in today. We have a number of books that cover the basics of most major and some lesser known religions--books by DK and Usborne and such. What I am looking for are good books that go a little more in depth on each of the different religions--Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, as well as various Pagan religions. She is fascinated with Wicca at the moment. She is an excellent reader and very mature for her age. However, I am having difficulty finding books that are more than children's books but not overly heavy theological texts. I'm also trying to avoid the books that have a "why my religion is the only true religion and all the rest of you are going to hell" type focus. There are a lot of those out there!

If you can recommend any titles to us, that would be appreciated. Thanks!

My five year old daughter (birthday in Feb, so a young 5) and I have been working on phonics regularly since last August. She is very good at sounding out words with short vowel sounds and consonant blends.

Consonant digraphs are still a bit shaky, but not too bad. I haven't introduced long vowel sounds yet.She is awful at blending, though. If I were to tell her to read "The frog rests on the desk," she would be able to, but she would sound out do it as "f-r. fr-o-g. frog," and so on. There is usually about a one-second pause between letter sounds. Her ability to remember what she has just read seems to be about five or six words, tops.

Should I continue teaching new phonics skills or hold off until she is able to smoothly blend the sounds? (The difference between fr-o-g and fffrrroggg)?

We were using OPGTR, but she absolutely hated it. We're now using Progressive Phonics which she enjoys, and I also have Phonics Pathways (which I got in the mail today).

Any help or guidance you can offer is much appreciated!

Well, another week and another new poll! Where DOES the time go.....Thought this week, we would make it FUN with a silly question!!
We love to play board games as a family, mainly during the 9 months of cruddy weather that we have here in the Pacific Northwest and while we have a HUGE assortment of games to choose from....if my younger son and I can't play War or Gin Rummy with cards....we are playing some sort of Monopoly as a family!
We have MANY versions of Monopoly....Portland Monopoly, Star Wars Monopoly, Regular Monopoly and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Monopoly for holiday time AND are always on the lookout for other versions at yard sales or thrift stores!!!
The only rule in our house is that the game needs to be on a Friday or Saturday night, in case the game runs late. We have nowhere to store the board open and we are early to bed, early to rise people..... but other than that....not really any rules. Kinda of when they whim hits all of us or some of us, as the hubby has played with the boys many nights when Mom is elbow deep in dinner, etc.
So....what, as a family is your favorite game to sit down and play? Do you make a whole night of it? Or just when the whim hits?

I was just looking around at the complete currs. and saw SAS. I was very surprised to see that it is a free curr.! I Think that I am pretty set on what my daughter will do for next year, but am a little intrigued by the free-ness of it. I have really found no bad reviews in the two that I looked at:rolleyes:

Please any input is great. Or maybe I just need to sign up and try it. I mean, why not, it is free.

Ds will be 18 September 2. Pretty close. Time flies.
Over the last few months he has expressed repeatedly that he wants to get out of here. He wants to see the world and meet people with his interests. I asked him to elaborate. He wants to go places, see things, meet people with his musical intersts and just be left alone for a while.
I am all for this. I told him that some Amish send there kids out for a certain amount of time to see the outside world and decide if they truly want to be Amish ( i cant rememebr the name of this, grrr). I offered to do something similar. I could get him a hotel room for a couple of nights, give him some cash so he can eat, and he can check out the local music scene north of here. I couldnt believe what he said next!!! He said" what kind of parent would do that? Thats horrible! Youre a horrible Mom!"
I couldnt believe it! He was asking me to see the world and go do things and when I offer him the chance to do it I get called a bad Mom?!?!? I was baffled!
But then again I have to remember what its like at his dads/gmas. They make all the decisions for him and tell them I am wrong and a horrible person. The world is evil, dont leave the house, dont go anywhere, dont drive and dont live on your own until your almost 40!
I have been trying to teach ds to drive, he wont drive because of his dad and gma, and because I have a standard. I tried to get him to get a summer job and very part time job for the school year. I get a call from his dad saying that he doesnt want him driving or working. I hung up. Ds wanted to go into the military , his gma and gpa were all for it as am I, and his dad talked him out of it. We even met with the recruiter. The smile on his face and his excitement was awesome. Then his dad talked him out of it. ugh.
Well...between the call I got from ds's teacher yesterday, the talk with the school counselor this morning and talking with ds, and the co-sleeping thread with natural parenting added to it, I am lost as to what to do or say. I tried to let him find his own way, but others are stopping him. I can only intervene so much. I have been hoping that he would see through all of the control, but he hasnt.
I talked with the counselor this moring to see if we can do a work co-op. they said yes. he needs 6 credits to graduate. Ds says he wants to do it. But I know I will once again get trumped.
This is where the whole natural parenting and letting your kids take the lead thing happens. He wants to take the lead, but he has people scaring the crap out of him. I honestly am at my wits end. He needs to spread his wings and fly to leave the nest. He desperately wants to. The frustration and anger in his face tells me he HAS to do this. And he expressed that loudly!
Thank you for letting me vent.

Hi everyone. I've been a silent member for awhile, but I've been picking some homeschooling friends' minds and I thought I'd ask here, too. :)

My son is 11 and over the years he has struggled with the physical act of writing. Now that that issue is far better and his dread of writing even a sentence isn't as huge, his brain has been trained to tell him that writing sucks. :(

His issues aren't 100% resolved, but he's now an efficient (messy, but I don't care) enough writer that I want to start working on getting more thoughts on paper and really letting his creativity flow. I wish I could erase the dread that ingrained in his brain. When he sees a question that requires a paragraph answer, he balks. Big time. Again, he's progressing in that area, but I hate seeing that dread.

Aside from that mental block, he struggles with organizing his thoughts and putting sentences into correct order to form a proper paragraph. And multiple paragraphs for a story or essay? Forget about it. However, I think that maybe -just maybe- he's on the cusp of breaking through to the other side.

Today, we're about to bust out a silly flip book full of creative writing prompts. My next idea is to find random photographs online and have him write a back story about them for me. So, I guess my main question here is whether anyone has a suggestion to help him organize his thoughts before putting them on paper. I tried having him do note cards, lists, etc, but that's just more writing and he's burned before he ever gets started. :/

Thanks in advance, everyone!

About a week ago I discovered the Gerald E. Eddy Discover Center. It is a really cool geological learning center about 20 min from home, and literally 5 min from my in-laws. I have seen signs for it most of my life, but do not remember ever going. This was such a cool place! I took the girls last week, and we explored and hiked on the trails. We took lots of pictures of things to look up and learn more about when we got home. I was so excited to find such a great resource in our backyard. We plan on hanging out there a lot in the future.

I would also recommend this for anyone in the area or passing through.

What other great places and resources have others found close to home? Please share.

If you break for part of the summer, what is your day to day like?

Do you have a routine or rhythm or is it a free for all?

What kind of things do your kids do when homeschooling isn't the main priority?

Trying to come up with ways to not go nuts this summer.

I know some of you start history when they are little and public doesn't start until upper elementary/middle school. I know I'm not ready to tackle history just yet but when would be a good time to start? And I'm curious on how you teach history, especially with young children. Do you just read it? And how do you know if they understand it?

Hello! I'm Adriana, from way up in the Adirondack Mountains of NY. I'm 19 weeks pregnant with twins, our first kids, and the education of my wee-ones is something I brought up with my significant other a few weeks ago. We have a few years before we will be deciding on whether or not to homeschool, but I figure it's a big decision for us. My SO needs some convincing too, since he's worried we could wind up with zombified un-socialized kids, or that it'd be too much on me, or that the kids'll never get into college, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseam.

Hopefully this forum can help me shed some light on the subject since it's all new-territory for us. And, regardless, we will be teaching our new additions as all parents do and enjoying the heck out of it, so even supplemental education material and ideas will be a great help for me!