We are getting ready to start homeschooling our five year old twin girls (kindergarten). We have a variety of workbooks and lots of reading books but we are not sure where to start. We have thought about purchasing a planner to plan out our curriculum, but again we are not sure where to start. Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thank you!!
Normally I would say the first thing I would do is assess their learning styles. There are a variety of assessment tools out there... "Discover your child's learning style" by mariaemma willis and victoria kindle hodson (they also have a website... learningsuccessinstitute-dot-com) is what was recommended to me by an experienced hsing mom who is very knowledgeable in early childhood development. But yours are very young - if they "like" the workbooks, they're probably fine, but if both or 1 of them doesn't "enjoy" the workbooks, I'd look into what they do "enjoy".
Some kids don't learn well by using workbooks (my dd does learn well w/ workbooks, my ds totally doesn't). For some kids the workbook format actually gets in the way of their learning. My ds hated doing math on paper (and wasn't "good" at it)... we threw out the paper, he does all his math verbally now or with games, and he loves it and is learning very well this way.
That's great you want to be relaxed at this age. My ds8 (3rd grade) gets his 3R's plus a language (spanish) done w/in an hour a day, then we do history, science, art, and everything else in chunks throughout the day/week/month. My dd10 has a bit more to do (like she writes a paragraph instead of the 2 or 3 sentences my son copies). That's another thing to remember w/ different kids and different learning styles... my dd loves writing, and will write stories on her own (for fun). My ds HATES writing, so he practices penmanship (the 2 or 3 sentences which is copywork), then if I want him to do a sort of "story", he tells me it (and I either type it up for him, or he can use his digital recorder, or I just simply listen). For him, the actual writing of the story would have gotten in the way of his thought process. So "book reports" for him are verbal, but for my dd they're written. That copywork of 2 or 3 sentences is all the writing (for now) my ds does in his learning. For ds, we use scrabble or bananagram tiles for spelling. This is a great tool actually. He'll place the tiles to spell a word, say "tool", then he or I will put a "p" on top of the "t" and make "pool", then we take turns changing 1 letter and changing the word, or adding letters, as its stacking up higher and higher. He'll also make his own bananagram (crossword) with the tiles. This completely takes the place of him "writing" spelling words, etc. My dd doesn't really enjoy this though - she'd rather write her spelling words. It's all in their learning styles and I always honor them.
I have a very eclectic style - a little from here and a little from there - for young kids, I think the Charlotte Mason method has a lot of good ideas. Just google it and you'll find lots of info.
The American Girl series is a wonderful history tool. We listen to them on cd in the car, then watch the related movie (if there is one), then other movies related to the time frame (history channel, etc), and anything else we find that relates to the time frame. Here's a funny related theme - we had recently done the Molly series and watched the movie, then went to Disney and Universal, and one of the counter service places in Universal is themed from WWII - there was a "Victory Garden" there, and model planes, and advertisements for women to work or become pilots... I was all excited and pointing it all out to the kids. I definitely would have overlooked it all before we started homeschooling (and wouldn't have known what a victory garden was). Now I look for things everywhere, and I'm always amazed at what I see. I also always try to tie in history for the kids to someone they know (telling them the Molly series took place when their Nana was born, so she would have been a toddler then, and the house looked like that and she played w/ those toys, etc). We always have a book-on-cd in the car, and the kids love it. And we always get them from the library - you don't have to buy much of anything.
hope this helps a bit. have fun w/ your girls!!
I can't complain about Blue's Clues, as that show helped him get over some learning-to-talk roadbumps, but why did I EVER let Dora be shown in my house? 
AP holders or CMs could purchase a ticket for just the event and YES tickets, but I guess they've changed it so you are forced to purchase admission now before being able to access the YES tickets.
, when it is offered. I think it would be worth the money even if I cannot be there(even though I would LOVE to learn about it with them).
. I do not know if it is still like that.
