Homeschool Chat

[3princesses+aprince]

So, I just wanted to thank everyone for your replies to homeschooling my 5 yr old! You made me feel much better about doing that. So I will be homeschooling my 3 daughters 9, 7 and 5 in the fall. I'm going to let them finish out where they are now. My dd9 is having the most problems, but It will be very stressful for me to take her out now, without any plans, and curriculums, but she is fine with waiting, the school year is almost over. My dd5 and dd7 would not want to leave now anyway, it will be much easier for them to transition over the summer, so we are already home. In 2 weeks we have 1 week off for spring break, and then a few weeks after that we will be in Disney for 8 days Anyway!!!!!
Next year when we go back to Disney we will not have to worry about the kids coming back to school with work that they missed and days worth of make up homework.

I am going to use A Beka. I've been searching through curriculums and I want to make sure they are getting the best and I feel this is a very thorough curriculum, I hope i'm right. I have never heard anything bad about it. A Beka is holding a few Materials Displays in my area over the next few months. When ordering from a Display you get free shipping, so between May-July I will have everything ordered. Kind of expensive, so I'll order 1 kit at a time. Expensive, but I feel like it will be worth it.

I just emailed the leader for my local homeschool group. I was in touch with her a few months back when I was thinking about pulling my dd9 out. She was very excited that I'm starting in the fall, and asked me to come to the monthly meeting this thursday. Too bad, I have to work, I told her for sure I would be able to switch my days and come to next months. I went to their website and filled out the registration form, she added me to the email list. I was going through the website, and they have so many upcoming activities, this is going to be great.

I want to say thank you so much to all here. I have the support of my dh, family and friends, but that seemed to not be enough. It honestly was you all here that made me strong enough to do this.
THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART!!!!

 

[3princesses+aprince]

Hi everyone,

Join Carolina Homeschooler this September as we make our fourth trip to Disney World! We'll explore theme parks, splash in water parks, play virtual reality games at Disney Quest, and participate in special educational programs and group activities - all at great discounts.

Read more about our adventure at:
http://www.carolinahomeschooler.com/travelwdw.htm

If you'd like to receive updates about this trip or any of our other trips, please subscribe to our Traveling Homeschoolers newsletter at:
http://www.carolinahomeschooler.com/lists.htm

Happy Traveling,
Dianna

Thanks, I signed up for the newsletter, We have our big Disney Trip in May, but i'm already planning on joining you for next September's Disney Trip.

 

[3princesses+aprince]

We are going to be using A Beka. Obviously for Math , Language arts, reading and writing they will be at their own different levels. What about History, and Science. I was thinking about doing 1 lesson for all 3 of the kids. My youngest is 5, then 7, then 9. My 9 yr old will be working on 4th gr material in Sept. My 7 yr old will be on 2nd gr, would a 3rd gr Science and History lesson be OK, or would I be better off just doing different lessons for all of them with science and history? Thanks!!!

I've just been thinking that multiple lessons of these two courses will be very time consuming, not to mention the science projects we'll be doing. I just figure it will be more fun to do projects like this together?
I don't know, any opinions, Thanks

 

[Octoberbabiesrus]

hey everyone, I've subscribed to this thread for awhile. read up a lil bit, and then forgot to post. So I just wanted to say hi! I'm Ashley and a homeschool mom of a six year old Alex and soon 17 month Davin.

 

[Belle & Ariel]

So, I just wanted to thank everyone for your replies to homeschooling my 5 yr old! You made me feel much better about doing that. So I will be homeschooling my 3 daughters 9, 7 and 5 in the fall. I'm going to let them finish out where they are now. My dd9 is having the most problems, but It will be very stressful for me to take her out now, without any plans, and curriculums, but she is fine with waiting, the school year is almost over. My dd5 and dd7 would not want to leave now anyway, it will be much easier for them to transition over the summer, so we are already home. In 2 weeks we have 1 week off for spring break, and then a few weeks after that we will be in Disney for 8 days Anyway!!!!!
Next year when we go back to Disney we will not have to worry about the kids coming back to school with work that they missed and days worth of make up homework.

I am going to use A Beka. I've been searching through curriculums and I want to make sure they are getting the best and I feel this is a very thorough curriculum, I hope i'm right. I have never heard anything bad about it. A Beka is holding a few Materials Displays in my area over the next few months. When ordering from a Display you get free shipping, so between May-July I will have everything ordered. Kind of expensive, so I'll order 1 kit at a time. Expensive, but I feel like it will be worth it.


I just emailed the leader for my local homeschool group. I was in touch with her a few months back when I was thinking about pulling my dd9 out. She was very excited that I'm starting in the fall, and asked me to come to the monthly meeting this thursday. Too bad, I have to work, I told her for sure I would be able to switch my days and come to next months. I went to their website and filled out the registration form, she added me to the email list. I was going through the website, and they have so many upcoming activities, this is going to be great.

I want to say thank you so much to all here. I have the support of my dh, family and friends, but that seemed to not be enough. It honestly was you all here that made me strong enough to do this.
THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART!!!!

Welcome to homeschooling.

We have used Abeka (my kids are now 21, 19, and 15) and been very pleased.

I do have 2 suggestions.
When you order for the oldest, order the books they will write in for all your kids. My oldest were just 2 grades apart and I found that when I went to order workbooks for the 2 child, they had been revised. For example, I remember math for my oldest had tests in every lesson ending with 1 and 6--11,16,21,26... In the revised edition, tests ended in 2 and 7. Every lesson varied a little. Sometimes the workbook would have things to dictate to them that did not match my book. It was not a huge problem, but it just made planning easier when my old teacher's guide matched the workbook.
The other thing is that my wonderful Abeka rep suggested not buying whole sets. He suggested instead of buying teacher books and student readers to just buy the teacher's edition and since you are usually sitting side by side to share. We did that for reading, history, science, and health. You do need to look at the display because I remember some years the answers to science section questions were printed in the text.
Abeka is wonderful. My girls are doing very well in college. My oldest told me last night that at the college Bible Study a couple girls did well at some game and joked about them both using Abeka and that was it.
I think you could combine history or science for 2 of the kids and do the grade in between, but 3 would be a stretch with Abeka. Maybe others on here know of a curiculuum that does this.

 

[3princesses+aprince]

Welcome to homeschooling.

We have used Abeka (my kids are now 21, 19, and 15) and been very pleased.

I do have 2 suggestions.
When you order for the oldest, order the books they will write in for all your kids. My oldest were just 2 grades apart and I found that when I went to order workbooks for the 2 child, they had been revised. For example, I remember math for my oldest had tests in every lesson ending with 1 and 6--11,16,21,26... In the revised edition, tests ended in 2 and 7. Every lesson varied a little. Sometimes the workbook would have things to dictate to them that did not match my book. It was not a huge problem, but it just made planning easier when my old teacher's guide matched the workbook.
The other thing is that my wonderful Abeka rep suggested not buying whole sets. He suggested instead of buying teacher books and student readers to just buy the teacher's edition and since you are usually sitting side by side to share. We did that for reading, history, science, and health. You do need to look at the display because I remember some years the answers to science section questions were printed in the text.
Abeka is wonderful. My girls are doing very well in college. My oldest told me last night that at the college Bible Study a couple girls did well at some game and joked about them both using Abeka and that was it.
I think you could combine history or science for 2 of the kids and do the grade in between, but 3 would be a stretch with Abeka. Maybe others on here know of a curiculuum that does this.

Thank you for all of your advice. And thanks a lot for the advice on ordering workbooks for the other 2 at the same time, I would have never though about that.
I'm Ok with teaching 2 History and Science lessons, but 3. Wow. Maybe what I could do is teach my 4th grader seperately and combine my 5 and 7 yr old. My 7 yr old has developmental delays, so she is about a yr behind, so I think that would work out well !!!! Thanks again.
If anyone else has any advice I will gladly take it!!!

 

[anabelle]

Thank you for all of your advice. And thanks a lot for the advice on ordering workbooks for the other 2 at the same time, I would have never though about that.
I'm Ok with teaching 2 History and Science lessons, but 3. Wow. Maybe what I could do is teach my 4th grader seperately and combine my 5 and 7 yr old. My 7 yr old has developmental delays, so she is about a yr behind, so I think that would work out well !!!! Thanks again.
If anyone else has any advice I will gladly take it!!!

Do you want to use Abeka for History and Science as well? A lot of people use unit studies (Like Sonlight) for children of various ages. That way the whole family is studying the same thing at the same time. Older children might get more challenging books added to their reading list.

 

[DisneyMom5]

I use Sonlight (not really a unit study, I would call it literature based).
I combine children as much as possible.

I recommend if you use Sonlight, to use the level of the younger of two children, or at the least, use the level between them.
It's best not to try to spread it out over more than 3 years age difference.
So I have my 9th and 7th grader together (Sonlight Core 100- Am. Hist), my 4th grader sits in on their history this year (Core 3 - Am. Hist), but has had his own before, and then I have my 1st, K, and PreK together (Core 1 - Intro to World Hist).
For science, the oldest two now do their own (Apologia), but have been together up until this year. The 4th grader reads science to the littles.
They all have their own math, handwriting, and Lang. arts.
I read Bible to all of them together (my own thing) and the oldest two also have a Bible Study workbook.

It has really been helpful to me to have 1) a literature based curriculum vs. textbooks/workbooks (math/handwriting is still workbook),
and 2) have olders read to youngers.
You can read a book to more than one kid at a time, rather than having several different textbooks.
This helps me to be free to assist with math and language arts.

Sonlight can be expensive, but it's mostly reusable, which is a big plus to us.
Also, it has a money back guarentee for up to 18 WEEKS of using it.
And they have started doing payment plans.

Just a thought for those of you worried about spreading yourselves too thin.

P.S. - I don't do everything in the Instructor's Guides for Sonlight, nor do I always accomplish them on the days assigned. You have to give yourself grace if you like to check things off. It can be overwhelming!

Happy to answer any questions on Sonlight -- I have been using it since 2000!

 

[3princesses+aprince]

Do you want to use Abeka for History and Science as well? A lot of people use unit studies (Like Sonlight) for children of various ages. That way the whole family is studying the same thing at the same time. Older children might get more challenging books added to their reading list.

I was thinking about using all Abeka, but, like I said, i'm new to this, so if anyone has suggestions, i'd be happy to listen to all of them. I'll check out the sonlight website and see if that would be better for us for History and Science.

I use Sonlight (not really a unit study, I would call it literature based).
I combine children as much as possible.

I recommend if you use Sonlight, to use the level of the younger of two children, or at the least, use the level between them.
It's best not to try to spread it out over more than 3 years age difference.
So I have my 9th and 7th grader together (Sonlight Core 100- Am. Hist), my 4th grader sits in on their history this year (Core 3 - Am. Hist), but has had his own before, and then I have my 1st, K, and PreK together (Core 1 - Intro to World Hist).
For science, the oldest two now do their own (Apologia), but have been together up until this year. The 4th grader reads science to the littles.
They all have their own math, handwriting, and Lang. arts.
I read Bible to all of them together (my own thing) and the oldest two also have a Bible Study workbook.

It has really been helpful to me to have 1) a literature based curriculum vs. textbooks/workbooks (math/handwriting is still workbook),
and 2) have olders read to youngers.
You can read a book to more than one kid at a time, rather than having several different textbooks.
This helps me to be free to assist with math and language arts.

Sonlight can be expensive, but it's mostly reusable, which is a big plus to us.
Also, it has a money back guarentee for up to 18 WEEKS of using it.
And they have started doing payment plans.

Just a thought for those of you worried about spreading yourselves too thin.

P.S. - I don't do everything in the Instructor's Guides for Sonlight, nor do I always accomplish them on the days assigned. You have to give yourself grace if you like to check things off. It can be overwhelming!

Happy to answer any questions on Sonlight -- I have been using it since 2000!

Thanks, I'm going to check out the sonlight website and if I have any questions, i'll ask.
What I was thinking about with Abeka, was to let my 4th grader do her own and combine my 5 and 7 yr old. I don't think for K that History and Science is required anyway, so this will be a good practice year for the combined lesson between them two.

Thanks again, I have received so much useful information from this thread

 

[KibbyCat]

If you haven't already done so, please go here to add your name to the list:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=31179987

We're trying to get the DISboards people to give us our own Home School forum.

(Thanks, 3princesses+aprince for signing and bumping the thread back up!)

 

[3princesses+aprince]

No problem Kibbycat, I am new to homeschooling and would LOVE to have our own place here for it. I've searched around the internet for homeschool forums, but I always want to come here with my disney friends.



I also wanted to say that my best friend and I just planned to go to Disney together next September, between us there will be 8 kids...So much fun, but the best part will be I will not be stressing out over the kids missing school work and having to get back to school and be stressed out making it all up. They are still in PS right now until the end of the school year, so for our May trip they will be missing 8 days of school No more worries about that!!!!!!!! After June that is! So next year we will be studying a lot that has to do with Disney World before we go. How much fun will it be to learn about Disney.

 

[disneymom3]

i wish you all luck with the request for the forum. After MANY years of many of us asking the same thing, I will not be putting my name on the list. I have found a disney board that is very open to homeschoolers and has a seperate forum for us. Though I love this thread, i have just never felt that my homeschooling part of me was very welcome on the DIS.

However, I do hope that those of you asking now fare better than we have in the past.

 

[3princesses+aprince]

I hope we get the forum, but if not, we can just continue on in our thread here. I know a forum would be GREAT ,but we can still enjoy talking with the homeschoolers that come onto this thread.



On a fun note, I just spent the last 2 hours going through drawers in my hutch in the living room, which is where we will be doing our work. In one draw I had winter hats, and gloves (they don't really belong there.) In another I had a years worth of things the kids brought home from school or colored for me (No need to save Januarys returned homework) In another, for some reason there were Christmas gift bags and tissue paper (no need, I have an entire closet for Chrismtas stuff.)
So, i'm all cleaned out, and I have room for so much stuff. I want to be very organized. I know at work when my papers are all over the place I feel like i'm forgetting to do things. So as I start buying the things we need and books I will find a nice neat place for them. Each girl will have their own draw for their books. I have alot of space, I'm very happy.

 

[Disney Mommy 3]

congrats on getting started!! I too started out with ABeka, as that is what we were familiar with from the christian school. It is awesome, and for phonics and getting started, it's very organized!! My only word of caution is not to do every single thing in the book, and you don't have to buy everything they try to sell you at the booksales! We have evolved into other curriculums over the years, but if you don't want to do their History and Science, so you can group all your kids together, check into Apologia Science and for history Mystery of History or TruthQuest. All of these are wonderful! another good science series is Christian Kids Explore....Chemistry, Biology. these were also written by a homeschooling mom. And just remember that on days when life is crazy, it's okay to just step out of school for a while and do nothing!! We have days here and there where we get off schedule and just go get a good book and read, or watch cartoons, or just do NOTHING!! This is needed sometimes and it's perfectly okay to do it!!!! Keep us posted on how things are going!

 

[CantWaitToGo2007]

Hello. I haven't read the whole thread, just the last couple of pages, but I have a question and am hoping someone here can point me in the right direction.

My son is currently in 7th grade and I will be homeschooling him when he gets to 9th grade (I would love to do it starting next year, but I am a single parent and I have to work during the day). I know that he would be able to handle completing any assingments I leave for him during the day, and then we could go over it when I got home. While I am 98% sure that he will be homeschooled (the social aspect of school is extremely overwhelming to him, he will still have social gatherings with kids his own age outside of schooling) I want to learn more about it. I've heard that there is an online curriculum that he could use that the school district pays for (we live in Washington state - north kitsap school district). Does anyone know if this is true? Where can I go to find out? What type of curriculum did you use for your 9th grade student?

Any help and advice is greatly appreciated

Thanks
Nanette

 

[Nicolepa]

I've heard that there is an online curriculum that he could use that the school district pays for (we live in Washington state - north kitsap school district). Does anyone know if this is true? Where can I go to find out? What type of curriculum did you use for your 9th grade student?

Any help and advice is greatly appreciated

Thanks
Nanette

Go to www.wava.org. I can't comment on the cirriculum yet but we are planning on using it next year for our 7yo. They are doing a lot of infor session right now. Look for one and check them out.

 

[wvdislover]

congrats on getting started!! I too started out with ABeka, as that is what we were familiar with from the christian school. It is awesome, and for phonics and getting started, it's very organized!! My only word of caution is not to do every single thing in the book, and you don't have to buy everything they try to sell you at the booksales! We have evolved into other curriculums over the years, but if you don't want to do their History and Science, so you can group all your kids together, check into Apologia Science and for history Mystery of History or TruthQuest. All of these are wonderful! another good science series is Christian Kids Explore....Chemistry, Biology. these were also written by a homeschooling mom. And just remember that on days when life is crazy, it's okay to just step out of school for a while and do nothing!! We have days here and there where we get off schedule and just go get a good book and read, or watch cartoons, or just do NOTHING!! This is needed sometimes and it's perfectly okay to do it!!!! Keep us posted on how things are going!

Hey, Shawna, how would you compare Mystery of History to Truthquest? Or Truthquest to Sonlight (they seem similar)? Thanks!

 

[3princesses+aprince]

Disneymommy3, Thanks for the advice! I have heard that Abeka can be A LOT. I am going into it knowing that. I'm glad I know , because i'm sure I would have been driving myself crazy I just keep looking at so many different curriculums and I feel Abeka would be best for us this year as we're just getting started. I'm one of those Moms that need to know I have good enough material to teach my kids, and this just seemed like the one.
I will look into Mystery of History and Apologia Science too though. I'm actually going to go look that up right now. If at all possible I know the more I can group the kids together the more time we'll have to spend on that particular subject. Thanks, i'll let you know what I think.

 

[Disney Mommy 3]

Hey, Shawna, how would you compare Mystery of History to Truthquest? Or Truthquest to Sonlight (they seem similar)? Thanks!

I haven't actually used Sonlight-I have visited the website and have a friend that just loves it! I think it's a little more 'put together' for you with a lesson plan.

Mystery of History is all in that one book-with some extra activities added after lessons. It's good-we used it last year, but when we needed the 3rd volume it hadn't been printed yet, so I had to find something else for my eldest son. This is how I stumbled upon TQ.

TruthQuest is a guide with topics-under large topics will be smaller topics/people that were important, but maybe not so known. You have several 'spine books' that you can choose from to be your base history book for the year. After you read your section in the guide book, and your reading passage from you spine book, you then have listed books that you can add for additional reading. For example, we are in colonial american times with my middle son, and for extra reading, I chose Johnny Tremain, by Eshter Forbes. He started reading that book last week, but we have had some things come up that keep interrupting his reading time, I found it on cd. It has been awesome hearing it read by someone else (not me!) and we are all getting to enjoy it!!

If you really like MoH better since it's more contained in the one book, you can always add books as readers to make it more alive. I love both, but I do like the rich literature of TQ. TQ has 'ThinkWrite' sprinkled throughout where you can have them write about certain questions she puts to them. MoH has tests. Check them out and let me know what you think. I am going to look at Sonlight for my older son for next year. I will probably just stay with TQ since we are in the swing of it already!

 

[3princesses+aprince]

Ok, so I just looked into Apologia Science, and I'm 98% sure we are going with that instead of Abeka Science.

Do I have this correct, the elementary books that say they are for grades K-6 can be used for all three of my girls! That's exciting, it sure beats doing 2 Science lessons, and when we work on projects, we'll all be doing them together. So there are no workbooks or tests that come along with this though, it's just the book?

I also glanced at Truthquest and Mystery of History, but I'll have to look into those a little more. With just a quick glance I like the Abeka better, but I'll do some more researching, because to group them together would be really nice.