Homeschool Chat

[Disney Mommy 3]

I'm a princess. I can't help of think of just how many really nice resort, hotel, touring..... vacations we can go on for just the price of the camper & insurance.

I know the kids would like it, but I'm not so sure that it is my thing.

I mean.....IT WOULD USE UP MY DISNEY $ EVERY YEAR. Can I let that happen?

I would rather do Disney too!!!!

 

[mistee]

i have always homeschooled my dd now age 11. she is great in reading, math, history and science. Her weak areas are writing and spelling,, espically spelling..

We started homeschooling w/ calvert but then after a few years i starting coming up w/ my own program as calvert was getting to $$$.

last year we had a new baby and things were real hectic as he was in the nicu for some time so I signed her up for time4learning.

I don't know what curriculum to do this year. I live in DE and they don't offer any free online public schools That would have been perfect for us.. I am trying to find something w/ little planning on my end but not to much $$$$.

any suggestions?

 

[Disney Mommy 3]

Irene,
Have you checked into Rod & Staff's Spelling? They are very solid...we used them last year and we really liked it. ABeka has a good spelling program also. I liked them both...but Rod and Staff was the cheaper one!!!!

 

[SCHBR'smom]

I could use some advice, please.

I've been researching curriculums for homeschool. This will be our first year. My oldest will be in 5th, next will be 1st, the rest are not yet old enough for school. (Well, DD4 could be in preschool and I'll do some with her, but no curriculum.) I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do for history. Where to start and what to do? I know schools do not do history chronologically, but I've heard that others think that is the best way to go. Also, here in Texas, Texas history is required. I figured I could order some Texas history books from Barnes and Noble and do my own teaching, but I'm not sure on the rest. Any advice and personal opinions are welcome? Please help me find a direction. Any good curriculums I should be looking closely at?

Thanks

 

[MomTo4+more]

For history, my children and I have really enjoyed Story of the World. My children will be in 5th grade, 2nd grade, and K this fall. We are in the second half of SOTW 4. We are just starting World War 2 history. I noticed that my 5 year old is listening more than I thought he was when I gave him one too many commandes in a day and he responded, "Heil, Mommy" with his arm outstrectched. It was the most recent example of how much the curriculum is catching and holding their attention.

 

[Disney Mommy 3]

Hi Kerri... We are in Tx as well. We haven't done Texas history yet...that will come later, we are doing our own kinda scope & sequence for History. I have friends that grouped their kids together for History with Story of the World. We do not because my older son was on a different time schedule by the time my middle one started...and the youngest is just now in 1st, so I just did them seperately. We use Truth Quest and we really enjoy it...You use a guide and just read along and pick out whatever book you are interested in for further study of each topic. For ex., last year for early Amer. history, one option was 'Johnny Tremain',I have the book, but we got it on cd and all 3 kids(and me!) listened to it. We really enjoy doing that.

For other curr.-my middle one is in 5th grade. He's in some 5th and some 6th grade stuff...for math you should check into Teaching Textbooks...it's awesome and really gets the job done (& done well), + it frees up some time for you during your teaching. This will be our second year using it. We actually used 5th last year and will be doing 6th this year. My oldest is in the Algebra this year....I have to rave about this curriculum!!!

Rod and Staff is great for Grammar....we used it last year (4th and 7th grade level) and I was very impressed with it. Very solid...enough repitition that they get it, but not enough for them to be bored to death. Do you read any books by Ruth Beechick? She is awesome!! One thing she recommends is that once they get the basics of Grammar, you can review back, but you don't have to keep drilling it over and over, year after year. I totally agree with this...after R&S last year, both boys have a very good grip on it, and we aren't going to do grammar this year. We are going to focus on writing. We are gonna use Writing With Ease by Susan Wise Bauer. This could be used with your younger kids on up through the oldest. The next two levels of workbooks (3 & 4) are due out soon.

R & S have great Spelling, Readers, Math and Bible stuff as well!! All their stuff is solid, the pictures are plain and not flashy, but my kids really like it.

ABeka is great for the younger levels...they have an awesome phonics program. We started out with them, but around 2nd grade they really start packing it on!!!!

For Science, we are loving Apologia!!! We have used this for the last 2 years and just love it!! You could definitely combine your children for this curriculum.

Another one you might want to check into is the Five In A Row. Especially with your younger ones. You purchase the volume you are interested in, then you get books (Mostly available at libraries...they are usually all Newberry/Caldecott winners) and read one story, 5 days in a row. One day you focus on the Art work, day 2 may be the math in the story, day 3 the Science, and so on, for all 5 days of the week. My kids really loved FIAR.

I am sure I have forgotten something!!! but, hope this helps a little!!!!

 

[Beavers5]

i have always homeschooled my dd now age 11. she is great in reading, math, history and science. Her weak areas are writing and spelling,, espically spelling..

We started homeschooling w/ calvert but then after a few years i starting coming up w/ my own program as calvert was getting to $$$.

last year we had a new baby and things were real hectic as he was in the nicu for some time so I signed her up for time4learning.

I don't know what curriculum to do this year. I live in DE and they don't offer any free online public schools That would have been perfect for us.. I am trying to find something w/ little planning on my end but not to much $$$$.

any suggestions?

We seem to be doing the same things in different orders. I started out with piecing together our own curriculum. When DD1 was born, we switched to Time4Learning. DS didn't like T4L, he is more into textbooks. So, this year we are using Calvert. I was actually pleasantly surprised with their prices. We are using the full 5th grade curriculum with ATS, Spanish Enrichment, and PK; with coupons it only cost $1100 ($280 down, <$100 a month).

I don't have much advice since you've tried most of the stuff I have. But, DS, liked Saxon math since he could do it independently.

 

[3princesses+aprince]

I could use some advice, please.

I've been researching curriculums for homeschool. This will be our first year. My oldest will be in 5th, next will be 1st, the rest are not yet old enough for school. (Well, DD4 could be in preschool and I'll do some with her, but no curriculum.) I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do for history. Where to start and what to do? I know schools do not do history chronologically, but I've heard that others think that is the best way to go. Also, here in Texas, Texas history is required. I figured I could order some Texas history books from Barnes and Noble and do my own teaching, but I'm not sure on the rest. Any advice and personal opinions are welcome? Please help me find a direction. Any good curriculums I should be looking closely at?

Thanks

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with History for this year either. It was recommended that I look at Truthquest and that looked great to me, that is what we're going to try for this year. I am actually going to purchase that book next week.
I'm not sure if you have a Science curriculum picked out yet, but Apologia looks EXCELLENT, we already bought that book for this year and it looks so great. All of my kids will be able to do Science together. (10, 8 and 5) Of course the older can do more and the younger will do less, but we'll be learning together with this. We chose the Land Animals book for our first year. My dd just looks through it every few days, she can't wait to start.

 

[SCHBR'smom]

Thanks for all the great advice everyone!!! I'm hoping to start ordering this weekend. This should be quite an adventure!

 

[Disney Mommy 3]

Thanks for all the great advice everyone!!! I'm hoping to start ordering this weekend. This should be quite an adventure!

It will be!!! The Greatest Adventure you will take with those little muchkins!!!

 

[3princesses+aprince]

Thanks for all the great advice everyone!!! I'm hoping to start ordering this weekend. This should be quite an adventure!

This will be our first year homeschooling and that is what I keep saying as well. I hope to have a blast with HSing this year!!!

 

[littlepeppers]

This will be our first year homeschooling and that is what I keep saying as well. I hope to have a blast with HSing this year!!!

I'm hoping that HS will feel more freeing once we get used to it. I hope that being able to go outside will help free up the feeling.

DS wants to do his work in his room, but it is so traditional. I think he is still stuck on the regular school ticket. Hopefully we can break it. DH is a scheduled & routine person who thinks we pretty much need a bell schedule. I don't want that.

Like right now. DS wanted to dance w/ his sister and watch Highschool Musical 3. I don't have problems w/ letting them spend time together. It actually gives me some time to myself. DH wants routine. As a former teacher, my whole life was ruled by a clock. I want to leave that behind & enjoy my kids. I missed so much of DS when I worked.

We are almost finished 10 days of our 1/2 day schooling. A grand total of 5 school days to report to the state. I think that we will stay on the 1/2 day schedule for another week or two. Hope everyone has a great start to their school year.

 

[Disney Mommy 3]

Littlepepper~
I agree! Have fun!!!! That's why kids like field trips so much... no sitting in a desk watching the clock!! I do have a schedule, but it's VERY bendable. If they dread it they aren't gonna like it! We do school all over the house, outside on the swing...and they read everywhere... When we first started hsing, I made them do it in the morning and be finished at a certain time... but I had a nursing baby and needed that afternoon rest!! I still try to stick to that,it's easier for us to have afternoons free...but that's still a lot of hours in the morning to get it all finished. We like to do our reading in the afternoons!!!

 

[MICKEYMOMMYTO3]

Glad to see a thread for homeschoolers, I have been homeschooling for 3 yrs now : )
We LOVE it!!!

 

[Disney Mommy 3]

Glad to see a thread for homeschoolers, I have been homeschooling for 3 yrs now : )
We LOVE it!!!

we are glad you found us!!! This is a really fun thread...we can talk about school and Mickey!! What a great combo!!

 

[littlepeppers]

I'm cutting out our CM thank you cards.

I'm hoping to teach DS to look for the positive people & examples of people doing their jobs w/ pride.

 

[3princesses+aprince]

Hey, I had to get us off the 3rd page!!! I also just wanted to say that I've been posting for quite a few months now while deciding whether to homeschool or not. We, of course, decided to do it a few months ago, but my dd5 wanted to go to Kindergarten with her friends, she did not want to homeschool. I figured we'd see how the summer goes and hopefully she'll change her mind. We've since met with our new homeschool group for a field trip and signed up for co-op for the fall. They're going to be doing music, art and physical education. They even have a retired music teacher coming in and it sounds like a lot of fun. Well, dd5 has been getting excited about it lately, and the other day we were in walmart buying notebooks for our Science experiments and folders to store all of their work in, Well, she just associates buying school supplies with going back to "school" and she looked at me with this worried look and said "I don't want to go to school, I thought we were going to homeschool" I wasn't sure if I heard her right at first, I thought she said she doesn't want to homeschool but when she repeated herself I was so excited. She thought she was going to PS because we were buying school supplies, so I explained to her what they were for and all is well. People have been telling me that I should be the one deciding on whether or not to homeschool the kids, not the kids, because in the end I know that this is good for them but I didn't want to force her to do it if she was going to be looking out the window when the bus pulls up wishing she was in school. I felt too guilty. So over the past few months we've been seeing the other kids in the homeschool group and doing math worksheets (my dd5 is the first one to ask every day if we can do math) I think the more they get excited about it and the more we do, especially once we really start they will forget about going to "school" and homeschooling will be the way we learn and I hope they'll never say they wish they were in school. Boy how I wish I thought about this before they all went to school. But I just wanted to post that here, I know I posted a lot while I was stressed out about what to do and everyone is so helpful here.

 

[Temair]

I so need some advice. I'm still trying to figure out what to do for this years curriculum. I thought I knew what I was going to do. My original plans was the following for my DD who turns 10 and going into grade 5.
Math -MUS Epsilon
LA- Spelling Power, 2nd half of Basic Winston Grammar, Wordsmith Apprentice, Vocabulary Workshop, Reading books.
His- 2nd half of SOTW Vol 4
Sci- Various Books on Astronomy

Well since I'm now expecting a baby and due in February I'm thinking about going to more independent self directed curriculum. Like CLE or A&O SOS, or Lifepacs. What I'm looking for is a program that DD could use through middle and high school. Preferably a curriculum that would challenge my DD, and let her work at her own pace. And a curriculum that is good, solid, and has them ready to head to college or university.

 

[NHWX]

Congrats on the happy news Temair!

I don't have any experience with the curricula that you mentioned. I used K12 through 8th grade but decided that I didn't want to go through the sign-up process, the higher fees and the teacher instruction that K12 does once you hit ninth grade.

You might want to really look at something that will work well for the next couple of years since children can change a lot over time.

Or, you might want to ask around and see what other kids in your area are using. That way, when you start doing more complicated science with labs or more difficult math, she'll be able to work with others. I certainly wished my older son could have had a math study group last year.

NHWX

 

[Disneyaddict78]

I am so happy to see the thread for homeschoolers..I have not read the last one so I will be sure to read it later...why did it get stopped???

I am in heaven now..LOL...a group who loves dis and homeschools...does it get better then that?