Homeschool Chat

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Winter Promise Users

We are new to WP and I am hoping we can make it work this year, but the cost is just well, a LOT!

I am considering only getting the exclusives and using the library, but I just loaded my cart with exclusives only and it came to over $200 (including LA exclusives.)

If you are a WP user, did you enjoy all the WP exclusives and use them?

Did you use the LA Guide or just to your own LA? If you used the LA Guide, did you like it?

I want to do American Culture with my kids next year.

Thanks,

Dawn
 
I just spent the past week reading almost all of this thread (all 247 pages of it)!
My DS is starting Kdg this month in a Montessori school. He has been at this school for 2 yrs already for preschool & we love it. He has done really well so far. The school doesn't go past Kdg, so I have been researching my options for 1st grade. Both DH & I agree we will not send our boys to public school. So I have been researching our private school options. We are at the point of sending him to another Montessori school for grades 1-5 or homeschooling him.
I was apprehensive about the idea of homeschooling at first until I read this thread. You have made me feel I could do it. I did teach spec ed in public schools b4 becoming a stay at home mom & know how I would prefer to teach at home. I would do a year round school & do themed units. I used to teach a chocolate unit to my 4 th grade spec ed students & they loved it. I would love to do units thru the school year.

This thread has taught me so much about how homeschooling works & all the options there are. I have been looking into what we have in my area & found classes thru the park district just for hs'ers along w/hs groups.
I do love montessori & DS has been doing so well, so we are 90% sure our decision will be to continue montessori. I am planning on then homeschooling 6th-8th grade & possibly high school.
Anyway, I wanted to let you guys know what a great thread this is & how supportive you all are! I do support hs & wanted to thank you for easing my mind that hs could work for my boys. We will most likely not be hs'ing in the near future, but it's always an option depending on how things go & most likely will do hs for middle school.
Thanks again for all the great info! Have a great new school year!
 
I just sold $200 of materials and am hoping to sell some more in the coming weeks. I plan to use that again for new materials.

Dawn

Where do you sell your old materials? I've gotten quite a stack built up and I really do need to clear some out. I've been moderately successful selling bits and pieces here and there but no clearcut success.

Thanks,

NHWX
 
Hey, all --

I'm working on a project, and I could really use some input.

I often hear parents saying that World Showcase is their kids' least-favorite part of WDW. As a homeschooler, of course I see WS as being stuffed with potential for fun learning opps. So, I'm making an online "book" (mini-book, really) on WS. It'll be free for anyone who just wants to do some pre-trip fun stuff with their kids. Hopefully, the kids will get more out of their WS visit that way.

I'm wondering if you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see in it, as a parent (and as a homeschooler!). I'm thinking about things like recipes, international games, some info on history/architecture of each country, crafts, experiments...

What are things that, as a visiting kid, if you knew about ahead of time, would enrich your WS visit?

My target age range is around 6-12, but parents could tweak downward for the younger set.

Thoughts?

great idea!! If I could design it, I'd love to see a BIG visual clue or 'fact' to start off each country - something you could see across the lake if possible (ie: the pyramid for mexico)... then also a 'smaller' one for each country that they'd have to look for while they're "in" that country (and of course some facts to go w/ those visuals) - who built the pyramids in mexico, why, etc.

Also the obvious things - common words (hello, good-bye, thank you, please) for each country, maybe some common foods and why they are common foods (that's what grew there because of that particular climate), so then tying in w/ where on the globe the country is.

boy, you could go all out with this... but that is how I would start it off.
 
Hey, all --

I'm working on a project, and I could really use some input.

I often hear parents saying that World Showcase is their kids' least-favorite part of WDW. As a homeschooler, of course I see WS as being stuffed with potential for fun learning opps. So, I'm making an online "book" (mini-book, really) on WS. It'll be free for anyone who just wants to do some pre-trip fun stuff with their kids. Hopefully, the kids will get more out of their WS visit that way.

I'm wondering if you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see in it, as a parent (and as a homeschooler!). I'm thinking about things like recipes, international games, some info on history/architecture of each country, crafts, experiments...

What are things that, as a visiting kid, if you knew about ahead of time, would enrich your WS visit?

My target age range is around 6-12, but parents could tweak downward for the younger set.

Thoughts?

We use Vacation Education and LOVE it! Each country has a recipe, craft item, story, something that all the kids love to do. If we have a long time before we go...we do each country in a week and end up with a meal from that country on Friday...if the trip is coming up faster, we have a dish from each country for lunch on our daily trek.

This year we used it during our summer break...DD is now in public school and it was the highlight of her summer break...Disney school is always so much fun...and it is always surprising to me how much she remembers once we are there. She likes to play tourguide for her dad...



+++++++++++++++++++++++

Well, it looks like my home school career will soon be over. DS (who is special needs) wants to go to public school and be 'normal'...so we are off today to discuss with the school board what programs they have to offer him. NOT looking forward to this!



Nini
 
A fun thing to do around the World Showcase is to have a Word or Phrase of the Day (or whatnot) and ask a cultural representative from each country how to say that word. "Thank you" is always good to know, but it could be anything, such as "airplane" or "Summer". It's fun to also have them write it and see if there are any similarities among the language families. OK, I'm a linguistics geek, what can I say???;)
 
Hi there! I will be using My Father's World 1st grade this year and wonder if there are any users on this thread I could connect with? Thanks!

Dawn
 


I am new to the boards and wanted to introduce myself.:) My name is Heather and I have 6 kiddos that I homeschool. We are planning our 3rd WDW trip in September.
Anybody going to the Homeschool Days next month??
:wave: Hello there! Welcome! We are not going, sure would love to though!
Just wondering what everyone uses for a spelling program. We are using Sequential Spelling that comes with Sonlight and I am not sure how much I am going to like it.
I used Spelling Power with my daughter. Really liked it. Your DD sounds pretty bright and the child basically goes up to whatever level they test at. My boys are using Chirstian Light Publications for LA this year and it includes spelling with it. I really like it but they are both really bad spellers.
Winter Promise Users

We are new to WP and I am hoping we can make it work this year, but the cost is just well, a LOT!

I am considering only getting the exclusives and using the library, but I just loaded my cart with exclusives only and it came to over $200 (including LA exclusives.)

If you are a WP user, did you enjoy all the WP exclusives and use them?

Did you use the LA Guide or just to your own LA? If you used the LA Guide, did you like it?

I want to do American Culture with my kids next year.

Thanks,

Dawn

I LOVE WP and would love to be able to afford every year but I don't think that will happen. We are doing Sea and Sky this year and I really feel justified at the cost only because it includes both history and science. I don't use their language arts. As I said above I use CLP. I do get as many books as possible from the library. What I did was before our state conference, I looked up all the prices on WP, Amazon and Rainbow. Then I checked which would be easy to get at the library (multiple copies) and moved on from there.

The exclusives I bought from WP. One thing I would suggest is to get the Teacher guide/schedule whatever, first. There are two books in mine that I can't find at the library that are only used for one week. for one week, I can fill in with something else. ONe of them is called Monsters of the Deep and I found several books at booksales for very cheap that were about deep sea creatures so we are just using those and not spending the $16 for that one.
 
After much thought, I have made our selections for this year. Just ordered most everything today.

Here is what I spent.
History.............WP Children Around the World...............499.00
Lang Arts..........No Glamour Grammar & Language............ 87.90
Science............Noeo Science, Chemistry II...................165.96
Math................AGS Math Concepts..............................85.77

So about 838.00 so far. I will be adding probably about 100.00 more to that, give or take, once I plan a bit more. This is about typical to what I spend each year.

Hope these selections work out well for us!
 
Hi! I thought I would finally introduce myself since I've been following this thread for a while.
Last year, DD was in 1st grade and it was a disaster. Her teacher tried to convince she had a sensory disorder, we disagreed and after dragging in all the administration who sided with the teacher, we spent hundreds of dollars to find out that DD hates school and is actually gifted and bored out of her mind!
So this year we have her enrolled in a religious Montessori school and are hopeful, but after last year, I want to be ready just in case. I feel guilty even thinking it, but you know how it goes.
So I've been considering homeschool since last year, but since I also have 2 others at home I hesitate just b/c I don't know if I'll be overwhelmed or not.
How do you all do it? Especially those of you with children of different ages? What resources do you find the most helpful? I have to state that we aren't Christian, we're Jewish, so our faith based resources will probably be different from the majority of folks on here. However, any help and guidance you all can offer would really be welcome!
Thanks!
 
natashag76 said:
So I've been considering homeschool since last year, but since I also have 2 others at home I hesitate just b/c I don't know if I'll be overwhelmed or not.
How do you all do it? Especially those of you with children of different ages? What resources do you find the most helpful? I have to state that we aren't Christian, we're Jewish, so our faith based resources will probably be different from the majority of folks on here. However, any help and guidance you all can offer would really be welcome!
Thanks!

Welcome to the thread Natasha! It's a nice group of people here.

Your story sounds a lot like ours. We started our older son at our town's public school and by the end of first grade, we were being told that he had left-right confusion and that they'd like to do a full evaluation in the fall. In the meantime, we'd had no end of trouble dealing with the teacher and administration (How the heck does a 6 year old get his hand burnt at the classroom faucet when you only have 15 kids in the class? And the teacher really didn't know how it happened. And so on.)

So we pulled our son out, along with two other families and sent our children to a local cooperative school. It was like the best of both worlds - parents were involved but certified caring teachers did a fantastic job of teaching. Then, the economy started to tank, families needed 2 incomes (no volunteering during the day) or simply needed to not pay private school tuition and the upshot was that the school closed.

The middle school simply wasn't a choice for an all-day approach. We'd interviewed the guidance counselor and it was clear that there were going to be significant challenges so we ended up homeschooling. I tried that first spring to mix-and-match materials but it became clear that I needed help. After that, I searched through an array of boxed curriculum, found a subset that I liked and said "Pick one" to the kids. Our younger son ended up picking one that didn't match well with his preferred learning methods and we changed again in January of that year.

When our oldest was at the end of eighth grade, he really needed to get out, explore more, push boundaries, etc. so off he went to public school for ninth grade. Disaster. Since then, our younger one has done two classes at the middle school and now both of them have done high school classes at home and with outside providers.

Just as in a classroom, there might be one group doing silent reading while the teacher is working with another group on spelling, you'll learn to sort your time with multiple children. It does help when they're more independent!

We ended up using K12.com for middle school courses. I remember also liking Calvert but for some reason didn't go with them. My younger son tried Oak Meadow, and if he'd liked writing, would have been a much better fit.

Hope this helps!

NHWX
 
Hi! I thought I would finally introduce myself since I've been following this thread for a while.

So I've been considering homeschool since last year, but since I also have 2 others at home I hesitate just b/c I don't know if I'll be overwhelmed or not.
How do you all do it? Especially those of you with children of different ages? What resources do you find the most helpful? I have to state that we aren't Christian, we're Jewish, so our faith based resources will probably be different from the majority of folks on here. However, any help and guidance you all can offer would really be welcome!
Thanks!

I am a very new homeschooler so I don't have much advice, but I just wanted to let you know that there are totally secular curriculums...McRuffy is one (they do lang. arts, math, and science) and then there are complete curriculums that are secular so then you could just add in any religious instruction you wanted. I have a dd in kindy and a ds 2 1/2...I just try to distract my ds and then do dd's work...not a perfect system and I know some of the more experienced ladies will have much better advice! :)
 
A fun thing to do around the World Showcase is to have a Word or Phrase of the Day (or whatnot) and ask a cultural representative from each country how to say that word. "Thank you" is always good to know, but it could be anything, such as "airplane" or "Summer". It's fun to also have them write it and see if there are any similarities among the language families. OK, I'm a linguistics geek, what can I say???;)


LOVE IT!!! Thanks for the great idea...I can't wait to try this on our next trip to the World (and doing the happy dance 'cuz that will be next week!). :banana:
 
Hello to everyone on the thread! I have skimmed over this thread but haven't found time to read it ALL :surfweb: Anyway, I'm not really sure if we fit in here but hope we can- my DD will be starting a cyberschool program at home in 2 weeks. I am so excited and nervous!!!!
 
Thanks.

I am really happy to report that after putting the word out there on several hs boards re: WP, I have had a couple of people offer me FREE materials for American Culture and I love what I have seen so far. I will most likely still need to get the Teacher's Guide, but I spent some time looking on my local library online catalog site and most are available from them.

There is only one book that is a WP exclusive, but you are right, a substitute can be found!

I am getting really excited about this!

I also just sold quite a bit or curriculum and am trying to sell some more! This will off-set the cost as well.

Dawn

I LOVE WP and would love to be able to afford every year but I don't think that will happen. We are doing Sea and Sky this year and I really feel justified at the cost only because it includes both history and science. I don't use their language arts. As I said above I use CLP. I do get as many books as possible from the library. What I did was before our state conference, I looked up all the prices on WP, Amazon and Rainbow. Then I checked which would be easy to get at the library (multiple copies) and moved on from there.

The exclusives I bought from WP. One thing I would suggest is to get the Teacher guide/schedule whatever, first. There are two books in mine that I can't find at the library that are only used for one week. for one week, I can fill in with something else. ONe of them is called Monsters of the Deep and I found several books at booksales for very cheap that were about deep sea creatures so we are just using those and not spending the $16 for that one.
 
I LOVE all the back to school threads going on! That means kids are going back to school VERY SOON and I can go out without the massive crowds! :thumbsup2

Time to plan our field trips! YEAH!
 
Hi,
Thanks for the suggestions. Once the school year begins, I'm going to do a little research to see what would work well for us. That way, if things don't work out, I'll be better prepared to take over than I was last year!
 
Hi!!! I just stumbled upon this thread! We are homeschooling this year for the very first time. My dd is 7 and in 2nd grade and I also have a dd who is 3yo. Any advice on what to do with my 3 yo while I am also working with my 2nd grader? Do you think it is too much for her to have "work" of her own? I was thinking of just printing out some things from the computer to give her to do. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Mindy
 
Hi!!! I just stumbled upon this thread! We are homeschooling this year for the very first time. My dd is 7 and in 2nd grade and I also have a dd who is 3yo. Any advice on what to do with my 3 yo while I am also working with my 2nd grader? Do you think it is too much for her to have "work" of her own? I was thinking of just printing out some things from the computer to give her to do. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Mindy

Sounds good to me! :) Welcome! :)

As a foster mom, I've had little ones tugging on my hem or hanging from my hip since the first day of homeschooling two years ago. I also ended up keeping my youngest son out the first year, and just homeschooled my oldest and my niece for kindergarten that year.
Having little projects or "work" for the younger ones has always worked for me. It depends on the child though, of course. My youngest wanted to be involved, but wasn't ready for true work. So projects worked best for him. Nothing fancy, sometimes it was as simple as dumping out a box of blocks and asking him to build the tallest tower that he could. If your 7 yo is reading on her own, you could have her read aloud sometimes, so that your 3 yo could sit and listen.
One of the coolest things (to me) about homeschooling, is that you can do your own thing. So, if my advice doesn't work, that's okay. Homeschooling has been just as much of a learning experience for me, as it has been for my boys. We ebb and flow, and change methods as needed. It's a challenge, but a fun one! ;)
 
Hi, I usually only lurk here, but I was wondering if someone could answer a question for me. We're a homeschooling family of four and are planning on going to the WDW Homeschool Days in January. Can my husband and I purchase and use the discounted tickets, too, or are those only for the students? Or would we have to purchase regular 5-day hoppers. I don't think the info is clear on the Homeschool Days website. Thanks for any info anyone can give me.

Denise
 
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