Time4Learning.com

Going on a tour of our home city and the girls walking hand in hand without realizing it. I almost threw in the towel one day with my youngest because of her severe Apraxia and reading issues. Time4Learning helped me continue and that gave me the chance to see my little one with her older sisters. They would never be this close if they were in school.

Dawn, My youngest also has apraxia and reading issues. She does best with computer learning and anything really hands on.

I was worried about starting to homeschool mid-year, but with Time4Learning, it was much less stressful than it would have been otherwise. I thought they might fall behind because of all the travelling we were doing (including moving cross country) but they finished their year ahead of schedule. I moved one child back a year in math, just to make ... See Moresure she had learned her fundamentals, but because Time4Learning was so fun, she ended up doing more than her "fair share." I would have been lost without Time4Learning's curriculum AND support!

half year = half the required hours right?

If you are in a state that requires a certain number of unit hours I'd assume that it would be pro-rated for the amount of time in ps.

Should in every creative writing class be given themes already by the teacher?.

I am a Time4Writing course creator and teacher. I wanted to address some of the concerns expressed in this thread.

1. Creative writing is difficult to teach because of the objectivity issue. While, at this time, Time4Writing does not have a creative writing course per se, it does offer several courses at all levels that will help students develop the skills necessary to be a good creative writer. There is a possibility that creative writing courses will be added to Time4Writing in the near future.

2. Every writing assignment should have a specific prompt or theme. All Time4Writing assignments are based upon a skill taught in the lesson and ask the student to write about an event, a situation, an opinion, etc. ... See More

Have a Happy New Year!

Ms. Leslie, teacher

That was a great post, Kel, and I love the picture of sweet little Joshua. You are such a natural writer.

Thank You! You are so right. When everything is happening and you have two children in diapers at the same time and one in school already, you let everything slip by just trying to survive. But when they are all growing up and slowly learning to do for themseves, I wish they were babies again.

Great advice! Thank you!

I am actually thinking of doing away with the homeschooling room altogether. . . . It's become an area of storage and the one who uses it most isn't a homeschooler!

I completely agree; that's the best thing about homeschooling. I don't even keep track of "grade levels." When people ask me what grade my kids are in, I either have to quickly do the math to figure out what grade they would be in if they were in school, or I just respond with, "Honestly, I have no idea; I don't keep track. I just make sure they're progressing." I love that T4L allows each child to work at his/her own level and pace.

The funny thing is that 40 years ago the public school was a little more like that. I was in 2nd grade, but moved over to my sister's 4th grade class for Language Arts. She moved over to a 5th grade class. After the LA block we went back to our regular classes.
Now they are afraid of fracturing the poor kids' self-esteem if they group the kids by ability.
I'm so glad I homeschool! While academically advanced, my dd is behaviorally immature.

I think cooking counts as science....and figuring out transformers and assembling bicycles often seems to need an engineering degree so that shouild count as "science" not to mention getting all the right size batteries giong in the right direction so the toy actually works!! *L* happy christmas! deni......;)

Our favorite gift was for the family. It was a Wii fit. Our funniest memory was when mom got on it for the first time and it remarked, "ouch"?! (grin)

Oh how well I remember that "ouch" when we first got ours last year...I was SO insulted!! :P

Whew, I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one it says, "OUCH" too! (laughing)

I get the, "It (PS) was good enought for YOU and all of US so why isn't it good enough for your kid?" types of things. I am also a certified teacher with 40+ years experience (yes, I am also a very OLD mom....;) but that seems to confound them even more. The 'EVERYBODY knows you have to send your kids to SCHOOL!' Is the comment that irritates me ... See Morethe most.

I usually end up saying something like, "You know, there was a time when EVERYBODY believed the earth was flat.....EVERYONE believed this.....but that didn't make it so, did it??"

This is a wisdom my paternal grandmother handed down whenever confronted by the "everybody does/believes this; why don't you?" attitude. She was a Christian Scientist and found herself often challenged over her own beliefs.

Dear Jocelyn, I am praying that you have a smooth transition back to work. I pray that you feel "HIS" perfect peace. Though I love homeschooling, I know many, many public/private school friends with STRONG families. You are a shining example of a mama's heart for her children. It doesn't matter where they go to school. (((Big Hugs)))

I like your post. My kids do not have phones, so this has not been an issue for us. But, I did appreciate your insight to why the abbreviations become almost necessary. I have tried a little texting myself and do not have a qwerty keyboard on my phone, therefore I have not really enjoyed texting as a form of communication.

I love that your daughter has tried to used emoticons in her writing. :-) As you said, it takes diligent attention to correct poor habits from forming in their writing.

I was using smiley faces in my personal letters before emoticons came along! :) So I took to them like a fish to water.

You have Starbucks coffee at your library?! That's awesome! That would definitely motivate me to go more often! (sorry, off topic I know ... I just got so excited). Back to goals ...

We don't always have New Year's Resolutions, but we definitely set homeschooling goals every year. I usually set the academic goals (based on their levels), but the kids will help with setting other goals for themselves. There may be other things they want to learn, such as typing, cooking, etc., so we include those in our homeschooling year.

... See MoreThrough prayer, we've learned that our goals, along with the Lord's plans for us, can make for a very successful year.

Thank you for sharing your family's process for goal-setting.

I don't really make resolutions...more like prayers for what I want to happen. This is my son's 8th Christmas in Honduras and that's about 3-4 more than I'd planned on.

I almost got rid of the tree two years ago, but didn't....it was a lovely fiberoptic tree that had survived about 7-8 Christmases and I just so believed that we'd be in the US that next year.

We're still here and our fiberoptics croaked this year so I got lights to put on the tree and it looks really nice. It's my son's job to decorate the tree and he loves doing it.....we can never find any of those little wire hanger things for sale here so we always have more balls than hangers but Ale just tucks those balls into the branches and doesn't seem to mind having to replace them again and again when they fall out.... See More

As for goals.....this was the year I'd planned to start "formal academics" and I really wanted my son to learn to read this summer.

We're still working on it. So my goals for this year are:
to consistently do our brain integration therapy,

to consistently take our suppliements (vitamins, fish oil and probiotics), and to do "school" most every day.

I hope to be reading by this coming summer.

I have projects planned ffor math science and social studies that are very hands on and I've lined up lots of literature to support our efforts to learn to read.

I'm going to change our "school every day" to 6 days/wk and I think I will try to pick a specific day and we will go OUT somewhere....even if it's just a walk around town.

For myself, I'm going to work on my physical well-being. I dropped a lot of weight (about 65lbs.) this last year and now need to exercise on a regular basis.

I also need to continue my quest to get papers for my son so we can come to the USA.

I would also like to draw or paint every day so that's my only other personal goal.

I think that's enough...anything else is gravy!.....;)