Right now we only have 2, but we are planning on having as many blessings as we can. Therefore, I will be homeschooling many children. :) I have no problem right now - just planning for one, etc. but is it totally crazy of me to think I can plan a K curriculum, 1st curriculum, etc and just use it for each child without having to totally revamp each time?

Do you stick mainly with workbooks and buy new ones each time? Do you mainly do unit studies and then let each child do math, etc on their own??

How does homeschooling work in you family of many kiddos?

we keep it simple. Everyone does their own thing in math, spelling and grammer (the same curiculum, just different levels). history, science and writing are done together.

I also incourage a lot of reading. that way if we haven't gotten everything covered in a given week I know they are still learning new things. My kids actually learn more from their own reading then they do from me and their "school books".

We use Sonlight, which works well for our family and saves me a lot of planning time. Sonlight has the Cores planned so that you're able to coordinate them with more than one child. We are currently using Core 1 with Reid and Jacob, and Core 6 with Brianna. Both are Ancient History. Lauryn listens in on a lot, and is also doing Veritas Press Phonics Museum and Singapore Earlybird Math.

There's a lot of reading aloud with Sonlight and we all really enjoy that aspect of it.

As for Math, because Jacob is ahead, he and Reid are both doing 4th grade Singapore Math. Brianna is in Saxon Algebra 1. Each child follow his or her own pace with math.

I just noticed this thread, sorry for not paying attention :-). I have 7 students in our homeschool this year, from 4-yr-old in pre-k to 17 1/2 year old in his senior year of highschool (wahhhh).

In the beginning, until I added the 4th student, I created a mix-n-match curriculum, but with 4 students it just got too hard and confusing at that point.

We then used Sonlight for several years, which works really really well for big families. There is a tiny bit of fuss in figuring out which years "go" together, like 3 and 7 or whatever the first American history year is . . . but once you're used to the ordering process, after that it's really super lg-family-friendly.

The only thing that bugged me about Sonlight was that I'm personally totally sold on the consecutive history idea, and Sonlight has these skips . . . like year 5 . . . so a few years back we switched to the Well-Trained Mind. I made up a master plan for everyone being in the same history cycle together. Alas, we are SO not a notebook-family.

We are now still following the WTM history cycles, and the WTM science cycles, basically doing WTM except that I am back to creating everyone's schedules. Yep, I use a blank Sonlight schedule page and actually fill in ALL SEVEN children's daily schedules :drop: . But y'know, I wouldn't do that if it weren't our 13th year homeschooling. Some things just get easier with time, not that it was a fun process :) .

A nice thing about this has been that I have a couple of sets of children close in age, 16 months or so, and over the years those pairs have been together for most subjects. All of my children do their math and handwriting at their individual paces. And our best investment was an all-in-one printer, so that workbooks only have to be purchased once, pages copied out. I spent $140 on a math curriculum that covers from pre-K to ready-for-algebra, and am still using that SAME set of workbooks, amortize THAT!!!

It's really been wonderful fun :)

I am finding this more challenging this year with a 2nd, 4th, and 6th graders (next year we will be adding a first grader).

We have morning work - which includes copying a Bible verse, spelling workout and reading.....

We have Saxon math and we also do Story of the World for History.

Throughout this, we also are a Waldorf Inspired Homeschool - and use much of the philosophy from http://www.christopherushomeschool.org .

Warm wishes,
Tonya

This coming year we will have 4 at home... ranging from K-4. eeks, that is scary!


What we do is combine as much as we can. We'll be using Sonlight Core3 for the 3rd and 4th grader - each doing his own Language Arts and math. We're using Singapore Math for Nathan, at least - but I think Austin needs something different. I still have Saxon 5/4 - so I think we will get that going again for him. For Language Arts, I will probably try ot use most of the Sonlight LA 3 for both of them. We'll also require more of Austin, and Nate will have some different work than Austin for LA. And then they will both be doing spelling at their own pace - using Phonics Zoo.

Adam will be 1st grade... and Lauren will be ready for K work by then. I may break down and buy Sonlight K or 1, sill undecided about that... or they may just listen in on Core 3. Then I will have some work just for them at their level. Both are doing well with Singapore Math, so we'll stay with that for them... and I'll probably start FLL with Adam.

Oh man... now that I am thinking about it... it's getting a bit scary. I need to start thinking about this stuff, don't I? Right now Austin is in school, but we will be homeschooling him next year... Same with Adam.

Thanks for this thread - you have reminded me that I need to think ahead on this and really come up with an idea for next school year.

One of my friends is currently h/s'ing ten of her kids. She prefers to use Abeka b/c she's worked with it forever and *knows* it. I know this year she decided to use Mysteries of History and I am not sure how she likes it. And one of her older students that she finds harder to teach is using Switched on Schoolhouse for a few subjects. Other than that, I am not sure how she does it! ;)

I only homeschool 3...5th, 3rd and 1st. They do A Beka DVD's and my 5th grader also does a special neurodevelopmental program. I love it...it fits our family perfectly. This is our second year and I can't see changing to anything else. My little guy (almost 3) is coming along quickly so I'm actually having a harder time dealing with his early learning needs.

I like/need structure and don't have the time or energy to waste hopping from program to program. My kids really like doing school and will often be working on their school work before I even get out of bed in the morning. LOL. So I think I've got it pretty easy. :)

Jennifer --

Can you tell me about the neurodevelopmental program?

Natalia

Jennifer --

Can you tell me about the neurodevelopmental program?

Natalia

You can visit ICAN (http://www.ican-do.net/how_neurodevelopmental_programs_.htm) and read a lot more. Marilee is our ND.

How Neurodevelopmental Programs Can Improve Function
By Marilee Nicoll Coots, BA, Neurodevelopmentalist, copyright, 1999



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About 25% of school age children have problems related to learning, attention, or hyperactivity. Many of these children have received a "label" such as learning disabled, dyslexic, attention deficit disorder (ADD) , attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or simply slow learner. Some are said to have a processing problem or a problem with short or long term memory. Among this group of children, many have articulation or language problems, sloppy handwriting, or appear to be poorly coordinated.

When a child is having a problem with learning, attention, hyperactivity, or with school, there is a reason for that problem. Often the underlying problem is due to a disorganized nervous system.

Neurodevelopmentalists consider function to be reflective of neurological organization. They believe that the function or lack of function which we observe in people who have been "labeled" is rooted in the development of the brain and nervous system, neurodevelopment. When there are developmental inefficiencies we see a lack of function, a symptom. These symptoms reflect neurological disorganization. As neurological organization improves, development progresses, and we see an improvement in function. So if we can cause development to progress we will see a change in function, an improvement in the symptoms.

Neurodevelopmentalists have discovered that developmental changes can be accomplished by appropriate stimulation. To be effective that stimulation needs to be delivered with high intensity, high frequency and short duration. It also needs to be applied over a long enough period of time for the changes to occur.

Through using specific activities with many children, neurodevelopmentalists have learned which activities work best to specifically address the various developmental levels and cause neurodevelopment to progress to greater degrees of organization. Many of these specific activities have been drawn eclectically from other disciplines, tested and refined. Neurodevelopmentalists assess children to determine the inefficiencies underlying the symptoms, design a home program of specific activities to address those inefficiencies and train the parents to carry out the activities at home. This approach, properly applied, has been successful in totally eliminating many of the symptoms which have kept children from educational achievement.

Our Philosophy:

Families have a right to treatments and educational materials which do not offend their religious beliefs. Parents have the right to educational materials and which are supportive of their faith.
Parents, not professionals, are responsible for making decisions for their child. Parents should have the freedom to utilize eclectic treatments and educational materials consistent with these decisions. Professionals should support that process.
The parent/child relationship is the most important element in a child's development. The amount of progress made by a child is dependent on the amount the family can work one to one with that child.
Learning and attention problems should be addressed primarily without resorting to labels, drugs, or compensation approaches.