okay so i know that we most likely won't be able to homeschool since dh isn't a lifer and we financially probably won't be able to do it. anyway we have been discussing supplementing during the summers (like introducing the upcoming years topics and working on weak points) and school breaks. do any of y'all do this?

sadly no, but I have found that if your child is lacking the Homeschool sites are great in the extra help they might need. :yes dd isn't so good at math and the sites that Jen showed me were :tu and they are already improving her multiplication skills.. same with ds, his subtraction skills aren't the greatest but the printouts are perfect.

I do!

debra how does it work for you? when did you start? did you start when they were in pre-k or in elementary school

:shrug Down here school is year 'round so they don't get huge breaks and even the PS here give them work to do over the breaks. (minus the 4wk summer break). I know my MIL does HS year 'round and they take breaks when they felt they needed to.

I do agree in supplementing during breaks. I would rather them be fun breaks though, like museums, the zoo and things like that for summer time. Playing math games online. Reading lists. Things along those lines. Kids deserve a break when they are going to a school 5 days a week on an average of 6 hours a day. That's quite a burnout for a little kid, kwim?

I also agree with supplementing during the year if your child is struggling with a subject. I remember I was having a problem with math (even though I was a whiz kid in math), my parents taught it to me in a way I understood and I was able to do my school work perfectly, but my 4th Pre-Algebra teacher didn't like the way I did the work. Because I didn't conform with her style, she kicked me out of her class into Remedial Math. :( Just watch out for evil teachers like that! They may have issues with your child being taught different than the rest of the heard. ;)

yeah i know what you mean rockstar mom. it wouldn't be intensive but like fun game like supplementing

We don't have kids yet but when we do we will. I'm not sure what the plan will be but probably once every other week we could take a day for that.

We started in pre-k. The kids do a little work every day. They do some stuff from the prior school year to keep those things fresh in their minds & then they also work a little on stuff for the next year. But I don't stress too much on the stuff for the next year. I just don't want them to forget a lot from the prior year.

There is a thread I posted that was just recently bumped up for Becca. It has a lot of links in it. I get a lot of materials from those sites!

We also keep all of the books that the kids come home with on the last day of school. The school sends home all of the workbooks (spelling, math, social studies/science, handwriting, etc.) they used & a lot of them are only half done or so. The kids end up finishing them!

we will do a little work in the summers, but also leave enough summer for a well-deserved break !!

we will do a little work in the summers, but also leave enough summer for a well-deserved break !!

Same here! The kids do an hour or less of work which leaves plenty of time for kid activities. I like to focus on 1 subject each day instead of doing a bunch all in 1. Say we do Math on Mondays, Science/Social Studies on Tuesday, Reading/Spelling on Wednesday, etc. They don't do anything on the weekends.

I always try to make the activities fun & corrilate with something else. For example, we go to Sea World or the Zoo a lot during the summer. One time before we went to the Zoo, I made up a crossword puzzle with descriptions of some of the animals we'd be seeing. The descriptions were not always ones that they would be able to know right away what animal it was. So they would really have to pay attention to what we saw.

If we go to the beach, we can talk about sun safety as well as sea creatures.

When we are driving is when we do a lot of math stuff. You can rattle off multiplication tables or do probability & statistics, etc.

Another thing that is great when we are driving is giving the kids street signs to look for. We just did this when we took DH to the airport. I told them to look for the airplane signs & tell me what direction I needed to go as well as what street I needed to take. They loved it!

okay so i know that we most likely won't be able to homeschool since dh isn't a lifer and we financially probably won't be able to do it. anyway we have been discussing supplementing during the summers (like introducing the upcoming years topics and working on weak points) and school breaks. do any of y'all do this?

You may be surprised at just how much money you'll fork out in a year for each child in public/private school. The fundraisers alone can break the bank IMO. Of course this does vary from school to school, state to state. Curriculum costs depends on the curriculum used.

I only agree with supplementing if it's needed. I just think that "childhood" is lost these days. Would you want to school all day, month after month, or even year round and come home with not only homework but supplemental work as well? That's a retorical question of course ;) but something to think about.

We supplement during the school year and in the summer and have done so since pre-k. We keep it fun (especially in the earlier years) so that it doesn't become a chore. The arts and crafts direction is a great way to go when they are young...kids LOVE it...lol.