We are actually taking this week off for spring break. I am using the off time to catch up on printing records and marking off the lessons the kids have completed.

Once a month, I generate reports for all activities in each subject and print them out. Then I send them to work with my husband so he can use the hole punch at his office and punch holes in all my papers at once.

Using t4l and having records is especially helpful to me because I still seek services from the public school for my son who has learning disabilities(LD).Now I can tell them in language they understand exactly what he is working on and what level is doing.

Hi, I’m Lisa! 

My husband, Tim and I have been married for 21 years and have five children.  We currently homeschool four of them.   They are 17g(next week), 13b, 10b, 6b and 2b years old.  

We are closing in on the end of our 10th year of homeschooling. The years have flown by!   It has been hard, easy, scary, fun, challenging, but always….real.

We chose to home educate mainly for Biblical reasons in the beginning.  Being Christians, we wanted to add Godly principles to our children’s education.

After a short while, we realized we were also dealing with dyslexia and dysgraphia in our oldest child.  So, our story and our reasoning changed a bit-still Christian, but more. 

Now our homeschool also covers a language/developmentally delayed fantasy/sci-fi fan , one “easy breezy” artistic child, a very bright, possibly ADHD computer freak and the baby-our medical miracle heart baby!  Whew….

Our 6 year old is currently using T4L and is doing great!  We hope to add our 1o year old soon and then our 13 year old will squeak in before he gets too old.  Oh, how I wish I had T4L back in 1998….

That’s our story.  I hope to get to know you all and chat about all those things that make us who we are; so different and yet, so very similar…

My name is Jennifer and I homeschool my 4 kids ages 7-12, and the neighbor’s grandson who is 11. I suffered depression after the birth of my 4th child in 5 years and have recently been diagnosed with ADD. I also just found out that I have sleep apnea, which means I stop breathing during sleep, which doesn’t allow me to get deep, refreshing sleep.

My second son has Learning Disabilities, ADD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, some muscle and coordination delays and Sensory Processing Dysfunction. My youngest daughter has ADHD and is going to be tested for dyslexia.

I thought maybe the kids would be better off in public school, but it was not meant to be.  

At the beginning of this school year, I was very excited to be using Sonlight Curriculum,”one room schoolhouse” style. I felt confident about the neighbor’s grandson joining us.(What’s one more?)And because my own son had LD, I wasn’t worried when his mom told me he’d been tested and had no LD, dyslexia,etc, but was 2 years behind.

As I would soon learn, being “behind” and having LD are two totally different animals! My son cannot read or write well, but has normal comprehension ability. This little boy can read and write better than my son, but doesn’t understand things easily. So they have have distinct and OPPOSITE needs. Not to mention the needs of my other 3 kids!!

I started searching out a solution to the madness and found t4l. We have one computer and each child takes their turn while I observe. Some days a child will wake up before everyone else and start without me. It does help us get everyone in earlier, but I don’t allow that everyday, as they don’t always get as much out of it when I am not there.

What is kind of funny is that with the kids being so close in age and ability, I hear some of the lessons 3(and sometimes 4!) times!!

They still read from their Sonlight readers. One day I hope to be able to add in more of Sonlight History and Geography.

Sorry it turned out so long. I look forward to getting acquainted with everyone!

I am Angie, and I homeschool my two boys. Tim is 5 1/2 and is ‘in’ kindergarten now. He is mildly autistic, he’s come a long way compared to where he was two years ago, but he does still have some problems. Josh is 3, and the way it looks right now, he’s gifted.

Tim is currently doing 1st grade language arts and math, 2nd grade science,and 3rd grade social studies on Time4Learning. He started in 1st grade science and 1st grade social studies, but passed those levels and we just move on. Josh is doing kindergarten language arts and math since there isn’t a preschool section for him, but he’s doing just fine!

I make my own curriculum, it just seems to be the best way to do it for us. I teach the core subjects, plus whatever else Tim wants to learn about. If Time4Learning has something directly to do with what we’re learning about, we do it. Regardless, we use Time4Learning every day, doing two subjects one day, two the next, and we keep alternating. Tim’s reading skills are below his cognition level in science and social studies, so I have to read what those say, but he doesn’t seem to mind. It’s great to find an online curriculum that helps my kids so much!

In response to John’s newsletter title, “Do our Children Learn Differently,” I had a couple of comments to make. 

Although I agree that the children of today learn differently than of children past, I don’t completely agree with it. I honestly believe that some children would have been much better off in the 70′s and 80′s had there been more technology.  My brother is a prime example of this and I know that he is not the only one out there.  I learn by repetition, I learn by “doing” rather than by reading how to do, I learn by someone teaching me. My brother learns in much the same way that my youngest son does and that is by simply “watching” something being done and then going off and doing it himself and “figuring it out”.  My brother would have never attended one day of public school if T4L had been around when he was young. 

I believe that with technology comes more options, I believe technology helps kids grasp things differently but the concepts are still the same only now instead of my mom saying to me and my brother “Go look it up in the encyclopedia”, I find myself saying “Go google that”….. While I believe that children do process things a bit differently, bottom line is learning styles are learning styles and just because my children have the wonderful opportunity that they have does not mean that they learn any different that we did; they just have more options.

My next point is about technology taking place of sports and outside.  I totally agree that my children do not head outside as soon as they are done with their school work the way that we did growing up.  We live on 70 acres and my kids should be outside exploring ALL the time with what they have available to them.  I do agree that on occasion I have to “force them” outside or have to join them when they do go outside so we can hike or what ever.  With that being said, my family spends very little time watching tv.  We are a computer family and we sit in the same room, each with our computers and enjoy each other’s company whether it be in an online game or doing our own thing “chatting”.  We spend the summers swimming in our pool and when company is here spend most of the time outside.  Yes, we do own (collectively in our family) every video game system available (with the exception of the ps3) but that also is (for the most part) done together.  So I guess that even though my kids don’t always “volunteer” to go outside, that is the way it is now and even though I dislike it, sometimes it is easier to accept it.  As a side note, my boys play soccer, roller blade, do karate and are cub scouts.  They are very active kids and even though I think they spend to much time on line, there are far worse things that they can be doing……  What would I change?  Probably them “wanting” to go out and play…   Is that going to happen?  We are working on it. :)

The last comment I have is about “putting the gameboys down in the car”.  Each of my boys have a game boy (you shocked?) and they will probably get a better hand held system this year for Christmas.  (shocked again?)  I don’t always agree that children should have game boys and when I see children at family functions, family activities or something like that it makes me angry.  I do think that there is nothing wrong with my kids playing their game in the car and because we are home schoolers we cram learning into every bit of their lives…..  Even in the car I am throwing something “educational” at them…  I would rather them spend a little bit of time zoning while driving down the road than sitting in their rooms playing!  Of course, my kids don’t abuse their game boys and can really “take them or leave them” so it is really not an issue for us but honestly everything we do revolves around their education and something being learned, discussed or shared so giving them some time in the car to just zone is not such a bad thing for our family……

Thanks for the newsletters John, I enjoy them!