I LOVE the left handed notebook! My daughter has hated writing in her spiral notebooks this year, so she does all of her work on the back of every page! She will be thrilled to see this! Thank you so much for sharing!
+nmsummit79 that is what Eli has always had to do too! He is so excited this year for his notebooks. He loved that store in San Francisco and prior to going there we didn't even know that left handed notebooks even existed.
Good job! I was an elementary teacher way back, we love education, still involved... Kids have incredible resources these days. Don't forget the basic social skills. Like Captain Kangaroo said, "And remember to always say 'Please' and 'Thank you.' Common human courtesies I call it. Speak to people, respect older people especially. Keep at it.
+Jessica S the boys started it two weeks ago and they are both really loving it too! Eli is already on lesson 90 because he just likes doing the lessons
IEW is the best curriculum for writing! I have tried and reviewed several writing curricula and IEW is by far, the one I saw quick progress with and more excitement in my kids' eyes. Great choices!
Looks like you will have a great school year. I was always excited to get the books for our daughters each year. I'm not sure they were as excited. I sure do miss it, but our girls are both grown and on their own. Enjoy these fun times with them.
Jean Decker the time flies by, it's so crazy! We are realizing how little time we have left with the boys and cherishing every moment that we have with them
We use several of the same curricula you guys do. Sounds like we have pretty similar homeschooling style. We are hitting the road (from Gilbert, AZ) in a few months, so it's great to see how you make all the school books, folders, etc. work for you on the road. And, our youngest is also a lefty just learning how to write. He's the only one of us who is a lefty so it's going to be a whole new world for me teaching him. I love the lefty notebook. Totally going to get that when he's ready. Thanks for the great peek into your world!
+Beginning from this Morning we are from Arizona also but from Prescott 😊 We are so excited for you guys to be hitting the road here soon! It is such an amazing opportunity to have for your family! And love that you guys use some of the same curriculum. Eli is the only one in our family who is a lefty too.
We used Spelling You See last year with Anna and I LOVED it! It really leans towards that Charlotte Mason way of copywork/dictation and it helped so much!!! And as a bonus, they learn so much about the topic/people they read about each week.
Oh, my goodness! You guys use just about everything we use! You will love IEW. My son's writing ability went from fourth grade (in fourth grade) to highschool level in one year. We use Saxon for math as a full time family traveling, but I break the books into lifepac style books, and store the ones we're not using away. My son went through aas for spelling to level three, and now I'm letting him teach my daughter the first three, then I'll teach them both together from level four on.
Oh, and we used mystery of history CDs while traveling in the truck, and Classical Conversations memory work for history and science while sitting still. :-)
+kricketjoy wow, that's crazy about his writing ability! That's so great! We used Saxon math for several years for our oldest son and absolutely loved it but two years ago he wanted to use something different so we tried teaching textbooks. It was a great fit for him and we just switched our youngest son to it last year when we started traveling for the ease of storage. What a great idea to have your son teach your daughter aas! It will even more solidify the concepts for him as he teaches it!
As a lefty myself, I concur the struggle is real. Now if we lefties could only write our sentences from right to left we wouldn't get pencil or pen smeared on our hand.😉 I'm so jealous of your new notebook Eli.😊
+jcyarns that's so true! The worst for us, that we have noticed, are white boards for lefty's. Eli smears away what he is trying to write on a whiteboard all the time. He is really looking forward to using his new notebook this year!
Thanks for sharing your curriculum picks. I'd love to hear more about how dyslexics think, since I'm home educating one. I hope you'll do curriculum reviews too.
For our son we have really noticed that he thrives on visual learning and being able to physically touch things. So he does amazing in science when he can do the experiments, he spells so much better when he uses the tiles from our all about spelling curriculum, and the last thing that we have noticed is if he is having an off day to take that day really slow. If he gets pushed too hard on those days, he isn’t really learning anything since it is too frustrating for him. Not sure if this helps in your situation but hope that it does. 😊
That’s very kind of you to say that. I just took the maps and put them back to back in a sheet protector and then placed them in the plastic 3 ring folders. I did the same thing for each of the categories from the curriculum and each day we just pull out what we are using for that day and then put it right back in the sleeve for storage. I hope this helps!
Great video! I have a question about...All About Spelling... did you complete all levels or just jump in on what level suited your needs...if you just jumped in is it hard without having gone through the other levels??
We started with level one even though it was pretty easy for both of the boys. We just went through it pretty quick and moved on to level two. It wasn’t until level three that we slowed down and took a step a week. But the first levels give you a good foundation for the rest of the levels.
Thanks for sharing. I have a son going into 5th grade and another going into 3rd grade for the upcoming fall. I see this video is 2 years old. Would you still recommend these curriculum after using them? I’ve been homeschooling part time and I’m going to have to get things into high gear to do it full time While RVing. Thanks for your advice.
How do you find what is going to work for your child outside of just buying each curriculum and doing trial and error? I'm just starting homeschooling this year and am so overwhelmed by the options!!
How are you all able to travel and homeschool. Do you use a physical address or a P.O. box. We are from WV and were thinking of moving into an RV to save some money but don't know how to go about it legally. Would love your feedback.
We use a physical address for all of our mail but in our home state we have very little requirements to meet in order to homeschool. You can use escapees mail service or possibly even traveling mailbox if you have to receive your mail if you are going to be traveling. If your plan is just to move into an rv and stay stationary in WV you can check to see if you are allowed to use their address at the rv park for your mail. Some rv parks allow this while others do not. I hope this helps a little. Also you will need to find out what your state requirements are for homeschooling, every state is different.
@@AllAboutRVs Thanks. We have been checking into it and our state doesn't specify. We just don't know which way to go. We don't have a permanent address because we rent at the moment. We were advised to seek legal advice from HSLDA. We"'ll see. Thanks and God bless.
I know that you posted this for last year but I had a question on the US based history writing. How did you like it and would you still recommend it? I have a 10th grade girl who is going to be doing it this year.
We ended up not using it. I sent it back and I used essentials in writing. The main reason why I didn’t use it is because it looked so confusing to me. I know many people absolutely love iew and they have an entire course just for teachers to learn how to use their curriculum. However, for me, because we were just planning to use the US history course I didn’t quite know how to use it properly. All that being said, I do think it is a great curriculum and many people have benefited from their curriculum.
I think they are one grade behind Saxon math but right on for other curriculums. We haven’t had any issue with our son being a grade ahead of what he really is in and our other son uses the grade that he is currently in. It has worked really well for both of our boys and neither of them will complain when it comes to doing math.
All About RV's thank you. My daughter will be 8 in April she is ahead in everything but math which is she is age appropriate ( 2nd grade math) we use abeka for math and I like it but it's a big and bulky. Plus I want to try the CD's to see how she does learning from them. I will give it a try for the next school year (we finish our "school year" in may, so mind as well finish the book. Love what you guys are doing! We're going full time in May!!!
+PinkCupCakes444 currently we are using our parents address and we just pick it up from there. While traveling we use the rv park where we are staying at if we know we will be there for a while. We have done Amazon lockers for other packages. And if anything comes in the mail to our parents house that we need they send it to us wherever we are at. We do come back to our home state every few months because our son has braces and we have to have them adjusted/fixed.
Loved this! We are also doing Exploring Creation with General Science this year. Where did you get the lab kit? I've seen a couple of places that sell them but I haven't ordered ours yet.
+Gentry Anderson we ordered it off of christianbook.com but I know that rainbow resource also carries it for the same price and both offer free shipping if you reach a certain amount. Eli has already done the first two experiments and it has been a huge time saver and help to have the items already ready for us to use and labeled in the bags. This is our first year using the lab kits and so far we are all impressed with it.
All About RV's Awesome! Thank you. I saw in the video that everything was labeled by module. Once I bought a lab kit and everything was just thrown in one big box. Having everything separated out would be a real time saver. BTW, my husband and I are praying about full time RV life. He's an RN. Your family (and KYD) are a real inspiration because you did it with older kids. Older kids and aging parents are what's giving us pause.
I have really enjoyed the North Star geography curriculum. My only complaint with it so far is the note taking page is the exact same as the quiz at the end of the lesson. I wish that the quizzes were similar but different questions so it doesn’t seem so monotonous. Other than that though we have enjoyed it.
I've just started to follow you here and very much enjoy. About this segment, I wonder, how do you handle history and/or social studies? The material given to students nowadays is so slanted and I wonder if you ever go nuts when you see the material schools give kids to read. Have you considered augmenting history and social studies with material from text books from the 70's or 60's? I've seen the current material and it is so horribly slanted and full of opinions as opposed to facts from the day. Let me know your thoughts on this if you would.
Yes, the material in history is definitely slanted. When we come across something that is incorrect we will stop and talk through it. We will also supplement with documentaries and other books.
We are originally from Arizona. It is a very easy state to homeschool in and they only require an affidavit to be filed with your school district letting them know your intent to homeschool. I’m sorry that it is becoming harder for you to homeschool in Massachusetts. My recommendation if at all possible would be to get a domicile in a different state that is more lenient in their laws regarding homeschool. Unfortunately, I know this may not be possible and if that is the case I would stick to the laws regarding homeschooling in Mass. and follow it to a tee so as not to get in trouble and not be able to homeschool your children. I hope this helps you out and best of luck to you!
We do not own a home in Arizona anymore but we do use the address of our family members house and receive mail there when we go back to visit. We don’t have any issues with our home state with homeschooling though and that is probably due to the fact that our state has lenient laws regarding homeschooling.
All About RV's do you have links of the curriculum that she chose? We are looking to go full time in an rv but our concerns were mainly school for our 7 and 6 year olds
I am learning how to help RVers as a homeschool teacher and appreciate this video.
Wow that is awesome! As a homeschool family sometimes it’s nice to see what other people use to find stuff that may be better for our kids. Thanks
Thanks! Single mom about to hit the road and this was helpful.
I LOVE the left handed notebook! My daughter has hated writing in her spiral notebooks this year, so she does all of her work on the back of every page! She will be thrilled to see this! Thank you so much for sharing!
+nmsummit79 that is what Eli has always had to do too! He is so excited this year for his notebooks. He loved that store in San Francisco and prior to going there we didn't even know that left handed notebooks even existed.
My son is 26 years old and left handed. I never knew they made left handed notebooks.
Good job! I was an elementary teacher way back, we love education, still involved... Kids have incredible resources these days. Don't forget the basic social skills. Like Captain Kangaroo said, "And remember to always say 'Please' and 'Thank you.' Common human courtesies I call it. Speak to people, respect older people especially. Keep at it.
Have a Jr. in High School, have been homeschooling since 2nd grade and am very familiar with your curriculum choices :) Awesome!
My kiddos love typing club!
+Jessica S the boys started it two weeks ago and they are both really loving it too! Eli is already on lesson 90 because he just likes doing the lessons
Thanks for the good explanation of what to do for home school . No one goes into detail for newbies.
+loveinfla you're welcome!
IEW is the best curriculum for writing! I have tried and reviewed several writing curricula and IEW is by far, the one I saw quick progress with and more excitement in my kids' eyes. Great choices!
I have 2 daughters (adults now) who are lefties. I found the Lefty store in SF years ago on a work trip. Love them!
That’s so cool! Our son, Eli, is really enjoying the notebooks this year.
Looks like you will have a great school year. I was always excited to get the books for our daughters each year. I'm not sure they were as excited. I sure do miss it, but our girls are both grown and on their own. Enjoy these fun times with them.
Jean Decker the time flies by, it's so crazy! We are realizing how little time we have left with the boys and cherishing every moment that we have with them
We use several of the same curricula you guys do. Sounds like we have pretty similar homeschooling style. We are hitting the road (from Gilbert, AZ) in a few months, so it's great to see how you make all the school books, folders, etc. work for you on the road. And, our youngest is also a lefty just learning how to write. He's the only one of us who is a lefty so it's going to be a whole new world for me teaching him. I love the lefty notebook. Totally going to get that when he's ready. Thanks for the great peek into your world!
+Beginning from this Morning we are from Arizona also but from Prescott 😊
We are so excited for you guys to be hitting the road here soon! It is such an amazing opportunity to have for your family! And love that you guys use some of the same curriculum. Eli is the only one in our family who is a lefty too.
We used Spelling You See last year with Anna and I LOVED it! It really leans towards that Charlotte Mason way of copywork/dictation and it helped so much!!! And as a bonus, they learn so much about the topic/people they read about each week.
+Jen Lowman thanks Jen, I'm excited to give it a try for Eli this year!
So helpful!! Thanks guys!
Oh, my goodness! You guys use just about everything we use! You will love IEW. My son's writing ability went from fourth grade (in fourth grade) to highschool level in one year. We use Saxon for math as a full time family traveling, but I break the books into lifepac style books, and store the ones we're not using away. My son went through aas for spelling to level three, and now I'm letting him teach my daughter the first three, then I'll teach them both together from level four on.
Oh, don't forget IEW has vocab in the back of the book. It's good too because they use it in their writing.
Oh, and we used mystery of history CDs while traveling in the truck, and Classical Conversations memory work for history and science while sitting still. :-)
+kricketjoy wow, that's crazy about his writing ability! That's so great! We used Saxon math for several years for our oldest son and absolutely loved it but two years ago he wanted to use something different so we tried teaching textbooks. It was a great fit for him and we just switched our youngest son to it last year when we started traveling for the ease of storage. What a great idea to have your son teach your daughter aas! It will even more solidify the concepts for him as he teaches it!
+kricketjoy I like that idea to use MOH CDs while driving, we have done audio books in the truck.
As a lefty myself, I concur the struggle is real. Now if we lefties could only write our sentences from right to left we wouldn't get pencil or pen smeared on our hand.😉 I'm so jealous of your new notebook Eli.😊
+jcyarns that's so true! The worst for us, that we have noticed, are white boards for lefty's. Eli smears away what he is trying to write on a whiteboard all the time. He is really looking forward to using his new notebook this year!
Thanks for sharing your curriculum picks. I'd love to hear more about how dyslexics think, since I'm home educating one. I hope you'll do curriculum reviews too.
For our son we have really noticed that he thrives on visual learning and being able to physically touch things. So he does amazing in science when he can do the experiments, he spells so much better when he uses the tiles from our all about spelling curriculum, and the last thing that we have noticed is if he is having an off day to take that day really slow. If he gets pushed too hard on those days, he isn’t really learning anything since it is too frustrating for him. Not sure if this helps in your situation but hope that it does. 😊
That Geo organization! Can you please do a video sharing how you organize? That seemed amazing!
That’s very kind of you to say that. I just took the maps and put them back to back in a sheet protector and then placed them in the plastic 3 ring folders. I did the same thing for each of the categories from the curriculum and each day we just pull out what we are using for that day and then put it right back in the sleeve for storage. I hope this helps!
Thanks for sharing. We use some of the same curriculum.
+Kimberly Weese which ones do you use? Kris loves to see what other people use and how it works for their families!
Great video! I have a question about...All About Spelling... did you complete all levels or just jump in on what level suited your needs...if you just jumped in is it hard without having gone through the other levels??
We started with level one even though it was pretty easy for both of the boys. We just went through it pretty quick and moved on to level two. It wasn’t until level three that we slowed down and took a step a week. But the first levels give you a good foundation for the rest of the levels.
Thanks for sharing. I have a son going into 5th grade and another going into 3rd grade for the upcoming fall. I see this video is 2 years old. Would you still recommend these curriculum after using them? I’ve been homeschooling part time and I’m going to have to get things into high gear to do it full time While RVing. Thanks for your advice.
How do you find what is going to work for your child outside of just buying each curriculum and doing trial and error? I'm just starting homeschooling this year and am so overwhelmed by the options!!
How are you all able to travel and homeschool. Do you use a physical address or a P.O. box. We are from WV and were thinking of moving into an RV to save some money but don't know how to go about it legally. Would love your feedback.
We use a physical address for all of our mail but in our home state we have very little requirements to meet in order to homeschool. You can use escapees mail service or possibly even traveling mailbox if you have to receive your mail if you are going to be traveling. If your plan is just to move into an rv and stay stationary in WV you can check to see if you are allowed to use their address at the rv park for your mail. Some rv parks allow this while others do not. I hope this helps a little. Also you will need to find out what your state requirements are for homeschooling, every state is different.
@@AllAboutRVs Thanks. We have been checking into it and our state doesn't specify. We just don't know which way to go. We don't have a permanent address because we rent at the moment. We were advised to seek legal advice from HSLDA. We"'ll see. Thanks and God bless.
I know that you posted this for last year but I had a question on the US based history writing. How did you like it and would you still recommend it? I have a 10th grade girl who is going to be doing it this year.
We ended up not using it. I sent it back and I used essentials in writing. The main reason why I didn’t use it is because it looked so confusing to me. I know many people absolutely love iew and they have an entire course just for teachers to learn how to use their curriculum. However, for me, because we were just planning to use the US history course I didn’t quite know how to use it properly. All that being said, I do think it is a great curriculum and many people have benefited from their curriculum.
All About RV's how did you like Essentials in writing then?
All About RV's also all about spelling and mystery in history what did you think about those two curriculums?
Do you think the math CD's are grade and age appropriate? Is it behind? Ahead?
I think they are one grade behind Saxon math but right on for other curriculums. We haven’t had any issue with our son being a grade ahead of what he really is in and our other son uses the grade that he is currently in. It has worked really well for both of our boys and neither of them will complain when it comes to doing math.
All About RV's thank you. My daughter will be 8 in April she is ahead in everything but math which is she is age appropriate ( 2nd grade math) we use abeka for math and I like it but it's a big and bulky. Plus I want to try the CD's to see how she does learning from them. I will give it a try for the next school year (we finish our "school year" in may, so mind as well finish the book. Love what you guys are doing! We're going full time in May!!!
How do you guys get mail?
+PinkCupCakes444 currently we are using our parents address and we just pick it up from there. While traveling we use the rv park where we are staying at if we know we will be there for a while. We have done Amazon lockers for other packages. And if anything comes in the mail to our parents house that we need they send it to us wherever we are at. We do come back to our home state every few months because our son has braces and we have to have them adjusted/fixed.
Loved this! We are also doing Exploring Creation with General Science this year. Where did you get the lab kit? I've seen a couple of places that sell them but I haven't ordered ours yet.
+Gentry Anderson we ordered it off of christianbook.com but I know that rainbow resource also carries it for the same price and both offer free shipping if you reach a certain amount. Eli has already done the first two experiments and it has been a huge time saver and help to have the items already ready for us to use and labeled in the bags. This is our first year using the lab kits and so far we are all impressed with it.
All About RV's Awesome! Thank you. I saw in the video that everything was labeled by module. Once I bought a lab kit and everything was just thrown in one big box. Having everything separated out would be a real time saver. BTW, my husband and I are praying about full time RV life. He's an RN. Your family (and KYD) are a real inspiration because you did it with older kids. Older kids and aging parents are what's giving us pause.
how do u like geography so far?
I have really enjoyed the North Star geography curriculum. My only complaint with it so far is the note taking page is the exact same as the quiz at the end of the lesson. I wish that the quizzes were similar but different questions so it doesn’t seem so monotonous. Other than that though we have enjoyed it.
I've just started to follow you here and very much enjoy. About this segment, I wonder, how do you handle history and/or social studies? The material given to students nowadays is so slanted and I wonder if you ever go nuts when you see the material schools give kids to read. Have you considered augmenting history and social studies with material from text books from the 70's or 60's? I've seen the current material and it is so horribly slanted and full of opinions as opposed to facts from the day. Let me know your thoughts on this if you would.
Yes, the material in history is definitely slanted. When we come across something that is incorrect we will stop and talk through it. We will also supplement with documentaries and other books.
Glad to hear you have those follow-ups with your kids. Thanks so much for the response. I totally enjoy your videos, keep up the great work.
Who gives you permission to homeschool? We are having issues in Massachusetts even though we have homeschooled for the past 5 years!
We are originally from Arizona. It is a very easy state to homeschool in and they only require an affidavit to be filed with your school district letting them know your intent to homeschool. I’m sorry that it is becoming harder for you to homeschool in Massachusetts. My recommendation if at all possible would be to get a domicile in a different state that is more lenient in their laws regarding homeschool. Unfortunately, I know this may not be possible and if that is the case I would stick to the laws regarding homeschooling in Mass. and follow it to a tee so as not to get in trouble and not be able to homeschool your children. I hope this helps you out and best of luck to you!
@@AllAboutRVs and the town you previously lived didn't hassle you? Or do you have a "real" home as well?
We do not own a home in Arizona anymore but we do use the address of our family members house and receive mail there when we go back to visit. We don’t have any issues with our home state with homeschooling though and that is probably due to the fact that our state has lenient laws regarding homeschooling.
My Little brother is Named Eli! do people ever call your son "Elijah"? it drives my brother crazy ;) haha!!!
or is your son's name Elijah?
+Abigail Graham his name is Elijah but not many people call him by his full name. Only when he is in trouble does he get his full name 😂
This isn't common core is it?
No! My wife has chosen to stay away from common core and looks for curriculum that isn’t common core.
All About RV's do you have links of the curriculum that she chose? We are looking to go full time in an rv but our concerns were mainly school for our 7 and 6 year olds
I didnt see any thing about a grammar curriculum...
We took a year off of grammar and used it in our writing curriculum.
So what about social skills e.g., making friends, sports, etc.? Have to learn how to interact with others. Homeschooling does not teach that.
I am one minute into your video, and I just have to say y’all look way too young to have kids doing Algebra!
Thanks!
hate spelling you see yuck not for us.