That’s awesome, Alex! What a special time! My youngest is only 8, but my oldest is in high school and, boy, do a miss those carefree days of exploration! 🤪 I hope you and your girls have a blast! 😄

Thank You so much!
My daughters are currently 2.5 and almost 5. So we are just beginning the journey!

Absolutely! It should work with the AA’s instead. The one issue is that the AA’s are heavier, so it might not wiggle quite as much, but you could play around with making the battery pack more of less off center. I think it’ll still work great!

Hi Alex! Unfortunately, I only know about homeschooling charters in my local area in California, though the stipend all the schools provide near me are all comparable to each other. If public charters allow homeschooling in Oregon, then they are probably all more or less the same. I know financial support for homeschooling varies widely state-by-state. Public homeschool charters in California are particularly generous. I’ve heard that many states offer nothing at all.

If you are looking for an online program though, I have a couple suggestions. You didn’t say how old your kids are, but my kids have enjoyed Nessy when they are learning to read. I have also in the past used my public funds to get subscriptions to Time4Learning, which covers all subjects and all grades. Generally speaking, I prefer book-based, but there are times when we’ve had to rely on computer-based during busy seasons. Our charter school also provides a subscription to Brain Pop, which my kids enjoy for math and science.

I also pay out of pocket for some providers, because they aren’t approved vendors with my school, such as Science is WEIRD webinars and Smartick math. I don’t pay year round for Smartick, but usually just a couple months over the summer when they have a sumemr deal.

There are a TON of free resources you can use to homeschool as well. Have you signed up for my Educational Fairy Dust hub? It is full of free YouTube channels, podcasts, and educational websites that we sprinkle into our learning to make it more fun! https://educationalfairydust.researchparent.com/sign-up

Do you have any websites that review online charter homeschool programs and tell you how much money you receive for curriculum? Since we’re just starting off I’d like to try an online program to get my feet wet.
We’re in Oregon.

Thanks!!

Hi Martha, I would probably start by having them try the first worksheet from their grade level. There is a lot of overlap in what children learn each year, so that first sheet will be reviewing concepts that were presented over the previous couple of years. If that is too difficult, then I would go back a grade level (or maybe more, as needed). Just know that the end of one grade level is a lot harder than the beginning of the next grade level because there is so much review built in, so I recommend starting at the beginning of a grade level!

Warmly,
Michelle

You are absolutely right, Rachel! Thank you for catching that and please let me know if you find any other mistakes! I will correct it in the next hour or so. :)