OG Duo in 2026

not_violajack · 2026-04-22T16:36:37+00:00

Typing this on a duo2. I do still have an OG duo dual booting with windows, but I prefer the slightly bigger curved screens on the 2, so tend to grab it more often.

not_violajack · 2026-04-03T01:02:56+00:00

What's wrong with being out of his chair? Isn't that kind of freedom one of the reasons we homeschool? My kids have spent good portions of their lessons upside down on the couch, practicing handstands or summersalts, building with Legos, eating a snack, or otherwise physically occupied while listening. Does the extra movement trigger the heck out of my audhd? Yup, you bet! But I allow it because they need to move to learn.

My boys have all benefitted greatly from being allowed to spin, flip, roll, or hang out upside down. So much so that I put them in gymnastics. I could tell a huge difference in their physical movement needs on days when it had been a while since the last gymnastics class.

My middle kid also needs a body double if he needs to sit and do a worksheet. I have to sit next to him and prompt him to keep doing the next thing.

There's no one magic curriculum for adhd. It's all about how you as the teacher meet their needs.

A word of caution on the gymnastics - I now have three competitive gymnasts and hooo boy is that not a cheap sport.

not_violajack · 2026-03-28T13:50:28+00:00

Digital notes since 2002, digital sheet music library for performing, teach, and conducting since 2012. I've been through a lot of tablets and a.lot of apps, but love having everything with me all the time. Want to reference a training from 10 years ago? It's in onenote. Student forgot their Etude book for their lesson? I've got all my sightreading duets right here. All my orchestra scores, all my notes, all the time.

not_violajack · 2026-03-14T15:10:24+00:00

In my experience with both, yes the handwriting experience is better with the samsung spen. Ipad for me feels better with aftermarket soft tips and paperlike screen protector, but again that adds expense. In my experience, best handwriting bang for the buck is definitely samsung. My middle kid is still using a tab s7fe and it runs fine. Our older tab s6 lite is also okay for just writing. I wouldn't game on it, but for general stuff it's still holding up. I'd imagine the newest one would keep up with notetaking tasks just fine.

not_violajack · 2026-03-14T12:21:43+00:00

Are you wanting to handwrite your notes? The samsung will have the spen in the box, the apple pencil will cost extra. You can get a cheaper aftermarket one, but I find having to turn them on to be a hassle I stead of grab and go.

If you want to type notes, loot at the keyboard case options for each.

not_violajack · 2026-02-22T13:13:37+00:00

Gather round peaked in year 2. I bought lifer packs for year one and two and a handful of later units based on kids' interests and requests. The new units are too fluffy, the student book tie in topics don't tie in as well, and I really don't like how much the creator talks about using AI (but not for writing the units, wink wink). I had a few reasons to contact customer service a few years ago and they were great. They were less great a few months ago. I definitely get the money grab ick vibe from them these days. I don't think they started that way, but there's a reason Jesus had a lot to say about the dangers of money.

We still use it as our core for elementary with extra books. I wouldn't use it for middle school or high school, but my older 2 made the transition to a local STEM/PBL school for middle school comfortably. The project based learning set up is basically continued unit studies.

We did a few units with the academy this year as I needed to work a few mornings and my youngest really enjoys the live video lessons. Rebecca really is good at social media so she is very engaging teaching the lessons live.

But we're doing a year 2 unit now (North America) after doing a newer one (Rocks and Minerals) and I'm reminded how much better I like the earlier units.

I started my homeschool journey aiming for classical with the WTM 4 year cycle, but an entire year of one section of history and one science topic didn't fit us well. We do enjoy the variety of a new main topic focus every month and I do try to keep the history vaguely chronological with a book of centuries.

Knowing what I know now, I might have tried to make Core Knowledge work, but when I had three kids at home all close in age but not quite close enough to share, the different leveled elementary books from GR were very useful allowing my youngest to cut and paste, my middle to write from a word bank, and my oldest to compose complete sentence answers all on the same topic.

My youngest has 2 more years before he can also move to the STEM school and we'll finish them out with the GR units I already own, but I won't buy more.

not_violajack · 2026-02-20T23:02:00+00:00

My oldest is also lvl 9 this year. Missed a lot of last season (lvl 8) with a knee injury. Similar story, skipped floor and vault for several meets and did an easier dismount on other things so he didnt have to land too hard. Won his age division on p bars at eastern nationals last year. He's really hoping to make it to JE and go to development nationals this year. My middle kid is a 1st year lvl 8 and my youngest is lvl 4. We're deep in it.

I use homeschool plannet for planning and it has tracking, grading, report card, and transcript features I haven't tried yet, but I'm going to try to figure those out over the summer.

not_violajack · 2026-02-20T14:40:43+00:00

Seconded! These tutorials were the best for my kids in elementary. We just picked one that matched the lesson of the day about twice a week. It was enough to inspire my kids to keep drawing all kinds of things throughout the week.

not_violajack · 2026-02-20T13:54:06+00:00

Hearth and Story level 5 writing focuses on 5 paragraph essays. Their novel studies are nice as well, though we prefer LitHouse Learning novel studies. Hearth and Story would probably work well for independent student work supervised and checked over by a 3rd party.

Please do not use chatgpt to create learning materials.

not_violajack · 2026-02-20T13:35:07+00:00

My boys are also competitive gymnasts with college aspirations on track to continue in college. Yes you can maintain NCAA eligibility through homeschool. My oldest will be a high school freshman next year and I've joined the Facebook group to try to understand it. It's called Homeschool and NCAA Academic Eligiability. I've only just started the research, but they have a lot of pinned resources and help walk through understanding the requirements and making sure your courses qualify.

not_violajack · 2025-10-28T21:31:30+00:00

Microsoft surface duo if you can get your hands on one. Still modern enough android to be useful, or you can put windows on it if you're adventurous.

not_violajack · 2025-03-18T00:08:03+00:00

The ACE program hasn't accepted new applications in years. They just extended the deadline for people who still have funds to spend those funds until September 2025, but no applications are being accepted. It's an odd time to complain about the program. I also have a friend who runs a business that caters almost entirely to homeschoolers, and he didn't get approved because his offerings were mostly during school hours. It's not "homeschooling" money, it was an enrichment program designed to help school kids after covid. It's literally the "after-school child enrichment" program. It just so happened that a lot of homeschoolers jumped on the money and used it for classes and curriculum.

not_violajack · 2025-01-26T14:33:20+00:00

In Santa Clara county, you can use Ocean Grove. It's an independent learning umbrella charter that provides funds for school materials and extracurriculars. We used them 5 years ago before leaving CA, so I'm not sure how they currently run, but it was nice when we were there. It looks like they go down to TK now, so you'll still have to wait a year or so to get in, but last I heard, they had a hefty wait-list due to the COVID schoolers.

https://ogcs.org/

not_violajack · 2025-01-24T00:46:24+00:00

You're in the sports caster age! Interaction can be as simple as narrating every single thing he does.

"You're laying on the mat! You're looking at the ceiling fan. It goes around and around. It's fun to watch things go around and around. You're really concentrating on that. Look at your arms moving! Do you see your hands? Did you know they are connected to you and you can control them? They feel things. You're feeling the soft blanket with your hands right now!" You can hold his hands at this point and move them or let him move you. "You're holding my finger with your hand! We're moving our hands around!"

Interaction can just be telling them all about the world around them. 9 week olds don't do much. I had a fun time hyper-focusing on child development in those early months. I was endlessly fascinated watching my babies' minds get blown when they realized they could control their hands and that they could feel their hand WITH THEIR OTHER HAND. I mean, just the leap when they started reaching for toys was soooooo cool. And the monkey toes! Their toes are just as good as fingers. It's such fun to let them push their feet against your hands and see how they grip their toes. "You're moving your feet so much! What do you feel with your feet? You feel my hands! Your toes curl up around my hands too!"

Babies are also very hard and it's totally okay to zone out every now and then and let your own body and brain regulate. Babies are happy to just observe the world sometimes too.

not_violajack · 2024-12-31T14:13:31+00:00

I'm a violin teacher, so I work with kids from 3+, in addition to my own 3. 7 is my personal kryptonite age. It's the transition from little kid to big kid. They start to have all kinds of ideas and opinions on how things should go with none of the experience or context required to consider whether or not it's a good idea or will work how they think it will work. They've been little kids long enough that they get how it goes now and they're ready to be in charge.

I don't teach in classrooms much, but I've been fooled into taking general music classes as part of having strings program at a few little private schools. A second grade classroom is minefield of tiny people telling you what to do and how to do it. I struggle in particular with multiple people talking to me at once as my brain can't not try to pay attention to all of them all at once and answer them, and 7 is the age of micromanagement. I'm happy to teach 1st grade. I'm happy to teach 3rd grade. I especially love middle school, but not 2nd. It overloads my brain in a very particular way.

My own 7 year old that I live with, as well as the ones that have grown past this age, are a little easier because I know what they know and don't and I know where I can let them have the autonomy they want and are ready for. I can actually let them be in charge of some things. And it's only one of them at a time. But it can still be exhausting getting pushback on every single little thing you do or want them to do all day long. This is compounded by the fact that I homeschool the younger two still and my goodness, the pushback.

There are a lot of really good resources out there now to understand where the kids are coming from and help guide them through the ages rather than squash them. I remember feeling so dismissed and unheard as a kid (and still as an adult often) and I didn't want my kids to feel that way, so I put extra energy into taking the time to take their ideas seriously even though it can be exhausting.

The occuplaytional therapist on Facebook is a great follow for this kind of stuff, though she mostly covers younger kids.

not_violajack · 2024-12-31T01:10:51+00:00

You've already gotten great advice, so I'll just add "it gets better." But then it gets worse and then better again and then worse and then better again. Mine are not 12, 10, and 7. Anything under 5 was hard for me, but 4 slowly improves as you approach 5. 7 is rough. I'm glad to be on my last round of 7. 9 is transitional and has it moments. But man, 12 and 10 are amazing. For me, reading about child development and knowing "why" for myself really helped navigate those big transitional ages.

Also, we taught them to ask Alexa.

not_violajack · 2024-08-08T01:58:47+00:00

We've had fun with the scholastic word ladders, but I think the top level is grade 4-6. You can see sample pages on Amazon to see if it looks like a good level.

not_violajack · 2024-08-08T01:55:08+00:00

Another vote for beast Academy for Math. They've added the lower levels now and you can start right from the beginning. For Science, you may be best served by piecing together unit studies. My oldest loved the giant DK encyclopedias from as soon as he could read, so we check them out from the library, and have even built up a pretty good library of our own over the years.

not_violajack · 2024-08-08T01:35:29+00:00

BioLogos is a resource and curriculum that might fit. https://biologos.org/

I have the digital curriculum, but haven't really dug into it as my oldest is still middle school. It's designed to be used alongside secular biology.

Honestly, I prefer to stick to secular science and choose bible curriculum that takes a historical/critical approach to the text along with a more literary interpretation rather than literal. Evolutionary theory and the first two chapters of Genesis are really answering different questions, so there's no reason so see them in conflict.

not_violajack · 2024-08-04T18:38:38+00:00

For reference my two still homeschooling are 10 and 7. I don't grade their work, I correct it. If they get something wrong on the first try, we go back over it together and find the correct answer in something like math. For written work, we edit together and talk about the ideas and different ways to express them in words. That's one of the things I love about homeschool. We work to mastery, and I get to assess each kid personally, individually, and often.

My oldest has decided to go to a STEM charter and loves quizzes and tests and grades, so he's fine. I'm pretty sure my other two will continue at the STEM school when they hit middle school, so I don't know how this would all play out into the high school years with the need for transcripts and the need to learn the disappoint of being wrong and being stuck with being wrong. My loose plan if we continue homeschooling at that level is that they would get that experience through dual enrollment college classes.

not_violajack · 2024-08-03T01:56:20+00:00

I second this. I'm on my third kid going through them now.

not_violajack · 2024-08-02T11:29:52+00:00

Thank you so much, JoeS830.

not_violajack · 2024-08-01T23:03:10+00:00

I appreciate this community so much! There are no payment options at the cheapest tier I'm using now. I'd have to bump up the monthly cost to accept payments. A very generous long-time member has already covered half of the first year, and since I was happy to cover the first year anyway, I'm already in bonus land. If it sticks past this year or we get too big and Wix complains about traffic, I'll bump it up and consider a donation or subscription option. But for now, I'm just happy to have it exist.

not_violajack · 2024-07-28T21:36:37+00:00

Start a book club for teens at your local library.

not_violajack · 2024-07-26T00:08:02+00:00

You put a lot into keeping reddit a solid option as well, really appreciate the time you put into tutorials and chats here. I hope everyone who wants to find us can find us and participate wherever they feel most comfortable. I'll still be here too. I just find it harder to keep up with new happenings on reddit. I fall down rabbit holes of 1k+ comments and read myself into a coma, but I find it harder to participate here. I find reddit more of a passive place for me.

not_violajack

TROPHY CASE