I love this list: http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/lunchboxfood2.htm

Mardel's had these a week ago when I was there

Very cool!! Thanks for sharing this

My DD loves Kumon workbooks - mazes, cutting, pasting, puzzles, etc. She also LOVES her 1st grade Brainquest workbook and a K-1 Summerbridge workbook. I also purchased some math manipulatives that she enjoys playing with - clocks, an abacus, building blocks, etc... and she also loves having a dry erase board to do with what she pleases. Sometimes I give her some direction as far as what to write or create, and other times she just wants to be creative. :) Jigsaw puzzles are fun and cheap at dollar stores... My DD is also very into reading science and history books. We "chanced" upon a tarantula a few weeks ago and my older kiddos have been fascinated with reading about them. If your library has DVDs, you might look into getting some educational videos to watch as well. My kids love Bill Nye the Science Guy and literature-based videos.

My DD got bored with it beginning around lesson 90 or so, so we've slowed WAY down and I'm just stressing that she read independently to keep her current skills sharp... We'll get back into it soon, though - probably 2-3 lessons a week starting in August or September

Another bare-faced mom here!

This happened to my son a few weeks ago... I'm a bit freaked out by it too... They even tested his blood and he was totally fine other than showing that he'd had an allergic reaction... EEK!

My kids are little, but we pretty much only allow Boomerang, Discovery Kids (and not all of the shows), and Nick Jr. The other channels are way over their heads or way to mature as far as content.... Beyond that, they are allowed to watch LeapFrog DVDs and my DH lets them watch Avatar (the airbender series) and Dragonball Z Kai... not my favorite shows, but it's their bonding time.. bleh. LOL My DD also watches all the Barbie movies. I actually really dislike those and find them kind of demeaning for women, but I allow it for now as an occasional thing.

This is totally free and looks great!! http://www.mennoniteeducation.org/MEAPortal/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=261

This is exactly what we do!

We just got a Toyota Corolla to replace our Ford Windstar van that was dying... I love it bc of the fuel efficiency and the back seat safely accommodates our 3 big carseats!

Sounds like plenty! I started OPGTR when my dd turned 4 because she begged me to teach her to read after watching her Letter Factory DVDs... we loosely have done about 100 lessons over 14 months...I'm not pushing it much now because I see how hungry she is to learn and don't want to burn her out. We also just started MEP math because she begs for that - it's really fun and playful, so she stays engaged and begs for more. Now that she is K age, she's already actually breezed through what a normal K kid would be learning locally, so I'm going to have another fun year with her. My plan is to have her do 4-6 activities a day but to go at her pace... So "Literature" might be reading 1 or 2 Mother Goose rhymes or it might be reading long stories aloud.... History might be a page explaining how to read a map or it might be getting out the globe, reading maps, learning about people from various places, and making food from those places. I'm going to go with the flow again! I think that's more than enough. It sounds to me like your DD is getting excellent EXPOSURE and that's really what she needs at that age, imo!!

Thanks... anyone else??

I have an opportunity to buy the pre-K program at a significant discount, but I am having trouble seeing EXACTLY what is in it... I'm not sure if it would be up my alley or not. Are the books/readers easy to find at a library or online or are they company specific? What subjects are NOT covered? Is this a curriculum I'd be able to use with my 3 year old or would I need to wait until next year when he is 4? Would it be challenging enough for my 5.5 year old? (I'm assuming it wouldn't since she is already reading at about a 2nd-3rd grade level and doing addition/subtraction to 10 or so...) Does anyone have a good breakdown of what this curriculum is like or could you point me in the right direction? TIA!

I looove that site!

We had to pack and get rid of a ton of toys recently... we put our house on the market, so we can't have a ton of clutter! The compromise we made (and this was hard bc DD had a birthday literally DAYS before we put our house on the market!) was that they are each allowed 2 small lidded tubs of toys and those toys stay on the top shelf in their closet. They also each get to keep their "babies" that they sleep with (and also play with them a ton so those count as toys but not in the tub rule) and those have to stay in a toy box we have during the day. We also got rid of a ton of books bc we truthfully use the library SO much that it just isn't practical to have 6 bookcases full. I do have a few boxes packed away with toys that my youngest will be able to play with in several months that my middle child has outgrown... Another thing I did was have a garage sale one morning while my mom had the kids. I was able to sell quite a bit of things without them knowing. As "mean" as it is, if they've asked about something, I have told them it was packed away for our new house. We only have 2 boxes of toys actually packed so I probably sold whatever they're asking about but in a few months they won't remember. I do have some guilt, especially since a lot of the items were purchased as gifts by my parents for them... but we have to be practical and I cannot try and stay on top of constant clutter AND have my house show-ready, ykwim?

We've been doing www.theheadoftheclass.com and www.starfall.com and The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading with my DD. I throw in a lot of other goodies, too - like a workbook about Time that we got at Dollar Tree and TONS of reading and going to the library a lot. We're taking it easy!

This is such a refreshing post! My DD *loves* reading the books I have bought for her that are both below, at, and beyond her reading level (we got a ton of used Hooked on Phonics books among others) and will read that stuff for an hour or more........ but getting her to read everything in a lesson is like pulling teeth! We're around lesson 83 with her as well.... I think I'll take some of the advice in this thread!

My daughter LOVES having her own room - she CRAVES that privacy and space all to herself. However, my son (he turns 3 tomorrow) wants a "slumber party" almost every single night - he wants to snuggle in his sister's full sized bed and claims he hates his bed (we bought him a twin bed since we thought maybe he just hated his toddler bed...turns out he just hates being alone in his room!) I'm hoping my youngest (almost 4 months old now) will enjoy sharing a room with his brother as much as his brother seems to need to share. lol I plan on them sharing a room unless we just happen to move to a home that could accomodate them having their own... although if they like being together, I wouldn't object to having the extra space for an office!

Learn at Home or Home Education Curriculum ?

OOOOOOOOOOH excellent tip!!!! I totally forgot to check there - this looks like it can be used on the cheap bundles!!! Gr 1-5 Light Blue series for $80!? OOOOoh!

We use Handwriting For Kids and my DD BEGS to do handwriting practice!

Letter of the week is good I love Home Education Curriculum: Kindergarten (which is out of print but I see it for sale occasionally on ebay or homeschoolclassifieds.com for cheap). It's great because it covers all major academic areas and is gentle, fun, and full of reading and simple art and games. I recently checked these out at our library and have really liked looking through them! If we don't use Letter of the Week, we'll likely use one of these: Teach me mommy : a preschool learning guide / by Jill Dunford Kindergarten teacher's month-by-month activities program / Elizabeth Crosby Stull and Carol Lewis Price. I also really like the book "What Your Kindergartner Needs To Know" by the Core Knowledge foundation.... it's great!

My daughter likes to make puppets. Her favorite is also the easiest for me (lol) which is basically I draw shapes or she colors pictures on some construction paper, then she cuts them out and tapes them to straws. Then she puts on puppet shows (They're usually musicals..haha) She could also do it with socks (simple sewing or with glue to embellish with various scrap items), paper bags, toilet paper rolls (DLTK I think has a bunch of printable toilet paper roll puppets), popcicle sticks, etc. My daughter also loves to make cards (like greeting cards). Maybe make some cards to cheer up our troops, the elderly, or terminally ill children?

This is a great question and I realize this is an old post, but I had the same question! Giggle Math looks like a really fun program