The worst part about listeria, besides hitting the old, young, pregnant, and immuno-compromised worst, is that it can have a LOOOOONG incubation period. It might be weeks after you eat an infected food before you start to come down with symptoms. The official death toll is up to 15, according to the CDC website.

I definitely wasn't planning on it being independent work. Ds still needs me to be present to keep him on task when he starts to space out. If I have to be sitting there anyway, I may as well be teaching. :D Luckily, RS isn't independent, either, so MEP being teacher-intensive isn't much of an issue. onaclairadeluna --Thanks for the tip about printing. That's a great idea until I get a feel for where ds needs to be working! Still :bigear: for any more opinions or ideas.

My 7yo ds (2nd grade) is getting ready to finish up RS B and I'm looking for budget-friendly options to switch to in case I can't find a cheap B-to-C set or a complete set of C used. Our budget is REALLY tight, so buying new won't work. DS isn't a mathy kid, but he's finally "getting it" and starting to plow through the last half of RS B. I'm also getting more comfortable teaching him math, which helps quite a bit. He definitely thrives with spiral programs. Mastery-style anything just drives him (and me) NUTS. So far, the best option (for multiple reasons) seems to be MEP, but it's a big leap to take, kwim? I've discovered that I can read the MEP lesson plan files on my eReader, so I wouldn't have to print everything. That reduces the cost even more and makes it extremely tempting to take the leap. I guess I'm mostly just looking for advice. Is switching to MEP a good idea, or am I crazy to consider it? Any ideas on placement after finishing RS B? I don't mind back-tracking as long as it means he gets a solid foundation in math. TIA!

Hiding in the Amazon customer discussion forums is a Kindle forum, and a very helpful person there posts a daily thread (and sometimes more than one) with links to the newest free Kindle books. Often, that thread also has a brief description of each of the books, which saves having to click through to all of them. I only have the free Kindle for PC program, but I've found lots of great reads and started a library of the classics. Here's a link to the Amazon Kindle forum. Now that Amazon has dropped the price of the Kindle again (it's under $100, YAY!) I'm going to start saving up for one.

Thanks for posting. I saw a few things last week that I wanted, but didn't have the $$ to pay full price. At $1 each, though, I couldn't pass up some of the history things today. There goes my tiny spending allowance for the month.... :D

Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready was a complete waste of time for us. That's my only purchasing mistake so far, but I'm sure as the years pass there will be more.

Wow! I grabbed the Explorers history book. Thanks so much, this will be great!!

Yes, but I'm pretty sure most of them come by it honestly. Better nerdy than unimaginative! Making a Medusa outfit might be hard, or it might be pretty simple. I'm thinking cheap dollar store or craft store rubber snakes and a girls' headband, to start. I know my SIL did a Medusa getup for Halloween one year that won a contest. Maybe I should ask how she did her snakes...

:iagree: Definitely go for the pillowcase. It's the easiest route. Then go all-out making jewelry, since that's the best part of the Egyptian outfit anyway, isn't it? I can sympathise... DS wanted to have a Greek/Roman themed costume party to finish up SOTW 1. Does he want a toga, or a Greek tunic? Of course not! He wants to be a gladiator. With armor. And real furs. And real-looking weapons. :glare: He's settling for a basic tunic, a fur "cape", and cardboard-and-aluminum foil weapons and armor. We *did* make a wannabe chariot out of a box, though. All that said..... go with simple. Pillowcase dress and rope belt. Then make lots of jewelry, as long as it's colorful and shiny.

DS 7 and I did a year of fairy tales and nursery rhymes a few years ago, but it was an informal K year, so we didn't do an actual program. I used the Illustrated Book of Fairy Tales, various free online texts from Baldwin Project, storynory for audio, and a few other free websites. For Ancients (last year) and Middle Ages (this year) I've added in the Illustrated Book of Myths. We LOVE these books because they have beautiful illustrations and aren't too bad as read-alouds.

Thanks! I hadn't seen these before. DS won't be ready for these for a long while, but it's nice to know what's out there. :)

We're on a strict budget, so the pricier events or field trips are out, but we plan to do quite a few free/cheap events. We're doing the Middle Ages and Astronomy/Earth Science this year, so there are plenty of opportunities for enrichment. Our current field trip plan includes Sedgwick County Zoo, Tanganyika Wildlife Park, Exploration Place, The Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, KS, a nearby observatory, a local Renaissaince Fair, and several free events throughout the year. We'll be doing at least one "field trip" each month. As for papers on the outings, not so much. If we take lots of pictures, I'll post them on Facebook for family to see and have DS help write captions for them.

I am pretty much set. I like all of our materials, and DS is pretty pleased with everything but math. It's shaping up to be a great year!

Recently, a hoarded home caught fire in Wichita. The firefighters let the place burn and protected the surrounding buildings/properties, because the fire was so bad it was a danger to them to attempt to fight it. Hoarded homes are a fire and health hazard for so many reasons. In most cases, a home like that will be violating at least one city/local ordinance, and it's only right that the local govt. step in. Heck, I've come *thisclose* to reporting my MIL's hoarded home to someone, but I'm afraid of the repercussions.

Well, I pulled out a copy of How Nature Works (Reader's Digest) and was browsing through it for future ideas. DS 7 saw the page on stripping skulls (like, from roadkill) and got excited. I think I might actually manage that one...but I'm going to make him don the hazmat gear to "collect the specimen" when we get around to life science again in a few years. :D Lately, I've been coming up with excessively sentences to get DS interested in his spelling work and vocab. He'll definitely remember them, at least!

Our year is based on 45-46 weeks. Around 10 of those are "school lite" weeks where we aren't doing all subjects. We have breaks at Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas/New Year's, Spring Break/DS7's birthday, Memorial Day, and Independence Day. We start our "new" year after the Labor Day break.

We're schooling this week and next, but we're taking off a week starting Labor Day. I plan to break out some fun science projects and lots of arts/crafts materials and just see what the boys come up with.

I've added this to my wishlist. Thanks!

Ok. I guess I'll be looking for the CDs, too. Thanks so much!:001_smile:

Definitely not fluent myself, but I've always regretted that I never learned to play a "real" instrument. I don't want my son to feel the same way when he's my age. If I were to buy these now and work on learning for the next year as part of my self-education (I'm already doing history, latin, & drawing), do you think that might be a good enough head-start for me to start teaching DS? Thanks for the book recommendations. I added them to my Amazon wishlist. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll be able to find them used somewhere. :001_smile:

Sadly, lessons aren't really possible. I have the funds for buying the Suzuki books only because I sold a few of my own books and some sewing supplies that were cluttering up my storage bins. The recorders themselves would be bought on Amazon with Swagbucks. I'm pretty sure I can't pay a teacher with Swagbucks, though that would be pretty cool! Thanks for the opinion, though, and especially the idea to watch YouTube videos. I hadn't thought of that. :001_smile:

I've realized that the arts and "extras" are being neglected, and I'm trying to remedy the situation. The problem is, I'm about as musical as a rock. Ok, maybe not. Rocks can be used to make a rhythm. :D I have the opportunity to pick up several Suzuki Recorder School Soprano Recorder books (vols. 1-3) at a really cheap price. As in, less than $10 for all three. Add in some money for a pair of recorders, and that's still under $30 for at least basic instrument exposure for my son. I'm seriously considering it, but I have a big question. My only musical experience was recorder in 3rd-4th grade, and after-school choir from 3rd-5th grade. I never learned how to read music. I'd pretty much be starting from scratch. Is it possible I could manage to teach DS with these Suzuki Recorder School books, even with my lack of musical experience?

This frustrated me for a long time. DS couldn't read CVC words when he turned 5, even though we'd been doing gentle phonics work for almost a year. It made me wonder if I was doing something wrong, since so many other kids here were reading prodigies. I finally had to remind myself that reading is a developmental skill, and all the work in the world will not force a child who's not ready to read. When he was ready, he had a major leap in understanding that just wasn't possible before. These leaps can come for different kids at different ages. For some, it's at 3. Others, it's at 7, or 8, or even later. Since it's relevant, I'll admit: DS is "behind" in math. He's a rising second grader, but still in the first 1/2 of RightStart B. If he continues at a steady pace, he'll finish it around Christmas. Maybe. I hope.

:iagree: and :lol: at the last bit. I just gave my DS an informal reading assessment I found while searching the board, and wow! Based purely on his decoding skills, he scores a 9.0. Yes, he has great phonics skills, but there is no way my 7yo boy is reading and comprehending on a low high-school level! He can read above grade level with decent comprehension, but not that high. I'm actually thinking about scraping up the funds for the DORA, but I wonder whether it's worth it. Of course, it might just get my teacher-MIL and my sp.ed. teacher friend off my back....hmmm....

Ok, I've been meaning to come back and post on this thread for a while. The problem is, every time I do, there's more here to chew on, mull over, and otherwise assimilate. I'm actually having trouble putting thoughts and feelings into words right now, which just underscores how much *I* still have to learn. Thanks for the mental workout! For now, I'm just going to go back to :bigear:.