For our family it depends on how hard we worked, the weather, their attitudes, other activities available, maybe a friend is over, I need a break, or just a need for rest and mindless fun. I don't have a set amount of time but I rarely allow them more than an hour at a time without break or encouraging them to find something else to do. They are off limits during school hours, generally before 3:00, even if they have finished their school work. My 11 year likes to build robots and he also programs with Scratch, which is all still electronic related. LOL!!

Stacey brings up a good point. You also don't want to be in a community that is mostly 4-7 year olds if you have older children. Some of the newer communities can be very bottom heavy which is wonderful if you are in that age range.

Often this rule exists because insurance or liability mandates it for the club. It's not because the club/hotel doesn't want the kids to have fun or warm-up. It usually isn't about making the experience better for the adults either. (except the post cited above, which is a waste!!!)

I liked CLE better. R&S didn't have enough review for my kids. The workbook format worked well for my two oldest. My youngest disliked CLE so I went totally Classical with him. I don't think one or the other is better academically. It just depends on the style that you want to teach. If you plan to supplement spelling, how about if you use R&S?

Does the first one even have openings? That might make the decision for you. Have you met the director for the new community? How did you 'click'? I had to settle into a campus that was new and I only knew a few families. But the director was experienced and great at building and managing community. She paired me up with an experienced CC mom. (I'm now that experienced mom to welcome a newbie!) I'm so glad that's the one we ended up joining because I love those families dearly and can't imagine belonging to the other group. My suggestion is to pray about it. And remember that someone, somewhere, will have a terrible experience to share but that doesn't mean that will be your experience. The communities are filling and stay full because most are happy with the friendships and the academics. Good luck with your decision.

To me their is no difference between /ah/ and /aw/. So I suppose I say it fah-ther because that is the same as faw-ther. ...... Ellie, what is the difference? I can pronounce a difference between pen and pin.

All= awl father = faw-ther But I can pronounce how you say it and like it better than the sound that comes from the back of our throats to say all. 😠I come from the land of over Schwa use and say buh nan nuh.

My kids just learned them. Unless you use some other program that requires different markings, it is not confusing to them. I was confused but they weren't. I just didn't make it a big deal and they figured it out. If my children enjoyed the readers, we would still be using CLE.

I don't think it is that unusual (or a matter of brain side) for 6yo boy to struggle with learning to read. One day my DS couldn't learn it, and then he was ready and quickly reading. I would suggest trying CLE'S Learning to Read in the fall. I don't know if it is a right brained program, but it taught my DS to read when he was 6. It's a 1st grade program. ....... You might also consider The Writing Road to Reading manual for the Spalding method. Looking back, I wish I would have figured that out and used it all along.

I really like CLE's Learning to Read and my DS liked it too. It was 2nd grade reading that he didn't like. LTR is 1st grade in CLE.

I use print to Onenote and write on it in that program. (ugh, sorry, that is a Windows solution unless you can do it with the OneNote app. I wonder if you can with evernote?

I love what CLE covers for reading in their program. But, my children did not like the readers. They felt the stories were too agricultural. Not all of them really were but they never seemed to have fantastical and adventurous themes either. We are trying Easy Peasy but I'm not set on it either. I think we will just read good books for enjoyment and call it good.

Do you have to use what they say? Maybe purchase it yourself? You can recoup some funds by selling it later. You really need to ask what they have available so you don't choose something else and run into the same problem where they refuse to provide it.

I don't purchase the cycle CD. The online community is very useful and it contains all the content on the CD plus so much more. I use the CC timeline cards weekly for drills and to provide supplemental information to the history sentences. My children need the visual from the card to memorize the timeline with the song. I also have my DS10 use them for keyword outlining and extra paragraph writing practice. I didn't find the VP cards to contain as much information about the event or person as the CC cards contain, so I sold them. You can certainly do CC without them, though.

If you sign up for Essentials, you will need to use the TWSS syllabus and having SWI on hand will still come in handy. The communities are really supposed to be tutoring for IEW to be used at home. Your tutor is supposed to provide an opportunity for the Essentials community to watch the IEW TWSS videos and expect parents to use the syllabus to teach the IEW units at home more thoroughly than can possibly be covered in class once per week. You will not need FLL (it might cause confusion because the definitions are worded differently) to over teach the parts of speech because EEL does that if you scale it properly and maintain your focus on drilling the parts of speech and then add other details to those definitions as your children have shown mastery of the basics. You can do that through having them drill parts of the EEL Trivium Tables or by using the charts that are included with the EEL guide. Your tutor should give you details on that at the parent meeting and throughout the year. It will equip you to teach the material and the EEL guide is very detailed in that matter too. Expect it to take more than 6 weeks to really get a handle on things because they give a huge overview at the beginning and then scale it back after that point with more focus on individual components of parts of speech..... I can't answer about class being on Friday and losing momentum. My community meets on Tuesday and we still lost motivation as the year continued. My son sometimes needed a break and couldn't work in it until Thursday and we managed to get it all in somehow.

In this case Classical Conversations. You have to read the context because it can also mean Common Core.

I would like to add that it might be worth the money to subscribe to CC connected for a couple months. I download songs for science from there. The CC memory work for science is not put to song but some moms have created songsand shared on CCC.

I make binders for each child for copywork, memorization, and review. I organize by Subject and have a removable tab to mark the week we are on. I use the Trivium Table maps and I have tracing paper on hand. I keep that in their binders. Otherwise it is really just the songs and the guide. I also put the songs on their mp3 players. I found that to be really helpful because they listen while they play Minecraft or Legos.

I have a Kenmore Elite HE top loader (no agitator) and love it. No problems in the 6 years we've owned it. It gets our clothes very clean. I have not owned a front loader, but I'm not sure I want one anyway since I've had success with a top loader. If I can say one bad thing about it, it would be that my little people can't do laundry. The barrel is really deep. (I can't turn off the underline 😒).

We just bought a Whirlpool French door. I LOVE the French door style. It is so much easier to see what is in there compared to my side by side. Granted it is about 5 cubic ft. Larger than my last fridge. I can't speak for the wear and tear of a WP at this point. We had to buy a floor model since our fridge was dead so we were limited. But we got a great deal from a local appliance shop. Go for the FD and get the biggest one you can!!! 29 was my minimum.

Maybe a virus? There's a dry cough going around. My mom caught it and needed an inhaler for a few weeks.

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/why-do-copywork-and-dictation/ should explain copywork & dictation.

They restaurant industry has never really pushed the diet craze. Those that are dieting should have enough common sense to not go to Sonic for a milkshake whether it has bacon or not. I tend to avoid the restaurant scene all together for that reason. However, an occasional treat should be okay even if one is regularly watching their calorie intake, right?

You have to buy them tight and wash them when they start to sag. I have one pair that I wash after one wear and another that I get 2 days of wear. The tightness when you purchase them should not be such that you will split them or cut off your circulation. They should squeeze a bit but not unmovable discomfort.

How long ago did you try it? I haven't found this to be true more recently with the Portion Control Plan. An occasional repeat maybe. And they seem to have limited many of the convenience foods. It has been easy enough to alter when there is a food to purchase that doesn't fit how we eat. For example prepared mashed potatoes, really? Expensive and cheaper to make on my own. But I have not seen much of that lately.They have a clean eating plan too and I think some of the portion control recipes come from that.