I highly recommend the Flip Flap Body Book. Everyone in our house from my 3yo up to my 7yo loves this book.

How about Sonlight's Core 5 Eastern Hemisphere? It's recommended for grades 5-8. I haven't gotten there yet, but it looks fascinating.

Okay, so I went to the store tonight and feel obligated to correct my description of the coffee I get at WalMart! It is not a white bag - its a dark purplish color with a scenic picture (I must have been thinking about Starbucks, ahem). It is Sam's Choice brand and the one we like is the Espresso Roast Fair Trade. We don't like the other roasts as well as this one, but it is the darkest roast and we like dark roast! Perhaps I should also add that I like Eight O'clock well enough, but dh doesn't care for it so much. We live in a small town too, so I share your pain about no Costco or Trader Joe's. :( I hope you'll let us know when you do your taste test! This is a fun thread. :)

We have the Melissa and Doug "Fold and Go" wooden dollhouse. (It reminds me of the design of the little people folding house I had as a kid.) We got it for dd when she was about 3 and she has loved it - the boys have played with it also. It was a greater 'starter' dollhouse because of the size and portability. We got a larger one when she was older. BTW our local Christian ps director gushed over ours at our house and we later bought one for the preschool as a gift. It is reportably one of the favorite toys there - and they have lots of good ones. I have also seen the fp loving family one around a lot, and kids always seem to enjoy playing with it. My guess is that they would both be good choices, just different!

I confess that we're serious coffee snobs here and prefer to buy our beans freshly roasted from a local shop. :blushing: However, if we have to buy from a regular store...we like the fair trade beans that WalMart sells as its store brand (could be a Sam's Club label? - it's a white bag), or Eight o'clock's dark roast.

I haven't been consistent yet with having my dd do it this way, but I like to have it titled with the book/poem title and the author's name. I'm curious to see what others do.

I agree that it would be better to wait a year or two on Playmobil. We love their sets, but they do have tons of tiny pieces. My son got a pm zoo for his 4th birthday and enjoyed it, but he has enjoyed it even more as he's gotten older. We now have a pm castle and ds5 (almost 6) enjoys it, as does ds3 - but ds3 is constantly taking it all apart (and needs me to put it back together). Dd7 (almost 8) still plays with pm also. We have a few playmobil 123, but honestly I think they are a bit lame. I would wait until he's older and get the real thing.

My 7yo will be doing Sonlight's Core 1 and Science 1 (for second grade). We did Core K last year and everyone loved it!

YES! Argh! I've been searching for a planner for weeks and have seen this one referenced, but have not been able to access the preview links anywhere - even on their own website. I finally gave up (not gonna buy a planner without seeing a sample) and ordered another one last night. So, this morning I got this same email that it is on sale...but still couldn't access the preview! After reading this thread I tried again and did actually get to look at all 26 pages of it. It looks great! But...I already ordered a different one... :tongue_smilie:

I use a clip-on clothes hanger - like you get when you buy a pair of pants. Clip at the top of the map and hang on the wall by the hanger. It is so easy to take down to look at or mark up, and super easy to flip to the other side.

I think the scientific term you are looking for is "viscosity." Perhaps someone else can give you a more kid-friendly definition, but here is a link for starters. HTH

me too! (except I didn't have one last week...)

Dd started cursive halfway through first grade. She was very eager to learn it and her printing was solid, so I went with it. It was harder than expected so we went very slowly. She'll be starting second grade soon and we'll pick up the pace a bit more then. I doubt ds5 will be ready for cursive in first grade. We'll start it whenever he is ready and interested. So, really my answer is that it depends on the kid. :001_smile:

:iagree: I was also going to say the best advice I have after 2 years is to read and research different educational philosophies in the beginning. If you find a philosophy/approach that you really resonate with that will really help give you direction in your home school. When I read "For the Children's Sake" I was amazed at how much I found myself agreeing with - and discovered that I like to follow a Charlotte Mason method of teaching. That realization has really helped me find curriculum and methods of teaching that 'click' with me.

It sounds to me like the question you need to answer is what "honor your mother and father" means for you and your dh. I agree with the previous posters that you are wise to keep your distance, and I do not think that shows dishonor. I think one could argue that it honors someone more to refuse to enable this kind of behaviour, than it does to go along with it. I would not put myself or my dd in this situation. You don't need to bad-talk them, but you do need to protect your own family. Perhaps your dh can encourage his mother/father to go see someone - from your description, their pastor might be the best bet. Perhaps their pastor would be able to see some warning signs and be trusted enough by fil to get some help from a psychologist or counselor. I would start brainstorming and researching other ways of finding support for mil now, before she is urgently asking for it. Make a list of agencies, ideas, suggestions so that your dh is not her only option. :grouphug: Sorry you are going through this.

A friend's dh teaches middle school at a local ps. My understanding is that it is the policy at their school that he should send her to the nurse with a note of explanation, rather than try to address it himself. (The school also has a liberal dress code.) I also like Laurie's suggestion of the "WMA"!

I agree that it is nothing to worry about. Just keep encouraging activities that work those fine motor skills - even playing with small toys counts (legos, playmobile, etc.) My ds5 (6 in Sept) had me worried about this same area for quite a long time. His fine motor skills were just nowhere near what his sister's were at the same ages. He hated to color or cut or do any craft. If he got a coloring sheet in Sunday School he would take 3 seconds to scribble one crayon across the page and then he was done. :( I was truly worried about teaching him to write this Fall (for his K year). Wonder of wonders, after Christmas he suddenly started writing his letters better and actually developed a love of drawing! I am still shocked! He will spend hours a day drawing or coloring, and then cutting out what he drew. I'm talking detailed drawings here, when only months ago I could barely recognize the object he drew. So, I share this because it has really shown me how much of this is a physical developmental issue that just needs time. Every kid may not take off suddenly like he did, but I can't tell you how amazing his progress has been. Be encouraged! There is hope! :001_smile:

I was going to say the same thing. I bought a pad of paper at Staples last Fall and noticed that there was a different line width for each grade (that said I didn't choose mine by the grade it said - it seemed too wide). I don't know what the 'official' recommendation is!

Sounds like a good plan. Have fun!

I have a little girl who loves twirly skirts, too. ;) Try searching for "circle skirts." These are skirts that are full enough to actually spread out into a circle. If you sew there are some simple free online patterns for this type of skirt. Here's one I found. I've seen a number of tiered skirts lately and those tend to be very full for a nice twirl...I think Hanna Andersson has tiered ones, and also Land's End, perhaps CWD kids. Happy twirling!

I used Version 3 (Spanish - Latin America) with my first grader last school year. We loved it and will be continuing it for second grade! I don't know of a way to set it up to skip just the writing lessons. You can skip lessons as you go through it, but the program will always show that lesson as one that still needs to be completed. You could always give him lots of help on the writing exercise, let him use a list of spelling words, or frankly just do it for him so that the program doesn't keep trying to have him do it. I expected the writing to be more difficult than it turned out to be, so it may not be as bad as you expect either. (You can skip the worksheets altogether.) I think Rosetta Stone's tech support is pretty good, so you might want to contact them directly to see if there is actually a way to set it up the way you want to.

Wow! You ladies are a wealth of information! Thanks so much for your help. This thread has exactly the information I was looking for.

Thanks for all the help explaining the HIGs! That FAQ link was especially helpful. Does anyone here know if the HIGs that SL sells for the US edition are made by SL, or if they are the ones by Singapore? I was under the impression that SL put them together, but that puzzles me since Singapore apparently makes them for the US edition too. (I'm ordering from SL anyway, and I haven't decided if I want to use the US edition or the Standards one.)

I'm a bit confused about the Singapore HIGs...can someone here enlighten me?! I first saw HIGs offered by Sonlight, which I think are made by SL. I also saw some by MFW (which looking at them at a convention seem to be more of just a schedule). I didn't think that Singapore had their own, but then I noticed that Rainbow Resources seemed to have a number of HIGs - not SLs or MFWs... :confused: Who publishes that HIGs that are so good? I'm started Singapore 2A in the Fall (as a supplement to Shiller Math) and wanted to get the HIG to go with it. I was going to get it from SL, but is there another one that's better?

You're very welcome. I'm glad I could pass along something helpful!