I'll be ordering next year's stuff as soon as the tax return hits the bank account. I want to make sure between baby 4's arrival and various things we have going on during the early summer that I have time to get everything planned out before our next year officially starts.

The start of school got delayed a little bit this morning because the older two pulled out some puzzles and started working on them while I was getting stuff ready. It was just too cute to interrupt! :001_wub:

Congratulations Maize! Baby is beautiful! I'm hoping this week goes well. It's been a rough year so far (calendar year, not school year). I like to think that we're pretty hardy when it comes to getting sick but man, at least one person has been sick every single week so far this year. We've had the stomach bug, pink eye, multiple colds... it's getting really old. Right now I've got everyone as quarantined as I can because I really want this cycle of sickness to broken before #4 arrives. I've done the whole newborn with a cold thing once before and it is an experience that I have no desire to repeat. School got done this morning. DS1 was so, so excited as we've typically been our sickest over the weekends so it's been a few weeks since we've managed to get school done on a Monday. It felt really, really good to just start the week off normally. I've also been "making" myself take time to start planning next year - not only because I need to but because I desperately need something to focus on that's not sickness related. I've got a couple of appointments this week - one tomorrow morning (which means no school but the kids will have fun playing with Grandma who is coming over to watch them) and then my home visit with my midwife is Thursday afternoon (won't interfere with school) and I'm excited for that! Part of me can't believe that I'm a month away from a brand new tiny person. Here is to hoping for a healthy, warm, happy, non miserable week for everyone!

DS1 will be 6 in June and we start our new school year in August. Math: Continue with Math Mammoth - 1B and 2A; Singapore Challenging Word Problems 1 Handwriting: Copy work taken from science, history, literature/read alouds, scripture study etc Writing: Mostly doing my own thing WWE style - wanting to integrate it with our science and history Grammar: FLL1 Spelling: Rod & Staff 2 History: SOTW 1 w/ activity book/ supplemental topic books/ occasional fun activity Science: I haven't found anything I love science wise so I'm pulling together my own Biology schedule based off a few encyclopedias, experiments, and episodes of Magic School Bus. We'll see how that goes... Art/Music: I'm liking the looks of Harmony Fine Arts - any opinions? I'll also probably pick up something Lollipop Logic just for fun and he has been hardcore begging to learn Spanish so I'm on the hunt for a fun/ relatively simple Spanish program.

Well, I finally feel like I have my house put back together after DS1 and DS2 spent all of Friday puking, which is nice. I always feel a bit on edge/ unable to be productive if my house is too cluttered. It's not helping that I've hit the nesting stage big time... Down side is I've spent the last couple of days resting/cleaning - rinse and repeat - instead of looking over AAS1 to start with DS1 so that has gotten pushed off to next week. All I'm hoping for is a nice, normal, healthy week. So far, so good... *crosses fingers*

That's the plan. DS3 has been throwing up today though so we'll see. Sticking with the plan for now. DS1 is eager to get back to work.

I'd have said something along the lines of "Well I'm going to be completely selfish and ask you to leave because x, y, z." But I'm not afraid of being rude and/or alienating people, so... This is one of my biggest pet peeves. If you're sick, if your family is sick then STAY HOME. PERIOD. Don't share. You wanting to have a good time/ be at a specific place at a specific time is not reason enough to get others sick. Mutter. I hope neither your or your daughter get sick and that everything goes well with her surgery!

:party: Woohoo! That's such an exciting feeling for both of you!

I have all littles at this point but we are a very routine/schedule orientated family. DH gets up, feeds the cats, and leaves for work by 5:15. Kids (usually DS1 but sometimes DS2) get me up around 7. They get to snuggle on the couch and watch an episode of a show while I wake up. My oldest is a morning person like is dad... the rest of us are not. DS3 will wake up anytime between 7 and 8, usually around 7:30. Around 7:30 we make and eat breakfast. 8 to 9 is get dressed and do chores. We aim to start school at 9am but realistically that only happens about 50% of the time. Usually it's a little closer to 9:30. Seatwork (reading/phonics, handwriting, and math) take us about 30 to 45 minutes to do with DS1. DS2 likes to play around on starfall for at least a portion of this time (DS3 is usually playing nearby or likes to sit with his brother and play along on the computer). By 10 we're usually done with school so, pending weather, they all go outside or do some sort of "contained" activity (like playdough or painting) while I do some more chores/putter about. I usually read to them during this time too. Lunch is between 11:30 and Noon. Then clean up. They usually get to watch another episode of something or part of a movie to initiate "calm down mode". Pending on how everyone is doing they go down for mandatory rest time between 12:30 and 1. They are required to stay in rest time until 3. DS1 usually draws, reads, plays with legos, and/or plays on the kindle. DS2 naps 50% of the time, the rest of the time he plays quietly in his room. DS3 naps - and is usually down until 3:30 or 4. After rest time I prefer if they go outside and run off energy but the weather is nasty then we usually play games, draw pictures, read etc inside. DH gets home between 4 and 4:30 so then they play with Daddy while I make dinner, which we usually have around 5:30. Cleanup to follow. Bedtime stories and baths start at 6:45 and everyone gets tucked into bed around 7:30 pm. On Wednesdays we do our weekly shopping in the morning so instead of school we absolutely must be out of the house and on our way by 9 so that we have time to get it all done before the lunchtime. We listen to audiobooks in the car (currently The Magician's Nephew) and get about 40-45 minutes of that in, pending traffic. The rest of the day is virtually the same.

We have it at least once but usually twice a week. I can't handle having it much more frequently than that. I love chicken, I really do, I just get tired of it very quickly. I think this is due to the fact that chicken breast was/is my mom's favorite meat and so I had it very frequently growing up. My husband will eat just about anything but my kids tend to prefer pork or beef. FWIW, ground beef runs between $2.99-3.28/lb, boneless chicken (both white and dark) runs $1.99-2.49/lb, bone-in dark meat/whole chickens are currently $1.29/lb, and pork (not bacon or sausage) runs $2.68-$3.68/lb. Technically chicken is the cheapest but when I make chicken I tend to have to make more of it because for whatever reason it doesn't stretch as far - I need what I make to be dinner for that night and lunch for DH. Largely because we seem to prefer chicken dishes in which the chicken is a "stand alone" (with a few exceptions like Chicken Pot Pie) but prefer ground beef in casserole or secondary scenarios. We all seem to find pork to be more filling so we don't use quite as much per meal so in the end it all balances out.

It's really easy! When you go to add a link just highlight the word(s) you want to embed the link in and then click the "link" button. Copy/paste or type the web address in and click ok. That's it!

I pronounce them with the T sound. I know a handful of people that pronounce them with the "D" sound, but not many.

A brief recap of our first month. We've settled into our groove and everything is going well. Right now my main goal is to try and nail down a start time of 9am - we're currently starting anywhere between 9 and 10:30 and while DS1 doesn't mind the discrepancy I always feel both rushed and lazy when we start later.

My oldest will officially be starting Kindergarten in a few weeks and we'll be continuing our current schedule Reading/phonics: 10-20 minutes (depends on the lesson, level of goofiness etc) 4-5x/week Math: 5-15 minutes (I usually aim for 3 pages - if he's on a roll and wants to do more I let him. If he's having a hard time we do less) 4x/week Handwriting: 5 minutes 4x/week Spelling: I'm not sure but I'm thinking 5-10 minutes 3x/week? I'm adding in science for him this year as well, by his request. I'm not sure how much time this will end up taking but as it is mostly experiments and nature walks it will all blend into fun anyway. I also try to read out loud for at least 30 minutes during the day and am going to start requiring that he read to me outside of formal "school time". I've got a list of books that I want to make sure and get around to this year but that's as formal as we're getting with literature this year, lol. Art and music creation/appreciation just integrate into our normal day at this point.

Nothing exciting, but we're up.

I had the same question and went with Essentials. I've been very happy with my decision and DS has really enjoyed it so definitely no complaints. The big difference, IMHO, is that Earlybird seems more geared to "classroom" type activities and Essentials is more... simplified.

We are (for preK) currently working through Singapore Essentials and I have been very pleased with it. My DS also enjoys it. We are likely going on to MM1 and/or MEP 1 after we are finished.

We have days like that, except at our house it is Cars or Monsters Inc.

Here is ours. We need spring to start arriving or DS2 might just revolt and run away...

After having a really good month overall we had an off week... everyone was just a little frayed by this morning. Still we had a decent week.

We're up. DH has next week off so I don't know how much actual school will happen...

DS1 will be 5 in June and we'll start official K in August. Reading: Continue working through OPGTR, BOB books and various other readers Math: Finish up Singapore Essentials B (if we don't finish it before then) then moving on to Math Mammoth 1. Probably some of MEP 1 too. This kid really loves doing math. Handwriting: HWOT K + some copy work Spelling: AAS 1 Science: Elemental Science Exploring Science Literature: Putting together my own thing

We had a pretty good week!

No school got done here but I wrote a post anyway. The short version: everyone got sick.

We're back after taking a break, more or less, since October.