I'm totally a DIY person when it comes to our travels. But I've planned a crazy amount of trips for our family. Unknowns do not scare me, but I can see how they might. The internet is just loaded with travel information so it's not hard at all to plan on your own. It's just a ton of work. I just so happen to love (no, obsess over) planning our travels.

I do like the Super Bowl just as an excuse to make some snacks. LOL If the Steelers are in the SB, I watch it and actually care. Otherwise, it's all about the snacks. But my PASSION is college hoops. I am a huge college basketball fan. Specifically, a Villanova Wildcats fan and a Pittsburgh Panthers fan. After then, I'll cheer for anyone in the Big East. After that, I cheer for any team playing an ACC team. After that I cheer for any team playing UNC or Duke. After that I cheer for UNC (to beat Duke). I won't cheer for Duke. :D When we lived overseas in Germany I was known to stay up all hours of the night to catch my team on ESPN due to the time difference. I can get a bit crazy about college hoops.

Not anymore, but we used to live near Stuttgart and I miss it so much. We'll be back in Europe before we know it though. :)

Little House in the Big Woods for my two boys, 5 and 7. It's a hit! On deck: The 7 Professors of the Far North The Society of Super Secret Heroes

Yes, we are already doing the fast draft in black, but I seem to use my printer so much. My DH has wanted a laser printer for years. Maybe this will be his chance to get one.

We are just getting started and I find myself printing so much out on our printer and I fear I am eating through ink. Does anyone have a really good resource for affordable refills?

Wondering the same things. :)

Primary Phonics This is from the same publisher (EPS) as Explode the Code. There are sets of story books with corresponding workbooks and I am finding that these story bools create amazing reading confidence. I find them to be MUCH better than the Bob Book series that many people start out with with their little ones. I am currently using both Primary Phonics books and their workbooks with ETC. My boys love both!

1) My kids were previously in a Montessori school (5 year old in a Primary program and 7 year old did half of 1st and half of 2nd grade) and I was VERY impressed with the way they learned math. My 5 year old was touching on the basics of division using a division board - all manipulative. I really saw the benefits of the multiplication and division boards with my 7 year old. I have a place where you can get them for $10 each. I think they are pretty self explanatory or you can find tutorials online that explain how to use them. I know how to use them because my 5 year old showed me how it worked. :D This is what the division board looks like: Multiplication board: 2) My older son did math facts in his Montessori school for just a few minutes at the beginning of the day. At first they did them on paper, but right before we left, they had switched over to a computer based program called Math Facts in a Flash. The children could sit down at the computer when they wanted to (common in a Montessori classroom) daily and do their daily Math Facts on their own. They really loved it! I'm waiting on one right now (DS's old school is mailing us one). Perhaps combining the manipulative multiplication/division board with the Math Facts CD program (or something similar), it will click. HTH

My 2nd grade son is exactly the same. I'm constantly trying to come up with a positive way to encourage him to write, but he believes that he "can't" write. :( He can though! I've caught him doing it. His handwriting is beautiful (he writes in cursive) and he is very creative. He is weak in spelling, however, and I think that is the part that intimidates him. I've told him that it's okay to misspell a word and that we can figure out how to correctly spell the word after he gets it down on paper, but not getting it right the first time stresses him out. One of the few ways I can get him to write is through letter writing. He will not write much, but it's better than nothing. My boys get a kick out of sealing up their letters, putting a stamp on the envelope and running down our driveway to the mailbox to put the flag up. Perhaps our boys could be "penpals" and could write to each other? Thanks to the poster who suggested Games for Writing. My library has it and I just put it on reserve to pick up next week. I want writing to be fun for my son. Let me know if you have any successes.

I'm going to check it out.

Where are you stationed? Which branch of service are you or DH in? We are an Army family of 5. My husband is in the Army and is currently attending graduate school at Yale University as part of the FAO (Foreign Area Officer) training sequence. We just moved here from Monterey, CA and we will be here for 18 months (departing May '09) with a follow on assignment to Vienna, Austria. Edited to add: Some of you mentioned how long you're DH's have been in. My DH will have been in 10 this May and has 10 to go. We're hoping to spend a good bit of time overseas over the next 10 years. :)

Awww! This is such a sweet story. I hope your great great grandchildren still use that little red stool - and know the story behind it too.

Sadly, none of your choices work out for me. :(

We just relocated to the Shoreline area of Connecticut and we also just started homeschooling. :D I immediately realized that the library is going to be our best friend in this venture. Needless to say, It's been 3 weeks since we started and we've been the library a half dozen times already. My town library is under renovation and they are in a very small, temporary building, but the brand new one will open up this summer. In the meantime, I've been going to the library one town over and I LOVE their children's section. The librarian in there is so kind and nice and today we had a wonderful conversation about homeschooling. She was so supportive and offered to run programs or classes about how to use the library if we needed it. I've had a ton of butterflies with getting started here and she made me feel so confident and proud today. So I can say that I LOVE my local library. I also love that I can go online and search the card catalog of almost 20 libraries and request the books I need to be delivered to my local library. I loaded up my list and now all I have to do is go pick them up! Share your library love!

Following this thread. I have 2 boys, exactly the same ages of your boys (7 and 5) and we just got started HS'ing this month.

Thanks for weighing in everyone. I see what some of you are saying about it being more science than history. I talked to my Historian husband (that's his thing) tonight and he said the same thing - it's more science/archaeology/geology/biology/etc than it is history. Anyway, just wanted to know if there were some covering that time period and how. I love hearing about how everyone implements different lessons. It's why I love this forum.

I understand that. The majority here seem to start with the later time period. Are there many here doing prehistory?

Is anyone here learning pre-history at home? I suppose the enthusiasm for prehistory depends on personal views on evolution, but I'm surprised that SOTW and TWM recommends starting history at only 5000 BC. For us, cosmic education is important and we are going back all the way to learn about the Universe and how it was formed and everything that leads up to early life and early humans. There is so much physical and natural science to explore by studying prehistory, so I want to do a good job providing information and materials on this time period. Is anyone here studying prehistory at home? What exciting resources have you found? How about engaging projects? Books? Experiments? I'd love to know how others are presenting the beginning of time and prehistory.

SchilerMath and Montessori lessons that I am familiar with.

I'm just curious what the going rates are for instrumental music lessons around the country. Private? Semiprivate? Group?

That looks so cool! And I forgot about Ikea and their big paper rolls. That will be perfect!

Up for a trip to Europe? I'm not sure if that's possible, but if you want to see Medieval . . . ;) If so, I'd go to the Kaltenburger Ritterturnier in Germany (Bavaria, not too far from Munich). It's held every Summer and is simply amazing. It's "supposedly" the biggest Medieval tournament in the world. http://www.ritterturnier.de/ In English: Kaltenburger Knight's Tournament We took the kids in July 2006 and they were mesmerized. Mine were a bit young, but we hope to go again someday!! And there is always a side trip to Rothenburg ob der Tauber: http://www.romanticroad.com/rothenburg/sights.htm Or Dinkelsbühl, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinkelsbühl

My boys seem to learn Science, History and even some math with the use of timelines and charts. My older son got this from a Montessori start and I find that he retains information and understands it better when it's presented in chart form. He LOVES to copy charts and make his own after he's had a lesson. Our favorite charts to study and use alongside our reading studies are timeline charts. Do you guys have any favorite charts that have helped you with your history and science studies (to include music history, art history, history of innovation, etc.)? What are your resources? Do you make your own charts in your homeschool? Most importantly, does anyone have a great, inexpensive resource for big rolls of paper? That seems to be critical component for making our own charts.