Loved our Prius! Had to sell it to move overseas.

To do school today, or not to do school today... that is the question. Starting a new schedule, making it the first day of week 4, so it could really start on Monday. Or I could just start it today. Or tomorrow. It's a good day to do school. I can do it!! Yeah!! Let's do it!!!! (I've got to get myself psyched up sometimes).

This is a good point. I will think more on that. Thank you.

I haven't completely formed my opinion on them yet. Some people love them, some don't. I'm leaning towards the latter. They strike me as more silly and light than conceptual. But I don't know. Maybe making math silly and light occasionally is a good thing. My kids seem to enjoy them.

Thank you EVERYONE for your input, but especially this. This helps. I check their work daily as well and the tests and quizzes seem redundant to me too. I guess if I didn't check daily I would need the quizzes, or if I felt they needed more practice.

Do you have your kids do the quizzes and tests or do you skip them? I was skipping them the last couple of weeks, doing CLE 3Xs a week and LoF 2Xs a week. But I'm thinking of moving to a 4 day week, and I'm not super impressed with LoF. So I was thinking CLE 4Xs a week with the quizzes and tests and dropping LoF. OR I could still do CLE 3Xs a week and a few chapters of LoF 1 day a week. Any thoughts?

Still have Latin to do. We'll get to it eventually. Doesn't take very long. I just ate three handfuls of MnMs, and now I feel sick. Why do I do things like that? I have no self-control. I'm debating whether I should switch from 180 days of school/4 days a week (45 weeks) to squishing those 180 days into 144 days/4 days a week (36 weeks), just doing more on each day. It would be less days teaching, more of a daily workload for the kids, but more time off as well... Decisions, decisions...

Yesterday was a day off. Today went fine. It was long. *I* was dragging my feet,but we got through everything we were supposed to do. This is week 4 and school is going really well, better even than I thought it would with a toddler. I do more teaching than I've ever done in past homeschool years because my kids are growing up. I teach one on one with my 6the grader first, then with my 4th grader. Then I do school with my K and preK at the same time. Then I put the toddler to bed and do family school with my other 5 kids (one subject of either history, science, geography, art, or music). Then Latin with my 6th and 4th graders. Finally I school my 2nd grader. We finish up at about the same time toddler wakes up. It's a full day,but the days are smooth and the kids are challenged and filled. I really like the curriculum we are using.

Or look at Memoria Press's K enrichment book, art cards, and/or craft book.

We go out for donuts on the first day of public school. We also post first day photos on facebook.

My K and Pre-K kids are combined doing the following: Phonogram Workbook in cursive Counting on the abacus Read alouds Phonics Pathways Together as a family: History, geography, science, music, and art.

I've used many Spalding spinoffs and dictation, and my kids spell great, but I suspect they are natural spellers anyway. My current spinoff is Reading Lessons through Literature and dictation comes from English Lessons through Literature.

You could read grammarland.

I would purchase the Norton Anthology of English Literature 1 & 2. Not only would they have the dark poetry, but essays and longer works as well. I took the college courses specifically so I could have those books in my home for my future high schoolers (it was free through my husband's GI Bill). They are excellent, but very expensive.

We discuss Famous Men of Rome, and after that, FMof Middle Ages,as well as Tiner's Planet Earth. Other than that she just reads children's classics that she picks but we don't discuss. Currently, that is The Cabin Faced West.

I was thinking the same thing. My kids really love the notebook journals. The experiments are so simple, we usually already have what we need around the around the house.

WoW! It's so WeIrD that summerhauss and AnthonyPaul joined just a few days ago! It's like they're twins!!! AmAZiNg!! :/

I was going to say cereal until you said healthy. Taco salad is my super fast yummy dinner. I always have the ingredients on hand. Ground beef, two cans of kidney beans, can corn, jar of taco sauce, garlic powder, chili powder, tortillas (or rice), cheese, sour cream, black olives, lettuce, tomato, avocado. Or baked drumsticks. Put them in a pan, salt & pepper them, garlic and italian if you want. Throw in some butter to melt in the pan. Bake 350 for 45 min. SO good. All you need is a starch and vege side.

We read the scriptures out loud every day, each kid reading a verse until we're through the section or chapter. My 2nd grader reads a chapter from McGuffey aloud every day. Poetry teatime is once a week; we take turns reading aloud poetry.

1. Maybe Life of Fred? I'm using it twice a week and CLE 3xs a week. 2.? 3. The Dora and Adam assessments are painless and even fun for kids, and it give a really great breakdown of where you child is at in reading and math. https://www.letsgolearn.com/lglsite/assessments/

I grew up Mormon (and still am) and dancing is definitely NOT a sin :) Church dances were held once a month for the youth and they were SO MUCH FUN!!!

I'm thinking about signing up for ballroom dance lessons. I think it would be so much fun. But my husband won't humor me and do it with me. I keep having dreams that I meet some fun guy to dance with while my grumpy husband is sitting in the corner. Which is awkward, and makes me hesitant to sign up, but in all reality there are probably only seniors that would be there anyway. I go to country line dancing class alone and I'm the only one there under 60. :) Do you go solo?

I have a ds5 who will be 6 in January and his handwriting is lacking too. I've decided, for now, to save RLTL for 1st grade and use the Phonogram Workbook by the same author for K. The Phonogram Workbook is his handwriting practice as well as his phonogram practice. DS5 is very much ready for reading now. He was actually ready last year. I've always taught my children to read early, but I am delaying with my son (4th kid) as an experiment, I guess. Or use RLTL as his handwriting practice now. Can he write one or two words a day? There's no need to rush through the books. That way you kill two birds with one stone. I really like the phonogram workbook for handwriting though, because you practice the same letter over and over, and then practice identifying the sound in words. I'm using RLTL with my 2nd grader this year as her spelling curriculum, along with ELTL 1. We're about 8 weeks in. It's great. I like it and recommend it.

I agree. I could have written this post. Did and am doing the exact same thing.

Either that evening, or if I didn't get to it, I do it during school while I am meeting with them one on one and go over the corrections together. 6th and 4th grade.