Yes I do dishes all the time, and it still seems like every meal I have to wash something! Having multi use areas is hard, when you are used to more space. There is no privacy, no space to be by yourself. When your living room is your dining room and your kitchen, and your school area, and the kids play area, and your husbands bedroom, and the tv room. Ugh can you tell aim ready to move out? I do love the money savings though! Whatever you think you can fit in, divide that by half. The less stuff you have the better. It's hard too to decide.....what about family pictures? The old ones, where you have the only copy? What about books? How many will you take, what about a printer? Sorry I sound negative, but there was lots I didn't think of.

To be quite honest, I find it bothersome. It really is hard to find appropriate books, It would be nice not to have to preread every book he picks up at the library. I spend an enormous amount of time researching books, which is why I am looking now, for books I won't use until next spring. If I have a never ending list of approved books, I can type them in and reserve them at the library. I have decided not to read to my one year old at all in the hopes that we get to do fun stuff for school later... ( ok not really, but I wish, she is more book loving then he was at this age!) ( I would like to add a smiley here, but for some reason the iPad refuses to let me and I am too tired to find out the problem!). Thank you for helping me think this through, I showed him the amazon page for moby dick and he was very excited!

Ds has already read all four books on his own, so we are ok there, I will pre read huck Finn, but I know he has read part of it, so I think it would be ok for a read aloud. He will pick up pretty much anything and read it, even the local paper. For free reading today he picked up a middle school earth science text I was using for myself. We won't be starting this until late spring so he will be almost 8. I need to have it planned out though as we will be reopening our foster home, and things will get too busy for planning.... He reads 6 to 8 chapter books a month, and is almost finished with the narnia series. So I need books that will take at least 3-5 days to read. It's hard to keep him in good appropriate reading material. Thanks for the list I think we have some of the titles already, which is always good!

We are full-time, but we don't travel. We enjoy the savings in rent/mortgage especially since dh was/is furloughed. It's tight, and can be frustrating, it seems like I can never keep it clean!

Hi all, I am looking for fiction books to go along with the geography holling c holling books : Minnesota of the Mississippi, seabird, paddle to the sea and the tree one. I already know we will do huckleberry Finn with Minn, but am looking for others, all reading levels We Will be doing iews geography, with the beautiful books guide. I need some ideas for good books for read alouds and for him to read. Thanks!

Day one: managed some school with a hovering dh, looked at unemployment stuff wow that won't really help....how will we pay our ins premiums if this lasts? Uggg. Very worried....

My ds has just started doingnthis, I know Lego has a free app made for this, I don't know if it's android though. Ds is having fun with it. Have fun!

when i login to download my activity guide, there is no place to download it, and if i go through the email link it says the page no longer exists. in addition when i tried to do the contact us page it dosent give me any fields to type in. Help! i need the blackline map for todays lesson!

When I started having to run for the bathroom within 20 minutes of consuming it.

Ds cannot spell for anything. We have used AAS 1-2, and then moved to sequential spelling, we did day 6 today, he misspelled every single word. Every single one. I don't know what to do. We have tried more traditional spelling programs, with a list of words. It didn't work either. He is an excellent reader, just finished Harry potter and the goblet of fire. Please help!

I think you might be over thinking it, unless you don't plan on taking the baby out anywhere ever, they will be exposed to all sorts of things going to the doctor, being born in the hospital, going to the bank or grocery store. I would ask them not to bring kids who are actually sick, and have them wash their hands. Good luck!

Through Lego education you can get sets of just minifigs, I think they are 50 to a box. Also you can get children in the newer kind as well, they have shorter legs!

We do sort by color, and then regular brick from specials. We use 4 of those plastic carts with drawers, on top of the cabinets is a eice of plywood for a building top. We also have 2 larger 8 drawer cabinets on the sides. Then the robotic sets are in their own travel bag.........then the duplos have their own storage cabinet. We have about 25,000 legos and about 1200 duplos. We think it makes it easier to find pieces to build when they are sorted! Dh and I will resort them every three months or so to help maintain order!

Awhile back someone posted a large( about 13pages I think) book list of science titles listed by branch of science, I have searched and can't find it, anyone know what I am talking about? Have a link maybe? Thanks!

For me, I just keep reading here, I find posters with ideas that I would like to be like, and ideas that resonate with me, then I search for more of there posts. I read books they recommend, and value the reviews they give especially in history. I spend more time educating myself then my son right now. I too feel it's so important to know what I missed so I can now what I need to teach my son. It is hard, and keeps me very busy, but I believe it's worth it.

Do you have one of the guides to look at? I am using MP 2nd grade next year with my young 2nd grader, however he is easily reading at all the books reading level. If he was not easily reading at this level I would have chosen ST/MST. I would also look at your goal for the guides. My goal is teaching DS to read carefully, and to look at more then just the story. He has also already read 3 of the books on his own, and all of the books have been used as read alouds. So he is familiar with the stories.

when my ds was a baby/toddler we went to a great music class that he just loved! I have been using the songs that I remember with DD, but I only remember a few. I would like to try and recreate this for her. Does anyone have a good resource for this? I would love if it had a cd or DVD to help me along. I want it to have finger plays, rhythm songs, bounces and games. Oh and while I could afford. Music class the closest is 75 mins away. I really hate living in the middle of nowhere! Thanks!

Ds loved the maritime museum, lots of ships to explore, a couple are like pirate ships. It's near the midway ship. We had a great time there.

We live in about 288 sq feet in a fifth wheel now, i love it, it would be easier without the kids, but we love the savings....Minimlist dudes space is cool and all, but not very homey...

You guys are making me so sad! I just want to go home already!! I hate the desert! I don't think I saw mention of the conservatory? Are the butterflies open yet? Oh the butterflies. I want to see the butterflies.... Boo hoo

We will be furloughed as well. In 2009 we joined the federal govt after we lost everything. While this sucks, I can say that it will teach you how to live on so much less. After 2009 we worried about it happening again, and we forced ourselves to live well below our means, even when everyone said we didn't have to worry about it now that we were with the govt. It's paying off now. Most of our family is with the govt as well, our extended families will face major cuts as well. I hope they work it out soon, but I no longer count on anything but ourselves.

Which ones are you looking for? I found several on th level 3 section. Did you try using the search function with the book title?

Thank you so much, this has really helped me define so much more about next year. I had my topics finalized, but was struggling with goals and output requirments. This discussion has been so very helpful in finalizing my plans! I have printed out your posts, Lewlma and put them in my planning binder. Thanks again!

Looking ahead to next year I think DS is ready for more writing, we are halfway through WWE 2, and there is no challenge at all. DS reads well, can copy 30 plus words at at a time, and can easily do the same in dictation, he writes well on regular lined paper, he spells pretty good. I like the look of CW, and it would be more integrated with all LA included. He has used IEW PAL, and can do a KWO and rewrite for 10 sentence paragraph. I don't know if he could do the later units yet in IEW, we currently compact WWE 2 into 2days, and then do an IEW style paragraph on the other three days. I have the TWSS. As you can see we have bounced around a bit with writing and I would like to settle in with on curriculum for the long haul. I could also drag out both by alternating them one each week using CW one week and IEW the next week. What would be the best option? I feel like I have researched this to death and I still don't know which to choose. Someone else choose for me! help!

Ds got a kindle fire for Christmas, and I got a kindle paper white. Ds loves his, and I haven't had any problems with him ,aging games or apps vs. Reading. They have a freetime app it's 2.99 a month if you have prime, and has all sorts of books for free on it. And not just silly ones either, he has read the first five ivy and bean books for free this week. So for us it's been worth it. We also are desperate to save space as we live in an rv, we only have so much space for books! Also I love my paperwhite, I can finally read in bed while nursing the baby!