We're going to take her younger brother to preschool and then go have breakfast in a café. After that, we'll go to a park or library for her official first day of school, bringing our work with us. We're also going to have a schultüte and do a first day of school photo.

Thanks for the reality check. I'll read her the book, unless she changes her mind about it tomorrow. :)

The way my husband and I do it is that we each have our own iTunes accounts. However, we synchronize all of our devices with the same user account on the Macintosh. The advantage of this method over using separate user accounts on the computer is that any media or applications either one of us buys are available to be synchronized all of our family's iPods/iPhones. We've also ripped our entire library of CD's onto the computer, and it's available to all of our devices without needing to make a disk-space-wasting copy into a separate user account. We avoid having our personal address books synchronized to everyone's devices by turning address book synchronization off on the computer, and synchronizing our address books with Google over the air instead. The only disadvantage of this method is that when applications need to be updated, whoever bought or downloaded the application needs to log their iTunes account into the shared iTunes on the computer to download the updates. Or it might be OK if we each update them on our iPhones and then synchronize with the computer, I haven't done extensive testing to find out.

OK, I'm kind of a free spirit. I mean, I don't have any problem with all kinds of things many people on these boards would find extremely objectionable. However, I think that's totally inappropriate.

I went to the library today with my 5-year-old so we could pick out a book for her to read herself. I suggested a book I thought she would particularly enjoy (The Bravest Dog Ever), and she thought it sounded great, so we checked it out. Note that it isn't unusual for us to go to the library for this purpose, nor is it unusual for her to pick a book based on my suggestion. Later, she decided she'd rather have me read this particular book out loud to her, because it sounds so wonderful that she wants to hear it fast, the way I would read it, rather than slow, the way she would read it. So what's the problem? The problem is that I really want her to read this particular book for herself. I don't care if she reads it now or a year from now, but I don't want to read it to her. I am, of course, perfectly happy to read lots of other books out loud to her. Have you ever been in this situation? Am I just being ridiculous? This is the first time she's ever decided she'd rather have me read a book that she specifically intended to read for herself. It's also the first time I have ever felt that there was a book I really wanted her to read for herself. Of course!

I bought last time through the co-op, and there isn't anything missing that I can see. If at least as many people sign up to buy it as are needed for the discount you select as your minimum discount, you are committed to buy once it reaches that level. But if you choose a level higher than the maximum discount, you still get the lower price if enough people sign up to bring the price down to that level. Last time it easily reached the cheapest level. To give an example: let's say the discounts are: 25 people- 20% 50 people- 30% 100 people- 40% If you commit to buy at the 30% level, but only 40 people sign up for the group buy, nothing happens. You don't get the product and don't pay. If 125 people sign up, you get the 40% discount even though you said you'd be willing to buy at only 30% off.

I think this depends very much on the child. I was always interested in the "whys" as a child, and thrived on the "new math" supplementary activities we sometimes had in school.

I should think that right now, $450,000 in my neighborhood would get you a moderately sized, two-story 3-4 bedroom house with 2 baths, built about 75 years ago, on a small lot. Good public services - police, library, school district, parks, etc.

The actual document seems to be here: http://www.helena.k12.mt.us/images/documents/curriculum/HealthCurriculum/K12FinalHealth.pdf Parents around here have told me of their first graders hearing fifth graders talking in the bathroom about having sex.

My daughter read her first BOB book toward the end of August a year ago. It was a pretty neat experience! Last night, she read the third-from-last one in the last box. I wonder if she'll read the last two before the end of August, making it a year for the whole series...

I think part of my affection for tile comes from the positive memories I have of my grandmother's house. Her entire house has dark tile floors with dark grout. It never looked dirty, and she didn't spend a lot of time cleaning it, either. That house is over 40 years old now, and the tile still looks as good as new. She did have area rugs in every room except the kitchen. She was always getting on my case about not wearing slippers; she couldn't believe my feet didn't get cold walking down the tile hallways. I've always had hot feet, so I thought the coolness of the tile was a plus. I suspect that the climate you live in has something to do with whether tile is a good choice -- I doubt I would choose tile for the main living areas in a place where keeping warm in the winter was more of an issue than keeping cool in the summer. It also seems to me that large areas of tile make much more sense in a building with concrete floors than it does in a building with wood joists. (Sorry about the weird mixed tenses in this post -- my grandmother passed away in 1988, but my aunt still lives in the house.)

Of course it will be OK. It is not possible for our children to learn everything there is to know while they are in school. They have their whole lives for that. So it depends on your priorities. It sounds like, based on your thoughts on using Sonlight Core 6 & 7, that world history is more important to you than Eastern Hemisphere cultures and civilizations (Sonlight Core 5). That's totally OK!

Glad you are feeling somewhat better! Mastitis totally knocked me out the first time I had it, I spent two days in bed. I had it three times total, and luckily never needed antibiotics. Following my doctor's advice, I waited 24 hours to see if the fever broke on its own, and since it did, I didn't need the medication.

Personally, I prefer tile in a house where it's appropriate, but it does require area rugs. But I like laminate just fine, too. Anything but carpeting!

I have no interest in that type of planning at this point. I suppose it might be possible some future year, but neither really seems like my style.

I had no idea so many public school districts started so early. When I was growing up, we always started around the first of September, and it's the same here, so I thought everyone did it that way in this country.

The private school (pk-12) where my son goes to preschool starts on August 23, but the public schools start on August 30.

Staples has those for $2 in this week's ad -- the one that ends today. I bought them earlier in the week, but I don't think it was just through Wednesday. Never mind, I found the flyer -- it was just through Wednesday. :(

It's certainly far more than you need to spend. I've spent more than that for this coming year (call it a mixture of K and 1), but that's because I wanted to, not because I felt I needed to. Here are my approximate costs: Handwriting: $17 Reading/Phonics: $30 Math: $75 Geography/Social Studies (we're not doing history this year): $50, will probably spend another $25 Science: $550 German: $100 PE: $500 Health: $25 (a science kit about germs) Art: $50 Music: $0 So that's a total of almost $1500, but much of it was entirely optional. For example, in the "Science" category, we decided to do Lego robotics, which is super-expensive, and caused us to decide to buy a netbook computer as well. AND I bought a much more expensive rocks and minerals kit than was at all necessary. If I'd had a more limited budget, I would have done science for free. The PE category is a swimming pool membership for the whole family, because we wouldn't have bought it if we weren't homeschooling. But if I had a more limited budget, I wouldn't do this! Even if I'd been doing History this year, I wouldn't have spent more than $100 on books and curriculum for it. We make extensive use of the library, used book sales, etc. It seems to me that the biggest expense in your budget is an expensive curriculum for history/literature. You might find it helpful to look at the suggestions in The Well-Trained Mind for that -- their suggestions are much less costly.

I'm going to repeat what others have said, since I think in this case, repetition is helpful to see what's popular among multiple children. My 5-year-old likes: Set Gobblet Jr. Dwarves and Dice Go Fish Blokus Sequence for Kids TransAmerica (you do have to be able to read the city names, or at least match the ones on your cards to the cities on the board) Uno

Ours is Streetname Academy. I came up with it when I needed a school name for some kind of form. It's not inspired, but it's fine. I don't think it will ever be embarrassing, which was one of my major criteria.

That's so funny- I actually love the tone of their list, it makes me more inclined to buy their products. I don't because I'm a secular homeschooler and don't want to spend my time wading through a Christian program to remove religious content.

One thing I've done with parts of MEP that were covering math facts my daughter already had solidly down was to isolate just the problems that were about other things, like the word problems, puzzles, and inequalities. Then I used them at other times. The other day, for example, we buzzed through a bunch of MEP word problems in the car, as I had loaded the lesson plans onto my iPhone just in case (I was not driving).

It seems to me the key is to take advantage of what's special about the place where you live, and not worry too much about what you might be missing. You can always make a big trip sometime to a major city with lots of museums and things. Where I live, what's special is all the great free museums, the historical sites, and the federal government facilities. So that's where we go on our field trips! What's special about where you live? What opportunities do you have that you wouldn't have if you lived elsewhere?

I'm not sure we will finish. We're somewhere between lesson 110-120, and my daughter vastly prefers to read real books at this point. I'm up in the air about whether to insist on finishing it or not, as I'm not sure it's actually providing much benefit at this point. It definitely was beneficial earlier on, though. My daughter is 5.75.