We're up there too for the fall. I'm adding my K'er to the mix of what will be next year 2nd grade and 5th grade. I switched over to TOG so have those initial costs. I do use the library a lot though to keep the cost of the actual books down. Plus, I don't have the storage space to store all the books TOG uses. I use a charter too. I get $700 per kid per year. It is not as great as it sounds. I too buy some Christian items, which can't be purchased through the school. A lot of theirs are barcoded too, so I have to return the materials at the end of the year. I do that for some, but others my kids want to keep so I need to fork over the cash for those myself. My charter will cover a zoo pass per kid and such, so I often use my dollars that way. The kids next year are considering each taking some classes at the charter, which will wipe out 75% of the money to pay for those classes, even though it is only one day a week. If the scheduling works out, I'll do that though, especially for Spanish as I'm not a native speaker and the teacher there is a native speaker.

I remember it. It was my oldest's pre-K year (he is 4th grade now). We used Sonlight, but it was before it was P3/4 and P4/5. I stretched the pre-K core over a couple years, adding in different things the second year. Those are some great memories. :) It seems to chaotic now with 4 kids. Not bad, just different and busier. It was so peaceful back then yet I recall feeling busy at the time. :lol:

I had not heard of Quizlet either. Thank you! :)

Artistic Pursuits gets done regularly, but only because we got a kit with the supplies. If I had to round up the supplies for it all, it wouldn't have gotten done at all. My 6yo also does Draw Write Now. He works through one or two drawings a week and loves it. Drawing/art is really his thing, so I have to make a very conscious effort that it does get scheduled and done.

I let the DC do them, cutting errors, huge print, chopped off parts and all. Some are glued in upside down or sideways. I help if they are frustrated and want help. Otherwise, it is their thing, and I grit my teeth at the billion scraps to vacuum up and paste everywhere. I have seen some remarkable progress in their cutting and printing skills over the last year of lapbooks. BUT, if your child wants you to do it, then help. Mine are not the types to really look at it a lot afterwards. They keep it a month or two and then recycle it. Their fun is in the doing, not the looking at it later. If I did it, their fun part would be gone. Yours might be totally the opposite!

This is our first year full on with TOG (having tried before but only using parts). It is going well into our 11th week now. I have slowly implemented most of the pieces (mapping, writing, etc), but I'm still not really using the vocabulary words each week and would like to. My question is how you are doing it in your school? Are you having your DC write them out, just do orally, something else? Testing on them? Keeping a running list in a binder? Just looking for ideas. My TOG students are one D level (9yo, advanced learner) and one LG (6yo, average to slow student) if it makes a difference in how you do things. My D level probably already knows a lot of them, but is young enough despite being well read that he may not know a few of them, and sometimes he knows the words from his reading but cannot pronounce them correctly as he has not heard them spoken before.

I have used whole orange, but I need to add more water to thin it a bit, and it doesn't have the tangy bite I like in mine (I add probably 1-1/2 cups of juice in our big carafe). My DH likes it mellower so likes the whole orange with pulp better. Experiment. :)

I have one. I have had it for a year and a half. I wear it regularly for a while, then forget for a while, etc. I love it though, very motivational for me.

Don't give up before trying the green smoothie. Those are delicious. Well, except the time I tried to use turnip greens in there. Blech. I use kale, swiss chard, spinach, etc., in there just fine. Even the kids will eat it. I do mine with greens, strawberries, a banana, blueberries or blackberries and OJ. The blueberries or blackberries turn it from greenish brown to a nice purple, thus making it edible for the kids. ;)

I did core D with a 3rd grader, and he loved that core. It was one of our absolute favorites.

Hiking Bicycling Long walks Frisbee Golf

We are using WWW 4; however, we just started it a few weeks ago, so I was hesitant to chime in since we don't have as much experience with it. Since you asked about 4 and above though ... I think it is excellent for a struggling writer. We used FLL4/WWE4 prior to it (through weeks 30 I believe in each). That my DS (9yo, 4th grade) hated. Detested, and did not learn anything pretty much this year. Prior levels he did okay in. He is ADHD, and struggles to focus his thoughts enough to write, and was recently diagnosed with dysgraphia. WWW 4 is just what he needs, fed to him simply in clear explicit language, and takes him through the steps of creating a paragraph. WWW4 starts with paragraphs, writing topic sentences, detail sentences and then an ending sentence. The wider line space with dashed middle lines even at level 4 helps my son with dysgraphia keep neat and tidy writing. I don't know that we will use it alone next year, but it is perfect for us right now. We use it with R&S 4 grammar (our replacement for FLL4), but I do assign some of the R&S 4 writing assignments and an occasional TOG writing assignment to see if he can transfer his skills. So far, so good.

Daily 90% of the time, every other day occasionally if I get a little behind. I have one who doesn't need as close of checking, and one who absolutely must have every single thing checked or he will cheat.

Singapore Math Earlybird LLATL Blue (started just this week, will finish in the first part of K) ETC 1 and maybe 2 after the above HWOT Lots of books from Singapore P3/4 and P4/5 from when the olders were in K Joining in on TOG with her brothers when she wants to Developing the Early Learner workbooks

They do vary some. In general, you buy a "share" in the harvest for a season. So if 500 people buy a share, they plant for that many and you get a box of produce each week divided among you all. If the plants do poorly or are wiped out, you get less. If it is a great season, you get more. You often pay upfront, but not always. The farmer has the money to plant, and shares the harvest with all investors. You get great local produce and support local agriculture. We did it here, but it varied from the above model as the farmer also sold to stores. We got a produce box each week, paid quarterly. We didn't get to pick the contents at all, but some CSAs allow more customized things.

You didn't mention location. Blueberries grow great here. I'm just a few miles from the coast, soil is acidic, and the breezes carry a touch of salt. I even grow in pots easily. I get several pints a year from 4 very small bushes. I can't grow raspberries at all. I just can't get them going for some reason, so if you asked me I'd say raspberries are harder! Asparagus I haven't tried at all. Plant and grow what you eat though, and what is suited to your climate. I will say squash gives tons of food/calories for the effort put into it in most climates. One pumpkin vine gave me several hundred pounds of pumpkins last year (culinary ones). I have a freezer full of puree. And those I grew on 1/5 acre city lot. It took over the yard temporarily but was worth it. Same idea with summer squashes, boatloads of food for minimal effort IMHO.

$500/mo here, $448 Seattle

Ours in California: Estimated median house/condo value in 2010: $511,164 Median household income: $66,494 Yeah, it's hard here. My DH was born here, and all his family is here. We are super lucky to have purchased our house in 1999 or we would be out of luck today for single income to live on. I can't imagine how families do it today.

Not unless they inherited their house or otherwise didn't have to pay rent.

Hakim's History of US have workbooks available to go with them. Each chapter has questions and a writing assignment based on the chapter in the textbook. Not exactly 4-year rotation but you can match them up. The Story of the USA workbooks are more self-contained. SL uses these. http://www.amazon.com/Story-U-S-A-Student-Explorers-Settlers/dp/0838816312/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334078108&sr=8-1 Children's History of the World by Calvert by a student workbook to go along with the textbook: http://homeschool.calvertschool.org/why-calvert/homeschool-enrichments/history-courses/a-childs-history-of-the-world I have used all of the above at different times.

We had to do this with my oldest. He struggles with friendship skills, and his only "friends" were similar to what you are describing. I explained and explained, and finally forbade him to play with them at the time. He started up playing with them a year later (supervised), and they treat him much better, a year older and a year wiser on both sides probably. We talked extensively then and now (he was about 6-7 at the time) about not allowing others to treat us badly, and to stand up for himself in a polite but firm manner. I had the advantage obviously that my child was a tad older than yours.

Is writing super duper hard for this kid, or is this a new type of thing? My 4th grader has always struggled with the physical act of writing. His writing is sloppy and ill formed, he complains it hurts, and his final product looks like what you have there. We consulted an occupational therapist recently. She suggested he struggles so much with the organization and mechanical aspects of writing that remembering the rules as he writes is next to impossible. It would be akin to trying to remember all the rules of a sport while the actual walking/running required your whole concentration and hurt. So he always has to do a draft to get the ideas and then again through to fix the errors. Her suggestion was also keyboarding so he can just go back and fix the problems and not rewrite, which is painful in the sensory aspect.

I checked the ones I have and they don't have the family can use type of statement in the versions I have. Since they are meant to be consumable, I would purchase the copies you need. Check amazon though, and those Dover books are often part of the 4 for 3 and similar promos. I load up on those when the deals are on for the kids.

We don't want to drive all over town looking at random cars that are not as they first appear through private sellers, and burning through tanks of gas and oodles of time in the process, so will probably use a dealership. Thanks for the perspectives though on your Costco experience. I hate car shopping for sure. I might pay more just to not deal with the hassle as much. DH might feel differently though, in which case he can take the lead on this. He drives a 30 year old vehicle though so it is past time to replace that old tank with something modern.

Our church also has laminated cheat sheets in the pews. All of us them every mass, including those of us there every week. Changing years and years of learning is hard! ;)