I sent you an email :) We participated in a valentine's exchange earlier this year that was like this and there were 98 kids in total. Of course, that was several in each household but it came out to be like 49 different households to send them to. It was a bit of money to buy all the cards and mail them, plus all that addressing hehe It was worth it though, my son LOVED receiving all those valentines. He still has them in a box that he goes through and looks at every once in a while.

I'd love a copy of that! Thanks :) lyn @kitanna. net

Hmm, I don't know what is causing your problem, but I printed all of 1A with no trouble at all. Have you tried just printing in small page ranges like 71-80 and then 81-90, etc?

My 5 year old is doing Elementary Science, Biology. He loves it! His favorite subject is Science, he looks forward to it every day :)

My son started a little after 4 with AAS level 1. He did great with it but I didn't really care for it, we moved to Spelling Workout and he hated it. We're doing Phonics Road 1 now just after he has turned 5. Its working out great for the BOTH of us.

My son loves Saxon Math *shrug* It is working VERY well for him, but I also suspect that he just likes math and is good at it, so maybe it wouldn't matter which curriculum it was. I also do Singapore and Math Mammoth with him so..he REALLY likes math. He hasn't ever complained about Saxon though. I don't know about placement as I started with Saxon K. My son just turned 5 and he's in Math Mammoth 1B, Singapore 1B and is just about to enter Saxon 2 (next week). I think the numbers are a bit behind also.

You're welcome :) I've been lurking on this board for about a year and am finally glad to be able to help a little bit, when I get the nerve to actually post something :)

I use this with my children and they just love it. Absolutely love it. I don't have the Teacher's Guides, I don't know what is in them but I've heard that you do not need it, that it is more for classroom, again just what I heard. It has the music, and in the book it has introductory material to each composer, information about the kind of music it is, what kind of instruments are being played, that sort of thing. There's also the "lyrics" to the songs, these help the kids remember who the composer is and the name of the piece. They are catchy and cute, my kids especially like this. It really does help though because my 5 year old can identify Vivaldi's "Spring" and Haydn and several others just by listening to a bit of the music. The CD has two tracks of each selection, with the lyrics and announcement of the name of the piece and the composer beforehand on one track and only the music on the 2nd. This way you can play "Guess what piece/composer" it is.

I'm not a guru when dealing with HST+ but I've been using it for a while, about a year. The way it works for me, the sequence is the order the lesson plan will go in, for example If I want to do a lesson in math AND two worksheets in one "assignment" they will all have the same sequence number, so when I assign it to the student they'll be grouped together for the same day. AFAIK, the "order" field will list them in "order" by sequence. Does that make sense? LOL Sequence Order Activity 12 1 Math Lesson 20 12 2 Worksheet 20A 12 3 Worksheet 20B Like I said thats how it works for me. I've always been curious if I've been doing it wrong all this time but what I do works for me lol I am VERY curious how you end up entering TOG, I want to use this next year but am scared to death to try and enter it into my tracker. This year I'm using Mosaic's Myths, Maps, and Marvels and it schedules out a spine, extra books, activities etc and I was too intimidated so I just wrote "see Guide" and just assigned "days" in my HST+, but there are no details at all for the History in my planner. Sorry, long winded. I hope that helped at least a little bit.

I have a question and I hope its not too far off topic to disrupt the thread but here goes. First, I love what I've seen so far in the program (currently week 4 of PR1 LOL). I thought I'd have a problem with the DVDs also but I love them. She shows me EXACTLY how to teach. I love it , my son loves it. I think its become his favorite time of the day now. He calls Mrs. Beers my teacher for being his teacher hehe I've been watching through all the future weeks and I had a concern about something. During one of the earlier weeks (I can't remember exactly which) she talks about Building Code and its the one for adding -s to a word. Like, chip -s and dig -s etc. She has them writing this long list of words to pluralize and then goes through and adds the -s to them all and then they're to write all of those words pluralized. That seems like a lot of writing at one sitting. Am I wrong? My son is young and he writes VERY well for his age (5) and I'm sure he'd do it and it wouldn't be that big of a deal but when most of the other days have them writing about 5 words per day it seems odd that this day (where they're doing TWO building codes like this in one day) there is so much writing. I just want to make sure I am understanding it right before I get there.

Really? Saxon 1 has just the lines for date, number pattern, and money but my Saxon 2 meeting strips look totally different. Saxon 2 has spaces for Today's Date, ___ more days until ____, pattern box, money box, clock box, we will _____ today at __:__. and three number sentences for today's number are: _____ So its quite different from Saxon 1's meeting strip. OP, sorry I only have k, 1, 2, 5/4, and 6/5 hah no 3! Or I'd lend a hand :/

My son is at about lesson 120 in Saxon 1 and then we'll be starting right up with Saxon 2. We use the meeting book every day and we love it. Everything thats included in the morning meeting is like second nature to him and is VERY easy but thats what I love about it. Since he's doing it every single day he is used to it and he knows that stuff down cold. It is my first math curriculum so its just the way we did it. (I am using other things here and there as supplements) but it is definitely my main math program for him. Like I said, we both enjoy it and its just a normal part of our everyday math lessons, he might look at me strange if I did NOT do it :) I'll admit sometimes I get a little annoyed at having to do it EVERY SINGLE DAY but I love the results I've gotten out of it and he seems to really enjoy it so I carry on with it.

This is exactly what I got too, just last week! I love it and so does my son. We were working at the kitchen table and it was hard for him to write since he's small. This desk is adjustable and I also bought a chair (14.25"). The chair was around $20 I think. Best purchase I've made in a long while. I think all told WITH shipping it was 80.00 (desk and chair). That desk that Aoife linked is the place I got it from and thats the desk, although I got the plain black with honey oak top. Now I need to get another set because my 2 year old keeps wanting to steal his seat and sit at a desk too lol

I have gone through a couple cheapie pencil sharpeners and they all end up doing what you said, they don't sharpen very well or last very long. My husband bought this pencil sharpener for himself. http://www.amazon.com/X-Acto-1818-Electric-Pencil-Sharpener/dp/B0006HVPW4/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=office-products&qid=1279126825&sr=1-6 I've since stolen it :) I like it, its quiet enough, doesn't sound like its dying and it sharpens really well. Its not that expensive either. I don't know about "long term" because we've only had it about 2 months or so and I don't do a TON of sharpening so...that's where I'm coming from :) Although, looks like it hasn't gotten very good reviews on Amazon lol Sorry this post was probably not much help at all.

I'd also love a copy of a spelling rules poster :)

The kids and I felt it in Fulton, NY. Hubby working in Syracuse felt it too. It's crazy, I have never felt an earthquake before. I had to reassure my 5 year old that it was NOT because of some nearby volcano lol

Awesome, I saw this email in my inbox but I kinda glossed over it. Glad I saw this and went back to it. I was able to find all 18 :) I was curious about Miqon Orange too so now I get to check it out...for FREE! Can't beat that hehe

What is SLP? The books "A Word in the Hand" (vol. 1 and 2) look interesting, I found them pretty cheap at abebooks so I went ahead and ordered them. I am sure you're right, if I can just get into the habit of using it again, I won't notice at all. As for speaking to my parents. My father died when I was 12 and I have not seen my mother for 8 years. In fact, it seems strange that I am still fluent in it. I was signing today for a while while just talking to my kids and it is as if I'd never stopped using it. I guess that comes from it being my first language (I didn't learn to really talk until I was 4) and that I used it every day for 29 years. There was something someone said about "natural" signed language, I'm not sure what that means. Where I grew up there were people who used Signed English (my family and others) and there were people who used ASL, we all understood each other perfectly fine. Signed English feels perfectly natural to me. My mother and father met in their school for the deaf and there they were taught to use Signed English. I grew up steeped in the deaf community and the difference really was the grammar. ASL has its own grammar structure and Signed English just uses regular English structure. In fact, I suppose I could say that I am NOT fluent in ASL because I never did learn the grammar of ASL. Anyway, thanks for the suggestions everyone :)

Thanks! Those are great ideas. I really like the "I Spy" idea, he'll really like that. That and the other suggestions go along with just trying to sign naturally while we do things, incorporating it into all our other learning and just life in general rather than having it be a whole separate subject. I like the song suggestion too, he has some favorites that I bet he'd like to sign to. I knew coming here and asking would net me some great suggestions. It seems so simple now lol I feel kind of silly having asked. I guess I was trying to create some sort of lesson plan when I don't really need to, since its something I just KNOW. I just didn't know if I'd overwhelm him if I tried to dump a bunch of the language on him at once. However doing it this way, incorporating it into everything, is really just immersion, isn't it? :p And you're right, mostly it is just making sure I remember to do it and keep doing it, reinforcing what we've been going over. Thank you, thank you :) I knew that I must be making it harder than it needed to be. I tend to do that, I am a kind of "making a mountain out of a mole hill" person :)

That's a great idea, thanks :) He'll actually love that. Tristan has been having a lot of fun today learning some signs. He keeps coming to me asking, "How do you say <this>?" and does the sign over and over again, showing Daddy and then comes back and asks for more hehe I have been showing him some simple sentences that we'd use often or signs for things that he likes.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far :) Yes, I could and probably should just start talking and signing at the same time, that might be the easiest. I didn't know if starting that way might be overwhelming for him, but you are right, that IS how I learned :) I don't use ASL, what I use is Signed English. My parents didn't use ASL, my parents had their biases against using ASL especially with small children (like my siblings and I) so we always used Signed English. So this is what I will be teaching my children. What I've done so far is ordered a really great book from Amazon that has everything divided up amongst categories and will use that as a guideline to teaching "groups" of sign. Hopefully, that with doing a lot more sign naturally around the house will get us going. My husband is totally into the idea and told me that he has been, literally, begging me to teach him sign language so he is excited to learn. When I told my son about it today he was pretty excited about it, especially when I told him that he can help teach his dad by showing him what he learned each day. I know I probably came across as dense in my original post lol My husband even asked me why I couldn't just start signing with the kids. I am just worried that without a "plan", I will forget to do it. I'm a list checker kinda gal. The problem has just been I have thousands of words in my head and it was hard for me to decide what to teach and when :) Just being dense, I guess :) Thanks so much!

I have been a LONG time lurker around here. I haven't ever posted. I should probably start doing that :) Well, my first post is about teaching my son sign language. Both of my parents were deaf and so I am fluent in sign language, it was my FIRST language. I learned to talk well after I was "speaking" using Sign Language. When my son was younger (18mo-2years) I was using a lot of sign language with him for a couple reasons. One being that he was nonverbal and I wanted desperately to be able to communicate with him and the other being that since it was such an integral part of my life, I wanted him to be included in that. He went through speech therapy for a year (until 3 years old) and his speech therapist told me that I should encourage more speaking and less of the sign language. My son knew quite a bit between the 18mo-2 1/2 year old range but foolishly I listened and stopped with the sign language. I really really wish I hadn't but hindsight is 20/20. Fast forward to today and I would like to teach him again, he is almost 5 years old (June). (he has lost pretty much all he knew but is speaking great now). I also have an 18 month old girl who is learning a few signs and is talking like crazy. Problem is, I have NO idea where to START with him. As I said, I am fluent and have great confidence that I could teach them both to be fluent as well. My husband would also love to learn, I have no good reason why I haven't taught him lol So...with all this knowledge with sign language where do I start? I was hoping to find some kind of guideline of words to teach week by week etc, but everything I've seen is for the actual TEACHING of sign language and I don't need that, *I* already know it. I'm really bad if I don't have a schedule, list, or something to follow. I need a "plan". I just can't seem to come up with this "plan" myself. Can anyone help? Is there something I am missing? A generic "teach these words in x language" lesson plan, schedule, or what have you? You all have influenced me so much, via my lurking, and I really respect the posters here so I thought for sure someone here might have an answer for me :) BTW, I don't know if this matters or not but he is currently 2/3 of the way through his K year and is actually working on some 1st grade level stuff. We are about 1/2 way through OPGR. So he is academically a bit ahead of other 4 year olds. Like I said, I don't know if that matters in coming up with this "plan". Thank you so much. ~Lyn