I know for a fact one was an army national guardsmen because he is from my state. It is big news here. His company just returned from deployment in late June.

My biggest worries are being induced on the 30th, my 4th starting Kindergarten which gives me 4 students, figuring out a new program for us that reimburses for certain extracurricular activities, and getting my 2nd grader caught up on reading.

Well we currently attend a Christian and Missionary Alliance Church but I have no idea what category that would be in. Previously we attended a Calvary Chapel church.

The Standards Edition is being totally phased out in favor of the new CC edition. The U.S. Edition will still be available. I was told by SM that they have no plans to discontinue the U.S. Edition.

We use R&S.

I have never heard of such a thing. :lol: How is that even possible?

My dh does not get any paid sick days, but he does have 15 days paid vacation. This will probably be changing soon as our state is going to be making paid sick leave mandatory.

Look for a suit made out of polyester. Swim Outlet is a great place to shop for suits.

Oh boy can I relate. We just sold our house last fall. Our entire spring and summer was spent working on and prepping the house. We have no intention of selling our new house anytime soon.😉 This summer we are excited to be able to actually have some fun.

I use Singapore Primary Math US. My oldest is just finishing 6b so will move on to a different pre-algebra next year but the other 3 school aged will continue with SM next school year.

I would recommend she start at grade level. :) I really like R&S Spelling and English. I do not have any experience with their other subjects.

So far all four of my kids were posterior. With my first this caused 4 hours of pushing but the others turned much more quickly. What worked for me was pushing on hands and knees until they turned. My third only partially turned before she was born and her poor little cheeks got bruised. All of mine were born naturally. I'm guessing number 5 will be posterior as well. :/

My ds read this one for 6th grade this year and he really enjoyed it. Not sure how it compares to the others mentioned. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0486410218/ref=mp_s_a_1_12?qid=1434420776&sr=8-12&pi=SL75_QL70&keywords=robin+hood+book

My oldest dd and I get really dry hands and this is what works for us. http://www.okeeffescompany.com/. It is called Working Hands Moisturizing Hand Cream. I bought it at our grocery store. Other lotions we have tried stung and didn't work.

Singapore Primary introduces the concept of division near the end of 1b. Level 2 has basic division and level 3 has long division.

If you want something less spiral then you might look at Singapore Primary Math. My oldest went from finishing Horizon 1 to SM 2a. He is now finishing SM 6b. Horizon is a good solid math curriculum as well.

Hehe my oldest dd was off the charts as a baby. It always puzzled me that they said she was above the 100th percentile. She was 10lbs 7oz at birth.

I specifically said HOD isn't for everyone and that is ok. ;) I can't imagine any curriculum is. I was just trying to offer a different opinion. This thread indeed feels extremely negative to me and I'm sure it does to others as well. From several of the comments my impression was that their opinion is that HOD has no higher level thinking and that it doesn't progress in skills. Some even went as far as to say the middle school and even high school guides were elementary level. That is what I don't agree with. Also if you are completely tweaking and omitting large portions of the guides then you are not going to see the progression of skills as they are written. I can say for my kids especially my oldest(since he has used more guides) I can see a lot of growth from year to year in every subject. He is really into history and science, so he is always telling me about the things he has read, which has brought on many thoughtful discussions. That is just something we do naturally though. I do not need someone to tell me to do it. Personally I am very happy with HOD for my family. I appreciate how the guides progress and how many things my kids have and will learn. I honestly wish I could have had a curriculum like this as a child. The three years I spent at PS(4th,5th, and 6th) didn't even hold a candle to anything that my ds has done with HOD for those grades. Of course my oldest is only just finishing 6th grade so I am no expert by any means nor do I claim to be. I have spent a lot of time looking over different curriculum choices and chose HOD because I felt it was the best choice. I can't imagine spending the amount of money on it I have if I didn't think that. :lol: I have hesitated to even jump into this discussion because I do not like confrontation at all and get nervous when I disagree with anyone. To address the above comments about the narration I do not think HOD just requires longer written output with each guide. Of course with each guide you are to expect deeper thought and depth coming from a narration and other written work. You would expect and require more depth from a narration written by a 7th-8th grader than you would from say a 4th grader using Preparing. I would think that is obvious and just a natural progression of skills. The application of grammar should be expected and assumed as a child progresses through each guide. My ds writes a rough draft of his narration and then I go over it with him before he writes it in his notebook. If I don't find it up to my standard then he has to change it or rewrite it. Hopefully that makes sense. I'm always willing to share my experience with HOD.

I just wanted to chime in real quick and say I do not agree with the majority of what has been posted to this thread. ;) I have used Little Hands-RTR(some guides multiple times). I also have Rev to Rev on my shelf. I can not comment on the high school guides because I have never seen them. Honestly I have no experience yet teaching high school, so I'm not going to go there other than to say there is no way they are 6th grade level work. :lol: The middle school guides do progress in skill each year and are not equal in difficulty. The history narrations get longer and more in depth with each guide and there is added written output with each guide in multiple boxes. The research, science, and discussions questions are also more in depth with each guide. R&S itself is already a complete English curriculum and then there is added writing programs. You can easily use any writing curriculum you desire, it even says that right in the LA box. I also don't agree that there isn't any higher level thinking. If your kid isn't remembering anything they read I think that is a separate issue from HOD. Perhaps history isn't their thing or they need to work on reading comprehension skills. I really don't want to get into a fight with anyone about this. If HOD isn't your cup of tea don't use it, but there are plenty of people using it with great results. If you notice in this thread many people commenting have only used 1 guide or perhaps 2. For those who are looking into HOD and are feeling hesitant now. I encourage you to gather thoughts from multiple places and not just from a negative thread. It is a good thing there are so many different curriculum choices now so people can hopefully find something that fits their style and needs. :001_smile:

Um, yeah that was my thought to. :banghead:

My almost 12 year old finds friends at church, youth group, AWANA, swim team, and the YMCA. He also has a lot of cousins.

I used levels 1-3 (two of which were given to me and one I bought used). I stopped using it because it is way too expensive, it takes a lot of time, and it didn't really improve my sons spelling.

We use the US edition. The Standards is going out of print anyways so if you are just starting out you may consider going with either the US edition or the CC edition. I can not compare the US HIG to the Standards as I have not seen the standards HIG's. I have looked at the textbooks and workbooks and prefer the US edition. You can not use the US edition HIG's with the Standards Textbooks/Workbooks if that is what you mean.

We sold our house last fall and all the walls were painted light colors. I do not like white or beige I think they look way too bland and cold. The kitchen and laundry room were a light creme yellow(Homestead Resort Tea Room Creme), living room light sage green, dining room wedgwood blue, bathroom light green(Homestead Resort Spa Aqua), bedroom 1 light blue(School Boy Blue), bedroom 2 light periwinkle blue(Serenity). It was an older home, so it had lots of wide trim all of which was painted the same white(Homestead Resort Jefferson White). Sounds kinda crazy but it looked really nice and we got lots of compliments. We sold the house within a month. Oh, and I like Valspar paint and tend to choose the historic colors. ;)

I did levels 1-3 with my oldest. It really wasn't improving his spelling, so we dropped it and switched to R&S Spelling By Sound and Structure. His spelling has greatly improved since using R&S the last 3 years.