Well, if you are really concentrating on your budget....then maybe no. If your budget is a priority and you feel you can make a decision with online samples, spend your money on that instead. I think the shopping admission is $20, OPGTR at amazon, for example, is $19.95.(not that you are mentioned that specific phonics, it is just what I have used) Admission, gas, parking, lunch - it all adds up. But, on the other hand, if you don't HAVE to watch your budget super close, but are just really trying to mind your budget, it may be worth your time to go look so you have an idea of what is out there if what you have planned needs changing up a bit. If you feel you need to look at the programs in person, then by all means go!

I think it would be the beverage, not the straw. That is just my opinion.

And now I need to ask....what is the book?! Could be inspiring....

I did not think it was necessary. I am so happy he insisted! Our entire house is hardwood and tile, with some area rugs. I voted other, because I think you should install it and use it!

Sonlight 3/4 includes lots of great books to read and in the IG they list a few activities for each story. Frankly, most of them you could think of yourself. But it is a great collection of books! I don't have FIAR, but I do have Before Five in a Row. BFIA has lots of specific activites to do that tie in with the books. I could not find many of the books at my library though. If you want to do activities with your story I would go for FIAR.

How did that work out? I was planning on doing WWE and FLL next year, but after looking through the guide, there is quite a bit of copywork already, so would it be overkill? I am not sure I am sold on the grammar 1x week. DS is 6 and will be a first grader (and emerging reader) next year. Maybe drop the poem copywork? Or try it all and see how it goes? We will be doing AAS2, I think, instead of the spelling in the guide FWIW. Planning is kind of bad, I just want to finish all the current stuff up and get on with the new stuff!:tongue_smilie:

We purchased RS A last year at Cincy and they gave us 10% off and free shipping.

My DS went to preschool and loved it. He was a moderatly disappointed about not going to school. He had one friend that he especially played with and we have made sure we have kept in contact. We have not seen him as much as we would like, but they have been able to continue their friendship. (They would not have gone to the same school anyway, and we explained that.) Another thing that really helped my son was emphasizing play time. School takes alot of time when you go to school, and there is not very much playtime in K, but at home, school is short, you can take breaks and you have more playtime. We have joined a homeschool co-op and he is having a blast. We just started, so no new friendships yet, but he loves it. While my DS doesn't love school more than playing, and he never asks to do school, he has said he wants to always homeschool. It is hard, but it will probably work out easier than you imagine.

We are almost done with A, have less than 10 lessons left. Cons I was under the impression that the lessons were meant to be completed in more than one day, but most of them are easily done in 30 minutes. Many of them I found to be longer than we wanted to spend for one day, but not really warranting 2 days of time, if that makes sense. Like maybe 45 minutes, which was pushing it timewise for my DS. I find it somewhat cumbersome to try to lead the child into figuring things out rather then teaching them how to do it outright. And sometimes the question will be, Why? But no answer is given and I dont' really have a good one. (This has only happened a couple of times.) As far as a previous post about teaching larger number addition first....they start out with single digit numbers, then jump to double digits quickly and ignore the teens for a time. We stumbled here, but I spent time with Math Mammoth at that point and came back to RS after a couple of weeks. This worked well for us. All of these cons are really "personal" tho, all depends on the people! You may not find these things a con at all. The positives - I think it works. My child is learning. Love the scarcity of worksheets. But it is the only Math we have tried, so I don't have any comparisons. LOVE the games. I am ordering RSB very soon. The "math names" one-ten-three instead of thirteen, has caused some confusion here when we tried going back to thriteen. Still working on that at times. I see the benefit of the math way of counting, but I am seriously considering skipping all that with my younger child since it has caused so much confusion with my older.

You did not mention Abeka. I have not really looked at it, but I don't think it is evangelical, is it?

We are doing LHFHG this year and I plan to do Beyond next year for first grade. Focus is American History, 1565 -1860s. The following year HOD would be American History again but from 1500's to 1970's. If you have done this, did you or your dc get tired of American History? (I am afraid I will be!) We may be doing CC next year as a supplement. Would one of these HOD programs fit better with cycle 3? I think Beyond will be perfect for us, but if Bigger would work much better I could consider it. We will probably do our own LA, Spelling and Math. Again, this will be for first grade, I consider the history to be "extra fun stuff", mostly. I was going to ask this on the HOD boards, but needed to register with a password with lowercase, uppercase and numbers and I just would rather not have another username/password combo to jot down and remember where I put it. TIA

are you interested in listening to the speakers? Do you already have goals for your homeschool? Do you have an idea of what curriculum you want to use? Do you want to look things over? I went last year(as a new homeschooler) to this convention and one in Indianapolis. I just shopped and looked at curriculum I had read about, I needed to see it in person. The experience did help me decide on a Math curriculum that we are using. It helped me decide not to use the curriculum I thought I wanted to use. I decided Sonlight was just perfect, ordered it (after coming home and thinking about it) returned most of it after getting to look at it at home at my leisure (kept alot of it tho) and ended up using HOD which I had not even seen at the convention. (All those I's should be "us" or "we" as my DH helped make all those decisions and attended as well) I think if you want to hear the speakers and look at curriculum, going to a convention is worthwhile. Edited to add....it doesn't necessarily need to be the Midwest one, maybe check out the other one that was posted, then decide if it meets your needs.

I use the table of contents and am able to navigate to the chapter. I have two, one was free (for sure) and one paid for, I think.

Thank you so much for this list. We have had it since October and have hardly used it, sad to say. I have not put the time into learning how it all works. I am sure this will help tremendously.

:iagree: I have had those myself. More when I was a teen than later, later I just got typical migranes once in a while. I have never been medicated for them. Does an OTC headache remedy help? Or a nap? Dr. could be right, consider his/her opinion, but don't ignore your mama instinct!

I think you did the right thing. Maybe the other mom just wanted to talk to you to get the "whole story", maybe to make sure her kid wasn't seriously out of line(according to her standards)? But was uncomfortable with the situation, esp. since there are cultural differences, and came across flippant? All in all, I think, like someone else said, just act like nothing has happened next time you see her and see how it goes. I would feel much like you in this situation tho!

Our Yankee Flipper works to keep the pests away, we have had it several years.

I wondered the same thing for awhile, and I am from here in the US. (meaning English is my first (only really)language. I don't recall ever hearing that term until I started HS.

Near my home is a "Remanent" (I think that is the spelling, like a remainder, is my impression) Church of the Latter Day Saints of Jesus Christ. Does this have anything to do with the "regular" LDS church? I asked a LDS friend of mine once, but she had not heard the term.

I don't have time to read all the replies, but Community Bible Study is studying Acts right now, which would be the ancient Christian Church, yes? I don't know if all CBS's are doing this, but check for one in your area and see if they are studying it.....it may be what you are looking for. (just do a websearch for Community Bible Study) Just in case you are not familiar with CBS, it is truly a community study....just the bible, welcomes all faiths, denominations are not discussed....they have women only classes, mixed classes, some with a kids program....great stuff

they mostly use them for long car trips. They will use it occasionally around the house, but not real often.

My DS liked this one when he was 4 "Those MEan NAsty Dirty Downright Disgusting but...Invisible Germs" we found it at the library. Cartoonish, promotes hand washing.

I am trying to decide between HOD BLHFHG or SL K for my son's K year. He is 5(6 in January), is a beginning reader and could listen to me read aloud all day long. We have read some chapter books with very few pictures and they held his interest (Peter Pan, My Fathers Dragon and ahem, Treasure Island come to mind). After much thought I ordered and just received SLK w/ LA1. I don't think SL LA is going to be a fit for ME. So since I don't know what my son will like yet when it comes to LA I am thinking about returning it and doing FLL and WWE midyear or next year even. He is ready for some intro to LA, but since I want to do both FLL and WWE, shouldn't we start those at the same time? I am not sure if I want to even try SL LA, I have read Beechick's 3 Rs and another book, and it just doens't resonate with me, maybe because we found OPGTR first and that is working so well for us. I am also a little concerned with SL choice of RA's, well, at least what other people have commented about them having heavy subject matter. I need to do some reading to decide about that. The whole LA thing got me looking around and I found HOD, which I had not looked at before, but now it seems like a good fit, maybe. It doesn't seem to have the same issues with RA topics, the LA seems doable this year. I like how the Bible is "interwoven" with the history and the verses seem to be applied to the child's view of life. (rather than SL more random approach and just reading thru the Bible, from what I can tell) But it is for 6-8. I am not sure if it is for beginning readers or not. From the 1st week pdf schedule on line, it looks like a great fit for us. So all of that to ask, who has used BLHFHG with an almost 6 year old beginning reader? Did your DC find it as interesting as you thought he/she would find it? Did you like it? Is it really open and go? Was it fun? Is it a good fit for the younger age? I will continue OPGTR and we will start Rightstart A for Math. Oh, and we are brand spankin' new to HS, we tried out phonics and HW this past year just to see if it was doable. Thanks in advance!