My daughter LOVES Themes to Remember. We happen to follow the 6 year schedule. But music is her favorite subject. She notices songs in commercials or shows that she watches. I give it a HUGE thumbs up. I bought mine from Rainbow Resource. Good luck!

This is just my opinion, but having been an art teacher, it is REALLY important for them to get used to the materials. What I did for this year is had a sections of open ended art lessons (I only do art 1x a week since my dd HATES art). But each section might be 4 or 5 lessons long. If I did a painting lesson, the first session might be color mixing primary to secondary-let them experiment to see what happens when they mix the colors. The second unit might be to create a picture showing anger or happiness (to use a limited palette or number of colors). ETC. I would use tempera and watercolor during these lessons (but not at the same time). Then I would do a unit of drawing-using crayons, colored pencils, and drawing pencils, a unit of sculpture (which can use cardboard, foam, pipcleaners, egg cartons, etc.), a unit of clay-you can use air dry clay, a unit of printing (you can stamp cut up veggies, you can do nature rubbings or rubbings on items around the house, you can ask your supermarket people nicely for meat trays and such and have your child draw a pic on it using a dull pencil (make sure its pretty deep) and then paint it and stamp it. The key to this theory is to think of an idea-for example-What is your favorite animal. If they answer dog, have them create a dog out of boxes, masking tape, glue, etc. You might have to help them, but let them experiment with the idea that if its heavy on this side, it will tip over. Discuss ways to fix it. But let THEM try to fix it. Just assist if they are getting frustrated if glue isnt drying fast enough and you need to hold something. Its all about exploring the medium. To get an idea of objections for legal purposes, you can look at California Education standards on their website under Kindergarten since they are very basic objectives. <http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/vakindergarten.asp> HTH! If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. After re-reading what I wrote, Im not 100% sure that my thoughts were explained enough. LOL

I just pm'd you.

For K I used MUS, HOP, Themes to Remember, Flip Flop Spanish, and GTG. For 1st, I am adding AAS, GWG, SOTW, and R.E.A.L. science, I have also used Mind Benders and Lollipop Logic books for critical thinking.

Im so glad that you found it helpful. To make your life easier, go to the links at the top of the page and search the catagories to see what are the low numbers. Then click on each one because some of the low numbers might cause cancer depending on ingredients-but they wont list which ingredients, but will mark that they may cause cancer.

I see that you have gotten some great responses already. My dd was allergic to egg until about 1 week ago-her tests still showed positive, but the food challenge was negative. She has now crossed over to nuts. I always had an epipen with me, but our new allergist changed it to a TWIN-JECT. It is awesome since it has a second back up shot in it already, so you only need to carry the one thing with you instead of 2 epipens. Just wanted to tell you that before you went to the doc tomorrow-in case you wanted to research it before you went. Envirokidz is a company that I used a lot with the egg (but now cant with the nuts). Im not sure if they are dairy free, but they are very kid friendly. I also use Arrowhead mills pancake mix. You can make it with water or milk-but you would have to read the ingredients to make sure that the mix is dairy free. Good luck!

Have you seen this website yet? <http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/index.php?nothanks=1> Ideally, you want to use products that are rated 2 or under. However, in reality, I searched what I was using and just tried to go lower than what I had. HTH PS...there are companies that were originally listed and arent found now. There are companies that decided that their numbers were too high (AKA toxic) and are in the process of changing their ingredients to get a lower number. So if you search for a product and cant find it, that might be why, so just check back in a month or so and see if they show up. Happy hunting-but get ready for an eye opening experience.

it doesnt seem to be there. Maybe it will be fixed tomorrow as Im assuming that they wouldnt check it today?

I was going to ask the same thing. I have a question about the REAL science program. Is it a consumable book? Is it a secular program? Thank you in advance.

I have the old 5 box program and started using it when my daughter turned 4. I have taken it rather slowly (even though she could have flown through it). I also have SSRW and she loves HOP much better.

Have you looked at Zaner Bloser? They do manuscript and cursive in different books so that you can choose. Kimmi

www.literactive.com www.noggin.com www.pbskids.org

Mancala. It is for older kids, but my daughter loves this $5 wooden game from Target. It is definately a critical thinking game. I highly recommend it.

I took huge sheets of posterboard and made huge cutouts of the numbers. I then made her walk on them following the line. Then I made her decorate them and hung them up in the school room. I also let her make her own necklaces with the number 5 or 2 and decorate them (out of posterboard). The more she did this, the less she reverses them. She only does it every once in a while now and its usually when she isnt totally focused. By incorporating multiple learning methods (visual, kinesthetic, etc) it seemed to help her learn it faster. HTH

http://www.handsofachild.com/shop/Quarterly-Freebie-C151.aspx This was just posted. I hope that it can help you (even though it isnt a book per se). Kimmi

"It was on my parsley. Brought it home, and now it is preparing to metamorphose" Did you continue to feed it? They eat like crazy before they turn into a chrysalis. Good luck on your butterfly journey....its very addictive. :) Kimmi mom of my 4 year old princess, 1 queen butterfly with damaged wings, 2 monarch chrysalis' and 3 queen butterfly chrysalis'

I grew up there, but now am in Palm Beach. Welcome. :) Kimmi

Where I live there is a recycle center that is open to the public and I can find all sorts of goodies in there from magazines to carpet squares, misc fabric, plastic pieces/tubing, etc. Old dishes are really good for breaking and doing mosaics with as well. Your preschooler/K'er can have a field day constructing and it will help build creativity as well if you have some misc items in a box and see what they do with them on their own. Good luck and have fun! Kimmi

Im so sorry-I didnt mean to hijack this thread.....I am just so confused. I didnt mean to answer about the CD for the Record of Time book here since the question was directed towards someone else, but I just posted about this book in another timeline thread and I thought that this was the thread. LOL. But hopefully I answered your question about the CD. HTH. Kimmi

my friend prints out what she needs, then lets her dc color them in when they are learning about something-she uses MOH, so she just prints out what she needs for each unit(but Im sure that you can print them all out at one time if you need to, then she lets them glue it in the book. I believe that she cuts them out for them though, but if your dc are old enough, they can cut them after they color them in. Good luck in your decision! Kimmi

but homeschool in the woods makes one that is already bound in a book. A friend of mine has it and it is beautiful. They also have timeline figures that you can get on a CD and print out to use in the book. HTH. http://www.homeschoolinthewoods.com/HTTA/RecordofTime.htm Kimmi

When I used to teach, I used to use this. And its free if you download the basic version. Have fun! http://www.thinkwave.com/ Kimmi

Math U See. :) Kimmi

I agree as well. I am relatively new to homeschooling and some threads I cant even read since it would take me forever to look up all of the abbreviations. Kimmi

CWP is Challenging Word Problems by Singapore. I too use MUS as my spine and will start using CWP this fall. Good luck in your decision! Kimmi