You'll probably be glad to have more c-rods as you delve into different topics and as your younger kids get to be old enough to use them along with the oldest.

Another vote for Education Unboxed.

When I do the first lessons from Ray's I stay with one question until my child has mastered it. So if we spend an entire day's lesson time on the first couple questions in lesson 7, then that's what we do. The next day we'd start there again and continue to go over it until it was mastered. Lessons in the beginning are 10 minutes or so, and I try to make it a point to stop before interest wanes. It's a good thing when they're begging for more ;) The questions do not have to be done in order, nor does the same amount of time need to be spent on each problem. We do use maipulatives (cusinaire rods are perfect). Also, I don't wait until my children can write their numbers before we begin with the lessons. They are perfectly capable of understanding numbers and working with manipulatives even if the coordination needed for writing has not developed yet. Along those lines, I also do everything orally in the beginning. We don't begin to keep math notebooks until maybe the end of 6 going on 7 (for my dd who loves to write) or even later (maybe closer to age 7.5-8) in the case of my ds who loathed writing for a long time.

Thank you! I've enjoyed what I've read by her so far, so looking forward to reading some of these!

Does anyone have other resources for these types of problems?

Ahh. Good to know! When I was skimming through I didn't see any, and they weren't listed in the table of contents like they are in book 2, so I wasn't sure...

Does anyone know where I can find a good source for numberless word problems? I was looking at Wentworth and Smith's School Arithmetic, but I only downloaded book two and I think we need to start a bit further back than that, but when I looked at book 1 it didn't seem to have them. I know I could probably come up with my own, but I need some examples to get me started and, honestly, I have very little brain power to spare at the end of pregnancy. :P

I use this planner and love it. It's easy to use, I can fit all my kids onto a two page spread (although, that wouldn't work of you have more than five, but you could also do it by subject rather than child), it's inexpensive and there's no fluff - just the record keeping pages and a few pages for listing resources and field trips, etc.

What a fun thread. Things people in real life seek me out for (though I'm not necessarily a bona fide expert in any of these areas): Baby wearing Natural birth Byzantine chant Gardening Knitting

Lost Cove, I did not see that thread when it happened. Thanks for pointing it out! Looking forward to taking the time to read it later today when everything settles down. (Also looking forward to your thoughts if you find the time later :) )

Do you have thoughts as to what made it feel unsteady to you? I already love Ray's, but I'm thinking that ds could use some supplemental ideas to help solidify his understanding....

I followed this thread when it was first started and I have FINALLY begun to read Educating the Child at Home. I really love what EFL had to say and I'm wondering how things are going for those of you who were using her methods. Are you still going that route? How is it working?

Congratulations! I always give myself a couple months before I expect us to be back into any kind of school routine. I haven't always needed th entire time, but I like to be mentally prepared for a longer transition and recovery time so that I'm not stressed if we're not back into the swing of things sooner. I found with #4 that it was actually much easier to get our rhythm back while she was still newborn because she slept in a wrap all the time. Things got more difficult when she got older and was awake more. I'm wondering if it will probably be similar this time, but I'm not counting on it, just in case. I really like to think of the entire first year after a new baby as a "survival mode" period. There are so many changes that happen for a baby in that first year, and things don't really settle into anything very predictable until after that. So, with baby #5 coming in June, I'm planning to take most of the summer off from school and try to start back again in the fall, but I'm not expecting our routine to be as predictable as it is right now. I expect to have to be able to be flexible and relaxed about how we accomplish what we need to and I expect to have to let some things go. ETA: and I also wouldn't worry much at all about K. I have a 5 year old right now, but I'm not planning to do anything at all with her unless she feels like it just for fun. In our state the legal age to start is 6, so I won't even be registering her until next fall and will not require anything formal from her until that time. I've found that K is really pretty unnecessary, and it seems that you've come to that conclusion as well, so give yourself grace and try not to stress if this year isn't quite what you'd envisioned before the baby's arrival.

Dd said she loved it and is excited to go back next week. Dh said that the instructor told him that there were not supposed to be that many kids all at once, so someone made a mistake in registration. It looks like an attempt is going to be made to reschedule some kids to come a different day of the week so that the kid to pony ratio will be smaller. If they are taking steps to fix it I'm fine with that and won't bother to complain. So we'll see how it turns out.

Once a week.

It's for ages 7-12. I thought that was a pretty wide range, and was surprised by it. There was only 1 instructor.

It's supposed to cover basic care and horsemanship, but riding was also supposed to be included. I realize that there's only so much that can be done in an hour, but it just seems like a 1:10 ratio doesn't give anyone much of a chance to do anything at all for more than 5 minutes at a time.

....would you expect each child to have their own pony to ride? I realize that the cost might vary in different parts of the country, but I'm just trying to figure out if we had reasonable expectations. This is supposed to be a 4 week program. Dh just took dd to the first session and called to tell me that there are 10 kids and only 1 pony! Do we need to complain or is this a normal thing for the price?

The pope was the bishop of Rome. As explained above there was eventually disagreement about how much power he ought to have, which led, in part, to the East/West split of the church. However, the Christian church never went away, (it has existed since the time of Christ, with bishops and the rest of the hierarchy) so you will always find a pope in Rome, even though Rome as a political entity fell. What you're seeing with the pope sending people all over the world even during the middle ages is a result of his authority in the church. Since the vast majority of the western world was Christian (and Catholic until the Reformation), the pope as the head of the entire church held a great deal of power and people, including kings and other rulers, listened to what he had to say.

I just checked dd1's (age7) math worksheet for today, because I wasn't home when she completed it. She's working on memorizing her 6x facts, and gets upset when she can't remember and has to use the c-rods. She worked out all the other answers, but for 6x6 she just wrote 6^2 and left it at that.

For awhile I was keeping a separate notebook for each child, but since we currently do all memory work together anyway I just keep everything in a binder and it's our personalised family poetry anthology. :) ( also use the same binder for our scripture memory). I set it up like the SCM scripture memory system but in a binder rather than an index card box. As the younger kids begin school work I'm planning to rotate old poems and verses back in so that we all have the same sort of common understanding and knowledge base. I don't know how it will pan out as everyone grows, but I can see it working well for quite awhile yet.

This is my personal favorite. We own and love Pyle, but the illustrations in the linked version are just gorgeous and the writing is beautiful as well.

I really found the all day seminar helpful and the planning your Charlotte Mason education book has been great too. I just bought a copy of Spelling Wisdom and I think its going to be great for us, but I can't say for sure on that because we haven't actually started it yet.

This is why I love Ray's so much in these early years. Everything is oral. My ds was definitely not up to writing anything when he was 5-6 but we were easily able to move forward because we worked orally instead.

I think we've had the most success when I've been excited about it myself and show them things just because I think they're cool. Like how square numbers make real squares... I still can't get over that one. I wish I'd understood that way in school....