I use goalforit! website. It is free. You can assign chores, behaviors, or anything else you want. They get moolas for doing chores. When they have earned enough moolas they can turn them in. You set your own rewards so they can be what every you want. When they turn in their moolas they can print off a certificate saying good job this is what you have earned. You can print off the charts they look good in color and in black and white. You can change the banner at the top and the virtual stickers that get put on their charts. I have a printed copy to remind them what they need to do and then I log in the chores they have done.

When you are creating a lesson plan you have the option of keeping the same thing ex-math lesson or adding increments of things ex lesson 1 to 10. I just did the math lesson thing b/c I never know where we are going to be in math but it is on their daily task lists.

We are doing the summer reading programs. I am looking to start a book club esp when the summer reading program is over. Thanks for the link and the book suggestions! I will check those out.

I just put my ds in a summer reading program. The book club is for ages 9-10 but the books that were picked for July I don't find appropriate for his age group. I read the first book myself and found a couple of things I don't think he is ready to read about yet. Nothing major, but I still don't think he is ready for it yet. The second is even worse in my opinon. The third I think is ok as far as I can tell. I hesitate to read the fourth. So I thought about starting my own book club in my area For kids 9 and older. I am looking for thought provoking more thand reading level. Does anyone have ideas on where I could get decent reviews for books without having to read them all? I like Common Sense Media but they don't really have a lot of books that I looked up. Any help or suggestions are welcomed!

:lurk5:

I am using Homeschool Tracker Plus for the kids. I just finished putting in school, chores, memorization stuff, reading log, and stuff we do outside the house in and printed out a weeks worth of daily task log. For myself I am using Cozi. Cozi is an online planner of sorts. It has a calendar, to do list, journal, and you can even upload flylady cleaning tasks. I like this program because it automatically sincs with my husband's outlook and he is able to access it at any time without much fuss. I put all of the families stuff on the calendar, use the to do list, shopping to put our weekly meals, and grocery list. I use the journal to let my dh know how our school is going for the week. I can send it instantly to his phone or his email address. The only thing I wish it had was an online budget. Maybe they will add it some day :001_smile:

Love the Sir Cumference series and the Time Life series in our house. I also purchased The Adventures of Penrose the Mathmatical Cat and the Further Adventures of Penrose. They discuss some complex concepts and have a fun exercise at the end of the story. We usually work through together. My kids also like the TV show Cyberchase. It is a math based cartoon.

:001_smile: :grouphug: This looks great for my younger child. STOW v3 seemed a little much for her. Now she can have her own program this year!!

Mouthfuls of chocolate syrup! :)

I just had my STOW activity book spiral bound,a seperate book made for the test questions, and had them copy the student pages with 3 hole punch at Office Depot. They charged me .07 cents per copy (paper was free). The spiral books were 2-3 dollars for the binding and 1 dollar more for a heavy plastic front and back pages. I had bought them after someone else had the binding cut off and 3 hole punched the pages. If I had asked them to cut off the binding it is about $2 I think. Not much more if any than that. You do have to be careful. I have had them cut the binding off wrong more than once. The last time I made them purchase a new book for me because they had cut off some of the words. After that experience they have never messed up my order again. The copies are normally .10 cents per copy but with the teachers discount card it brings it down to .07 cents. Sometimes the UPS store will have a sale for .03 cents a copy. I have heard that you can pay for copies and they will give you a copy card you can use throughout the year. I got a quote from Kinkos once for some copies for $300 dollars. I went to Office Depot and they charged me $30. I am not sure how they stay in business!

Did you also delete the sent items in your pm folder? If you only deleted the inbox you might have something in there.

We use Classic Science. We have used it for 3 years and plan on using it next year.

I have been using Intro to Science with my dd. We just finished the 6 weeks of Chemistry. We are going to stop for the year and pick the rest up next year. I am extremely pleased with the program. The TM is so informative and easy to use I don't usually pick it up until the morning of. I wouldn't hesitate to purchase another level of this program.

My kids love the activity book. We just finished STOW 2 today. The kids love the coloring pages and the maps. We don't always do the activities or read the optional books but I like the option of having something at my fingertips. I also just got done planning STOW 3 and I was excited about the projects that were listed in the activity guide.

After you download the trial go back look at it briefly then go back to the website and click on the training videos. It also helps if you take an easy subject and go through it slowly. Once you have that subject done it will be a lot easier.

I am doing both. My ds hates writing in a workbook so I will tear out all his workbook pages and then get them spiral bound so it lays flat. I am going to make my own history workbooks this year. I will spiral bind these as well. I hate all the loose pages and they get lost very easily. I will rearrange or tear it out and then spiral bind them back together. The best of both worlds!

When my sister and I were playing video games one night she made a great jump and I tried to say cool and lucky at the same time but it came out klucky. It stuck!

My 8yo still can't stay focused. Maybe you could try giving her some thinking putty or something she can silently play with. Allow her to have it as long as she is listening. Make sure that if you want her to focus that you do it in short spurts. It will take time for to work up to focusing for a longer time.

I am looking for some links that I had saved in the past. I can't find them so I have been doing some research and came up with these: American Folklore -folklore for all 50 states America's Story -stories about the state,people, and/or history (very cool) State Quarter -for all state quarters I still can't find the one I am looking for though

My ds is taking about 2 years on average on each level. He speeds up and slows down when he gets to concepts he needs more time on. As long as we are moving along at a reasonable pace I am ok with being a little behind. He is one of those kids that didn't like the drawing part of RS C so I had to figure something else out. After I modified the drawing part we got back on track.

I use RS and just recently bought TT 4 for my ds. I plan on using both of them. He loves TT and it gives him extra practice and explains it in a different way. TT4 recommended that he put 2 2 digit numbers down on paper for long addition. I just told my ds it would be easier on him if he just did it in his head. He hates to write stuff down so he was ok with that. TT4 is really easy for my ds but it is also giving him the encouragement that he is good at math. That is exactly what I needed. It has been a frustrating year for him in math. We also use some MM but he hates worksheets so I only get those out every once in awhile.

The books don't go in any order. I started with volume 1 and got the rest at a later time. You can also use the books in any order in the volumes. Most of my books I got from the library or at the used book store. If I was not able to find it anywhere we just skipped that book. I am still on the hunt for the OP Babar book even though we don't do FIAR anymore. :tongue_smilie: If you do FIAR the traditional way you would read the story everyday for 5 days.

I found this book the other day. It is written for kids but I wanted to read it! It is called The Ultimate Building Book.

I liked it until we got to lesson 6. The way the ee and ea were introduced confused my dd. So I ditched it for now and we are working on blends intead. Reading comes naturally for her and I didn't want her to be frustrated by the lesson. We may come back to it in awhile.

We use RS and a situation came up in science where the co-op teacher told them to write down the problem and then borrow. My ds was totally lost b/c I had never taught him to borrow in the traditional manner. He told her he didn't know how. :lol: After class I sat him down and explained to him what she had meant. I explained the way he had been taught vs the traditional way. He said for him it took too much time to figure it out on paper. I explained to his co-op teacher that the way we do subtraction is a little different. I told her to just give him the problem and he will give her the answer. My dd thinks RS is boring so we are using Singapore Math instead. We just started level 1a last week. I am glad they teach the same concept.