My sympathy flows to you, and I agree that you needn't apologize in the slightest.

Very nice! Thank you.

As far as I know, DK Animal Encyclopedia is just as secular as Usborne's.

Which theme are you considering? It has been a couple of years since I bought from WP. I'm intrigued by the new E-book option, since my boys have tablets. We sort of fell away from the company because we didn't have the money for new themes and I was re-using for the younger ds and supplementing with additional titles for my older. Themes we have used and loved (before the e-book option) were: Animals and their Worlds (twice!) American Story 1 and 2 Adventures in the Sea and Sky I also tried I'm Ready to Learn and Hideaways in History with less success (my own fault for trying to do too many programs). We did The World Around Me science, too (twice!) and several levels of WP Language Arts (LA K Basic, LA1, LA2 and LA3). I really love WP's choice of adventure read-alouds and children's readers. (Although I think they've phased out selling them themselves- they still schedule them if I understand correctly). WinterPromise is now allowing resale of their exclusives(2013 and later editions) if you buy them in hard-copy only (since they are making so many exclusive items and not as many books will be out of print). E-books aren't resellable, of course, and if you get the e-book plus print, that's the same as printing out your own e-book. In the past people didn't like the anti-resale policy. Another issue people used to have with WP was that they had difficulty getting things shipped in a timely manner. Mostly I think this was a reseller issue, and now that they are mostly selling e-books and exclusives it's become a non-issue. I expect if you order packages of adventure read-alouds or leveled readers you might run into the haphazard shipping- but maybe not. What we liked about WP was their choice of resources and the hands-on activities (though we never ended up doing nearly all of them). Even when I am unable to afford a full WP program I usually get as many of the WP resource picks as I can for the history period we're studying. Lately my oldest ds has been doing a science book leftover from when we did Sea and Sky (Exploring the Solar System, I think). He loves it so much I am considering doing WP's Human Body science or another WP science next year. Hope we can afford it!

"Yes, please" would have been fine- and it's nobody else's business WHEN you eat the food you paid for.

I've started. 7th grader: History: Finishing up Truthquest AHYS3, then MOH1 Ancients with Truthquest Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. Language Arts: Essentials at a local Classical cottage school. Math: ThinkWell 7 (purchased at a discount from HSBC! https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/thinkwell/?source=15838 expires 4/1) Science: Science Fusion, starting with Intro Science and Technology. Bible: Community Bible Study (Deuteronomy, Job and 1 Peter) and Youth Study at church Literature: Words Aptly Spoken 4th grader: Preparing Hearts for His Glory, History, Literature and Science BJU 4 English BJU 4 Math A Reason for Handwriting Community Bible Study (Deuteronomy, Job and 1 Peter) and Awana Foundations at the local Classical cottage school (as a supplement)

Shannon, I want to be sure you know about the Calvinist social group here. It's called "The Dark Side for Reformed Christians." I am a member of both groups because I see Conservative Christianity as a big umbrella under which both Arminianism (free will only) and Calvinism (major on predestination) live. To be honest, both concepts are found in the Bible I believe. The word predestination is certainly found there as is the concept of man making decisions for which he is held responsible.

I chose "other". For me, ring and sing have an "ng controlled" i, which is neither short i nor long e. Pink would be pronounced ping-k. (Ohio born and raised)

I think you can go by his score on the chapter tests and ability to complete them independently. I am like you, a little incredulous that my sixth grader can actually "get" it with so few problems, but he seems to be thriving!

Our Sunday School is 9:45-10:45 and church is 11-12:30ish. So it's 2.5 hours at the least. Occasionally we have a church meal right after, but more often it's an evening get-together. We've had evening meals the first of each month for six Sundays during the fall/winter period. On the other Sundays we have a small group meeting in a home. Some of the other groups choose to meet during the week instead of Sunday evening.

When I first purchased AW, I got a used package online through the WP yahoo group. It did not come with the exclusives. I think the value of your components goes up when they are all in one box, plus it makes selling easier than piece by piece. If you choose to include the value of the exclusives in your price, and they are included in the box, I don't think your customer will complain.

We have done quite a few WP programs (I'm Ready to Learn, Animals and Their Worlds, American Story 1/2, Adventures in the Sea and Sky). We've also done three levels of LA. The most academic material, I found, was in the LA portion. For example, my second grader wrote a diary as if he were Seaman, the dog of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Sea and Sky had some pretty academic stuff in it too, such as the Exploring Planet Earth book by John Tiner. This year my oldest ds is not doing much in the way of WP and I am missing it! I feel he's sliding by somewhat. I know that their newer versions also include discussion questions in the Teacher Guide.

We continued our series in 1 Corinthians yesterday (chapter 2, verses 6-16). It was all about the wisdom of God, available to Christians through the work of the Holy Spirit. Little wonder that we are misunderstood by unbelievers! For the wisdom of God is foolishness to them. In Sunday School we began the book of Jonah- and for the first time I saw that God used Jonah's disobedience to bring glory to himself through the worship of the sailors!

Lady Grantham (Cora) is by far my favorite. She is so strong, so loyal, so loving. Her words when Lord Grantham revealed he'd lost most of her fortune. "Of course I'm all right. I'm an American, have gun will travel." Such a good sport, with everyone's best interest at heart. The only time I felt she was messed up was when she was encouraging Mary to stay with the shady newspaperman. Lord Grantham came through on that topic!

Ann Voskamp is a Protestant, evangelical Christian and she has lots of thoughts about Lent. You can find her at aholyexperience.com (author of A Child's Geography, etc.) I like Ann a lot. She appeals to the cerebral old soul inside me. I've not observed Lent yet, but her blog posts last year about her journey with Lent have me paying more attention to the Lenten season and being more intentional about preparing for Good Friday and Easter. Anything which makes much of the cross is worth pursuing, IMO.

Oh, Thank you, thank you! (Amazon Season Pass purchased.)

How do you buy the TV pass, Kel?

Do you think they will air reruns of the first few episodes in Season 3 starting next week? I missed out on them. :-(

She must be chattier on email than most people. On email, I agree with you- most people would just give alternate dates. I have the opposite problem. Someone close to me frequently will say in person, "I can't make it then- we are going to be out of town (or have other plans, or whatever)-" With rapidly shifting eyes as if hoping against hope I won't ask what the plans are. In that situation, I would usually briefly describe the plans (since we're super close), "We're going to an amusement park, " or "One of the kids' friends has a birthday party," or "My parents want to get together that day." The way it's been done is a touch on the hurtful side, as if there's an unspoken statement, "You're not included in these plans, so don't be curious about them."

I think it would be fine- we dropped the craft book about African Americans but read all the other titles.

In Sunday School we are studying the book of Amos, and this Sunday we talked about Amos interceding for Israel and the Lord replying, that He would not destroy Israel by fire... and later saying he would not pass by Israel any longer, but judgment would fall. We talked about the importance of prayer, and how it does not undermine the sovereignty of God since He is the one who authored the compassion in Amos' heart which was at the root of his intercessory prayer. We talked about how that might look in our own lives as we pray for others who might be experiencing hard circumstances. In church we continued in 1 Corinthians 1- this time addressing the topic of God choosing people who were not necessarily wise or wealthy or popular, so that His glory would shine through. We had a Sunday School fellowship dinner in the evening. It was wonderful to relax with other believers and get to know each other informally.

I'll join this group, too- it fits me just as well as the Reformed one. Hope you all don't mind!

We did this with Preparing one year. If you buy the extra books, for Extension or Enrichment it makes it easy to skip some of the hands on stuff and still have plenty of material.

Our sermon was about unity in the faith, based on 1 Corinthians 1:10-16. Our church has recently transitioned from congregational rule and committee leadership to congregational rule with elder leadership. The "teaching elders" are pleased and excited that the transition has gone so smoothly and there is such a unified group in our church. We were cautioned against the type of factions which sometimes arise based on personal preferences like music style, style of dress, social class, and the like. I was a little disappointed to have missed Sunday School (was subbing for the pastor's wife in Toddler class as the helper), because dh was called upon to give his testimony, which grew into a half hour talk. We have a bit more contemporary service than the one you described, Heather. Dh plays guitars and other stringed instruments and is part of the worship band. He was asked to play a mandolin for part of the service today. Our pianist was out sick, but his melody style of playing on his electric acoustic guitar made the band sound fine without her, and our singing was unhindered. So proud of him.