I prefer mechanical pencils for myself, but the children can't generally use them. My eldest prefers Papermate's Mirado Black Warriors for her math, but I don't like using them. Everyone else uses the Papermate Mirado Classic (yellow) cedar pencils. They write well and sharpen well. I bought a new electric pencil sharpener a few weeks ago because our old one burnt up (due to use!), the manual sharpener only sharpened them on one side while gaving us blisters and handheld sharpeners never do an adequate job.

White vinegar in the water with no detergent is excellent and leaves no smell behind. A professional friend of ours told my husband he always uses vinegar when doing carpets in a rental or dormitories. Regular cleaning and spot cleansers cause a build-up which makes dirt stick to the carpet fibers. We just purchased a new carpet cleaning machine and I plan to use only white vinegar. With all of that said, I have always heard that small amounts of liquid Tide and baby shampoo are two of the best choices if you are out of the official cleaning solution.

My daughter who was eight last year when we were able to be out-of-doors (Winter, go away!) is very exacting but she still drew things into the picture that weren't there. Because of her personality, they were always real creatures or flora that *could* have been present. Her picture was simply incomplete without a nuthatch or wood violet, whether one was actually within sight or not. I don't expect my younger children to draw precisely what they see. And yes, sometimes our boy (age 4) puts a fire truck in the middle of the state forest! We've been doing this long enough to watch them each mature in their own time, though, so I am unconcerned.

The link shared by Jane includes past exams (2000-2006) which you can take at home. Answer keys are included. I intend to give the 2006 exam to our daughter and take it myself, before we ever begin our first Latin course next week. Then we will take it again in six months and see how we have improved.

I love the idea of a yard sale to recoup the money I've put into things. In reality, though, it has seldom been convenient for us to hold a yard sale. It sounds like it would be nearly impossible for your family. We just received a card from Easter Seals today announcing their next round of pick-ups in our city. There is also a Veterans charity whose name escapes me that will pick up for you. Goodwill doesn't do this in our area. If all else fails, put it all on tables with a giant "FREE FOR THE PICKING" sign.

We do not own this book in any form and I'd like to add it to our home library. Can you please recommend the English version you prefer and include the ISBN so I can stalk the online used booksellers? If you would, please share why you recommend your particular choice.

Thank you for this post. We are about to embark upon learning Latin in our household and for the first time Momma is nervous about her ability to teach the subject matter! I am grasping for any tips I can find. :bigear:

We intend to start two of our children on raw local honey soon before allergy season sets in here. I cannot take allergy or sinus medications. If your allergy sufferer is prone to sinus infections, I highly recommend taking grapefruit seed extract (not grapeseed extract) to quash the infection without antibiotics. It works within 24 hours for me.

I have a copy of Warriner's English Grammar and Composition and it says to use "cap" for "error in use of capital letters".

I placed an order Sunday and after seeing this thread, I checked my email and found a shipment notice. Hopefully it won't take long to get to me since they aren't that far away from us. I'm very excited! My daughter, however, keeps quoting her Grandpa's favorite Latin-related poem as she anticipates the arrival of LRtEG. She's just teasing, though. "Latin is a dead, dead language, As dead as it can be. It killed the Ancient Romans, And now it's killng me." :001_rolleyes:

Thank you, Crissy. I put A Benjamin Franklin Reader on my wish list at Amazon.com.

I am reading The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush in spurts. There is so much information in the book that it often prompts me to dig deeper on certain topics. There is just too much to try to read it straight through. I'm also picking my way around TWTM and Teaching the Trivium, seeking inspiration while planning the first year of high school for my eldest. My reading is intertwined with working the puzzles in my Sudoku magazine. We don't have a current read-aloud. I am considering Shakespeare or ... I don't know. Something. Something is necessary. I feel rather uninspired at the moment. Isn't that awful? They are all reading so much on their own that I have lapsed into laziness. Crissy ~ Are you enjoying the Benjamin Franklin book? Is it based on his writings or is it in novel format?

Try eating partway through the afternoon so the stomach acid has something to act on instead of rising up in revolt. Papaya enzymes, which often come in a chewable and are available at Wal-Mart and similar stores, are excellent at helping your body's digestive system work properly. Antacids are great once in a while, but continual use can convince your body that it needs to produce even more stomach acid and put you in a worse position. I am the Queen of All Day Sickness. :glare:

I have been very pleased with our Seimens machine. It's a front loader and had the best reputation among the servicemen we spoke with prior to purchasing it. I had just spent 4.75 years fighting with a lemon of a Maytag toploader and was not about to sink money into another machine that was non-working as often as it was working. We will always purchase the extended service agreements because our family size puts a greater burden on machines that no longer seem to be built to last.

Carol, this is what AbeBooks.com and Amazon.com are for! I recently bought The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush for 1/6 of what it sells for elsewhere by watching AbeBooks.com constantly. The book was only published once and the only library in our state that holds the book will no longer allow it to be checked out.

Oh, Jennifer, that is my dream. Wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.!

I cannot imagine a house without books. We have 22+ shelves of books at the moment (not separate bookcases, but individually counted shelves) with stacks of books and boxes of books, too. We buy almost all of them used, or they are given to us. If we find they are not being read, they are passed along to someone who is interested in them or we donate them to Goodwill so they can be purchased by those who, like us, must live on a tight budget. Our family reads constantly, though. There are few times in our household when there is not at least one person with their face hidden behind a book. Often the entire family, right down to the two-year-old, is reading (or looking at pictures). As it is, my two older children are constantly requesting new material. In addition, we are very picky about what is on our shelves. We are a conservative family and our book selections reflect that. There is not much on our shelves that we restrict from the younger children. I don't want to have to police their choices in our own home. The library where we used to live was wonderful. The head librarian was a personal friend and we had a wonderful relationship with everyone who worked there. The library here in our new community is small and the selections for children are largely "fast food reading". They have weeded out most older books having rich vocabulary and interesting topics in favor of the newest cartoon-related books, etc. Still, we started our love of books while having full access to the excellent library because there were many titles we returned to again and again. We found that weekly trips to the library were not enough to keep books at the fingertips of our children. In addition, it's much easier to monitor what is being read when we know the book has come from our home library.

I also recommend the Elson Readers. We have several antique copies and I learned a few days ago that these are being reprinted. I'm chafing a little that I have already overspent my homeschool budget for the time being.

We have never followed a traditional school model for anything. We do the bulk of our indoor schooling in Summer and in Winter, because we love to be outdoors in the Spring and Fall. We walk constantly, and you cannot match the learning that goes on during those times simply by reading a book. As a child in the public schools, I couldn't stand spending the last few glorious days of Fall or the first, fresh days of Spring trapped inside a school. I don't want my children smelling fresh breezes from behind a math text. Our children advance a grade year on their birthdays. The state of Wisconsin allows us to file our intent form with "ungraded" students, so I count the children under that category rather than assigning a grade to them on the official form. We are much more relaxed in our learning in the early years than many members here. Our eldest officially embarked upon her first year of high school one month ago and our scheduling is still very loose. We have the goal to finish some courses within the year and others within six months and others will be ongoing projects throughout her entire high school career, credited yearly as "English I, English II" and so on. We have found that the hours and days required by the state are far less than what we actually spend in learning.

Growing up I always liked that my birthday was in the summer and I was always the same age in a single grade. We determined early on to advance our children a grade level on their birthday. My birthday girl today is nine years old and has now officially advanced to 4th grade. We tend to avoid following the public schools in anything, though. ;)

Our final decision was reached by considering numerous factors, but one reason we chose LRtEG over Latin in the Christian Trivium is because the latter suggested Latina Christiana 1 be covered first. I didn't want the added time and expense. We still may use Latina Christiana with our two middle children before they reach high school age and move into LRtEG. I've only just decided upon LRtEG and am not ready for another decision right now. We have time. I thought I had posted a link to a review, but I don't see it in a quick review of this thread. HomeschoolChristian.com's Latin Comparison Chart

We just purchased this a few days ago at Sam's and are very pleased with it. Two cashiers had to flip through it before they'd let us leave with it. We've shown family members and a few friends and they have all be very interested and asked where they could purchase one for themselves. Thank you for the link so I can share it with folks who aren't members of Sam's Club. We did notice that it smelled horrible when removed from the plastic sleeve and that hasn't dissipated yet. I intend to set it up in our basement later today, open, so that it can air out.

I forgot one of our favorite books: Bird Songs: 250 North American Birds in Song. I also should have remembered to mention eNature.com as an online source. The Advanced Search feature is excellent, including the option to search for birds and animals specific to your region. We have listened to the recorded bird calls to help us identify unseen but noisy newcomers to our neighborhood. We've also used the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website. Our preference is certainly to have books and guides in hand, but sometimes our home library doesn't answer our questions and we resort to the internet.

I'm sorry for my redundant post. I was typing while Elaina posted. I see our recommendations are very similar. I think we might invest in a few Peterson's Field Guides this year, Elaina. We've heard much good about them, but the only copy we've had came to us used and didn't hold up to the rigorous use such books see in our house.

I found this Latin curricula comparison chart to be very helpful, too. Latin Comparison Chart by Martha Robinson