That's awesome! I've had good experiences with their customer service as well! (In fact, I've never had bad service with them) Maybe she'll reconsider adding them in each level. That would be nice! :001_smile:

We're in the same boat!

We are using our third year of AAS and I sit down today to organize our index card box and realize they no longer include the divider cards. We use a seperate box for each level, so I liked getting a set of dividers with each level. I'm disappointed. It's ridiculously high shipping, so I'll just make my own dividers...but still...for what I pay for each level, one would like to have all the elements. :glare: End rant.

Great idea!!

Will do! Thanks! :)

I would just love to go online and place an order and actually recieve the promotional "free shipping" offer, as opposed to getting all the way to the checkout only to find out that my $50 order will cost $150 to ship. (slight exageration, but still!) But I want to keep my free health care and homeschool funding. Ah, in a perfect world.

Yay!! Have fun!!

Thanks for all the responses! I am really excited to give this a try now!! Now - does anyone know if/when there is a sale coming up on these??

So SOTW is not our history core...but I really like it. What I am thinking of doing is buying the CD and listening in the car. We are in a rural location, so no matter where we go, it's at least a 30 min. drive. Has anyone else taken this approach? Did your kids retain anything, even if you didn't touch on the subjects again? (My kids are 8, 6, 3) Am I nuts??

:bigear: Great thread! Adding these suggestions to my reading list!

We've used K and 2nd. I did enjoy reading through the first pages (say 10?) but the lesson pages I never looked at again. If I had to suggest buying one - I'd say get the K one, it explains all the concepts used in the program. You definitely don't need 1 for each level. JMO.

We use HWT, but I recently stumbled across this and loved that I could make my own tracer sheets, quick and easy! :) http://www.fontspace.com/kids-fonts/trace

I can't wait to start our nature journals! I've always wanted and *planned* to do one, but it was always something that got left out. This year I bought beautiful journals and we designed our own science curriculum, so I made sure the journal was part of it. So excited!! :)

If they hate to write, but you still want to add in the extra questions, you could try doing them on the whiteboard or with paint? Or having them build with manipulatives. This way they get the benefit of the extra practice, but without the extra writing.

Lots of goodies - Learning Wrap-ups, nature journals, AAR Level 1, AAS Level 3, Life of Fred...that's all I can remember off the top of my head. Everyone around here is complaining about the back to school sales starting to pop up - I say BRING 'EM ON! I so need to replenish my stock! :lol:

I highly recommend AAS. We are starting our 3rd year with it and absolutely love it!

What about adding in card games or similar?

This is our first time for a dedicated home office/schooling area too. Usually we have a corner of a room with a computer in it that is forever known as "the office". :lol: I never minded kitchen-table teaching, but I am excited to have a room that will house everything we need! No more looking under beds and in closets for crafts, paint and other goodies. :lol:

My books are here! MY BOOKS ARE HERE! I am so excited!! This is my first year to be organized and have my orders placed and everything actually shipped very quickly...and we have all of our books for when we start up again in the fall! I am so excited! I love all the shiny new covers. :lol: Now to finish cleaning the office and making room for all the new stuff.:glare:

I have an 8, 6 and 3 year old...the 6 year old wanted to start "doing school" around 4, my 3 year old is starting around now. Basically I have things like beads, art stuff, etc to give them at that age. Or I will give them an alphabet coloring page -- This says "a", end of lesson. We have not started formal lessons of any kind until age 5 - not because I'm opposed to it, but it's what worked for our family. If your kiddo is ready for it, I don't think it's fair to deny them simply because of their age..but don't feel pressured to start. They have so many years for formal lessons, this is the time to enjoy all the fun stuff! :)

We use mostly "do the next thing" curriculum. I like to sit down before the year starts and go through the books and get an idea what I will be teaching (this can be a 5 minute glance through, or an indepth reading, depending on the book and the subject). Then I like to figure out the curriculum for the number of teaching days I have planned, not to make a rigid schedule, but to give me an idea of how many pages to do each day, etc. THEN...I like to make book lists or supplement lists to go along with our subjects. For science, we plan to add a lot of books in, so I will break it down on a piece of paper into chapters and which books I will need and when. I like to stay on top of book lists because I order most in from our libarary, so I have to plan it right or we don't have the books when we need them. I don't sit down and write a Mon-Fri schedule for what we will do each day. I have thought about it, because that's my nature :lol:, but I know it would only stress me out. We inevitably get behind at one point or another in one subject or another...and I don't want to be playing "catch up" with my schedule. So it's better not to do one, right?? :lol:

We just bought this and I am so in love with it! http://www.pajaro.com/mnjdtl.shtml#test It's pricey, especially if you want one for each kiddo, but it is so beautifully bound. I think it is going to make such a wonderful keepsake.

We have a $40 Epson Printer. We've also owned Lexmark and HP in the past. I think the main thing is to find a cheap place to buy ink. Lasers are good if you don't need to print in color. I find that if I get refurbished ink I can print for the same price as a Laser though, and I don't want to sacrifice being able to print in color. Things to consider - do you want an all in one? an easy copy function? will you sacrifice printer speed for price? and one thing I hate about my printer - it prints the first page first. My old printer started at the last page, so everything stacked in order. It gets to be an issue when you are printing tons of pages (Math Mammoth, anyone?) and you have to either a) sit by the printer and pull the pages off as they print or b) take the stack, flip it and pile it in order.

We are planning to do this exact combo in the fall. I also plan to add in a bit of Math Mammoth just for *fun* LOL

I totally want one now. If my DH comes on here and hollars a bit, you'll know why! :lol: