I use Homeschool Legal Advantage. Same concept, but cheaper and tax deductible. Still decidedly and Christian organization, but they will represent families that homeschool regardless of what that family looks like. HSLDA is not tax deductible because they are very particular about what type of families they will represent, regardless that their rights to homeschool are being challenged.

Here is mine!

Veritas Press. Every subject is music based for the grammar ages, meaning all the facts are learned by learning a song. We really love this way of learning. The lesson plans are laid out, it doesn't take very much time and the content is rich and engaging. If I already own a book, they don't charge me for another one (whereas Sonlight does) but I still get the "buy all the books" discount. It's more expensive then some of the other ones, but almost everything is reusable (except for a workbook here or there), even the lesson plans, saving me quite a chunk of change over the course of the 12 years with 3 children.

If we have done all the planned schoolwork in a 5-day period of time (that we had planned to do) I consider ourselves successful. And since I have also been known to do school on the weekends if we didn't finish during the week, we are successful at completing the plan almost every week. Getting the schoolwork done and planned outings attended is all I use to define "successful" though. This is not the number of days my house is also spotless, laundry is done, and I've made a 3-course dinner with dessert.

The Sugar Addict's Total Recovery Program is a book that can be checked out of the library and offers a really great program for cutting out sugar (& white carbs) from your diet without the mood crash that usually comes from diet changes.

I think the scale is the biggest enemy to losing weight. Most people do not lose weight uniformly. So your dh & dd may lose 10 or 4 lbs this week and nothing next week. You might lose nothing this week and 10 lbs next week. My advice? Do not weigh yourself at all until day 18. Do the diet. Stick with it and don't let the scale give you an excuse not to meet the goal you set for yourself. I have done this myself so many times with weight watchers. I would do it for a week, not lose anything that week and then give up. I cannot say it enough. Move the scale out of your house if you have to, but do not get back on the scale until day 18.

How do you implement the test data? My issue is this...my 7-yr old son scored >99.9% on the Woodcock-Johnson III for a first grader. What do I do with that info exactly? Should I take from this that his current work load is too easy? Or just send it to the state (like I'm required to do) and not let it affect my curriculum choices or grade level? And more generally, what do you do with your test scores? Do you use them to adjust your plans?

I know homeschoolers generally don't want to be told what they can and cannot do, but seriously? I am kind of shocked at this discussion. How fortunate the OP is to have a library close to her that offers programming for homeschoolers at all. And we are on our computers yelling age discrimination? I think we all need to :chillpill:. To the OP: Since you stated you are new to the area and are looking for some friends, maybe use the 5 - 8 club to foster some friendships. I sincerely doubt that being in a group of peers that does not read at her level will do any harm to her reading ability. Nor will reading a picture book once a month hurt her in any way. Then when she is 9, she will be familiar with the book club format and more developmentally ready to participate in the club for 9 - 12 year olds and will have been with some of the same people for a few years.

Turn it off. :) I know, easier said than done right? After the first day of whining for it, kids will *always* find something else to occupy their time. I promise! :)

We have a shared checking account and savings account. I created an excel spreadsheet that tracks when and how much we have to pay and then divide my husbands paycheck accordingly. The leftover money gets divided into categorizes called "Clothes, Gifts, Entertainment, Vacation, Wish List, and Misc". We are free to spend anything we have out of those categories (as long as we have money to spend) but anything above $100 we discuss first.

I think the emphasis is more on what is eventually taught, not in what grade it is being taught. With Veritas Press we don't start history until 2nd grade. And we take a whole year to study Ancient Egypt and then another whole year to study Ancient Greece & Rome. Not exactly in line with the timeline SWB lays out, but I think she would agree that her timelines are a base point, not a gospel. We will cover pretty much everything that is laid out in the WTM at some point in the grammar, logic & rhetoric stages, but feeling the need to do it in a particular year is adding un-needed stress (in my opinion).

The picture on the image you put in the HTTW book is not exactly the same as the image on the VP cards, but the events are the same.

With Khan Academy being free, I chose History! I love the Veritas Press history program though..so that's probably why. I"ll be buying that forever :)

Try starting with only 1 week of lesson plans. Then do only 1 week every day until you're done. For me, it's the getting started part I have problems with. If I do 1 week, I'll just keep going, but I give myself permission to stop after doing just a little bit on it.

Sun, this is verbatim what I told my husband when I requested a housekeeper!

I'll be the lone dissenting voice and state that we loved it! If you don't like the music on the CD, just listen to it long enough to get the melody of the song and then just sing it yourself. It's actually not a bad way to make sure your child(ren) are actually learning the song too! :) We had Sapien, the sock monkey foreign exchange student stay with us. He only spoke Latin and would greet my child on Latin days. Then they would sing the song together, learn the vocab words and have a conversation, using as many review words as we could creatively fit in! I had heard somewhere that kids are more motivated to learn a foreign language if there is someone in their life that only speaks that language. Since we didn't have this for Latin, we just created it.

This will be the first year I am teaching 2 children different subjects. We're also launching a business 3 days before our first day of school, so my husband will be teaching the morning subjects while I work and then we'll switch after lunch. It will be a very different year for us from what I'm used to!

:grouphug: So many of us can empathized with your pain. I am so sorry for your loss.

Thrown Away Here is a blog post I wrote a while ago about this very subject!

I think his reasoning is that kids stare off into space a lot. By having a large whiteboard with the material you are wanting them to learn in their staring off into space space, they might have a better chance of retaining it. I got a large whiteboard after I watched that same disc. This was when we learning a President per week. I started the whiteboard around President #13 so we had already done 12 other weeks. I did find that having the information put on the whiteboard and left up all week did make a marked improvement on what my son retained for the weeks we used it. So, we have kept using it.

I take a rubbermaid tote and label it with the size of clothing. All the boy 2T is in one box, all the girl size 5 is in one box...etc. Then I stack them in the basement. When the season changes, I know where to look for the next season clothes. When they outgrow clothes, I know where to put them as I take them out of the laundry. It seems to work for us!

Come on over!:001_smile:

Are these 14 kids or 14 adults? Or a mixture? If you'll have adult help, getting English muffins and pizza toppings that guests could assemble themselves might be a fun way to keep costs down and provide an entertainment element to the party.

Monday: Work on a life skill; read through Books to Build On reading list for 1st grade. Tuesday: Bowling at AMF (free all summer!); read through Books to Build On reading list for 1st grade. Wednesday: Lapbooks (we are covering butterflies, Tour de France & earthworms one each for June July & August); read through reading list Thursday: Science museum or zoo (we'll alternate weeks); read through reading list. Friday: Fishing at park (the rec center offers free fishing for kids through the summer); read through reading list Saturday: Movie Day (watch a movie from 50 Best Kids movies list); read through reading list Sunday: Family Field Trip (I got a list of 12 places I wanted to see from the Kids Love Ohio book); read through reading list. Repeat each week through the summer. In addition, the kids will be doing a soccer camp, a week of VBS & then my oldest is going with my parents to Plymouth, MA for a week. That's the plan anyway :)

I wouldn't jump to any conclusions just yet. Has your husband been home? Have you been able to talk to him more about it?