I think we'll save the Spy Museum until they're older. That's Grandpa's area of expertise (retired CIA), so I'd want to wait until they're old enough to care and hear him talk about it on a tour. I've been before, though, and it is wonderful. Leaning toward monuments, and Air & Space, esp if dinosaurs are closed at Natural History. Still open to discussion, though!

My ILs live in NOVA, and we're here for a week. We've taken the stance that since we're here 1-2x annually, we need only hit a couple of touristy things in any one visit. So far, we've mostly done the zoo and the Air & Space Museum out at Dulles, which is very close to my IL's house. We've taken the kids downtown for a concert at the Kennedy Center, but have not yet done anything on the mall. I thought we'd do one day this trip. What are the best options for young 2nd graders? American History Museum? We did American History in school last year. Natural History? Although we have an excellent Natural Science museum in Houston (where we live). Suggestions? We probably have 3-4 hours of stamina. LOL

My current house feels really comfortable. We have about 2700sf. It's plenty roomy, but we also don't have any rooms that sit unused. I really wanted a house that we would use ALL of. This works. On the main level I have the master + bath, living room, school room, kitchen + breakfast area, a half bath, and the laundry room. Upstairs I have a large playroom, three kids' bedrooms, and a full bath. No basements in Texas. ;)

I consider families big when a minivan no longer serves their purposes. Families with 4 kids are pretty normal in my social circles. We have three.

I would actually caution you about taking little kids to the WWII museum. It is a beautiful museum, really an amazing experience, but it's very graphic and very somber. The docents recommended that we skip the entire 2nd floor with children, the Pacific front of the war. He said that the photographs from Japan and the Pacific islands were just more than he could recommend me walking through with kids. I believe my kids were ~5 and 6 at the time. I always meant to go back alone, but didn't manage to before we moved.

We just moved back to Texas after my husband's job had us in New Orleans for several years. It's a fantastic city to visit with little kids, and just wonderful in the winter! Laura is a beautiful plantation, and my kids handled the tour very well (we took their grandparents when they came to visit). It's a creole plantation, which means it was run by a French family, and has a different style, history, culture, etc than the image you may have in your mind of southern antebellum plantations. I loved it. If you want the more white columned English speaking plantation, there are certainly plenty of those. If you're in the city during the last two weeks of December, you absolutely need to go to Celebration in the Oaks, the lighted holiday festival in City Park. It's just fantastic. Beautiful holiday display, lots of fun to walk around. I recommend going as soon as it gets dark (check times for when it opens) and not on a weekend. It can be very, very crowded, but is absolutely worth it. Of course, wander around the quarter. If you stay near the river (Jackson Square, French Market) it is 100% family friendly. There is plenty to see and do down there. The aquarium is nice, but the weather is so lovely in the winter, I'd recommend the zoo if you want animals. NOLA has a LOVELY zoo. You can, as someone said, take a street car from the Quarter through the Garden District and Uptown, past Loyola and Tulane University to the zoo. That's a fantastic experience on its own. Swamp tours are fun, but pretty far out of town, and if you're already doing a day out of town for a plantation, that might overly crowd your schedule. Plus, you're less likely to see gators in December. Baton Rouge doesn't have much that NOLA doesn't. I wouldn't try to do both. NOLA has a new trampoline park, too (opened less than 6mos ago). The Rural Life museum is good, but it's just one thing, and the vibrant history and culture in NOLA is more worthwhile, IMO. Have fun! I miss it. I need to get back to visit soon...

My mom has diagnosed Hashis and is horribly gluten intolerant. She's never been tested for celiac, though. She maintains a strict GF diet and feels much better.

We did (most of) the AO Y1 literature list last year, but subbed out Island Story, 50 Famous Stories, and Viking Tales for a DIY study of early American history using picture books (lots of Jean Fritz, Betsy Maestro, etc). This coming year, I'm planning to do (most of) the Y2 literature list, but am subbing out This Country of Ours, Island Story, and CHOW for SOTW 1. Because we're going to be in ancient history, I'm switching out some things in the lit list, too. I'm saving Robin Hood for the next year, when I plan to be in Medieval history, and I'm moving A Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales to the schedule (off of the free read list) in its place, since they're Greek myths. I skip Trial and Triumph and Parables of Nature, too. Too preachy for me. ;) But if you're just looking at history, those probably weren't titles you were considering anyway.

I personally use AO for everything EXCEPT history. I share similar concerns as those who have already posted.

This is essentially what I'm planning for next year, yes. And if you say so on the forum, they definitely act like you're committing a horrible crime. :tongue_smilie: One of the moderators on the AO forum is a local friend. We get together for nature study sometimes. I keep my mouth shut about how much I am tweaking AO or she gives me a hard time! LOL

:iagree: This has been my thought process as well. I use AO as our base and tweak the things that I feel are antiquated, etc. Despite the insistence of the women on the AO advisory and forum that you lose something important by changing the carefully designed AO plans instead of doing it as written, I think we have a lovely homeschool!

I have a couple of Harmony LiteRiders from WalMart for when we need an extra booster. They're ~$13 each and very narrow. Love them!

We are going to be using Brave Writer's Quiver of Arrows units and Jot it Down! projects for 2nd grade LA. I've been trying one this spring, just to see how we like it, and I'm really excited about using them next year!

Yep. I was going to suggest BW's Jot it Down! too. I'm using it with my 2nd graders next year. Sounds exactly like your kiddo!

got a link for that?!

I signed up for 6 paid ones and 3 free ones, I think? I can't even remember what now. SWB and Julie Bogart for sure. I'm a major fan-girl of both of them. ;) I think $20 for a 3-part seminar is reasonable, especially when there aren't other conference fees associated.

These are the BW components I'm planning to use with my 2nd graders next year.

I'm going to have three 2nd-ish graders next year! Plans so far: All together: Ambleside Y2, with some tweaks. I'll be dropping their selections for history and subbing SOTW 1, and moving a couple of things around in their lit selectors to accomodate us being in the Ancients instead of the middle ages (where some of the Y2 lit better fits). Can I still say I'm using AO if I'm changing that much? Debatable. LOL All that good Charlotte Mason stuff--art and music appreciation, poetry teatimes, nature study with journaling, handicrafts, etc Salsa Spanish My oldest (will be newly 8 at start of school year, has learning disabilities): MUS (continue wherever we leave off at the end of this year--can't quite tell where that will be, somewhere toward the end of Alpha, I suspect) AAR/AAS (again, continuing, probably finishing 1 and starting 2, may be moving to Barton) copywork and Bravewriter Jot It Down My twins (will be newly 7 at start of school year): Singapore 2A/2B Bravewriter's Arrow units for LA Bravewriter's Jot it Down, maybe transitioning to freewrites as the year progresses Song School Latin (finish 1, begin 2) Plus family read alouds at bedtime!

We have a mix of several brands and all seem to work about the same, are interchangeable, etc. I think my Picasso Tiles, which are a Magna-Tile knock-off (purchased on Amazon) were the best value.

We're experiencing some of the same. We had been in the Houston suburbs, my husband's job sent us elsewhere for 4 years, and we just moved "back" but to a different suburb than we were in before. So it's similar, but not the same. All of my friends from when my kids were preschoolers either live 30-45min away in our old suburb, or aren't homeschooling, or just have their own lives and communities that they've built up in the intervening 4 years, so it's not like I can just fall back into my old place. I feel pretty lost and isolated, which is strange, because I "know" this city! We've not connected yet with local homeschool groups because they're SO BIG and OVERWHELMING. I need to just suck it up and try, though. Anyway, if you happen to be in Houston, send me a PM! LOL

I have a 5x5 Expedit cube shelf from Ikea (now discontinued, but they have the very similar one called Kallax) that holds all of our school stuff with room to spare. I have baskets in the bottom two rows to hide the ugly stuff and the books and more attractive materials on the top three rows. It's one of the first things you see when you walk in the front door of my house, so I've worked really hard to have it be at least somewhat attractive. LOL

oh, yes to this! We sold our home in two days, with three showings and two offers. I purged like crazy and my house looked GOOD. It was totally worth the considerable time and energy I put into staging my house so that I did not have to go weeks of keeping it spotless and juggling homeschool and showings.

We're in the middle of that process right now. We're moving from New Orleans back to Houston early this week. My movers come today to begin packing up my house. :w00t: I gathered up all of the "we use it every day without fail" school stuff late last week and put it all in one BIG tote bag. It will travel in the car with us. The rest of my school stuff will be packed by movers and might be buried for several weeks, but with what I have in my bag, we can do "good enough" school for weeks, should I feel organized and ready to start school before I unearth all of the school boxes. I think that's unlikely, but I wanted to have it available just in case. We have the luxury of DH's company contracting movers for us, which includes packing us, so I have not had to pack. I spent all day yesterday gathering the things I want keep in the car with us to have when we first arrive since we'll close on the new house and have keys and access for almost 24 hours before movers bring our furniture and boxes. My kids made signs that say "DO NOT PACK" and we put those on my daughter's closet and one kitchen cabinet, both of which I had cleaned out for this purpose. I stashed my cleaning supplies, toilet paper, paper towels, sheets for all the beds, towels for everyone, suitcases with our clothes and toiletries for the week, the kids' scooters (so they can go outside and burn some energy!), a cooler that we'll put anything remaining in the fridge in tomorrow, etc. in my daughter's closet. In the kitchen cabinet I put our paper plates, plasticware, a water bottle for everyone, meds (me and one of my kids are on a course of antibiotics right now), etc. After movers finish packing and loading my house, We'll load those two areas to the cars, and head out. One thing I'm really glad we're doing is a goodbye playdate for the kids this afternoon. We invited all of our good family friends to join us at the park for a couple of hours. We got lucky with GORGEOUS weather, we're taking king cakes and water bottles, and it'll be a good chance for the kids to see their friends one last time before we go. I can't think of anything else, but if you have questions, please shout!

We used FIAR for K, along with Singapore Essential math, handwriting without tears, and Phonics Pathways. If I had a do-over, I'd lose the FIAR activities and just read lots of and lots of good story books across many genres, do lots of field trips (this we also did) and focus on the things we've now come to enjoy as the "riches" of our Charlotte Mason based curriculum--nature study, artist and composer study, poetry teatimes, etc. I did like FIAR at the time, but in retrospect, I think it took to much effort for me to plan based on the amount we got from it. We'd have done just as well reading good books and enjoying ourselves.

I loooove my ball winder! Mine is the one from knitpicks. I use it all the time to remedy situations just like you described--fixing collapsing half used center pull balls.