My first grader spends 2 1/2 to 3 hours a day (4 days a week) on assigned work. Since her older brother and sister are working longer, she usually spends another hour or so doing self-chosen educational things like reading, piano, or logic games.

We have only done three lessons mostly due to me not making it a priority. :blush: I have level 3 and my younger two (grades 1 & 3) like it. It's a bit easy for my 5th grader who also takes an advanced art class at co-op. I bought it on sale through HSBC and feel it was worth the sale price (glad I didn't pay too much).

My Kids love having picnics in the fort. It is also used as the "jail" in many other games.

Ultimate Timeline and Geography Guide...looks great, but I just haven't had the motivation to add it in. Atlier Art...we've done three lessons in 6 months LOF Fractions has been on the shelf (half done) since the summer. We'll probably get back to it May. Draw Write Now Countless $1 downloads from Scholastic Of course having these on the shelf hasn't stopped me from adding more...I just bought Killgallon's sentence composing...coming on tomorrow's UPS truck!

My Dd11 likes just about everying that has been mentioned so far (all kinds of crafts, Klutz activities, drawing, fashion design kits) plus a new favorite activity is creating short computer animation games & skits using SCRATCH. You can download the software for free. We took an all day workshop on how to use it, but there are so many tutorials on the site, that a motivated child can easily learn it on their own.

I love my Cricut Expression as well. There are always web sales on the cartridges. I use mine mostly for scrapbooking and cards. My DD likes to use it for projects as well. I think it's worth the cost (on sale).

I'm giving up cookies, baked goods and basically anything involving bread. I've been thinking about going gluten-free for a while, and i think lent will make me take the commitment seriously. So I'm sitting here trying to finish off all the Girl Scout cookies...:tongue_smilie:

Depending on the ages of your children, you may want to consider moving right to First Form Latin (also by Memoria Press). My DD11 used Prima Latina in 4th grade (no DVDs) but is using the First Form DVDs and loving them (that may be a little strong--but she does like them) in 5th grade. It does seem advanced so she may take a year and a half to get through it, but we are both happy with the program. ETA: First Form has a different instructor than LC

A great picture book to share is Aliki's Medieval Feast

:iagree:

I've been a GS leader for six years.Our troop covers the full cost of every activity and program we do. we budget and work on goal setting with the girls. Our fall product sales covered three council run programs and our cookie sale profit is paying for overnight camping and a zoo trip. The only thing parents will need to pay for is their own price for camping (its a mom and me trip). And our weekly dues covers craft supplies and badges. Even the Daisies learn that the more cookies they sell, means the more we can do as a troop.

My kids pick out a candy bar when they finish a curriculum. My DS will be taking then end of book test for SM3A tomorrow and he is really looking forward to a Hershey's Cookies and Cream bar, which happens to be the same thing his little sister picked two weeks ago when she finished AAS 2. I know it's not healthy, but Candy is a special treat here, so it works. As far as a weekly reward, my kids will have a light day on Friday if they have worked diligently all week. They each have a weekly checklist and have free time when it's completed.

Science kits/supplies. I think we'll be doing lots of extra science this summer so I will feel like it's been worth it.

Since you have a bunch of young ones coming along, it may be worth it to invest in AAS. Your 5th grader would benefit from the rule cards and the level guides are non-consumable.

I purchased the Zoo without the CDs, we only used it for about a month. I'm guessing it wouldn't have been dropped so quickly if we bought the CDs. My DD10 is an avid reader with a great vocabulary, but just an average speller, which is why I wanted to try it. But, there are only so many hours in the day...:glare: IMO, unless you have the time to commit to reading and rereading the list of words each day, buy the CDs or not at all. I should probably remove it from my signature...:tongue_smilie:

We do the review pages together. I like making sure they're on track. Also the amount on the page can be a little overwhelming. They are much happier working through them together on the whiteboard.

:grouphug:We've tried vacationing with friends before...a little more stress than I'd anticipated. We were on a cruise and ended up having very different ideas... In your situation, one thing to consider: there is a significant price difference between a two day vs three day Disney pass, but not much difference ($10) between 3 day vs 4 day and if you choose 4 days with one park per day (no park-hopper add-on) just tell the other family which park you'll be in and plan to meet up. Another tip: eat a substantial breakfast before you enter the park and have a late lunch/combo dinner in the park. Whatever you do, be sure to find out which attractions are most important to your kids and as long as they get to those, they will remember the trip forever! ETA: prices were for FL

My DD10 just finished this book, In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord. She randomly picked it from the library last week and said she loved it. Normally she's into series books, but we've been searching the stacks for more. She reads so fast, I feel like it's a full-time job to keep up with her.

Three:D I love having the bedrooms upstairs and all the kid toys, television, craft things in the basement. This helps keep the main part of my home clutter-free.

If he finds it underwhelming due to not having a fair to participate in, you could have him look into entering a science contest, like the Discoverery Education one sponsored by 3M. It is specifically for middle school kids.

So much to do and so little time! Is CPO Earth not going over well? There is a science post over on the logic board about this. My kids also take fun science classes at co-op, but we are modifying CPO for my 5 th grader to get some meatier content and skills. After feeling your pain of how difficult it is to be sure to cover it well, i too will be looking to outsource. I will certainly be looking at the local community college lab classes for 9th grade and up, so I'm trying to slowly prepare her for a textbook type class. My opinion, co-op and drop in classes at a museum are fine for under 6th grade, but may not be enough to prepare for upper-level lab classes, depending on the rigor and whether or not any outside "homework" is required.

I hear you! CPO is not going over quite as well as I had hoped. To make things better, this is what we've done so far...(but I'm hoping others will add to this discussion):bigear: Some experiments get done with Dad at night. Just having a different person, who is not very involved with our day-to-day work helps to change things up and... shhhhh....sometimes we don't write out the whole lab and just discuss. The other thing that has helped is mixing up the way non-lab days go. Some days she reads and writes out all of the questions, other days she'll read on her own, then we discuss the answers and some days I'll read to her (and discuss as we go) then she'll write out the answers on her own. My DD is much happier with science when we do part of it together. Although my original intent was for everything but the labs to be independent, I have found it she still needs some interaction to keep science enjoyable. I guess we are taking baby steps toward independent learning from a text. HTH:001_smile:

Maybe I'm mean, but the way i separate towels is old ones go in the kids bath, newer, nicer ones in my bath. ;) I've been slowly changing over to all white towels, i pick up two every few months when I see a 50% off sale. When the ones in the kids bath become pretty ratty, they go to the garage or to MIL to use for her dog

Tuesday with a lite schedule...I want to change up our schedule a bit (maybe loop for my oldest) and haven't had time to work on it, since we've been renovating our attic.

:iagree::iagree::iagree: No FB for me...