I just bought it and love it. I tested HST and hated it. I bought a book to do handwritten plans, then I found EduTrack at convention this year. It is more user friendly that HST and I did not want a monthly fee at this point. They do have downloadable plans online. I love that feature. It saved me hours! It does seem older, but it is well organized and has a lot of great extras.

Scholastic has a book search with both grade level and lexile levels for a lot of children's books. You can take the books your child reads and search for the title, you will get an idea of level. It is not a test but it is a quick and easy way to get a close estimate.

Today I found 3 booksellers for $10!!! All in great shape! I started looking after seeing the post about Borders bookshelves this morning. I did not fine any borders shelves, but now all of our books will have homes. I was so excited! Plus, I went to Sams and bought some vaccum sealing lids for pretty cheap, too! What good deals have you found? Not just Craigslist....garage sales, etc.

We start Aug 1st. I have everything we "need" but I keep finding fun extras. I need to print dds lessons for preschool and wait for a book I just ordered. We will be doing math, grammar, reading, and spelling to start. We will add science and CC in Sept.

I had been looking for something that would seamlessly tie our Bible history in with secular history. I know my Bible stories, but not how they fit in with the rest of history. I want my kids to have that knowledge. If that is what you want, they are perfect! I got all 4 ? History sets, and put them in chronological order to memorize. .

I was not at all disappointed! I love the cards and can't wait to get started with them in a few weeks!

Why are you throwing them out? I just got mine a few months ago and plan to use all of them this year for our time line memorization.

Have you tried EduTrack? It is about $60 to purchase. You can bump lessons (1 or all, just highlight and push plus or minus to move forward if back), print daily it weekly lesson sheets and sort by day or subject, do repeating lessons (you set date range, lesson range, days of the week you want it on, and it enters them), for many curriculum programs you can download premise plans for a dollar. They have R&S, Shirley English, Singapore, Apologia, and many many more. If you do R&S grammar with DC1, two years later you want the same level with DC2 - copy from one child to another. I tried the HST free trial and did not like it. It took me some playing around with EduTrack, but I learned how to use it a lot faster. It made more sense to me. I have done database development and had to pick them for work, it fit my needs better! I entered all of my lesson plans for the year in less than 2 hours. But, I know I can change them with a few clicks! It also does certificates, diplomas, transcripts, reading lists, and prints graph and tablet paper. ETA: you can set up you breaks/holidays and it will automatically skip them when repeating activities.

Currently Reading: This thread, in my reading chair, no drink ;) Really I am reading; Love and Logic The Well Trained Mind Plato's The Republic (off and on for about a year, I read a book and take a break...then go back to it.) Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (bedtime read aloud) And I am trying to decide on a fiction or historical novel for myself....I may Try North and South again.

That sounds just like my son. He picked up math so quickly. We started Kindergarten work a year early (he was still 5, but he misses the cutoff by a few weeks here.) I did not use a full curriculum in Kindergarten, I used a variety of workbooks and problems I made up. I love math! We started covering multiplication and division a little, but I was more concerned with drilling the basic addition and subtraction facts before getting to double digit multiplication. Does he do double digit addition and subtraction with regrouping yet? Can he tell time? Can he do basic measurement and read graphs and charts? These are all fun new skills you can teach while solidifying the basic facts. My son did not like drill, so we moved onto double digit addition before his addition facts were second nature, but he continued to practice that skill. For first grade, I tested him and looked very carefully at what he did and did not know on the placement tests before I decided on the level of Singapore purchase. You need a guide. Get What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know and make sure you have covered all of those topics byt the end of the year (for math). I am glad I did not use a set curriculum for Kindergarten, it allowed be to really play around and see what he knew and understood, then I could more accurately test him for first grade.

They are working on a Broadway Musical version of Newsies! It has been talked about for a while, but I have heard about it again recently. I really hope it happens. I love that movie (although I don't think of it as an "old" movie because it came out in my lifetime ;)). "Santa Fe" and "Seize the Day" are amazing songs!

Here are some of my favorites (most of the ones I have seen!): *** are the ones I can still watch over and over! One and Only Original Family Band The Million Dollar Duck The Happiest Millionaire*** Summer Magic*** Pollyanna*** Swiss Family Robinson Flight of the Navigator*** The Black Cauldron (it is very similar to The Lord of the Rings) The Absent Minded Professor Shaggy Dog Escape to Witch Mountain (the original one, not the newer one) The Apple Dumpling Gang Old Yeller Monkey's Uncle Freaky Friday Candleshoe*** The Cat From Outerspace Darby O'Gil and the Little People*** The Parent Trap*** Babes in Toyland In Search of the Castaways*** The Three Lives of Thomasina (my Sister's favorite) Moonspinners*** The Gnome Mobile*** Mary Poppins*** If there is a remake, I prefer the original (except for Parent Trap, I like the new and old equally) Don't overlook non-Disney Movies, especially the musicals! Singing in the Rain Rodgers and Hammersteins Cinderella (with Leslie Ann Downs) Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and The Sound of Music Plus, All the Shirley Temple movies are great. I did not read all of the other posts, but I did see one about racism in older movies - that was the culture of the time. It is not right, but that is history. Why avoid movies with those issues? You will be missing out on some great writing (much better than a lot of the junk that is made now!) You can talk to your kids about the racism if you want. Use it as a teaching moment, but let them enjoy the film. Let them enjoy the story, don't tear the movie to pieces because it is old and is in line with the culture of the time. We must learn from the past so that we don't repeat it. In these old films we have great records of the was things were; not in a historically accurate depictions of events that occurred, but in what we can gain from the culture depicted in the films.

11:30 and it is 99* outside......it feels great compares to the 100+ we have everyday!

If your daughter LOVES math, 5 pages is not much. My son would do page after page of math (until he got bored and wanted a bigger challenge!) But I would also cut out grammar until she is reading better. We did history and science last year, but it was all in library books from the begining reader section. They had amazing books, on a 1st-2nd grade level, on every topic we wanted to cover! For the first part of the year, we read together. He would read aloud to me. What helped him really start reading better was for us to read every other word. I would read a word, he read the next....for the whole book. He had to follow along to know what word he was on, and sound out words as we went. His speed really picked up because he wanted to be as fast as I was. Later in the year, DS would read the book and tell me about it. At that time, we started some very basic grammar (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, periods, etc). He picked it up faster because he was reading.

I have some time tomorrow! I may have to run down to big lots!

I used a $10.00 math workbook I picked up at Target for the Math portion in Kindergarten. For first grade we are using Singapore (and he scored 94% on 1A placement test and 90% on 1B; so we are starting in 2A!)

We lowered our price by $10,000 in the first year! It was well below what anything had sold for previously. They just weren't selling houses in the town. Rental was the best option. We are right in line with all the comps and still nothing! It is an adorable house. Insurance is getting us a new roof....I hope that helps!

Okay...the pictures got flipped on my computer somehow! I flipped them back and here they are! The dresser is a very old dresser we pulled from FIL's storage unit when we cleaned it out after he moved to the Philippines. It was falling a part. We fixed it and painted it white with flowers for Grease: The School Edition, when we did it with our students. I decided to use it after the show! I just repainted it a few months ago. I want another one, or another bookshelf! I have too many books and we are only in the first grade, with number 1!

Hmmm...I haven't tried it yet. Sorry :confused1:

You can apparently play on FaceBook. Here is a page I found.

We used to have that computer game!! I loved it! My DS would love to play as well if someone finds it :)

Fancy or fun??? 1) I love dirt cake! Both my family and my husband's family love it as well. Ingredients: 8 oz cream cheese 1 stick margarine or butter 1 cup powdered sugar 1 tsp vanilla 1 large tub cool whip 2 - 8 oz envelopes instant chocolate pudding oreo crumbs milk for pudding Mix: cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla add cool whip mix pudding and add to other ingredients Layer with oreo crumbs, refrigerate for a couple of hours. My house mom in college would serve this in a plastic window box (4 batches! for 60 girls!) and put flowers in it. We dished in out with a little shovel. You can also add gummy worms for a fun treat for the kids. You can make it, set it out with flowers in it as a "decoration" for the table and then surprise everyone when it is time for desert! We did this a a garden themed wedding shower for my cousin. 2) For something a little fancier looking, and easier (if you buy a cake). Take a chocolate cake and crumble it up. Layer with cool whip and heath bar bits. Refrigerate. You could buy a cake from the bakery since you don't want to use the oven. I usually bake the cake the day before.

Okay....I don't know why the pictures are upside down!

I finally had time to take pictures and post them! I have not been home much for the last few days. The first photo is our storage dresser - it used to be white with flowers all over it - and our dining room table. We only use it for eating when we have company and for that we can move it to the center of the room. The second photo is of our desks and one book shelf. The wall is a half wall that looks into our family room (it is a mess, and I was trying to avoid showing the giant, disastrous bookshelf in that room! The third is more of a full view from the kitchen. When we bought the house, the wall the table is against was tan, the wall the dresser is on was mauve, the half wall was olive green on bottom and tan above the spindles. The fourth wall (did not show it, it has my eliptical against it) was the same olive green. With the white ceiling and berber carpet....it was nauseating! I am much happier now and want to spend all of my time in that room!

I understand!! We have had ours on the market for 4 years!!! We listed it for rent as well after 18 months and had it leased quickly. It has been rented for two years, unofficially on the market until the lease was up each year, now we are on the market again.