A lot of legal documents (at law offices and banks) are kept in folders with rings or clasps at the top. I have also seen doctors offices with hard sided folders that have two holes at the top. Click the link for one place I found them. I Googled "binders with rings at the top."

We use some ABC flash cards and number flash cards. We are working on fine motor skills with coloring, cutting and pasting, and simple mazes in a preschool workbook. We will also work through a preschool concept workbook (opposites, color matching, baby and mommy animals, etc) on days she wants to "do school." She will be listening when we do our CC memory work, read/listen to SOTW and our literature.

I did not vote, I have not used either, but I have heard that the new edition of Kingfisher (I think) is not as well done as the original. Does anyone have any input?

I bought Spelling Plus and the Dictation book that goes with it. It divides words by spelling rules. It has premade lists and huge lists in the back of similar words. It lays out a plan of study for the words and tells. you how to create your own lists based on your child's spelling. It is supposed to be enough to get you through 6th grade. I plan to do a word list one week, then use the dictation for that list the next week. I hope that by the time I work through the book, I will be comfortable enough to create my own lists of words that ds needs to practice.

If I only read that review, I would not let a 9 year old watch it...but having seen the movie numerous times, I know it is okay for our house. That review only lists what is wrong with it, it takes things completely out of context with the moral of the story. The foul language is the only thing that would be a concern, I did not know there was any. We have only ever eatched it on the Disney Channel. I love the movie.

Don't worry about not finishing curriculum. We NEVER finished a math, just, or grammar book in school (I went to a private, college prep school with a great academic program in those areas.) I still scored very high an my SATs and was more prepared for college than my ps peers. Most subjects that need it, contain reviewin the first few lessons. Do the review and if an area is week, catch that lesson in the old curriculum in the first week, than move on forward.

Took DS to gymnastics. Cleaned the living room with the kids (took over an hour!!) I was gone most of last week and DH was gardening and just let the kids destroy the house!!! EEK! I made handwriting sheets for school (that starts in 3 weeks). I made them to go along with our study plans for the year. I threw out 1 bag full of trash and am now playing scrabble with my 5 year old! Next...I will load the dishwasher, start a load of laundry, clean the front room and wash the walls....I want to get paint tomorrow and start painting next week :)

I just spent two days making copy work sheets for my first grader. I turned some of his history memory work into copy sheets to be used the day we start new memory work. I also have sheets that correspond to the chapters in SOTW. Our memory work is on CD as well, we can listen to it. For PreSchool and Kindergarten I wrote words on cards and my son helped tape them all over the house. They stayed up until he was reading really well. We labeled: doors, windows, lights, books, bookshelves, the couch, chairs, tables, etc. I really like the idea of putting in front of the toilet! You could easily change that out once a week if you start something new. My white board flips over to be a cork board. I plan to print some of our memory work and post it to that each week so he can look at it.

I don't know that I will ever be able to swim in the ocean again!:lol:

I remember making hamburgers at day camp by wrapping the hamburgers in foil and tossing them in the fire pit (by the fire, not directly in it). Hot dogs on sticks are always easy. You can cook anything with a cast iron skillet and a grill stand to put over the fire. We had bacon and scrambled eggs on one camp out and spaghetti with meat sauce on another. You might pack some water jugs for cleaning your dishes and to have a little for cooking. I'm not much help, I have not been camping since High School! But I know we made all kinds of great food!

My husband's name is Jonathan. He does not go by Jon. That is what we call his little sister's husband. When we were looking at cars, he would introduce himself and many salesmen automatically said "hey, Jon!" They did not ask to call him that, they just did. We did walk out of a few that did that. :)

My dh is the same way! He doesn't look through all the curriculum with me, but he listens to me when i want to talk about it, gives his thoughts and is very encouraging. One day, we did not get to our school work before I headed to the studio, I came home and we were doing school at 10 PM. He told me he would have done his work with him if he had know what to do :) This year, I am using a computer program and planning the year out, I will print out a weekly lesson plan and check off what we finish. That way Dad can help out :)

I have a bookshelf for all reference materials (atlas, dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc.). I have my desk to keep office supplies and my personal work items. We had an extra dresser, I painted it black and bought a canvass basket at walmart for his books. It is perfect to hold all of his current curriculum. The dresser is for extra supplies and lesson materials - the top drawer is FULL of flash cards that I have picked up at various places for $1, another drawer has math manipulatives and right now, two drawers are empty :) I have a rolling cart with three drawers, by the kitchen table, for art supplies - I need to get another! The pictures show the dresser and shelf with DS's desk. The pile of books on the dresser are DD's preschool books and our SOTW that is shared...I have to get to walmart and get another basket for those;)

I had always been told that boys were harder to potty train than girls, so when my ds was completely potty trained after 3 days and accident free with in a month (just before his 3rd birthday), I thought that life with dd would be a breeze! Boy was I wrong! We tried with dd at 2.5 yrs and it was a complete failure, tried again at 3 and again - failure! We waited a couple of months and started again in April. I took her to the bathroom every 60 minutes, she would sit and sit and sit and sit and do nothing. I would get her up, put panties on and THEN pee!!! she thought it was so funny! We did not punish, but we could not ever get her to go on the toilet so we could even reward her. I started rewarding her 5 year old brother, myself and Daddy even! Finally she went once and got a single m&m. In 3 days she earned three m&ms. After a month we got better at getting her to the toilet but she NEVER told us she needed to go. We had to go to pull ups for anytime in public and then just got to wearing them all the time. Fast forward to now... A week ago she started putting her panties on when she woke up, we made it to the potty, but still had some accidents. If we left the house, she still wore a pull up and would use it like a diaper. Just a few days ago, she dirtied her favorite (and only) Littlest Pet Shop panties...so I made her throw them away. She cried and we talked about using the potty, she asked if she could get new panties and I told her when she started using the potty. She has had one wet accident since then, and she wrapped them in a bag and threw them away by herself!!! I am so happy! It only took 3 months! :tongue_smilie:

My dd has always dug things out of my purse (she still does) a couple of times she pulled out a tampon and got it open and ran around with it....at our dance studio!!! :eek:

We all went to one doctor that we loved when we lived in MO, he delivered my son and did all of his well checks until we moved at 2. Now we have a family practice that we go to, but will go back to my OB if I have another baby. I am not 100% excited about the DR we go to, but we don't go that often right now (once a year unless kiddos are REALLY sick). It is a mile down the road and always easy to get into.

I have always gone by my full first name. I have a couple of theatre friends who decided to call me "Cher" while we were doing a show together...8 years later and one still shouts it out whenever he sees me (once every few years). My screen name is a high school nickname that I got because a friend gave me a key chain that spelled my name, she could not find any "R" beads, so she bought a "P" and added a line to make it an "R" the line wore off in a week and I became "Chepyl" to that group of friends!

Can you put a Google calendar app on it? I have an android phone, my google calendar automatically syncs with my phone. I don't have one on my iPod though....I will look and see what I can find.

Thanks!! :001_smile:

Here is what I wrote (with a spelling/typing error corrected:001_huh:) : "Part of the reason a Classical Education emphasizes memorization in early elementary grades is because of the way our brain works. It is much easier for a child to memorize facts at 7 or 8 than it is for a 16 year old. You fill your child’s head with facts when they are young and then help them understand it as their thinking shifts from concrete to abstract. For example, a 7 year old may not understand all of the factors that led to the American Revolution, but he or she CAN memorize July 4, 1776 and the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence. Kids love to recite poems and nursery rhymes, their brains love rhythm and repetition. The Grammar stage of the Trivium builds on that. We give them the who, what, where, and when. In the logic stage we help them with the why. I compare the Classical Method of Education to my dance training and work as a teacher. I teach my “babies†(2-10ish) the grammar of ballet – plie, tendu, degage and how to execute each step. We learn rhythm and we memorize steps. Their dancing is not fluid and graceful, but they learn a lot of steps! Around 10 or 12, they move into a new stage. They no longer just do the steps, they start to gain better control of their bodies, they no longer just do a step – they dance it! They do become fluid in their movements, they start to understand how the music and movements work together. It is an amazing transition to witness! There is no understanding, if there are no facts to understand first." This will be my second reading of the book. I read the Grammar section about a year ago. I just read the logic and rhetoric sections a couple of months ago. I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on the book as we go through it together. I'm ready for chapter 2! :)

My son was the same way, he would get very focused and do 30-40 workbook pages at a time. He finished the first kindergarten skills book (350 pages) in a month or so. I just started setting a timer for when he had to move on, then he got used to doing a few pages of phonics and a page of math. Stuff got harder too, then he stopped wanting to GO GO GO he was okay with 4 math problems done each day, then it was a struggle to get him to do more :tongue_smilie:

I have a first grader: Classical Conversations Foundations for memory work (Cycle 1) RS4K - PreLevel 1 Chemistry and Biology (I am planning to do 10 weeks of Chem in the fall and 10 of Bio in the spring to add some content to the science memory studies in CC) SOTW 1 - Just reading the story, and supplementing with reading if a topic is of interest to us. (to add some content to our CC timeline) Handwriting - I am making/pulling together this. We are writing the Hist. Sentence from CC each week and I purchase Happy Scribe Copybooks from CurrClick, we will use Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome as we hit those periods in SOTW. The rest will be Bible Verses and Poetry from What Your First Grader Needs to Know. Just 2-4 lines a day. Singapore Math 2A and 2B along with Mammoth Math Geometry for 1-3 grades to supplement. Shurley English 1 - We will start with this, after looking at it, I think I should have put him in 2 - but you can never get too much grammar practice! If we don't like it I have R&S 2 on the way. Spelling Plus and corresponding Dictation book for spelling. (Spelling list one week, dictation sentences the next. Core Curriculum of Basic Skills (2nd Grade) for reading comp, phonics and extra practice on math if needed. (Will use The Writing Road to Reading for more phonics review but his decoding skills are at a 5th-6th grade level, I am more concerned with comprehension at this point). Reading (5 books per month is the goal, more if he can!): 1 history, 1 science, 1 chapter book, 2 of choice (1 must be read aloud to me or Dad). Outside the house: Group piano, 3 hours of dance (first year on competition team :001_smile:), gymnastics once a week, co-op PE and lit based enrichment classes. I may alter this plan as we get going, but for now, this is what I have planned!

I'm generally the opposite :) My best friend from high school and one cousin are currently pregnant. 3 cousins and 1 SIL and 1 dear friend from college just had babies, a studio mom is expecting triplets! Another dear friend from college just adopted a baby boy (after nearly 10 years of trying for their own and then waiting)! It definitely makes me what to have another. We have 2 now and would like to have 4; I think I am finally ready for #3 :D

Check out Ebay, you can get curriculum materials for a little cheaper there. I got our math and grammar for $20-30 less (total) than I would have spent. Now I have spent that "extra" on some enrichment and supplementary materials. Check out CurrClick.com. I just bought a bunch of handwritting practice booklets for $2. I had to print them, but it includes printing, D'Nealian, and Cursive AND they are all history sentences! I can reuse them in a couple years when we learn cursive (or if you have kids of different ages, you can print the sheets they need. Use the library! Get a "spine" for history, SOTW or something you like that walks you through history, go to the library and check out books to fill it out. I used What Your Kindergartener Needs to Know last year and I have the first grade one for this year. We read the history or science lesson, go to the library and get more info if he is interested in the subject and learn until we get bored...then move on. I have an actual science program this year but I will still use the library to supplement. I also try to buy reusable stuff. I get hardback when available (it is really just a few dollars more) so that the books stay in good shape longer. I can use them for DD later and any other kiddos we may have in the future. With consumables, some things can be copied for use in your family. Just weigh the benefits....some workbooks are cheaper to buy than to copy :)

Diapers ;) If your carseat is more than 5 years old, you need to get a new one. For number 2 our burp cloths were fine, I did net new onsies. Of course, we got a lot of new clothes any way because #1 was a boy and #2 was a girl. But I reused a lot of the new born stuff.