Foundations is actually K-6. 4-6 the children do both Foundations and Essentials. Threads like this make me sad. Not because people don't like CC (because I agree it's not for everyone), but because people discount the education without truly experiencing or understanding the whole picture concept.

My kids have kindle readers (NOT the fire), but they honestly still prefer paper books. It's handy for library books when we don't make it to the library, and it makes it *fun* for them to read, but they still gravitate toward paper books (or dead tree books as they are referred to in the ebook world lol).

We're joining CC this year with a 6th, 3rd and K'er. I adore MFW and have no intentions of leaving it at this time, but I was really looking for something where both the kids AND I were involved in a community. I currently have the kids in things where THEY are in a community, but I'm not a fully vested part of it. That is what I'm looking forward to with CC. We will be using MFW (RTR) for our main curriculum, and using the CC memory work as simply another subject. For my 6th grader, she will be in Essentials, so she will be getting her grammar/writing from CC, which I'm grateful for as I feel like I'm dropping the ball in that area (writing specifically). We haven't started yet, so take this with a grain of salt, I'm just saying how WE'RE going to be working it this year :)

As a consignment sale owner, i would definitely tell you to sell it at a Consignment sale ;)

We have Julie and her hair is still nice. It's obviously not as easy to take care of as Kit's, but not as hard as some of the curly hair'd dolls. Enjoy her :)

We use CLE for language arts and it glues through diagramming. I know you don't want a full curriculum, so I thought I'd mention that cle has a supplemental diagramming booklet for extra practice problems and such and the instructions are in it, so you could probably just go through the diagramming booklet without doing the whole curriculum and achieve what you are looking for :)

From 3rd grade on up, I love the lists at http://www.battleofthebooks.org/book-list/ - my girls do Battle of the Books and they always have such wonderful books on the lists. There's generally a variety of easier and harder books, classic and more modern books, but all wonderful books :)

LOVE CLE. Seriously love it. My math struggling child even truly enjoys it. It is spiral (which I was very against), but it's a very gentle spiral and it reviews so much that the second someone is starting to forget something, it's all brought back to them. I really love CLE Math (and Language Arts LOL).

We happily use our local california charter school and absolutely love it. We aren't given a lump sum, but we are allowed to put in order requests for any secular curriculum for core subjects that we would like. Our charger also gives $40/mo/kid for extracurricular activities...not a ron, but it pays for once a week dance, gymnastics, tennis, etc. The school also has once a week enrichment classes that my kids adore. They generally have nothing to do with the curriculum I'm using, but that's one of the things I love about it. I would of had no idea that my oldest daughter would have a crazy fascination for homing pigeons (she brings one home every week), or that my middle daughter was so interested in cloud formations, without these cool classes. They also organize tons of field trips and we just truly enjoy it there. The strings that are attached are once a month meeting with our resource teacher where I give her 1 work sample for each subject and end of the year testing. I don't give 2 hoots about the testing because there's no pressure with the scores. They just take the tests and leave. I'm not saying we would stay with the charter forever, but it is absolutely working for us now and we love it. Despise the stigma so many, who push so strongly for choice in education, attach to it though :(.

I believe opening ceremonies are actually July 27th. We just started the Amanda Bennett study yesterday and are having such a wonderful time with it. We will be finishing up the day of opening ceremonies (taking 1 week off in the middle for summer camp). Love the book suggestions. We've already picked up several, but always looking for more :)

My understanding (though I haven't looked at it myself) is that Sonlight new requires their LA to be sold with their history. I have a couple friends who are really frustrated with this. I'm ASSUMING that's what the op was referring to.

Haha - I just wanted to make you a little envious of me, with my bare feet, in the sand, with the book on my lap and the vast ocean in front of me. :)

If so, tell me about it! We don't have anything like that around here and I'm curious about what they entail :) Do they have the big name curriculum? Other items? What do you like about it? What do you not? Do you actually SHOP at the store, or do you just browse and find cheaper online?

The time thing is why I just couldn't commit to HOD and TOG. We chose MFW instead and are sooooo excited! Each kid has their own language/math, so the combining for history/science is really not a problem. I see you use MFW for 9th, but not the rest. I'm assuming maybe you've tried and haven't enjoyed it? But if not, mentioning it just in case. I kept being drawn to MFW last year, but didn't do it because I wanted to stay away from the "box" mentality, but I'm not feeling a box type feeling for it. Definitely looking forward to starting it :)

If it's already scratched, try car wax! It's done wonders for some of our dvd's!

Just making sure I'm not going to be kicking myself in a month or 2 if I order from ChristianBook.com right now :) Free shipping coupon is 376118 :)

I'm getting ready to order next year's Apologia curriculum (Zoo 2 - all Apologia 30% off right now at Christanbook.com :) ) and I want to get a lab kit for it. Which one is the best? I want the one that truly has the most available with it because if it's not there, we won't end up doing it :-/

:bigear: for my 9 yr old :)

You'd better believe I am tonight! We're on day 4 of 5 of DH being gone, I have 4 extra kids in my house today, 1 who invited herself and 1 who asked if she could stay until 7?! Yeah, I'll be there tonight :)

Between my 1st grader, and 2 of her 1st grader ps friends. Friends: Do you do math at school? My dd: Yeah, I do math! Friends: We do too - Yay! (all very cute at this point) My dd: Do you do science? Friends: Ummm...a little bit. Me (stepping in to be nosy): What have you been learning in science? Friends: Hmmm...We've only done a little bit and it was a long time ago, so I wouldn't remember anyway. Me: Do you do history? Friends: Yeah, but my sister isn't around much because she's off with her friends at sleepovers alot, so I don't do much of that anymore Me: Ummm...what?!?! LOL. Anyway, it was a conversation that was eye opening to me, being in our first year of hs'ing. My dd went to school with these girls last year and she would be at this point right now if we hadn't taken the steps we have this year. The main things they could tell me was that they do morning work, have recess, some more work, another recess, lunch, more work, then math. I'm not sure what all that "more work" is, but apparently it's not History or Science. To be fair, I should have asked about "social studies" because they might have understood that more, but I didn't. I just found it eye opening to realize that they had NO CLUE what "history" even was, and that science was so unimportant that you would just forget about it anyway :(

We're doing Astronomy this year. It has been great. The ONLY curriculum I haven't wanted to change during our first year of hs'ing LOL. I've heard Astronomy is the "easiest" and then I found this thread very informative when trying to decide which Zoology to do next: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=340128&highlight=apologia+zoology

I truly don't understand how some of you think it was a great show?! I thought it was incredibly awkward, not well rehearsed and she just didn't look like she knew what she was doing. I was looking forward to it and I was definitely disappointed.

This is one of the things that I truly want to achieve in our homeschool and I have kind of lost sight of that this year...until tonight :). I get so caught up in the right curriculum and right path, that I kind of lost what brought me to homeschooling to begin with. So, I'm just looking for ways that YOU strive to instill the love, desire and drive to go further, to want to succeed, to want to be challenged, etc, in your children.

Voted :)

I never had it (graduated 1995) and my niece who is in Jr. High now has not had it yet. I assume they don't do it here at all anymore.