This is what I did and ended up going straight through in order. But my son was reading really well and we use ETC just as phonics reinforcement, not instruction. I'd be more likely to skip 4 if we were using it as instruction while learning to read. You won't need it. Like the other books it's only needed for 1-2 pages at the end, they are easily skipped. Here's an old thread about this.

It's so interesting to read the responses isn't it? I like reading how other families do things. Friday is our homeschool playgroup day. Usually we get home about 1:30 after spending the morning playing with our friends. This is the only time my kids get to freely play during the week, we don't have any neighbor kids to play with so it is wonderful to let them all get together and just play and all of us mums can sit around and talk. We have ages 9 down to newborns in our group. I love to watch the older kids interacting with the babies and littles. And then going off to do their own 'big kid' things. In the afternoon we do a science/history/art project. Whatever hands-on thing we didn't get to during the week. We might read, we usually rest/nap. If I'm too worn out to do a project then the kids get to watch a video. I might start a house cleaning time in the morning before we leave, we did that this week and it really made the day go smoother when we returned.

I decided to buy a new laminator. Before I did so dh took apart my old one and we discovered that there was wax buildup in a couple of places on the roller, one of them quite large. Removing the wax wouldn't help as the roller was flattened under the wax in those spots. The new laminator works perfectly, no sending it through more than once even with my thick cardstock! :hurray::hurray:

I have the hard copy revised AG and the pdf download of just the student pages. The AG has the info about the bonus riddle but the pdf does not. Number 3 has been deleted and Number 2 has been edited to say left/right, top/bottom, diagonally. I bought my AG new, so I think they've only edited the electronic version.

I'm planning to do the new Project Passport for The Middle Ages when we do SOTW2. Can't wait!

Bump so others can see their great deals. This includes A Child's Geography vol 1&2 by Ann Voskamp also!

I order from Book Depository. Free international shipping. I'm in Australia so they often work out to be the best price for me.

:iagree: But much more common to have the kind that are towed here. Not the big second-home type RVs in the US, although they do have them they are not as common.

No, no, no, no! I am not that crafty! :tongue_smilie: If this bubbled up I would cry! All that time wasted. Thanks for the advice.

There are some free skip counting drill sheets here at Currclick from Lilliput Station. I laminated the 100 chart and used it to introduce each number. Then we used the drill sheets over and over, one number at a time. Then oral review. But this is at seven, he now has them memorised at 7.5. RightStart has a skip counting game that helps (if you are using RS), and using the abacus to move the beads over in separated sets helps them picture it. (Again, that's if you are using RS.) There is a card game called Speed which I am ordering that looks fun and has gotten good reviews. of how to play it.

Bump! I know there are crafters here who can help me! :D

I've never used mod podge before. Can I use it to protect a globe I painted? I very carefully covered a globe in Montessori continent colours and I'm afraid of the paint chipping off with use. If not mod podge, then what? I already own the mod podge so if I can use it then I won't have to buy anything else. :)

I'm so tempted by HOD but the samples are all about American history and that has been the one thing that has kept from trying it. I'd love to look at it for K- actually to combine my nearly 3yo and my 5yo. Do any of them cover world history? Ancient History? Is there a scope & sequence for their program somewhere on their site? :bigear:

How do you squeeze the water out? Just do it with your (clean) hands? Wrap them in a paper towel? A little inexperienced here. :blushing: :leaving:

I have this problem too!

I wish the addition/subtraction was ready for release, we've enjoyed the trial. More fun for drill than xtramath! I just watched the video on HSBC and it says that all the multiplication facts are in the free version. We haven't tried it yet.

:iagree: FWIW, we love the variety of passages. We have been introduced to many things we would not have come across. If there is a passage we've particularly enjoyed then we'll have a look at the library for it.

Does HSBC have a trial period this time where you can try it out but cancel before being charged for the whole thing? I did their trial period once to try out the whole site. I had to pay the HSBC service charge (I think it was $1.95). I had a look around for a week or so and then cancelled before having to pay for the membership. I found that it just wasn't for me- I didn't find that they had enough that I would have used. But that is entirely personal and based on my kids and what we are using. It may be perfect for you. The only odd thing...they have clipart for download on their site. I asked them if I could use the clipart to create printables and then share (not sell) the printables on my blog. Their response was something along the lines of "I don't know. What's your blog address?" :confused: I would expect an organisation like this to have a set policy on this type of thing. A place with paid memberships? Either they allow it or they don't. Maybe my question led them to set a policy, I haven't checked. And maybe it was just an inexperienced sales person that responded to my question. Either way it didn't work for me, YMMV.

Bible- Telling God's Story, with the activity book. Really love this, the related activities are good and their Year One would work for a K'er. You could take it at a slow pace and not try to complete it in a year. We love My First Hands-On Bible for Bible reading. Science- Sonlight's Discover & Do DVDs with the related Usborne Science Activites books. You don't have to use SL's program, just the DVDs and some books. Another options is Magic School Bus DVDs, books, science kits, online activities from the Scholastic site. So fun! Social Studies- Expedition Earth from COAH, I use this more as a checklist and suggestion of activities instead of following the curriculum. We spend 2-3 weeks on a country instead of just one week as suggested. Go along books we use with it include Children Just Like Me, Around the World in 80 Tales, Geography A to Z, Global Art. I just cross out the things we don't want to do. HTH. I remember many times trying to type with one hand while baby happily fell asleep on me!

Thank you all for your responses, I am now pondering. I do have a checklist for *myself* for each day. It has a list of subjects for M-F on one page. I'm going to break it into one page for each day so as not to overwhelm ds, and be more specific with some of the subjects so he knows exactly what he has to do. Mainly this is so he has a light at the end of the tunnel and knows when he is done for the day, instead of having to ask me over and over again!

:iagree: Except that our jr. notebook for astronomy that we are using does have a couple of easy crossword puzzles. Sometimes the writing lines are unreasonably big, there is no way we could fit everything in so we ignore the dotted part and treat it all as regular lines to be able to fit more in. If you think your ds would miss the coloring pages then get the jr. notebook. They recommend the regular for 3rd and up so you could go either way. From the samples on cbd it looks like the regular journals also include review questions that the jr's do not have, so that might be a reason to go up. Next year for 3rd we will probably stay with a jr. notebook. HTH!

IIRC only SOTW 1 & 2 were revised.

Does your 'link within' widget sometimes point to other blogs? If I'm on a specific post on my blog it will often link to other posts on other blogs if I have linked to that blog in my blog post. (Clear as mud?) :) If I'm on the home page or on, say, all the posts for a month it only links to other posts in my own blog. Anyone else? ETA: This seems to be on older blog posts only, posts that are at least a few months old.

I didn't know the DVD's went through the book in order. This makes it much easier to find the corresponding experiment in the book without having the whole Science IG. I don't need the whole IG, just want to be able to replicate some of the experiments from the DVD, using the Usborne books. Thank you! End hijack. :leaving:

:hurray: Hear, hear! Maybe I should frame this and hang it on my wall! :leaving: