Intriguing - would you expand on the method you have in mind? Meal planning at our house still overwhelms me.

We added more science this year for our jr and sr high students. We use Hakim's science series too, but what's really got them excited and talking is Bill Bryson. We started with http://www.amazon.com/Really-Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/0385738102/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1301238824&sr=8-17 and then moved into http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything-Illustrated/dp/0307885151/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1301238956&sr=8-3 We're also using the Khan Academy videos with the high schoolers with some supplemental online exploration.

I have cut the binding off using my rotary cutter, straight edge and cutting mat. I have a separate blade for he cutter I use only on paper. The hardest part is keeping the straight edge from sliding, since the paper is slick, but it works well. I'm a lefty too, binding on the right side sounds like a perfect solution. I read magazines back to front. :) To mark the binding, I'd use different colored sharpies and a coding system. One blue spiral math 1, two blue math 2, etc. Some great ideas here. Thanks!

Fiction: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Nonfiction: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

My favorite: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/

Geometry has caused much turmoil at our house too. My nonmathy teen is finally "getting it" after a whole year with Jacobs, Singapore and Fred. She survived Algebra 1 by combining Lial and Fred. I wish it could be simpler for her, but my insistence on perseverance has paid off. She doesn't want me involved with math in any way, so providing her with lots of resources has been our only salvation.

All my kids have learned the phonograms by playing Memory. I made two small sets of cards with all the phonograms. They have to find the pairs. They must say the sounds of every card they flip over, so during the game they get lots of practice since they can't easily find the pairs. None of them have gotten bored with this drill until they know most of the sounds.

I'm agnostic and we're secular schoolers. I don't try to steer my children in any particular direction when discussing religion. However, I do tend to say, quite often, "Christians belive this and Christians believe that."

We use Singapore and one of our favorite ways to learn the facts to 10 is to play a made-up game called "Make 10." It's Go Fish with numbers (we use Skipbo cards) and the goal is to find the pairs that make 10. You could play "Make 11, 12, 13," too.

I purchases a subscription to Evan Moor's Teacher File Box. Since I live in Louisiana, it set my standards to LA. We're stationed here, with no intentions of sending our children to school. I'm curious as to which state has the highest or best standards so that I may get the most out of my subscription. TIA,

I bought the readers, texts and activity books. I'm really happy with them and ds, 5, loves them. They're much meatier than the K set I bought in previous years. IMO, well worth the money.

Mancala is the game that gets played over and over and over at our house.

I'm baffled with healthy food choices as well. This year has been hard for us - dh is deployed, soccer then football season leaving us out of the house 5-6 nights a week, a teen with a job, Cub Scouts, allergy shots 2x a week... I've tried a number of different approaches and still fail miserably when it comes to feeding my family. I am anxious to read other replies and will share a few of things I do to simplify cooking at our house. I enlist the children's help with as much as I can. For example, 7yo ds isn't good with a knife yet, but he can sort 2 lbs of beans in a reasonable amount of time. Please keep in mind that I cook for eight each meal. :) We eat hamburger once a week. I buy 4 lbs and then fry it all up in batches, with veggies in ( ). Then freeze each separately for these crockpot meals. I thaw the meat in a pan of water on the counter or you could do it in the microwave for a few minutes. 1. sloppy joes (one onion) - ketchup to cover, 2 tablespoons mustard. Cook on low all day or start at noon on high. 2. chili (one onion) - 2 cans V-8, 6 cans kidney beans drained, tons of chili powder, 2 tsp salt. 3. spaghetti sauce (package of baby bella mushrooms, one onion, one head garlic, 2 TBS dried basil, 2 tsp salt) -- 2 large cans whole tomatoes, 1 large can tomato sauce, 1 small can tomato paste, 2 tsp salt, lots of fresh ground pepper. Before serving, I puree it with a handmixer. 4. nachos (one onion) - cumin, chili powder, salt. Toss on tortilla chips with other nacho components. I use a 2lb bag of chicken tenderloins for 3-4 meals. I thaw and then marinate the chicken with fajita seasonings. I use the one for steak fajitas in The Joy of Cooking. I bake the chicken that night for fajitas. The next meal, I add black beans and cheese to make quesadillas. Then a black bean, celery, onion, rotel, chicken broth soup. Lastly, a BBQ sauce pizza with chicken, black beans, cheddar, and veggies. I take the time to cut and prep 8 bell peppers. I use 3 onions, stored in a separate container. With the first meal I saute the veggies until caramelized. Then use the leftovers throughout the week for quesadillas and the pizza. We eat lots of beans. I start a 2 lb bag's worth in the crockpot before bed. The next day's lunch is sauted onions and garlic with beans and spices. We eat it with nacho chips. It's kind of like a soup. We make bean burritos by adding beans and cheese to whole wheat tortillas. Roll them up in a piece of foil and bake in the over for about 10 minutes. My kids and I eat beans like this, usually, twice a week. I make hummus in the food processor and we eat it with pretzels for an afternoon snack.

This is my favorite version, too. I found it at the library and liked it so much, I ordered a copy for our home library.

My oldest dd did TT Pre-Algebra and then started TT Algebra. She wasn't able to remember much of either. (She's always struggled with math.) I had her start Lial's Beginning Algebra and she got through a couple of chapters. Then she supplemented with LOF. She worked all the way through LOF and then went back and finished Lial's. LOF helped her understand the concepts; Lial cemented them. My other children have used Singapore through the primary grades. I think they'll have no tolerance for LOF.

When my ds was in 4th, we did 3/4 of SOTW2, SOTW3 and SOTW4 in 36 weeks. It was a huge time commitment, but overall he retained much of the info. We did one reading every day, map work at the end of chapters, narration questions after each section, and in SOTW4 he answered all the narration questions on paper. He did well with it all, except the written answers. He thought the writing was too time consuming. I did it like this to get him on the scheduled history rotation. I would do it again like this, however, I am thankful I won't have to because my other kiddos will follow the schedule. HTH,

When my girls, then 7th and 5th, started grammar, we used 3/4. They could've very easily done 5/6 though. I worked with them each day when a new concept was introduced, like a mini-lecture. We sat at the table and took turns reading through the information. As they worked through the book I constantly repeated the rules if when they had questions, for example, a prepositional phrase ends with something you can see. We were also studying Latin and the grammar lessons in our Latin book reinforced our English grammar. The EG books follow the same pattern for each level: prepositions, nouns, verbs, etc. Each book builds on each concept in some cases and in others it only reinforces and practices rules learned in a previous year. Concepts are continued throughout all the lessons in the book for constant practice. Prepositional phrases are underlined in most assignments that follow throughout the entire book. Nouns are underlined once, verbs twice. In my opinion, EG is not advanced. It presents grammar clearly. I'm a huge fan of the program. Hope that helps,

Thanks for sharing the schedule. :)

We were doing Ambleside Online and I labelled all of the books according to which year they were assigned. I used mailing labels. I made a different colored square box for each year and put the year number inside the box. I printed them out, one year per page, and had extras for when I added books to our library. The labels stay on most books very well. There are a few older hardbound books that the labels loosen from easily, but otherwise the labels are sticking after five years of use. Edited to add: I used the whole label, centering the year on the spine and wrapping the rest of the label to the front and back of the book. I placed the labels at the bottom of each spine and avoided covering the ISBN.

I switched from a desktop to a laptop two weeks ago. I'm loving my Studio 17.

We do textbook until it signals us to use the workbook. Practices come after a workbook exercise. We also work through the Extra Practice books, each exercise as appropriate after the textbook/workbook sequence. When we get to the textbooks that also include a Review, we do the textbook review before the workbook review. The textbook reviews are more difficult, so the workbook reviews seem easier for my children. Starting in 3A, my children do all practices/textbook reviews on paper. It's good practice for writing out problems, lining up numbers, etc. Mine do well working through the textbook with me and then working on workbook exercises independently. I am available to them as they need my help. I encourage you, if you have the time and resources, to work ahead of your dc -- textbooks, workbooks, home instructor's guide. This will help you see the methodology in the program.

Where might I find these, please? We will be using Wheelock's in high school as a 2-year course. We used Matin Latin I and II and then used Lively Latin I to make sure I hadn't made any mistakes. Dd's were 6th and 8th when we started and I had never been exposed to Latin previously. I tried at first with Oxford Latin and they were incredibly confused, although I understood it from my exposure to Spanish in HS and college. We did one year of Matin Latin and then tried Oxford again and they were still confused. Matin Latin is set up like a children's version of Wheelock's, although I won't recommend it, as I made a ton of worksheets to complement the program. I also believe that Oxford is much like Cambridge in it's whole-to-parts set-up. I rely heavily on Dale Grote's "A Comprehensive Guide to Wheelock's Latin." Kelli

:iagree: I was thinking the same thing. Kelli

Another vote for Mary Pope Osborne. Kids of all ages love it at our house.

Please share the Benjamin-Cummings textbooks that you use. I'd like to see if they would work for my older children. Kelli