Congrats Shelly! I voted for Benjamin David, I like the way it flows, and hey, I'm partial to that name since I have a dh with it as his first name & a son with it as his middle name :). Merry :-)

Mold is more an issue with the humidity in the air. You can get a humidity meter fairly cheaply & see if your humidity is staying between 40-60%. You can also try a dehumidifier if you have moisture issues. Merry :-)

My dd is 9 & I noticed she was forming some letters incorrectly too. We use Handwriting Without Tears, which is great on methods, I just didn't supervise enough. So now I am. I watch while she writes for spelling, and when we end our spelling lesson, I have her write 3 of each letter that I saw her form incorrectly, I remind her what kind of letter it is (mostly her mistakes are on diver letters, not sure why!). She is starting to self-correct & forming some of them correctly now w/o having to stop & correct, so it's making a difference. Hang in there! Merry :-)

If you are not using the same book/kit with them at the same time, I think you're fine with one kit. I actually am using one kit with 2 kids who are only about 1.5 lessons apart, but I organized my cards differently than what the book recommends. (I have them divided into review for one, the other, or both, plus some cards that one is reviewing that the other hasn't gotten to yet. If it sounds confusing, well, it took me a few weeks to come up with this system for us, LOL!). I wrote about AAS on my blog yesterday. Hope you find what works for your kids, I wish I'd found it when my kids were younger! Merry :-)

I love AAS here, it really has made a difference in my kids' spelling. I didn't go for it right away because of the cost, but it's been one of the best curriculum decisions I've made. Spend some time reading the articles on the site & looking at the samples, and see what you think, it might work for you. I just wrote about AAS on my blog yesterday. God bless, Merry :-)

Hi Stacy--one thought for you is to not try to do a full lesson of AAS in a sitting. Work for 15 minutes or so, and pick up where you left off the next day. That's how we're using AAS. Can you rotate the older kids--you work with one while the other plays with either the 4 yo or the baby or possibly both--whatever might help you get in a 15-30 minute segment with the other child? After they each have a time with the youngers, then they can do independent work while you spend 30 min. focusing on the youngers. (Actually, you might also start the day doing something with the baby and the 4 yo--when I was homeschooling only my oldest, I found my then 3.5 yo was much more likely to play for a bit on her own after attention from me first, rather than her vying for my attention all day, ya know?). Hope you figure out a workable schedule! Merry :-)

We use a Life Application Bible. This year we're doing a Gospel, Proverbs, some Psalms, and some OT History & Prophets. When we did MOH 2, we read almost all of the NT, that was fun to go along with reading about the early church. Anyway, I read a passage to my kids, usually a chapter, then we discuss or ask questions, I skim the notes and read any that I like. Some give historical context or translation info, some talk about how this might relate to choices we make etc... My kids often read along in their student Bibles, and they love to come up with notes on something historical, or a memory verse etc... So my vote...read the Bible for Bible :). Merry :-)

We've had it both ways--one got sold (twice I think!), we later refinanced when the rates went down so much and the new one stayed local. The local one feels more personable if I have a question (ie, how much do I need to be at to drop the mortgage insurance & other such questions), but otherwise we didn't have any problems with either. Merry :-)

(((Hugs))) I'm so sorry. Go ahead & cry with them. It's ok. My dh is disabled. Sometimes we just need to do that. Merry

Another way to approach clutter if it's been a long time since you cleaned out storage areas: Pull everything out. Everything! Then ask yourself, "What do I want this space to be used for?" Then put back only what you use, what you really want to have & use--your top priority stuff. Put those things in the easiest to access places. If you have things that fit the purpose of the space but are lesser used, put them in the harder to reach places. If you have stuff that you have saved for 5 years because someday you might use it...ask yourself if it's really worth the headache of cluttering up your now wonderful looking storage place, vs. the .01% chance that you will EVER in the next decade use it! After you get one place done, keep it that way while starting on another. Do the same for rooms--I used to have all multi-purpose rooms, LOL! until a friend clued me in on a very obvious & helpful idea by asking me, "What's the purpose of this room? What do you use it for?" Well...everything of course! LOL! So I learned to start asking myself those questions. It has SO helped me be able to organize a room neatly & functionally, and to not keep around things we really don't use. Honestly, I have RARELY regretted anything I've purged, and the few I have were replaceable things. Happy decluttering! Merry :-)

Here's pics of mine on my blog: http://hopeismyanchor.blogspot.com/2008/08/want-to-see-our-school-room.html We just reorganized, come take a look! Merry :-)

And THIS part is probably the worst for them! (I bolded part for emphasis!) "They were sentenced to a year's probation, during which they cannot enter any national park or modify any public signs. They were also ordered to pay $3,035 to repair the watchtower sign." And the real irony is in the last sentence: "The TEAL Web site now has only this message - "Statement on the signage of our National Parks and public lands to come" - without a period." So...did they do that on purpose or by accident?! Merry :-)

I use Sonlight so our history, read-alouds & readers are all planned out. For other subjects, sometimes I look at the book (like math, handwriting) and decide how many pages or lessons to do per day or week in order to finish it. Once I have a general idea of how much I want to cover in a day or in a week, then I pretty much go with that & don't worry about how it's scheduled. If it's a chapter book, we read a chapter--or if they are short, 2-3 chapters. I do make up a one-page schedule in MS word, but I also sometimes just write down on it what we did. It's 49 kb, too big to load here, but if anyone wants to see it, you can email me. www.donnayoung.org has some nice forms too. I like to use one of the yearly ones to map out our approximate yearly schedule (always up for change as needed...) Merry :-)

I sold what we had (only 2 settings) on Ebay. We just weren't using them either. I took it to one of those shipping places first to find out how much they would charge me for packaging & shipping it--I wanted it done well & no breakage. So I figured that into my shipping costs when I priced it out. Got there fine, customer was happy & so was I. Merry :-)

Well, YOU are on a distinguished road! Merry :-)

You may need to rephrase the question--maybe what will be the result, or something along those lines. I'd just gently point out to them that it doesn't say that God loves us because we seek wisdom (in fact, there are other passages that show God loved us before we loved Him!). I might have them read the passage aloud, and tell me what it actually DOES say. Then we'd talk about what it means. Merry :-)

I did Sonlight Core 3 when my kids were 3rd & 5th grades. We've always combined for history, Bible & Science. Merry :-)

Yes. We had one on our street for awhile, then he moved. But it made me realize, are most SO's even in the system? How many are there that aren't? I need to parent with that in mind. Not paranoid & suspecting everyone--I don't mean that--but just knowing that I need to have my eyes open & parent proactively. (((Hugs))) Merry :-)

I require legibility. If I have to struggle to read something, I have my kids fix it. But I don't require as neat as when they are focusing on handwriting. Merry :-)

Here's an article to help you decide if you can skip level 1. We started with level 2 with 5th & 3rd graders & that was a good match for us. Merry :-)

It depends. For something under $10 (not sure how much SWO is), I'd use it until I found something else to try & then ditch it. For something more expensive (say, a math program for the year), I'd probably try to finish out the year with it, but do lots of research to find something else (btdt twice!). If you have the money to ditch it & move on, I would. If not, I'd make use of it & move on the next year. HTH! Merry :-)

I'm doing AAS with 2 children at different places, and really it's pretty simple. There's no planning, it's just open & go, and my kids are really learning. The only thing easier would be a workbook (but the ones I've tried haven't worked so well for us). SWR is VERY intensive to learn & implement from what I've heard. There's almost no learning-curve to start with AAS (I got it, cut stuff out one day, looked over the book quickly & started it the next day). Hope you find what will work for your family! Merry :-)

For us, the magnets and a magnet white-board make the program! We store all our tiles on the magnet board (got a 2' X 3' one at Walmart for $15). Totally worth it. It's much easier than setting the tiles up each time you use it (I did try without for a few days), yet the kids still get to alphabetize the tiles when they put them back after using. Enjoy! Merry :-)

Take a look at Sonlight's book lists for K, 1 & 2, to see if any would fit for you. But Garden made me think of The Secret Garden, gotta read that one! Merry :-)

We really like All About Spelling here. Merry :-)