We have a cable broadband connection. We were looking into switching to DSL to save money, but after researching streaming video (ie. Netflix), we learned the best quality will be through broadband speeds. We kept our broadband, and we stream from Netflix daily. So far, things have been smooth; we're loving it!

I'd love to hear others' responses to this as well as CW intrigues me.

We enjoyed and had great success with Phonics Pathways.

We absolutely LOVE our Roku! It's fascinating our friends too! Since giving up cable (except for the 12 very basic local channels), the Roku has been used more than the regular TV. My boys are loving all the options, and I'm thoroughly enjoying the resurrection of old kid shows like Fraggle Rock and Inspector Gadget. Their favorite right now is a movie called Tugger about a WWII Jeep who wants to fly. The educational shows are a huge hit with my oldest.

This is a great question, as I have wondered this myself. Spelling is such an important skill, so I would think she'd want it really cemented for children. After looking at both of her suggestions, I kept feeling like they weren't going to be enough for ds. I researched further and found AAS (thanks to the hive!), and we both are enjoying it immensely. Lessons are quick & fun, and it's sticking.

At that age, my son loved Charlotte's Web Stuart Little Trumpet of the Swan Imho, you can't go wrong with E.B.White. :)

This is an excellent idea!!!

:iagree: Congratulations on your decision! Welcome to the journey! It's a great one!!!!

I will think of this post every day I am struggling with ds6 (will be 7 in April). I will chant, "I am not alone. I am not alone" over and over again as I'm about to rip my hair out! :lol: Seriously, there are some great suggestions in here, and I'm eager to implement them! Great question OP!

Me too!

I'm looking to find a dvd or series of dvds that are fun, about 30 minutes long, and that give results. Buying a gym membership is not feasible right now, so I have to make myself disciplined to workout at home. I'd also be interested in Yoga videos too. TIA!

I'm doing well eating, making sure I eat every 2-3 hours, and eating healthy things: fruits, veggies, yogurt vs. cookies, brownies, chips. I'm also keeping more veggies on my plate at dinner, and I'm avoiding 2nds unless it's veggies. My portion sizes are also smaller than before. As for exercise, this is still so hard for me to make routine. We were up last night later than normal due to a tornado warning, and then after only 3 hours of sleep, ds woke up with a fever, and I was kept awake for another hour and 1/2. Needlesstosay, I did not get up to work-out this morning.

Thank you for sharing!!!

I need to take your post to heart and utilize your wisdom!!!! :D

Although this is a more interactive approach, All About Spelling really works. Its methods are tried and true based on Orton-Gillingham methods which were developed intitially for dyslexic students. It's a hands-on phonetic approach so the kids not only hear the word and see the word, they move letters to make the word/sounds giving the brain one more thing to hold on to. It's open and go, and each level includes a teacher manual and a student supply kit that has everything you need in it to open the book & teach.

This is what we purchased when we were using Horizons 1 (we've since moved to Singapore). I did also purchase a plastic clock for time, but even that can be made out of a paper plate, a brass fastener, and paper clock hands. We used a lot of beans, M&Ms, Cheerios, paper clips, Legos (as linking blocks) instead of buying all the other manipulatives.

I thought I was overscheduling some... thank you all for sharing your schedules. I just learned last week that FLL is meant to be done 2-3x/wk. Goes to show how carefully I read the intro! I think if I scale that back to its intended timing, move WWE to 2x/wk (doing 2 at once), and moving AAS to 3x/wk, our days should move more smoothly. I hadn't even thought of getting rid of ETC as someone mentioned... I'm going to reanalyze that. I've been finding, I'm scrambling to get read-alouds, science and SOTW in. He loves these subjects, so it's all he wants to do, but I'm so bent on making sure the core is incredibly solid that I think I was scheduling more than necessary. I need to keep remembering that it's not all meant to be learned in this stage, and that skills are revisited some, and then built upon. Thanks again for helping me to work this out, ladies!

I'm wondering if I'm overkilling things, and I'd like some advice from the hive. My ds is in first grade, and we do AAS, FLL and WWE every day (well WWE is actually 4 days a week). Should I be doing all this every day or should I do spelling & grammar one day, writing and spelling another, grammar and writing another, etc? He's starting to drag his feet with these subjects since we've added spelling to the schedule (right after Christmas). I'm wondering if he's hitting verbal overload? He was doing fine with just FLL and WWE. Also, he's enjoying AAS, so I don't think it's an issue of the spelling program being the problem. He also does ETC daily as well...

:bigear:

This looks AMAZING, and it's affordable! Wow!!!!! My son would love this! Thank you for sharing!

We've been using Life Science with Real Books. It can be hard to find, but it's a wonderful, spiral bound curriculum that offers experiments, questions, reading suggestions. Ds loves it because it's the perfect balance of experiments and reading of living books.

Interesting thread as dh and I just had this talk before we signed ds up for soccer. For us, we've decided soccer will be his only activity. We've already dropped piano for our budget, but it would be like cutting off his leg if we stopped soccer. So, we moved some money around in our budget to pay for soccer. This month is tighter as a result, but we got it done. We'll do it again when it comes time to sign up for fall soccer. As for all other activities... field trips come out of my education budget, and we just schedule park play dates, etc. to get the kids out. I know what Dave says, and we respect him greatly, but as someone else mentioned, our children are only young once. Finding a balance is key. For us, paying for one sport is something for which we can sacrifice temporarily.

We have the following: Groceries Non-food/Household - ie. the kit we needed to fix the toilet recently, a new ironing board, etc. Restaurants Entertainment Clothing - one for kids & one for adults Personal care/Beauty - haircuts, my MK make-up Babysitter Gas/Car maintenance We're fairly new to the envelope system, and we've been thinking of tweaking it to put Restaurants and Entertainment together or put Entertainment/Babysitter together. Or to even combine the three. So far, this is working out fine though. We have sheets in our envelopes where we record everything we've spent as well so we can keep track of our habits. Dh is an accountant and tends to go overboard with the record-keeping :tongue_smilie:

I'm so torn! Currently, we're doing FLL (1st grade) and WWE1. I'm trying to decide for next year if I should stick with FLL (2nd gr section) and WWE2 or switch to the Classical Writing Primers. Ds and I are both liking FLL and WWE, but I really like what I've seen of the CW Primers, and I've been wanting to incorporate picture & nature study into our days. The primers will do this. I'm thinking I could do WWE2 & FLL2 and then switch to CW Aesop for 3rd OR should I just go ahead & make the switch to CW in 2nd grade with the Primers? Will WWE and FLL give ds a strong enough base to switch over to CW? Any insight would be helpful! I want the most solid (yet gentle) grammar/writing background as possible. Which path would be better? PS - I'm open to doing WWE all the way through 4, and then switching to CW, but if I did that where would I start him - Homer?

I bought 3.5 to help cement a concept ds was having trouble with in 3. After seeing how they took the skills a bit further in the half book, I went ahead and bought 4.5 to use in conjunction with 4. He'll do the lessons in 4, then before moving to the next rule, we do the corresponding work in 4.5. It makes it more solid for him, and makes me feel better that he's really understanding it. I'm going to continue to do this for the subsequent books.