I really don't like that I can't preview the books before buying. Sure, I've been able to find some on amazon, but not all. :angry:

Why did they take away the previews? I don't want to buy anything w/o look through them first. Grrrrrrrr

This is true. It really is. I know it deep down inside, but I guess sometimes I get a case of the "Grass is always Greener" syndrome.

Thank you for these ideas!

She'd be going off to kindergarten this year, and I'm seeing so many pictures of kids her age going off to school, and I feel like I'm cheating her out of an experience. I know that I can give her a better education at home, and I know that there are things in PS that I wouldn't want her to be exposed to, so why do I feel this way?

I was also wondering whether they will stop the dollar deals. I hope not! I won't buy them! And I noticed that you can't preview the ebooks anymore either, which IMO is not smart. I think people will be less likely to buy w/o being able to preview. I don't want to buy unless I know what I'm buying.

Hugs! Do you feel that your son just isn't motivated or do you think the work is too hard? If he needs motivation maybe try a reward system? Make a chart, and put a sticker for everyday he completes his work. After completes a certain number of days, reward him. Maybe an ice cream party, pizza party, chuck e. cheese, etc. Something he likes. Younger kids need to be gratified more often than older kids, or they lose interest. So maybe start out setting your goal to 10. When he completes that, set another goal. Maybe increase the amount of days required to earn his reward as the year passes.

I'm imagining that this will cost more than $6, with buying the chicken, cheeses, and tortillas. Still healthier though!

I'm not sure what "BP" stands for, but I own both the VP cards and the CC cards. They are both nice, but I like the CC cards better. I had to laminate the VP cards, but the CC cards are already laminated. The CC cards are more attractive, but that's not very important. But...the big reason why I like the CC cards is because I feel like it has more of a world view of history. I noticed that after the VP cards get to the founding of the U.S., they begin to cover mostly U.S. History. The CC cards do cover U.S. History, but it still includes other parts of the World. Also, the VP cards don't cover very much from the last 60 years. There's a card for WWII, then there's one card for the Vietnam, Korean, and Cold Wars. Just one card for all three, not one card each. Then there's the moon landing, and then September 11th. The CC cards have 20 cards after WWII, not including the president cards. The cards include the U.N., Ghandi and India's independence, MLK and the civil rights movement, one card for each of the wars listed above, the Antarctic Treaty, Watergate and President Nixon's resignation, the fall of communism in eastern europe, etc. I think you can see from that sampling that the CC cards covers a bit more in the last century. When I say "world view" I meant that it covers other parts of the world. Hopefully that was clear. The above poster said that it's more global, and I think I'm going to begin describing it that way. We meant the same thing though.

Ugh, I consider myself a conservative Christian, but I feel like fighting to keep gays from marrying comes across as unloving. My husband and I disagree on this. He's all about how obedient we need to be to God's Word and how Sodom and Gomorrah will happen all over again if we allow gays to marry. Oh, and he also thinks that it will open the door to pedophiles marrying children and that people will be allowed to marry their animals, and yada yada yada. My opinion is that they're going to live like they're married anyway, why not just let them get married. Not everyone is Christian, so why force them to obey the Christian law? And DH and I keep going in circles b/c he feels like our country is a Christian country, so we should uphold the Christian law. Can I boycott Dh? LOL! BTW, I won't be boycotting Chick Fil A, but I won't be going out of my way to support them just because of what they support.

Hobby Lobby also always sells them, and there are always HL coupons for 40% off. I think I saw a decent one for about $30. Use a coupon and it's $18! For the time being, we're using an inflatable globe with flat maps.

We do CC, and for what it's worth, I don't think it's important to try to correlate your lessons around the CC Memory Work. Especially in Cycle 1. Cycle 1 is all over the place. It's not just ancient history. My oldest is only in K this year, and so I haven't been able to implement history yet, but I think we're just going to read history texts separate from CC, and memorize the CC stuff on the side. My plan is to begin SOTW when DD is in first grade, and just read through that in order. DD will make the connections with the CC history sentences as we go along. So IMO, if American history interests your family, stick with it until you finish. You can drop it and come back to it if you want, but I seriously think it'd be hard to try to follow CC cycle 1. So really I'm just trying to say is that if you want to go at your own pace, do whatever you want to do. If you drill those CC facts, it will stay in the back of their brains and when you get to each fact in your studies, your kids will be like, "Oh yeah! I remember when we did that in CC." And then they'll sing the song. LOL!

Are they not doing these as often anymore? Also, I noticed that their website doesn't allow you to preview the books anymore. I'm going to be less likely to buy something if I can't see what's inside. :(

I hope you don't mind, but I started following you. I see so many great ideas on your boards! :)

People think she's a fraud??????

I'm thinking that since there are some extra presidents now, since we were kids, that tunes for presidents have been changed to accommodate the newer presidents. I didn't learn any songs for states or presidents, but now I'm learning them with the songs from Classical Conversations. CC has a song for the states and capitals and it lists them in geographical order. It goes down the east coast first, then around the gulf coast, then to Michigan and works its way down to Arkansas...well you probably get the idea.

We were just up in Hershey a week ago, and we're thinking about going again. Someone just told me that the Giant Supermarket that is only a mile or two from Hersheypark not only sells tickets to the park, but also gives free parking when you purchase your tickets there. We have a Martins nearby (owned by Giant) and they sell those discounted Hersheypark tickets too, but only offered free parking when you purchased your tickets in June. Is it true that the Giant near Hersheypark offers the free parking all summer long? Actually, there might be a few Giants that are near Hersheypark. I saw one on what I think was Hershey Rd, across the street from a Turkey Hill convenience store. It might have been new, or maybe I'm getting the road wrong, b/c I can't find it by googling it.

It's everything but Language Arts and Math.

I guess everyone has an opinion one what's expensive, b/c IMO My Father's World isn't expensive compared to other curriculums, like Sonlight which costs like $800. I haven't used MFW, but I've looked into it. It looks like you can buy just the basics, and try to buy the others used or on Amazon. But the prices on Amazon are comparable to the prices on MFW's website.

I want to know how to get on the mailing list for the dollar deals? I've ordered from the dollar deals, but I only find out about them when others post about them. I NEVER get emails letting me know. Although I think that if you google "Scholastic, teacher, express, dollar." it takes you to the dollar deals if there is a current dollar deal promo.

Would this work? http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/sku/027052/62ae80960625796d0bb2a9f7

Can you buy just the readers?

I've been thinking about getting the Building Thinking Skills from CTC, but I'm torn b/c I'm also thinking about getting some Lollipop Logic and the Analogies books from Prufrock. IMO, the price is about the same b/c you're getting more in some of the CTC books. That Building Thinking Skills book is $30 something, but it's huge and is meant to be used in both K and 1st. I'd need to buy a few of the Lollipop Logic books in order to get about the same amount of work. It would end up costing about the same. That's just my two cents.

I noticed that Base 10 blocks are recommended a lot as one of the "go to" math manipulatives. Would you still recommend them to someone who owns MUS blocks? They are almost alike, except that Base 10 blocks would include more 100's and a 1,000 block. Would having more 100's and a 1,000 be a good reason to buy a set?

I was looking into the Zoology 1 book. The list of items does look kind of complicated, although I wouldn't need everything that it includes. An umbrella comes with it, and we have an umbrella. It includes a plastic, rubbermaid like container, which we have plenty of. But there are some things that I'd need which would quickly add up, and I'm not sure I would be able to buy them in small quantities, like sand, a magnifying glass, mesh bags to hold bird seed, hanging wire, and we don't have a food scale.