I probably could work it in, but I just don't want to. My time is so very limited. I have 5 children ages (almost) 1 year to 9 years old. They're still so small, it's very hard to get them all ready and out the door if I choose to exercise with them all in tow. It would take half of our morning or more. By the time evening comes around, I'm run ragged from all the busyness of the day and am just too tired and selfish to go exercise. And my day doesn't really end until I have the kids in bed. It's just one long marathon all day long between homeschooling, house chores, changing diapers, talking to children and cooking homemade meals. By the time they're in bed I want to sit and watch a show with dh. Mornings don't work too well because DH is military and is off to exercise by 5:30 every morning, back by 7:15, and out the door by 8. Whenever I've tried to do video exercise, dh always walks in the door, coming home early from PT, or the kids wake up earlier than I expected and they walk in on me. And truly and honestly, I don't want people watching me follow a silly video. We don't have a way for me to watch a video and workout behind closed doors. I know that's a lame excuse, but that's what I'm sticking with. BTW, you'd have to make the article title very compelling for me to read it. Just being honest. Since it's your goal to get non-exercisers to read. Whenever I have tried to workout, I find myself just getting past that hump of where it's really hard, and then DH goes out of town for his job for several weeks and I have no one to help watch the kiddos while I work out. By the time he gets back and I get started again, it's like starting from scratch. And last time (daily running 2-3 miles), my knees bothered me so much I was in tears every day. So I gave up again. I have also tried walking, but my hips end up in so much pain I can't even walk around my house. I really do desire to work out, I just don't know how to overcome all these hurdles. The biggest being that my husband is military and often is out of town for extended periods.

:lol: That's awesome!

Along the same lines, I had seen that there would be free shopping on Saturday from 3-6 (no shopping pass necessary, but also no free workshops and this is after the used curriculum sale ends). Is that still an option? I can't seem to find the information anywhere on the website now that the conference is happening.

I also took the risk and just received my paper books today (I'm old fashioned and really like my books!) It's so cute! I haven't ordered the Science Play book yet, but will get it in the next week or so. I have a 2.5 and 4.5 year old I'll be doing it with this fall. I'm excited about it!

I will be there for Friday and Saturday. Maybe tomorrow evening. But I'll have all the kiddos with me and dh so we won't be able to take in a lot of the workshops.

Ikea has some cute gender neutral duvet covers. We currently have our 2 y/o DS and 4y/o DD sharing a room. I will admit that we just put light pink curtains up in that room tonight because DD was so adamant and told us "but Wesley likes pink too, mommy!" Pink and boys does not bother us at all though and for now, the 2 y/o does not care. If the store had red curtains, I probably would have picked those, though, because they would have matched the comforters better.

I really wanted to like Easy Grammer. It seemed well thought out and organized. I liked the mastery approach. But after 6 months of EG3 with my 3rd grader this year, she was doing the same as your dd. She did not seem to be retaining much. So we bailed and went with FLL. We've only been with FLL for 3 months or so now, so I can't say yet how much she's retaining, but the retention seems to be better than it was with EG.

No clue. I'm 31, born and raised in the U.S.

Also completely different, but here's our plan for 4th grade: Math: Rightstart level D Science: Real Science Odyssey Chemistry, Level 1 History/Geography/Read-alouds: MFW Creation to the Greeks Deluxe, covers several subjects LA/Writing/Penmanship/Spelling: Phonics Road to Reading (also covers several subjects, all aspects of LA), also using FLL 3 (will finish halfway through the year and continue to FLL 4), and WWE 3-4 Art: Atelier Art, Level 2 Spanish: Power Glide Spanish

We used it for the 1st month of the school year, but ended up ditching it. Like a PP said, it took 45-60 min. to complete an entire lesson with power-ups/warm-ups. And my dd was not yet a very independent reader at the beginning of the year, so I had to read every problem to her. It was just too much for us and we ended up switching back to a previous program we had used. We also didn't like the spiral approach and how many different things were hit on in each lesson. I'm sure this would work for some families, especially if you have used Saxon in the younger grades and liked it. It just wasn't for us, it completely overwhelmed my dd every lesson.

I have not read all the replies. However, we are also a family of 7, children ages 9 and under. So, kind of in the same boat. And we just were on a long road trip (moving, but kind of similar). First, without lying, there are very few hotel rooms that will allow that many people, despite the fact that several of them are babies/toddlers. The ones that I did find were over $100, or you had to get 2 adjoining rooms. However, that said, I couldn't imagine trying to camp with so many littles and with an agenda of trying to travel and get places. The only way I would do that is if we were staying in a cabin, so clean up and getting out in the morning was very easy. Also, we personally do not have enough cargo space in our van for all the camping gear we would need + all the things we need for the trip itself. And don't forget food, which will be much more difficult if you are not near home or near eatery places. We looked at campgrounds, but in the end, we opted for hotels. I don't know what it costs normally as we get a military discount, but we got a marriott suite, 2 bedrooms, living room and full kitchinette, for $108/night, which was quite comfortable for our large family.

Agreed! My dd is so good about cleaning up her legos because she treasures them greatly! Whenever she has extra money, she buys another lego set. And she would never want to dump them all together because she knows which pieces go with which set still. She keeps 2-3 sets in each plastic bin that stack on top of each other.

I voted yes, but with these same qualifications. I think you can grow to love most anyone if you work at it.

:bigear:

5 But 2 or 3 more that are very close, but not quite "bare your soul" close.

I'm not sure if it would fit your requirements, but I have a menu mailer subscription that I LOVE! It's gluten/casein optional, fairly heavy on the meat if you do the regular subscription, light on the meat if you do the budget mailer. Carbs would be all complex, whole grain carbs. You could easily sub any pork called for with another meat. And the mailers don't often call for pork, or it's usually optional if they do. It's here: http://www.cookingtf.com/menu-mailer/ I've been getting this mailer for 2 years now and still love it and use so many of the recipes on a regular basis!

I think I would love it if....my computer was not too old to handle having the curriculum open and also opening the links at the same time. I put it on my kindle, but I have to open it through adobe to get the links to work, which is also a bit of a pain. In general, I dislike pdf curriculums, I prefer old-fashioned books. But since we recently got a kindle, I'm trying to like them and give them a chance. The curriculum itself looks very well laid out!

:iagree: However, I do skip things in FLL1 and do 2 or 3 lessons a day with my dd2, since we just started it at 7 years old. Previously both girls were doing Daily Grammar and they dreaded it and nothing was sticking. So FLL is a breath of fresh air. She would be totally bored if I made her do every writing assignment and only did 1 lesson a day. This way we won't have 80 lessons on nouns. My girls love the poetry memorization, however, and I'm sure some kids would loathe that part.

Thanks Woolybear! Those worksheets look great. I'm planning to get those workbooks. Do I need one for each child? I'm assuming I would, but thought I'd double check.

My 7 & 9 yr olds had so much fun doing the first lesson from this today! I really like what I see so far!

Thank you! I love the company that produced this e-book and have and use several of their other products. They've worked so well for us! I had been eyeing this one, but didn't want to spend the money on it. This is perfect!

Ooo, I like that too. Kristin, I may use some of your ideas for my 4.5 yr old. Thanks!

I like that! Thank you!

We've done the basics, like lots of walks in the woods, taking time to explore whatever catches the kids' fancy, coloring on paper over tree bark or leaves to get the outline of the item, etc. I've never really followed a nature study curriculum or book, however. My girls will be pre-k, 2nd, and 4th grade next year and I'd like to do some more nature study with them. But most of the books look a little intimidating. Are there any books/guides that you've found to be really easy to implement and actually stick with?

First, let me say that I totally understand how you feel and often find myself in exactly the same scenario. One thing that I've found remarkably helpful is a book called 1-2-3 Magic. It's a pretty easy read and a very simple technique to employ. And although I still find myself yelling sometimes, it really has cut down on my yelling and has helped my children to start obeying much quicker. As long as I'm consistent, we rarely have the escalation that would come from their normal disobedience or ignoring my requests to do things.