For the year, I say "two thousand fourteen". I rarely, if ever, hear people saying "twenty fourteen".

I'm wondering if this is why I kept second guessing myself in my earlier post. Maybe Saxon has changed a lot since my school days? 7th & 8th grade would have been 1986-1987 & 1987-1988 for me. Saxon had Alg III in my day, which was "algebra & trigonometry with geometry". Now apparently it's called Advanced Math or something like that.

Do you call this year two thousand and fourteen?

I have this dilemma this year. For the past year and a half or so, dc have been getting piano lessons from my MIL on Fridays, and they stay for most of the day. I really like this, as this is my "day off." On Thursdays we have co-op in the afternoon. Previously we haven't needed to do any school work on Thursday mornings, but as they get older, and especially for dd10, as she's going to be in 5th grade this year, we will need to, or do some after co-op, or on Saturday or Sunday afternoons. M-Wed. is for school work at home. Sat. mornings they have rollerskating--private lesson & a class (they could eventually get into competition-level skating--there are regional meets, regional championships, and national championships for various skills--figures, artistic skating, dance, etc). So somehow this year we need to go from 3 solid days/week to fitting in a bit more here & there. This summer we started year-round schooling, although with a light load at first, and now for the last couple of weeks we've added in a bit more, but not the full load--we haven't gotten back to science, history, or Latin yet.

What I'm wondering is--is this boy your son, or are you teaching someone else's son? How much authority do you have over him? Just curious...looks like you've already figured out how you're going to handle it.

Has anyone had trouble with these drying out/hardening? We usually need pencil cap erasers because the ones that come with the pencil hardens, but some of the cap erasers harden over time also.

Don't ask, just do. However, since you've told them already that you're starting August 4, if you start earlier, I'd ease into it.

I saw those, but we have so many crayons already. I just threw out about half of our crayons a few days ago (the really cheap ones) and we still have tons left. I think we'll break out the Crayola crayon maker and make some new colors (except I melt the crayons in a small saucepan on the stove and then pour into the crayon molds--it's faster).

I plan on (someday) getting Elizabeth O'Brien's diagramming book. http://www.english-grammar-revolution.com/sentence-diagramming.html I went to her diagramming talk at a convention and saw the book at her booth.

There are worksheets and then there are worksheets. (I include workbooks in both of those.) By that I mean there are busywork worksheets and stupidwork worksheets, and then there are some really well done, quality worksheets/books. Just because you can write on the same page as the teaching material and/or questions (rather than a textbook where you write separately, or a teacher book with separate manipulatives or other hands on work), doesn't mean it's busywork. My MIL gave me 4 boxes of books from her teaching days and I got rid of/sold/gave away 3 of them--busy/stupid work.

Today, both Staples and Walmart had spiral wide-rule notebooks for $0.17. Walmart had 2 pocket folders (the dull paper ones, without prongs) for $0.15. Staples didn't have prices on any of the folders--the ones I took to the register to price check were $0.99, but those were the slightly shiny ones. I didn't see terrific sales at any of the 3 stores I went to today (Staples, Walmart & Target), but especially not at Target. I did get 2 Elmer's Glue All at Target--the shelf tag said $0.50 but it rang up as $1.24. The cashier changed it for me. I know I did not make a mistake on it, but in hindsight, after seeing the same glue at Walmart for $0.97 and Elmer's school glue also at Walmart for $0.50, I think the Glue All at Target was on the wrong shelf or wrong spot on the shelf--there were 2 rows of it on the shelf with the $0.50 shelf tag.

I usually aim to start on Sept. 1 (except we've already started this year...didn't really stop) as long as it's a weekday and not Labor Day. I try to take first day of school pictures, we go out for breakfast, and we bring schoolwork to do at a nearly empty mall with a play area. We'll probably still do this, on Tues. Sept. 2.

Here we don't usually see the paper bags, since stores use so much plastic now, but they have them on a shelf under the counter if you ask for them.

You never know. My younger sister didn't like to read, but at some point in her teen years started finding books that interested her and then took off. My best friend from jr & sr high never really liked to read, and still doesn't, but now she homeschools her kids, does an excellent job, they listen to tons of audio books & talks, and she does read print books when she needs to.

Was that a school library? I was assuming it was a public library, so you wouldn't know what school she attended if it was an overheard conversation.

Yes, here kraft paper is brown paper that usually comes in a long roll like wrapping paper does, except it's a bit stronger, but not usually as strong as grocery bag paper (the full size bags, not the thinner paper like a lunch bag).

If it's a small private school, they might not have a summer term. My school didn't.

When I was in jr. and sr. high school, we covered our books to keep them in good reselling condition also. I'm sure there were some families who bought book covers--I know there are stretchy fabric ones you can buy--but we usually covered ours with paper from brown paper grocery bags. Then we labeled the books and decorated them however we pleased. And they could be doodled on throughout the year as well.

White glue glue sticks clear tape (like Scotch) probably need more rulers, as they always go missing That's all I can think of, but I'll read the rest of the posts to see if there's anything else I need. I had a bunch of spiral bound notebooks purchased in the last couple of years that we hadn't used yet, but this year they have a use (and are in use already).

I wasn't saying it's a trivial amount. What I was saying is that--to their mind--they did their part of running it through the scoring machine, and the machine said the problems were not done. If a copy of the score sheet was kept by the administrator of the test, then that can be sent in to prove the error is on the part of the machine, not the student. If no record was kept, then it's a he said/she said situation, where the company is saying "the machine says the problems weren't done--the machine doesn't make mistakes, but if you want us to look it up, it'll cost this much." Because to their way of thinking, they are correct and this is more work for them. I'm glad they did it for free. ETA: the "$25, please!" was not me saying, good grief, it's only $25. It's them saying, "Give us $25 and we'll gladly look into it for you." I should not have put the comma in.

But they had to memorize which color = which number, which does not correspond to real life objects. I can see that eventually they translate the color-number to addition problems without the rods (after first learning color x rod + color y rod = color z rod), but the color-number correlation has to be learned first.

Here's the one I was looking for: http://www.hmhco.com/~/media/sites/home/education/global/pdf/white-papers/mathematics/elementary/math-in-focus/MIF_Model_Drawing_LR.pdf

http://www.thedailyriff.com/WordProblems.pdf http://e2math.weebly.com/models-to-support-thinking/bar-model-singapore-math-model-method Also, I think there is a Singapore Math document that explains the bar model more thoroughly...I'm not sure where I saw it...I'll look.

I don't always use all of the supplemental books (IP, CWP & Extra Practice), but whichever ones I do (it varies from year to year), I do them at the same time as the textbook/workbook. (we don't use LOF)

We started with Right Start but switched to Singapore. I'm not sure if I used RS with my younger one at all--maybe a bit. She started in SM level 1. Neither of mine had their facts down before we moved on. It comes with time & practice. As far as math manipulatives, I prefer separate counters like tiles, counting bears, pennies, base 10 blocks, RightStart abacus, etc. What I like about base 10 blocks rather than Cuisenaire rods (we have both) is that the 10-rod (in base 10) has marks so that you can see that it is made of 10 ones. The same is true of the 100 flat and the 1,000 cube. The Cuisenaire rods are color-coded, which doesn't translate well to counting real-life objects. Interlocking/snapping blocks would be fine, because they still show the number of pieces when they're connected, rather than just a comparative length. ETA: if you get an abacus, get one that has half of the beads on each rod in one color and half in another color (5 + 5 = 10) like the Right Start AL Abacus, or this one: http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/sku/036942/ff4bdf7a0f64a464f5ea5a83