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2 1/4 gallons of cow's milk 1/2 gallon of almond milk 1 gallon of rice milk We buy organic and I spend around $20 a week total on all that milk.

We drink organic whole milk. My toddler son (allergic to dairy) drinks almond and rice milk.

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I'm loving looking through all the links. I wish I could join in but my posts are anything but wordless. lol

I haven't bought the guides and it's working really well for us! I actually bought the magnet board and chalk board to help out because my daughter struggles with handwriting and even those aren't helpful. Just the workbooks have been plenty for both my 7 and 4 year olds :001_smile:

Just going to ditto everyone else, I'd send the ones you have!

I have my kids write their names on their papers. They actually LOVE to do it with each paper. I think they feel more of a sense of ownership or something. lol This is exactly why I do it. For the habit :001_smile:

We started our first grade year 3 months ago. I like almost everything we're doing but I'm going to be changing our math curriculum ASAP. Math - Horizons (will be switching to Math Mammoth) Spelling - All About Spelling History - Beautiful Feet Early American History Geography - Putting together myself to go along with our American history. Language - First Language Lessons Handwriting - Handwriting Without Tears Science - Sonlight Science K We absolutely love All About Spelling, Beautiful Feet, and Handwriting Without Tears. First Language Lessons was painfully slow at first. I went through the entire book and marked things and took notes and edited a lot of the lessons down and now we're liking it. I don't think I'll use it next year, though. Horizons is super fun for me and my youngest daughter (starting K this fall) but absolutely terrible for my 1st grade daughter. She can't focus at all when doing the worksheets since there are so many concepts on each page. So we're more than likely going to go with Math Mammoth which looks perfect for her. I'm starting to look for some extra science to add, too. My daughter surprisingly loves science and more experiments and visuals would be nice. And I might add even more geography. That's one of her favorite subjects and even though we do a lot that I've put together on my own I know she'd love to do even more!

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I do every year. I love it! I wasn't planning on doing this year's until late September (which is usually when we take ours) but maybe I'll do them sooner to join in on that Not Back to School blog hop! The only thing is it's 108 degrees here right now :glare: hmm..

Doing it every single day majorly cuts back the time it takes for me. A quick wipe down of the sinks, counters and toilet seat. Dump baking soda and vinegar in the toilet and let that sit while I spot clean the mirrors. A five seconds scrub of the toilet bowl, flush, sweep the floors. Done in five minutes :001_smile: Mopping only ever happens twice a week (while I'm pregnant- once a week :tongue_smilie:) and does take an extra five-ten minutes per bathroom :glare:

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Yep, we're using Beautiful Feet this year and my daughters really love it :001_smile:

Thanks Lovedtodeath, I just looked through some samples in the light blue series and it looks absolutely perfect for my daughter! It's laid out so well for how she learns :001_smile: I've been wanting to get an abacus anyway, so I'll go ahead and order one now, too. I feel hopeful that this will save me a lot of planning and my daughter a lot of frustration.:hurray:

Thanks for all the information! I think I'll go ahead and buy it to try. It'll be nicer than doing what I've been doing which is basically teaching everything myself and putting together worksheets from online or making them myself! lol Actually I think that sounds perfect!

Thank you! I looked at MUS because it seemed like the only thing mentioned on the forums that would fit my dd really well but I didn't like just how focused it got. lol I know, picky, picky! I'm going to go look at math mammoth now. I haven't ever looked into it before!

If I teach my daughter addition and then give her a worksheet with only addition problems on it she does really well. Same thing with any other subject/concept. If it's focused very specifically on one thing she can focus and do the work and learn really well and without whining or arguing. If I give her a worksheet with say, addition, place value, writing numbers and days of the week she dawdles and gets distracted (and whines!) and takes ten times as long to get the work done. It's not like she doesn't know how to do these things, she just does better focusing completely on one concept at a time. Specifically with worksheets. I've been using printed worksheets I've found online since the horizons math worksheets overwhelm dd beyond belief. Is there a math curriculum that would fit well with that kind of learning style? That would, say, teach addition and have the child do an addition worksheet and then the next day/lesson would be place value and a place value worksheet and then something else the next day/lesson and then back to addition? Does that make sense? I'm guessing there really is nothing like that out there. But I'm hoping there is?! :bigear:

Wow, this is interesting. Thanks tap, tap, tap and Stacey for the information and review on the dry erase crayons. I had no idea they existed, I'm thinking these'll be great if my son gets ahold of crayons and ends up coloring on his furniture again! I think I'll look for some at the store today :001_smile:

Those were the symptoms I had with pregnancy so another vote that that's a possibility. Mostly I'm replying so that I can check in later after you've taken a test :D I love your profile picture, do you blog your photography?

I used Sonlight cores P3/4 and P4/5 and parts of core k and 1 during the last almost three years. We aren't using it this year. I actually haven't ever read that list Sonlight put out! But just for the sake of this post I'll go read it and post any reasons that apply to my choice to put together my own curriculum this year... 2.They want a program with lots of hands-on activities built in. (This is the biggest reason by far) 4.They believe Sonlight is too expensive. (I think the books are well worth the money, but yeah, I can't afford it this year!) 8. They want most school years to focus on U.S. history and the culture. (This isn't entirely true but for 1st grade I did want to do US history) 10. They enjoy creating their own plans and schedules and assembling lesson supplies. (Not so much enjoy it but am super picky about it! I do enjoy it sometimes) 26. They want to touch and feel their curricular materials before they buy. (I do really like flipping through books before I buy them!)

Right now I'd say for sure but my daughter is only just-turned 7 and I've only been officially homeschooling for one year. If after 18+ more years of homeschooling I am not totally burned out, then yes! lol