Popular Mechanics for Kids is on Amazon Prime. Bill Nye episodes are on YouTube. Carmen SanDiego is good to.

I've been refilling my toner cartridge for ~$4 a refill, the cost is worth the mess. I have a Brother BW duplexing laser printer I picked up on sale for ~$100. It's definitely cheaper to print and bind ( love my proclick) at home.

My kids moved quickly through MUS, we switched things up a bit and found Math Mammoth dark blue worked better for us. We hit more topics in greater depth. We also enjoy Miquon. The MM/Miquon combo provides techniques similar to MUS but ads variety (time, measurement, money, geometry, fractions, multiplication, division.) my kids aren't bored with math anymore.

My 6 yr olds want it :-/ my guys rock Lego technics but I'm not so sure their reading skills are up to par for Mindstorms. It never hurts to try but if you have reservations you could try Lego WeDo. That's the route we plan to take.

I'm on the garlic wagon. I also used tea tree oil topically avoiding the nipple. After I discovered garlic and TTO I never had mastitis progress to the flu like symptom stage but before... Oh my that was the sickest I've ever been. Hope you feel better soon!

A noun is a person, place, thing, or idea. Feel free to move on to Level 2 now :-)

I didn't intend to take time off but's been so crazy nice outside! I'm thankful there's a tropical storm coming, the rain will keep us inside, for a day anyway. We started in June, I don't even feel guilty!

My 6 yr olds are addicted to it. They finished DB 5+ and one is nearly done with side B of 12+ It's great, when we are doing math and they don't get something I explain it in terms of DragonBox!

I found some a WalMart last week. I was looking for duct tape and found an insane variety of tape next to the parachute cord.

We started with MUS rods. My kids were familiar with them so we started Miquon using scored rods. I bought C-rods to use for fractions thinking my kids wouldn't associate a number value with the rods. It didn't work, just playing with the rods my kids figured out the value and when fractions rolled around my very literal kid couldn't grasp 1/3 rd or 2/3 rds. It was alway "no mom that's not 2/3rds that is 4." Or "mom that's not 1, it's 6.†I do like the scored rods because my kids quickly see groups I.e. two groups of 2 with another 1 is 5, two groups of 3 is 6 etc. My kids don't count the scours on the rods, that has never been an issue. I suppose it would depend on the child, we are not experiencing any of the negatives "the stringent" have warned about. We're also fairly new to this rodeo, I have yet to develop any "stringencies" :-)

I'm a college graduate, STEM major that never learned phonics, I'm learning a ton teaching my kids AAR2 :-) If your child is reading well AAR is a pricey supplement but a darn good one!

Another BFSU user, my 1st graders eat it up.

I'm beyond excited!!!! We won't finish AAR2 till Christmas but that should pace us well for the release of AAR4 :-)

The full texts are available on scribd. The level 2 activity guide is a mere ~$3 on Amazon. We are doing level 1 this year, we are enjoying it. The focus on Christ's love far surpasses anything else I've seen. We use the coloring pages, the kids color while I read. Occasionally we'll do an activity when we have a slow week. I do supplement with The Bible Study Guide For All Ages. The BSGFAA is great for learning the Bible stories and TGS fills in the meaning of it all. I call BSGFAA the parts and TGS the whole :-)

I love WY! I worked on my graduate degree there. It's cold and windy. I love the people, love the setting, love the recreation. The wind and cold get old. I-80 in the Winter can be terrifying. Did I mention it's cold and windy?! Other than that it's heaven on earth!

The cards are the student packs, there may be progress sheet and certificate of completion too. If you have the cards all you need is the TM. Commence with a happy dance :-)

AAR is thorough no need to be concerned there. AAR is a wonderful program. IMHO it is best suited for kids that need methodical, explicit instruction. If your child picks up reading easily AAR's pace, although adjustable, may be frustrating. If your child struggles with reading AAR is worth it's weight in gold!

I'd switch to get away from Saxon not the neighbor :-) Definitely work on your kids. You have been presented with a golden character building opportunity.

I like Sal Khan's model. Currently the variable in education is how much we learn, what's fixed is the time we have to learn it. That needs to be flipped! Move back to a modified one room school house approach. Allow multiple ages and abilities in one room with a teacher/facilitator. Use students as mentors/tutors. Once a child masters a basic set of skills let them go whether they are 12 or 20. In theory students will gain better mastery of subjects as they tutor skills they have mastered. The artificial social environment created by keeping a large group of same age students with one teacher will be replaced with a more realistic environment, kinda like what kids will encounter outside of school, where information an experience can flow up and down the age spectrum. I think this has the potential to correct a lot of the behavioral problems we currently see grouping large peer groups together. This would require a major paradigm shift.

My boys would not tolerate crafts and workbooks at that age, they had no interest in coloring. They are 6.5 now and we still don't do much for workbooks, they do enjoy coloring, their worksheet tolerance is LOW. We do most things orally. Handwriting is the ONLY thing I make them sit still for and often that is done standing. Reading is snuggle time, they like snuggles enough to tolerate reading. If I'm met with bad attitudes and protests the problem is mine not theirs. We are doing WWE1 this year, I tried to have them sit and pay attention to the passage when we started. Now 7 weeks in I say "okay, go flop around on the floor. Be ready to answer questions in complete sentences." It defies reason but they do better with comprehension questions while upside down, maybe more blood is in their brains :-) There's a lecture out there somewhere about "Teaching Boys and Other Children Who Would Rather Build Forts All Day." I listen to it often.

You could buy the PDFs and save a lot of time and money.

I believe he's in the UK. Crewton Ramone has better prices, he's in HI. Here's his webpage, FYI he's rough around the edges but he knows math. http://www.crewtonramoneshouseofmath.com/ That said Mortensen Math is insanely over priced. Miquon has a very similar approach at a fraction of the price. www.educationunboxed.com has wonderful videos many based Miquon. Steve Demme of Math U See was trained by Mortensen, they parted ways many years ago.

I went to the download section of my PHP account and was able to download before I got the email. I <3 the student pages!

Big ear! We have The Greek Alphabet Code Cracker, I'm saving it till we finish SSL1. We want to do Song School Greek but I haven't found anything to follow it with :-/ I think a fluent 6 yr old could handle TGACC.

201!