Good morning all! **exercising done ** carb-free breakfast done ** dishwasher unloaded Now.....On to school!

Fresh bread and butter, a salad, maybe some fruit, too.

I am so sorry!

Yeah, I'd agree with the others. Even my heavily tweaked version does not satisfy me. It is disjointed I just don't feel like it gives an over-arching picture. It doesn't connect things..... I'm irritated even after the tweaking, but I don't know what else to do. I'm kind of thinking about dumping the whole thing and just going with a who.e bunch of biographies and a good timeline, but even that..... Ugh! History and science for my 5th grader are just not going well this year. I'm glad we have one more week of school and then our "Fall Vacation" (we do 9 weeks on and 1 week off) and then I can maybe regroup.

I kind of liked the Austin family books better. Don't know why.

Noon update: School mostly done. Dealing with a tantrummy 7 year old - done! What a nightmare she was this morning. But then around snack time she comes out of her room with a pleasant smile on her face and a handful of schoolwork neatly done, including the paper that she was screaming about. "I don't know how to do this. You are so mean. You won't even explain how to do this. I hate you!" Yeah, that paper.... Done. Now, to make lunch.

We loved the books we read by Clyde Bulla especially A Lion To Guard Us, as was already mentioned. When we did California history we read Island of the Blue Dolphins, and By the Great Horn Spoon. One that we just loved about the Lewis and Clark expedition was Of Courage Undaunted by James Daugherty. We also read a good abridgment of The Red Badge of Courage. It was a Great Illustrated Classic.

My kids are at grade level in math. We're not accelerated here. I think DS1 could probably go a little faster, but he just doesn't feel like it and I battle him enough as it is. So, a lessons a day in Singapore is what he does. I think the ability to do math is so tied to those cognitive developmental stages that no matter what you do, if a kid isn't ready, he isn't ready.

Good Morning, All! Today...... typical Tuesday. ** school **return books to the library That's all. That's enough.

Love that book. Should read it again!

Wow! That is awesome. I've always wanted to spend some extended time in Alaska. Have fun!

Costco lasagna (that I out on the oven on delay before we left for tht zoo), rosemary asiago bread fo Fresh & Easy and salad. I need to do it quick tonight - two soccer practices at the same time starting a 6:00.

It was a bit of a disappointment. The exhibit itself was neat, but the snake just looked like a snake, curled up in the corner doing its snake thing. I don't know what we were expecting - maybe a snake charmer with a basket. Of course the zoo-keepers were rather excited about it. But, we did have a nice afternoon at the zoo overall.

No, but only because I promised the kids if we get school done and the house cleaned up by 1:30 we could go to the zoo and see the new King Cobra exhibit. Excellent motivation for a Monday.

This!

Yes. I live in the US. I run my dishes once, often twice a day.

You know, I saw this on Facebook and I thought to myself, this would be a perfect Hive Field Trip. http://www.cupcakevineyards.com/

Well, I am seriously enjoying "What the Dog Saw" by Malcolm Gladwell. Not humorous, but I have learned a lot about ketchup and the Veg-O-Matic.

We buy local. We have a peach tree and a fruit salad tree in our back yard as well as some grape vines. It's best to buy from local nurseries. Although we did get our peach tree from Costco and it's doing fine. It is a variety, though, that does well in our area.

Soccer games done. All the kids did us proud today. We celebrated with Taco Bell for lunch. Now, little girls off to naps and DS1 and I are off to Walmart and Big 5 Sporting goods (I promised the boys if they would cheerfully play goalie, I'd buy them goalie gloves this year. DS1 is an excellent goalie, but it's too slow a position for him, especially since he's on a good team and the ball is usually down the other side of the field).

One soccer game down, two to go. We're leaving in half an hour for #2 & 3. But.... I'm making a yummy iced coffee drink for my mom and me, so that'll be nice. We're stemming grapes today to make raisins and I have to go to Walmart. I hate going to Walmart. And that's about it.

I used to do Pinterest. Sort of. I didn't feel any pressure from it. It actually took the place of that file folder I have that whenever I'd be paging through a magazine and came across something I liked I'd tear it to and put it in that folder. Just a place to store ideas I liked.

That's tough. I haven't really made any new close friends in recent years. My BFF I've had since high school. That's 30 years ago.. Another close friend I met when I was working, before kids. That's 10 years ago. My sisters-in-law and I are are pretty close, too. Sorry I'm not much help. It's hard to make friends when you have young kids. My BFF and I try to make an effort once every month or two to have lunch together alone. We do get together sometimes with the kids, but it doesn't happen much for some reason. It also doesn't help that we live 45 minutes apart. But, we text all the time. And we just have that kind of friendship where we "get" each other.

Memoria Press. I love it. My kids are doing well. I don't have a lot of experience with other publishers. We are doing Greek by classical Academic Press and it's ok. I'm sticking with it because I don't want to hit Greek as hard as Latin, it's pretty easy, but I just am not thrilled by their approach. But the kids like it. It's fun.

I'm schooling three right now. Started them all off on A Beka and only one has stuck with it. My oldest is doing Singapore... A Beka bored him. My second is doing MCP.... A Beka just had too many things going on in each lesson. DD is doing A Beka second grade now and is doing fine. Don't feel like every kid has to do the same math program. And I echo the speed drill sentiment. We do the speed drills, just for practice. I have never timed the kids.