I take cash out for groceries, personal spending (clothes, hair, eating out, coffee with friends, books that aren't required for school, etc.), and spending for the kids (clothes, shoes, skating, whatever...). Once it's gone, it's gone. It forces me to budget for what I really need and if there is anything left at the end of the pay period I either put it aside for a rainy day or go buy something that I had been putting off. We have a budget to cover bills and savings. Taking the cash helps me to stay within budget.

8:00 - 8:15 Bible/Devotional 8:15 - 8:30 Memory Work 8:30 - 8:45 Spelling 8:45 - 9:45 Math 9:45 - 10:00 Break 10:00 - 10:30 Reading 10:30 - 11:30 Shurley Grammar & writing Lesson 11:30 - 12:30 History or Science (depending on the day) 12:30 - 1:30 Lunch (we will often listen to an artist biography or a classical cd) 1:30 - 2:00 Latin On Wednesday we go through 11:30 and then she has an art class. Unfortunately, we are pretty wiped out by lunch so Latin doesn't always get the attention it deserves. We are planning two years to get through Latina Christiana I. She is a voracious reader, so fun reading is easy to get done in the afternoons. We try to do our read-alouds before bed but our schedule this year has made it difficult. We haven't really found our rhythm for that yet. Basically, I try to get the basics done before lunch so there isn't too much guilt if we decide to just play in the afternoon.

I'm curious about this one too. :lurk5:

:thumbup: I'm with you! We were doing great up until a couple weeks ago. Then a few too many "things" came up and we started shortening our days and cutting out the extra work. It's time to get back on track! Thanks for the encouragement.

I had one daughter complain she had a stomach ache just before her spelling test, and spent the entire morning looking at books in bed. I'm still not sure if she wasn't feeling well or if she was trying to get out of school work. She perked right up in the afternoon when the neighborhood kids were outside playing. Too bad for her, she couldn't go out to play because she "might be contagious". :001_smile: I thought my oldest would have breezed through her school work with having my full attention but noooo....she daydreamed and dawdled until 2:30! Good grief! I like the idea of planning something fun on Mondays to get them excited. Great idea ladies!

Wiped out too. I handle the Friday afternoon comma by closing the kitchen during the school year. That means we either eat left-overs or sweet hubby takes us out to dinner. My Nana never cooked on Fridays and I thought that was a pretty great idea. I tell my family I'm just trying to keep her memory alive. ;)

Thank you momof7 for the info. So far Horizons seems to be working pretty well for my girls although my oldest is a bit distracted by all the colorful graphics. She seems to be coping a bit better this year. I like the program but I don't want to get to 7th grade and figure out that we should have done something else to prepare for upper division math. Thanks again. Any other comments are still welcome. The more the merrier!

Hello.....Anybody out there? This could be a really bad sign. No one has used Horizons Math or perhaps you all hated it and don't want to be the bearer of bad news. :confused:

I'm wondering if any of you used Horizons Math in K-6 and found it to be a great base for upper math? Please also let me know if you really disliked it and felt that it did not prepare your dc for upper level math. Horizons only goes through 6th so I know I will need to switch at some point. Any pointers/opinions on a good curriculum to switch to after Horizons? Thanks for your BTDT wisdom!

I'm right there with ya! I got about half way through Don Quixote, then moved on to Pilgrim's Progress and have stalled out about two-thirds through. And I'm trying to teach my kids to persevere???Ouch..I better go and finish at least one of those books. :001_huh:

I use the front of my refrigerator. The girls think it's great fun to sit on the kitchen floor to do spelling. I didn't notice the age of your kiddos, but if you have any young enough to walk by and sweep all the tiles onto the floor this may not be a good option. ;)

Wow! And this is how we prepare our future leaders? Yikes! I would like to think that by the time my girls reach high school/college they'll be able to write their own essays.:glare:

I give my girls the coloring page to work on while I read. They tend to listen well while they work and they love it when I get to the part of the story that goes with what they are coloring. If I think they are not getting it I'll ask questions along the way to keep them focused and thinking about the material. And I always try to dramatize where I can. :rolleyes: I can't do it in front of anyone else except my kids. They love it.

I like BJU also. The first grade book starts with letters and simple CVC words, then moves to copying sentences and simple poems by the end of the year. The second grade book transitions to cursive about half way through. The third grade is all cursive and includes copying verses, famous quotes, poems and paragraphs about historical figures. I love the font because it seems to have less of the fancy curly-q's and the transition from printing to cursive was relatively easy. As a second choice I would recommend a Reason for Handwriting. While I did not like the font as well as BJU, I did love the verses and the idea of printing them on special paper to give as a gift to others. I found my daughter put extra special effort into the final writing assignment because she knew she was going to give it to someone. She even sent one to George W Bush and recieved a letter and photos back from him. She was thrilled! As a side note...this year she copied out the 10 Commandments and sent them to President Obama. :D

:bigear:

Good point...err click...no point. Oh, I just don't know.:001_smile:

I have a dd with "obsessive compulsive pencil sharpening disorder";). She can't stand to write with a dull tip. I am moving to mechanical pencils this year and hoping that it helps.

I'm planning to do this same thing. It's nice to know I'm not the only one out there. My girls are in a fantastic History/Art class that follows SOTW. I want to keep them in that but I also love SL History and really wanted to dive a bit deeper into US History than what SOTW offers. We will be doing both simultaneously but doing fewer activities and narrations for SOTW than we have done in the past. Here's hoping we are not on the road to history burnout!;)

I'm not sure what your grammar program includes but I would make sure that you have some writing (WWE maybe?) and some penmanship. Just my .02.:001_smile:

We each have a desk area and drawers to keep our supplies. It works out nicely and gives the girls their own space to manage. They are pretty good at keeping their school supplies in their desks to they can find them when they need them. We do relocate to the couch or outdoors for reading. Sometimes I just feel like I can't stand staying in the house for another second! Especially when there's good weather outside. We have also been known to pack up our supplies in backpacks and head to the beach. I consider a backpack and small cooler essential school supplies.

I just took 4 cardboard boxes from my girls' room which had been strung together to create a train for their dolls. Another smaller box had been cut and redesigned to create a car seat for my youngest's favorite doll. So I'm thinking that maybe we should donate all the toys in the playroom and just replace them with cardboard boxes, string, markers and construction paper. I mean really...I've never seen such creativity from them when they are playing with "normal" toys.

I use Method Daily Shower cleaner after every shower and squeegee it down. Method is available at Target. It still doesn't make it enjoyable. I have been known to purposely take my shower just before my husband so he can have the pleasure of spraying and cleaning. :D

It sounds pretty normal to me. I have hearing loss so it was very important that my kids pronounce words correctly just so I could understand them. When they said lellow, I said, "It's y, y, yellow". They would repeat it and eventually they would say it correctly. Sometimes I would have to tell them where their tongue should be when they said a word. For example, "Your tongue should not touch your teeth at the beginning of y, y, yellow". They thought it was great fun! I have found that some parents don't correct the mispronunciations because they think it is so cute. (I have to admit that sometimes it is super cute). My philosophy was that I didn't want to retrain them after they had been saying it incorrectly for several years. So I kept a journal of Chloeisms and Claireisms, where I would write down all the funny sayings or pronunciations and then we would move on to correcting them.

I am planning to do the same thing in the Fall. I have the U.S. History Vol. 1 materials and it appears that you really don't need the DVD's. There are Student Resource Notebook Pages that are to be downloaded from the IEW site. Like I said, I haven't actually done this yet so I can't say for sure if it will work. There is an IEW yahoo group that may be able to provide a more thorough answer. Here's the link http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IEWfamilies/ HTH!

I wonder if you should post on the high school board. You could get the perspective from others who are dealing with HS/College issues. I have the same questions and can't wait to hear from some of you who have BTDT. :bigear: