We homeschool and live in chicago. A lot of people mention the El but if you commute from the suburbsor parts of chicago the metra is excellent! For all the activities you mention it would depend on wwhether youd like to drive close, far or be able to walk. My area is like a black hole for decent activities my daughter is interested in. We are constantly driving to lincoln park, evanston, and niles.

Not to hijack the thread but I will be in the same position after finishing 1b. I have a lot of manipulatives from right start math B. The only one im not familiar is the cuisinaire rods. Whats the best site to buy them from? Ive seen some bad reviews on amazon on certain brands.

Thank you all for the great ideas and advice. My 5yr old is into audio books. She goes through 2-3 per week. I know there's the subscription to audible but that seems pricey too considering our usage. I know book wise I may not need or can do without this library. It just draws me in with its huge selection of audiobooks, 3-4 different language resources, and the access to the other great libraries with even better selections. Ill probably suck it up and go with out buying the card for now. The reason I second guess myself is because right now im just teaching a laid back kindergarten. By the fall is when I plan on being more structured and perhaps I may need resources I dont at the moment.

Chris in Va: She no longer lives in the town therefore I'm just using the card till it expires.

Im wondering if the huge fee, in my case anyway, is tied to the fact that I live in a hcol area and the other city is a hcol area as well. If you live in smaller towns and counties I would assume the need for low/no fee interlibrary use is a must if they have small libraries.

Threeofakind: If you are not a resident of the city in which the library is located and therefore dont pay property taxes and would like to take out material or what have you. You can purchase a yearly card for $300.

It does have inter-library loan but it still wouldn't be up to par with the other library's books/resources. I may just have very serious library envy.

I didnt even think to ask about volunteering. I will have to give it a try thanks for the idea. We do have a good home library since ive been buying books ahead of schedule. I can afford the fee but like you id rather spend that money elsewhere. I should probably take time after it expire to see if I can make do without going to that library.

a year for library privileges? The next city over has a great library and a friend is currently letting use her card since she rarely goes. The card will expire soon and I need to decide if I will renew it. This library has a great reading book club, computer programs, childrens programs, vast educational dvds, LOF books, all history books used for SOTW, foreign language resources, much more and access to other libraries in the network. Husband thinks im crazy for considering paying $300 per year. I can get by with my city's libraries they are not bad but I love this library. Opinions?

On android im currently using Cartilla Completa. It teaches my 5 yr old to read in spanish. She works through it while I cook and listen to her pronunciation. Downside is it doesnt translate the spanish to english. I speak spanish so I translate and work with her. I figure once she knows to read I can give her a picture dictionary and also learn as we go.

This is our first full year homeschooling our daughter that is considered kindergarten. Well my husband has said yes to homeschooling for 1st grade as well. :hurray: We are currently doing WRTR and we are almost to section K. We just switched from Right Start B to Singapore Math 1B. We were up to lesson 70 in RS B but my daughter knew many concepts at the end of the book. With SM 1B my daughter also knows a lot of the concepts but others are brand new. Spelling and reading seem to come easy to her. We currently use RS4K pre-level chemistry and we do Spanish as a second language. In January she starts a Saturday enrichment program class at Northwestern University for math. We've done the laid back kindergarten but I didnt put much thought into possibly doing 1st grade.We homeschool year round. My daughter will turn 6 in January and I wonder what other subjects i should be teaching? Thanks for the help.

I saw on Amazon some of them are 30-40% off great deal.

Thank you for the responses. These last few lessons ive had to teach her trying a few different ways. Also discovered its best to do math first before she starts getting hyper. She is the kind of kid that jumps around while skip counting and does 2 things at the same time. Glad that im doing the right thing by keeping at her pace. Just want to make sure I shouldn't be doing more practice rather than moving ahead in the book. Thanks again

My daughter is 5 and we are currently using Right start Math B. Based on reading other threads about RS and the age of kids involved I'm beginning to wonder if she/I are moving too fast. We are a few lessons away from the mid book test, lesson 59? Im not trying to compare to other kids just wondering if I should slow the lessons down. If she has a hard time with a lesson we slow down and repeat it if necessary. Although, in the web discussions RS have sometimes they said to just keep going because the next lessons will build on the concepts. Right now we are learning adding 1,10 and 100 to a number and shes having a little bit of a hard time. As I look ahead to the rest of the lessons I realized she already knows to tell time, skip count by 2, 5, 10, 100, 1000 so we will breeze through the next few lessons. Do I slow down and do more games and reinforce what she already knows or keep going? I only started homeschooling full time in January and dont want to overburden her since shes just 5. Thanks for reading and advice.

Ravin, if you cant afford grass fed meat use conventional but throw away the fat and chose lean meat. They store the "nasties" in the fat so dont eat it if you can avoid it. Buy the dirty dozen in veggies/fruit organic if possible. Otherwise make sure you wash your veggies. The money I save on not buying processed foods I use buying organic/grass fed when I can. Theres different ways to make it work. As for coffee theres coconut milk or cream, almond milk, or look up bulletproof coffee.

Ive mainly been cooking with coconut oil, ghee, or bacon grease. I don't want to start adding in pricier oils. My husband finally started noticing the difference between conventional and grass fed meat and is a little bit more willing to splurge sometimes. My greatest find is sauerkraut and im in love. I even started brewing my own kombucha.

I started my whole30 back in april. Im currently nursing my 1 yr old so I need to make sure I eat enough. Since then ive kept close to whole30 but do offroad every once and a while. I have lost 14 lbs since April which is huge since I'm nursing and not exercising apart from small walks. Its only difficult having a non paleo spouse that decides to stock up on 3 packs of oreos :/ Trying new veggies sometimes cures the boredom of everyday veggies.

I wish I saw your idea earlier, sarawatsonim, I already printed single pages.

Dont know if this has been posted but today I ran into this website. http://headventureland.com/ I was able to print out coloring pages to go along with Songschool Latin! A great addition as my daughter loves coloring. The website has extras for latin, spanish, greek, logic, bible, and weekly derivative for popular curriculum out there. Theres games, readers, videos, and flashcards. Great as a supplement.

My kid is only 5 but eventually she'll use it. I'm planning way ahead. Lol

Just to give a heads up I found it on the clearance section at my Barnes & Noble for 5.98 and if you're a member you add 10% off. It may only be in select stores.

I found this great site that has lesson plans for Kindergarten through 2nd grade. It also has the labels and a walk through guide. http://www.colliersc...g/spaldingE.htm Edit for spelling

If youre doing Whole30 a lot of fast food places are not compliant. Chipotle: get salad bowl no dressing, carnitas is only compliant meat, cooked in lard I think, mild or hot sauces lettuce with guacamole. The veggies are cooked in soybean oil. Culvers: just the burger patties, lettuce, onion, tomatoes. Many places that have grilled chicken will often use corn starch like the chicken at culvers.

The CTA has these passes that work on bus or train. Cheaper than metra. 1-Day CTA Pass for $10 3-Day CTA Pass for $20 7-Day CTA Pass for $28 7-Day CTA/Pace Pass* for $33 30-Day CTA Pass* for $100 http://www.transitchicago.com/travel_information/fares/unlimitedridecards.aspx

Forgot to mention there is also a metra stop that takes you into Union Station.