I confess I did a happy dance when I found out about BookShark. A secular version makes me very very happy! I am an Usborne rep (and junkie) and already own a good chunk of the books already, and will be picking up others on RainbowResource or wherever else I find them cheaper, just as I always have. With all the Common Core negativity, I can absolutely understand some of the changes there. I would not want to have anyone think my system was associated with that.

If nothing else, the book list is very valable. We want our son to have read most of the books anyway. As are Rainbow Resource and eBay. I also made a list of what the library has available. I just places an order yesterday and it took a series of spreadsheets and 5 windows open, but I managed to save the most using this method. It was absolutely worth the effort. I mainly got him Core A and Core B but also books he has not yet read from the younger cores that I feel are vital for a well rounded education. We also found lists of some of the discontinued books and purchased the non-religious ones that we want him exposed to.. We did buy science A and B for him. My husband is a Hydrologist and wants to see what they offer. We have a ton of things we can supplement with if it does not suit us. We also have every Magic School Bus science kit known to man plus The Young Scientists Club kits. We chose not to use the religious books because it is not our thing.

Lovely!

Walmart and Target carry qute a few non-mint flavors. My son likes the bubblegum flavor.

The main reason I like Wordpress is so many online hosting companies have it as a platform, so it is easier to transition from Wordpress.com over to your own domain if/when one decides to do so. Wordpress has gotten much easier to manage through the years. That said, when I get a domain, I make sure I also grab the names at Wordpress and Blogger, to better control the name. So, whichever you decide, I would make sure you get the same name at the other, if possible.

Christmas Eve. We solved the naked tree issue by using a sparkly white tree skirt and putting a train and village under the tree. We put that away on Christmas Eve and put a different tree skirt out (since the one we use for the train/village was made to fit the train track and is not round).

We are using the course through K12 for now to see how he likes it.

What fun! My son and I will have to go play.

Excellent! Thanks you for posting that. I am needing more help with my son and hope that will help some of the puzzle pieces fall into place.

This and the attack on children at an elementary school in China the same morning (22 children and 1 adult were slashed by a villager) have me just heartbroken.

Our son is 6 and we already talked about it a bit. He heard about the shootings in Colorado at karate so we wanted him to be prepared.