To clarify on the sugar issue, cane sugar is typically filtered through bone char. Beet sugar is not. Also, turbinado, raw sugar, or any sugar labeled as 100% organic should be safe. Black bean and corn chili with chipotle peppers is the vegan favorite here.

Could I homeschool without textbooks? Absolutely. In fact, math, phonics, and grammar are the only subjects for which we routinely use textbooks. But homeschooling without books or with very few books would be an altogether different matter. My kids deem books as essential as water or oxygen. We can do a lot in the elementary years with our backyard, art supplies, quality toys, and carefully selected video clips. But my kids want to be able to pick up a book (or a stack of books) and read more, more, more about whatever time, place, person, or science concept we're studying at the moment.

Castle Panic is the favorite here, with Pandemic being a close second. Shadows Over Camelot is my personal favorite with a group of four or more, but can be cooperative or competitive. (Played without the Traitor card, it's strictly cooperative. With the addition of the Traitor, one player may surreptitiously be playing against the rest of the group.) We also really like Forbidden Island and Forbidden Dessert.

We have several of both. I feel like the Great Illustrated Classics tend to convey stories more thoroughly, although I prefer the look of the Classic Starts books. My 7-year-old, on the other hand, loves the Great Illustrated Classics and has read all of the 20 or so we own multiple times, but won't attempt to read the Classic Starts titles alone. The larger print and increase white space in the Great Illustrated Classics titles make her think they're easier.

We have a 7-year-old, a 4-year-old and an almost 2-year-old in a 1,700 square foot house with an open kitchen/dining room/living room and no playroom or school room. It's obvious to anyone who walks into the house that we have young children and homeschool. We've got six five-shelf bookcases of "real" books in the living room, along with a TV cabinet that has storage underneath and a coffee table with a shelf beneath. We also have a bookcase of schoolbooks in the dining room and a storage cabinet for art supplies and school stuff with small pieces. Given the ages of my kids, much of our work is done on the sofa, the floor, or the recliner. DD1 does her written work at the dining table, and both girls do crafts at the dining table, but the table must be cleared and washed before meals. Most toys live in the bedrooms. We have one shelf of toddler toys in the living room and three shelves of games/puzzles. We also keep a couple of educational toys in the living room in baskets under the coffee table. Right now, we have a basket of Flexiblocks for the girls and a basket of plastic nuts and bolts for DS. The kids may bring other toys into the living room, but must put them away before meals and before bedtime. We're not minimalists, but we do require order. We have plenty of space to do what we need and want to do, but don't have room to work around clutter. Virtually every toy and book has a home, and the girls are expected to put items back in their homes when they finish with them. We love IKEA Expedit style shelving for organizing in the kids' rooms and make liberal use of under-bed storage for bulkier collections (LEGO, Duplo, Kid K'Nex, wooden train, Lincoln Logs, etc.).

For plain white, I buy Neenah Exact Vellum Bristol, 67 lb, 8.5 x 11 Inches, 250 Sheets, White, 94 Brightness or Neenah Exact Index, 250 Sheets, 90 lb, 8.5 x 11 Inches, White, 94 Brightness-- under $7 for 250 sheets. For colored, I use a 40% off coupon and buy at Michael's (or another craft store).

My kids are young (7, 4, and 1), and both girls would happily spend hours each day crafting and creating. With their interests in mind, I stock up on ... copy paper ($5 for an entire box? Thank you, Staples!) construction paper ($9.98 for 500 sheets at Walmart.com) Paper Mate 1.3 mm mechanical pencils ($3.89/8-pack at Amazon.com) Dixon Ticonderoga Tri-Write pencils ($2/12-pack at Walmart) Pentel white erasers ($2/3-pack at Staples) Mead Primary Journals (discontinued by the manufacturer, so I grimaced and bought five at full price while they were still available) glue sticks ($0.10 apiece in store at Staples or 4/$1 online -- we go through at least two a month ...) I need some cheap wooden rulers that the kids can use for straight edges and a couple of a three-ring binders for co-op classes, but cheap school supplies aren't out in our stores yet. I'd also like to pick up a couple more pairs of kid-sized Fiskars and some Scotch tape. I stocked up on 120-count boxes of crayons last year when Kmart was clearancing them out for less than $2/box, but may pick up a couple of 24-packs to replenish some of the basic colors. I also ordered gallon jugs of white and liquid glue, along with 16 oz. liquid watercolor and tempera paints from an educational wholesaler last year, so we're still well-stocked on those.

Our closet is only two feet wide. We use this fabric shoe organizer -- http://www.amazon.com/Whitmor-6351-1253-JAVA-Fashion-Organizer-Collection/dp/B000S6M4KA/ref=sr_1_14?s=storageorganization&ie=UTF8&qid=1436100991&sr=1-14&keywords=shoe+rack-- that hangs over the inside of the closet door. The pockets aren't big enough for DH's shoes, but there's space for each kid to have tennis shoes and dress shoes near the door, and my shoes will fit. Extra shoes go in a similar shoe organizer over the girls' closet door. We're in TX, so we don't have to deal with boots. If shoes are wet or messy, we go in through the garage and leave them there until they dry.

We used it for a few months, but found the selection of books frustratingly small. My avid reader is much happier with Epic.

I just picked up a 1956 set at a library book sale. There were 1939 and 1965? sets beside it that I compared before purchase. The 1939 set was very similar -- book titles were the same, content was largely unchanged, but typeface was more difficult to read in the older set and books were in worse condition. The 1960s set was like a complete different set of books.

Perhaps she should go home and read a history book to see what atrocities "she" has committed in the Middle East. Heck, she could start by reading her Old Testament.

Hits here have included ... - Morphun Blocks w/ activity guide (HUGE hit) - Magnatiles - Early SmartGames selections (Bunny Peekaboo, Day and Night, Castle Logix, Camelot Jr.) - Block Puzzles (limited pieces, but a little more challenging than other beginner puzzles) - Discovery Toys Motorworks - Peaceable Kingdom Cooperative Board Games (Hoot, Owl, Hoot and Snug as a Bug in a Rug are favorites here) - Kinetic sand (stored in a plastic tub w/ alphabet molds) - Zoob Jr. - Toddler-sized square foot gardening box & garden tools (messy, but fun ...) - Kumon and Gakken workbooks w/ rainbow pencils - Pegboard, pegs, and picture cards - Wedgits Design Cards (these opened up a whole new level of play for my kids) - Pattern blocks w/ design cards - My First Sticky Mosaics - My First Creative Collage kits - Alex Little Hands craft kits - Morning work boxes -- This past year, I tried to set up a small box of tasks each morning that my 3-year-old could do while I worked with my 6-year-old. The tasks weren't complicated, and they often involved things she had available for play. But sticking it all in a box and calling it her "morning work" seemed to help her stay occupied. A typical morning's "work" might include a letter to trace in rainbow colors, a number to trace and surround with the same number of stickers, a Wedgits design card to replicate, a bag of Duplos to stack in the pattern of the day, a Kumon My First Tracing/Cutting/or Coloring page, a floor puzzle to complete independently, and a can of Play-Doh.

I had a really good experience with Chem-Dry -- great guys and carpet looked new when they finished. Two months in, old stains are beginning to resurface, though. Of course, the last time I paid to have carpets steam cleaned, the cleaning guys left a closet standing in water. When I called the company, I was told that they must have forgotten to run their machine over it and suck the water out, but that they were booked solid and that it "should" be fine if I just ran a fan for the next three days.

DD1 was technically a first grader this year, but we used mostly second grade texts. We've used Mathematical Reasoning as a supplement to Singapore in the past, but discontinued it midway through this this year. I like parts of it, but would not be comfortable using it as a stand-alone math curriculum. The critical thinking tasks are excellent. The actual math, however, is weak at best. With Singapore, DD1 was adding and subtracting three-digit numbers and regrouping early in the second grade book. In Mathematical Reasoning C, this skill wasn't introduced until the very last page of the book. Most of the actual math in the book was stuff she mastered last year (doing Primary Mathematics 1 in kindergarten). I was also very unimpressed with Language Smarts. It touched on a lot of stuff, but there seemed to be no rhyme, reason, or order to presentation. We ended up doing the deductive reasoning puzzles and the editor in chief exercises, talking through a few other pages, and leaving most of the book untouched. I will say, however, that we liked Language Smarts better than the error-ridden Sandi McQueen books Timberdoodle offers. Language Lessons for Little Ones has the dubious honor of being the ONLY homeschooling purchase I've ever bothered to return. As for the Evan-Moor workbooks, we did Daily Geography 2 and Daily Math Review 2 (not included in the Timberdoodle package) orally. We started the year with Daily 6-Trait Writing, but it fell by the wayside. It wasn't bad. It just wasn't great at the early levels and felt like busywork. Overall, I love the idea of Timberdoodle, and I use a lot of their supplemental resources. I found the core components of their second grade package to be disappointing, however.

DD1 was 19 1/2 pounds at 5 months, but didn't top 20 pounds until 18 months. She became mobile, and she started growing up and out. At her last well child check, she was about 90th percentile for height and 75th for weight. DD2 started at 10 lbs. 12 oz. and never slowed down. At 4, she's a solid 50 pounds and 43 inches tall. She wears larger shorts than her sister who is nearly three years older. *I'm* concerned about her size because we have weight issues on both sides of the family. At every well child check, though, (and two different pediatric practices) I've been assured that she is simply a "big" little girl. She eats healthfully and she gets a ton of physical activity. She's big all over, but she's rock solid. She's pretty much stuck to the same off-the-charts growth pattern since birth.

If I had to go with a boxed option, Timberdoodle would win hands down.

As a child abuse survivor who grew up in ATI and who was partly blamed for inciting a 70-year-old man's lust (because I wore a one-piece bathing suit in his presence ...), I'm finding myself drawn far too deeply into this whole sordid mess. I read the police report again last night and the part about "the rod" jumped out at me. Power and control is at the heart of virtually every abusive relationship. Josh may have stopped violating his sisters, but he's now a father with a houseful of young children over which {in the Gothard world} he holds "divine authority" -- the ultimate "power and control." His entire family believes that children should be trained through liberal use of "the rod" to obey "all the way right away with a happy heart." Boom. He's now free to continue coercing, threatening, intimidating, and controlling young, helpless children with his parents' and his wife's full support and blessing. My heart breaks for those kids.

I found the police report to be quite telling. I've said for years that the Duggars absolutely beat their kids. You can't have the ties to both the Pearls and Gothard that they have without being abusive jackhats. When questioned, however, the parents have been very careful NOT to admit the role the "rod" plays in maintaining the kids' picture perfect TV personas. The police report contradicted Michelle's smiling claims that they discipline primarily by talking to their kids, spending time with them, and winning their hearts. Yes, Josh probably got the crap beat out of him over this. One of the ATI wisdom booklets even uses an example of a 14-year-old son who rebels against his father's authority and whose father "disciplines" him by beating him with a belt so severely that he can't sit comfortably for several days. The booklet emphasizes that {in Gothard's world} this is legitimate discipline and not abuse. That said, I think there's a whole lot more to fault the parents for than their disciplinary methods and the cover-up. Josh was a young teen boy growing up in a stiflingly Puritanical environment. (The familyhas prided themselves in offering their kids no "sex education" until just before the wedding.)Their values would have precluded having a copy of "It's Perfectly Normal" or even a good children's encyclopedia depicting the differences between boys and girls on the shelf. Josh had no older siblings to "fill in the blanks," no friends outside the family's narrow circle of similarly small-minded individuals. And on top of all that, he would have been taught that any "lustful thought" (including questions about developing bodies) was tantamount to a physical act of moral impurity -- "whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." I am NOT excusing his behavior at all. His choices were clearly wrong and inexcusable. But when an adolescent is given no factual information about what's happening to his body, no information about the opposite gender, and no factual information about sex in general, I can see where the temptation to "explore and discover" would come in to play -- especially in an environment where a teen has been led to believe that he's already "guilty" by virtue of having sexual thoughts. I mean, if "lustful thoughts" condemn one as much a physical act and one is already damned by normal adolescent thoughts, then what's to stop one from acting on them? Again, he made sickeningly wrong choices. But at the end of the day, I think his wacko parents and their staunch abstinence-only belief system (in which any discussion of consent/consensual sex would have been deemed a license for promiscuity) are every bit as culpable if not more so than his 14-year-old self.

Gothard taught (based on Deut. 22:22-26) that if a girl or woman failed to "cry out" during an assault, she was culpable for her own abuse. I have to wonder how much of the "blame" for Josh's crimes was placed squarely on his victims.

My girls (newly 4 and 6 1/2) usually get up between 6:30-7. I have a cosleeping toddler who usually wakes and wants to nurse when DH's alarm goes off at 6:30. So the girls are almost always out of bed (and hungry) before I can get up. As much as I'd love to start every day with a healthy meal, it's more important to the kids to be able to eat soon after rising. To this end, I leave cups of milk on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. I also keep a stash of kid-friendly breakfast items -- granola bars, oatmeal squares, fig bars, homemade banana bread, yogurt tubes, bananas, apples, etc. -- where they can reach them. They'll usually grab their milk and a snack shortly after they get up. When I get into the kitchen, I'll offer to fix eggs, oatmeal, or whatever else they might want. They rarely take me up on that offer early in the morning, but will often ask for a healthy snack mid-morning. We usually do a cheese and boiled egg or fruit and nut break between 9:30-10.

:( We've got a similar family dynamic. Even more maddening, we're the ones who get labeled as the "bad" parents precisely because we DON'T hit our kids. I got an earful on DD2's birthday because my non-verbal 17-month-old DS screamed in protest when DD1 tried to sit in the chair he was already occupying, and DH told DD1 to back off and give him space instead of "putting DS in his place" and teaching him not to be a "selfish brat." At this point, I limit contact as much as possible for the sake of my own kids.

Have you used the mental math exercises in the back of the teacher's manual? Beyond those, Challenging Word Problems 2 has a chapter devoted to mental calculations. I'll pull from one of those two sources almost every day and have DD start math with a mix of 6-10 addition/subtraction facts. Beyond that, my daughter loves the Flash Kids Problem Solving books. The books themselves are cheap, colorful, and engaging, and the problems lend themselves beautifully to mental math strategies. We do level up in them. (DD1 did the third grade book with Primary Mathematics 2A and will do the 4th grade book with 2B.)

I have almost the same list of resources on my shelves. Substitute Miquon for Math U See, subtract Borac, then add in Life of Fred, the entire Flash Kids Problem Solving series (which DD1 adores), Bedtime Math, and Penrose the Mathematical Cat, and you're looking at the top shelf in our dining room. My oldest is six as well. :tongue_smilie:

Too funny, but I have to wonder whether it was really an accident. Their brand just went viral. I'm seeing "clever graphic designer with a twisted sense of humor" written all over this. :tongue_smilie:

We use the library heavily, but have an easy system in place to keep track of books. For starters, we have a dedicated shelf for library books and only library books on one of our living room bookcases. Second, library books may be read only in the living room and must be put away afterward. (Any child who absconds with a library book loses library privileges for the next week.) Once books are completed, they go into our library bag for return. I sit down on Sunday night, pull up my library account, and see what books are due within the coming week. I then renew or pull for return any titles not already in the bag. We generally go to the library on Mondays, but even if our library day changes, returns are ready to go. If need be, I can even hand the bag to DH and ask him to drop them in the book drop on his way to/from work. We still buy a LOT of books. (I love BetterWorldBooks.com's clearance sales. ...) But we've got a decent library system and excellent interlibrary loan system, and the combination saves us at least $250 a month.