Grades 7 and 8 are CLE's two-year prealgebra course. We are working on the 6th grade level right now.

Baby Alive dolls are pretty popular here!

SOTW, but this year we are doing Adventures in America with my 1st grader and it is fantastic. Easy to get done but options to supplement if you wish.

We are dumping Zaner-Bloser GUM and going back to CLE Language Arts. Also adding CLE math back in as a supplement to Beast Academy. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If it's the online retailer I'm thinking, I'd proceed with caution. We relocated for one and it turned out to be a very bad move for us. While we liked that general part of the country, we had to live an hour away from DH's work to find affordable housing. The job (an IT position) was also extremely stressful -- it was a cutthroat environment with little regard for family or life outside of work. We ended up leaving after just a few months and had to pay back the relocation expenses the company had paid for us to move there.

We add writing to it, but it is otherwise very thorough.

I got a copy of this at a thrift store or a used book sale. We use it for the poems we like but I also add memory work that is connected to our history. My kids do like most of the poems included in this book!

What age?

I personally didn't take AP Spanish, but I took 4 years of Spanish in high school and took CLEP tests to test out of the first two years of Spanish in college, receiving credit for those introductory classes towards my Spanish minor.

Ditto Mystery Science. We totally shelved the curriculum we'd planned to use because my kids love Mystery Science. I add library books to beef it up, but I request all library books online and pick them up once a week or so. I have a preschooler with an immune deficiency who is mostly homebound so I avoid taking him out if at all possible.

We also put together baggies with a bottle of water and nonperishable food. There are certain areas where I know we'll encounter people in need so I'm glad to have them in the car and ready to go when they're needed.

This is so sad!

I want to combine my 6th and 4th graders for grammar this year. They've been doing Zaner-Bloser GUM workbooks at their own grade levels but grammar just isn't getting done without direct instruction from me. And if I'm directly instructing them, it would be easier to combine them. We've done CLE LA up until this year, so they both have a good grasp of the basics. I'm not wanting a great deal of rigor this year as we're focusing on writing, so a lighter program is fine. What program could we do together, hopefully mostly orally?

I've preordered this one: https://www.amazon.com/Paleo-Cooking-Your-Instant-Pot/dp/1624143547/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480195781&sr=8-1&keywords=paleo+instant+pot

Do you mean six quart? I didn't know they had a 16 qt!

I have Great Food Fast and really like it.

We got old school desks from a small private school that was shutting down. In all honesty, the writing surface is too small to be practical and my kids rarely use them. They'd rather use our communal table or spread out on the floor.

The 7 in 1 has a yogurt function as well as a low pressure function that the 6 in 1 doesn't have.

I bought a generic electric pressure cooker at Wal-Mart a few weeks ago and LOVED it -- but when I saw how much more I could get with an Instant Pot, I returned it and ordered the Instant Pot. It makes cooking much more convenient with fewer dishes to wash and less time actively watching whatever is cooking. The cooking time overall is not always less, but I can be doing a bunch of other things rather than watching the food to stir, prevent it from boiling over, etc.

We're almost done with 3A & 3B and I'm finding that I need to supplement to keep other skills fresh. We used CLE before and it was TOO much review but BA doesn't have enough. I've debated about going back to CLE since I really like it, but DS prefers BA and math was a battle with him when we used CLE. I do have Evan-Moor Teacher Filebox and have used the Daily Math Practice as review - but it's really too easy. I found my older DS' CLE math light units in a box yesterday along with the CLE teacher guides, so I'm thinking of picking stuff out of there and doing a daily oral review.

I have a 4 yo son with DS. My ultrasound at 11 weeks for the nuchal fold was extremely abnormal; I was told there was little chance the baby would even survive. We found out through additional genetic testing around 13 weeks that we were expecting a boy with Down syndrome. I was monitored very carefully throughout the pregnancy and additional markers popped up -- a hole in the heart (VSD) as well as short femurs and some brain stuff. Aborting was never an option, but we were glad to know ahead of time to emotionally prepare and research best care options.

We were in t-shirts and shorts yesterday and now have a few inches of snow on the ground plus 50 mph winds!

Here are some pics of our room:

We have a schoolroom. We love it! My husband also works from home, using our bedroom as his office, and when we did school in the kitchen, it was much too distracting to all of us to be in such close proximity all day long. We have desks for each of the kids, but they rarely use them. I'm thinking of getting rid of them but the kids like them for storage. We also have an old kitchen table that I use as a desk and it's also where I work on-on-one with kids. We also have a few sets of bookcases. Because we have a 4 yo, we do have toys in the room to keep him busy. I hide them in a Rubbermaid container under the table. We have a beanbag chair for seating but the room is also next to our family room on the lower level, so we use that room quite a bit for reading and watching documentaries.

I've lived in both areas, although I've only homeschooled in Minnesota. Cost of living is lower in MN. Commutes are generally shorter and easier. The health care system is very good. Mayo Clinic is in Rochester, about 90 miles from Minneapolis. Homeschooling is easy; standardized testing is required yearly but you don't have to show anyone your scores. There are many homeschoolers, activities for homeschoolers and homeschooling groups. The weather is colder, but it is sunny much of the time. There are great museums and zoos. Lots to do with kids. There is a lot of natural beauty; lots of lakes. The North Shore of Lake Superior is magnificent. WA has a different kind of natural beauty. The mountains are amazing. The dark, foggy winters are sometimes hard to take. We loved being near the ocean. My DH worked in downtown Seattle; we had to live an hour out of the city in order to find affordable housing. He commuted on the train. We ultimately moved back to MN to be near family.