Those look great. And my library has most of them. Thanks!

We have always used the D'Nealian handwriting books for our ds. That is what our local school district uses, and is that kind of pre-cursive writing. I also just like the way it looks and our ds has done well with it. As for your son's age/grade...he could either be in K or 1 around here, depending on the school's birthday cutoff dates. HTH!

OK, so we pretty much follow TWTM for our basis. I'm realizing, though, that I have not taught ds much about typical American civic stuff, like the pledge, songs, etc. Now, we are patriotic, but strongly reserve our rights to free speech regarding the government, etc...but I'm wondering what the hive has to say about teaching these things in the home, because I think it's important as an American to at least know them. I was thinking of adding some of this to our studies for the year...memorizing the pledge, the poem on the Statue of Liberty, the preamble, National Anthem, etc. (DS is in 3rd grade.) Any suggestions on good resources that could make this more interesting and not so dry and boring? Thanks! Cindy

We've always just used the D'Nealian handwriting workbooks. They're not too expensive, and I just don't see the point in spending a lot of time or money on it as a subject. DS has always enjoyed handwriting, though, so it was never a battle. He wanted to learn cursive early, too, and is actually better at writing in cursive than at printing.

Another AAS convert here. My ds couldn't spell much of anything after 1st grade (we used a different curric. then). I switched to AAS, and he flew through the first level and has really done well in the 2nd. He's a pretty good speller now, and I am so thankful!

I second the All About Spelling suggestion. My ds was not spelling well at all after 1st grade, but once we started AAS, he flew through it and his spelling is SOOOO much better now. He actually is a good speller! One thing that worked for getting my ds into chapter books (around age 7 or so) was to start reading one to him that he really liked, then stop in the middle of a chapter, or at the end of a cliff-hanger to go do something else. He didn't want to wait for me to come back to finish (I did this on purpose, mind you) and he would pick up the book and keep reading on his own. THen he moved on to reading the Pokemon chapter books, which I couldn't care less about, but he really got started that way. He is now an avid reader at 8, when I really wondered whether he ever would be.

Be creative in trying to get your emergency fund up and going. We took the actual FPU class...it is really a great motivation to get going because you are accountable to a whole group of other people who are doing the same thing, and they're all in various states of debt, so you're not alone. It was just the kick in the pants we needed to change our ways and get started. We funded our $1000 by cashing in a whole-life insurance policy after we had a term policy put in place. Then we just got deadly serious about paying off everything else. We just closed our last credit card, and now only have one student loan and our van left to pay off. It is hard. There is no other way to do it. We just budget very carefully, use all cash, and when it's gone, it's gone. We don't shop much (which I miss terribly, but I know that one day I'll be able to do it guilt-free). We also sold a lot of junk we had sitting in our house at a huge garage sale last year, which made a pretty good profit...sold stuff on ebay we had around here, I started doing some work for my BIL at home to make a little extra, etc. You can do it! It is not easy, but it's so worth it.

We love AAS for learning the spelling and phonics rules. My ds went through another curric. for 1st grade, and learned almost nothing. I started over in 2nd grade with AAS 1, and ds flew through that book like crazy, and has almost finished the second book with absolutely no problems. He has very clearly learned the rules and his reading and spelling are better than they have ever been. AAS 1 might be very easy, but you can just go through it quickly, then move on. Plus, she'll at least feel like she's gaining confidence!

We bought the cds to use this year (SOTW 2), and we have enjoyed using them some of the time. We often use them in the van and listen to them all together. I usually find that I still have to go and read the chapter myself, though. I need to read things rather than just listen to them for them to sink in. Some weeks we use the cds, and others I read the chapter aloud like we did last year without the cds. Jim Weiss is very good to listen to and he makes the stories interesting. I don't think I would go to just using the cds, though, without using the book. I would not feel like I was keeping up with ds that way.

I did not buy the CD. I am comfortable with pronouncing the phonemes, so I didn't feel it was necessary. I didn't ever wish I had bought it. HTH! :)

Absolutely! Anyone who loves a pastor or other church staff person is more than welcome! :)

That's hard to choose just one.... One of my absolute favorites is Barbara Kingsolver. I loved The Poisonwood Bible. That is up there with one of my all time favorite books.

So, after reading through that thread on thanking the church staff, and being amazed at the animosity I found there, I thought I'd just see how all the rest of us clergy spouses are doing this week. My dh is a Lutheran pastor in a large congregation. This week is the one that I love the most and dread the most every year. I really LOVE Holy Week, but I do miss DH a bit. He's such a great husband and dad, we all understand how it is this week, but we do miss him! I just thought we all might want to commiserate together. :) Please, no flaming the pastors or their spouses in this thread! :grouphug:

Whatever happened to "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all?" This thread has astonished me.

Just to note, that is in the "opinion" section of the Washington Times...I didn't see any real research there. I'll hold off on judgment until I see some solid journalistic research and responsibility on either side of the argument. My dd isn't old enough for GS, and I don't know if we would ever do it anyway, but these types of "hot" usually have more to them than what the popular debate usually portrays.

Here's our early draft of 3rd grade for next year: All About Spelling 3 Michael Clay Thompson Language Math Mammoth light blue 3rd grade Story of the World 3 Noeo Chemistry Latin Piano lessons Bible/Religion

Well, when it comes to issues with the in-laws, I feel that I MUST have dh on board with me, and we have an understanding that it is our own responsibility to deal with our own parents. I do not take on issues with the inlaws, dh does that. I take on the issues with my own parents. It really works for us. So, I would suggest talking with your dh about it and coming up with a plan of action for his parents. Maybe just saying that it would be nice for your kids to have some one-on-one time with them without the little kids around is all that would need to be said. For your parents, it's your call. You know them and can decide whether it's worth it to try to change things when you go there to visit. Family dynamics are so tricky to navigate. I hope you can all come up with a solution that works for you! I totally understand why you feel irked. I like my kids to have the same advantages as my brother's kids with my parents. (our kids are the only grandkids on dh's side, thankfully) Everyone wants their kids to feel just as important to the grandparents as their cousins seem to be. Try to see things from your mil's position, too...maybe she really just wants the little ones to be included in the family when they obviously wouldn't otherwise be. Good luck!

I did sell quite a bit on ebay for a while. I would look at thrift stores and garage sales for children's items that I knew were high-quality and that people would pay a lot of money for on ebay, then resell them. It was time-consuming, but I enjoyed it and sometimes it was VERY profitable. I don't do it anymore. I just can't go looking for things with the kids in tow anymore. Now, I do sell quite a few books on Amazon. And, I would guess many homeschoolers have lots of books around. It's really easy and takes almost no time to do. I have addressed envelopes for a local business. (I did not really enjoy this, though.) Now, I work sometimes for my brother-in-law who owns his own business and he pays me to encode HTML documents for his website. This is by far the most lucrative of my "jobs". It might be worth asking anyone you know if they might have work you can do from home.

We usually have brunch here. Here is my menu: Sausage, Egg & Spinach casserole (made with croissants, yum!) Cheesy potatoes Salad Lemon Scones Ham Raspberry Pie

My kids absolutely loved Charlotte's Web on CD, read by the author. They also (my 4 yo included) liked the Little House books, especially the early ones in the series. I also ditto the "anything read by Jim Weiss" comments. I just search his name in our Library database and request anything that looks interesting. If you can use interlibrary loan, do that. CDs are so expensive! We always have the car stocked with CDs from the library and our car rides are so much more peaceful.

My ds (8) is almost finished with AAS level 2. He has found it to be quite easy...we do at least two steps a week (we had to start with AAS 1 in 2nd grade because what we used last year for 1st did not work for us at all), and we basically go over the lesson quickly, he writes the list (not using the tiles, usually), gets the words all correct, then we move on. What do I do now? I'm hesitant to keep on with AAS, just for cost reasons, and wondering whether it will get any more challenging for him. I do think he's learning the rules very well, so that's good...sometimes it just seems too easy. I don't know, maybe that's a good thing. I hate to hop curriculum if we'll miss something. Any suggestions?

It's the eternal hunt that there might be something better out there... :)

I am a huge fan of Ruth Beechick's little book (pamphlet?) called "A Home Start in Reading." It's a no-pressure way to work with kids and I'm using some of her ideas with my 4.5 year old dd with wonderful success. I agree with the other posters...hold off on anything formal for now...just read, play with letters on a chalkboard or whiteboard and have fun.

Ditto to that. The pokemon chapter books were what finally got my ds8 reading regularly. I wasn't thrilled with that, but now he's reading the 4th Harry Potter book (is on p. 350) and I couldn't be happier that he's finally reading challenging books for fun. I also have one who LOVES anything electronic. I finally put a moratorium on all electronic media for several weeks, giving an exception on Sundays, started him on a more regular schedule (which is NOT my strong point) and things are going so much better. Homeschooling my ds takes a lot of work and patience and creativity. It's just hard with him. I think some kids are just like that. I'm relaxing a bit on the electronic media (I have to use the word "electronic" because he constantly reminds me that books are media, lol!) but it's on a very limited basis (like 30 minutes per day, every once in a while). Find what works, even if it's not your preference (like scheduling for me) and go with it. Good luck! ETA: I just read your second post...really, my ds's attitude didn't change until I completely stopped allowing all screen time for several days in a row. He finally got bored enough to go find something to do that was interesting to him. He's built some seriously cool legos since then!

At that age, I think I was really loving the Anne of Green Gables series...maybe that was later... Either way, they're great books!