The current basic includes more than it did before the redesign. It has all you need though. It's what I bought :001_smile:

I heard him at the Greenville convention. He was good! My son and I have just started LfCA. My husband finds us chanting to be strange. :lol:

Poorly. Many schools here have been on a block schedule for a while. Some have A/B days that alternate through the school year. Others are 4x4 where you do daily courses for a semester. Everything I've read on the block schedules says it's dreadful for math retention. When I did my student teaching, we didn't cover as much in the block schedule as you would have in a traditional schedule. I think in theory, block scheduling can be good. From what I saw in practice, it's awful. Wish we'd move away from it.

For maximizing, you really want calculus. At this level, the problems are designed to be solved with guess & check (and a table is the best way to organize the information). The idea with the problem is to get the kids to recognize that a square does maximize area and to start seeing these problems before calculus :)

You could also try a fountain pen. Jet pens has a good selection.

:iagree: SWO didn't work for my son. We used it in first grade and part of second grade. He could spell the words when we studied them, but he'd promptly forget them in later weeks. He's a self-taught reader, so we never did phonics. It was really tough on me to switch completely to AAS but it's been the right program for my son. I think there's a fine line between judging when a program isn't working for you and curriculum-hopping. It'll be different for each family.

Staples did well with mine.

I think the used copies just haven't made it out yet. I'm not sure when the standards edition came out, but it's pretty recent. We switched to standards in 2 and are starting 4 tomorrow!

FYI, the recent Tiffany Aching one seems quite a bit sadder. I don't think we'll do it as a family for a while (and I'm avoiding reading it right now). Nation is not Discworld at all. Good Omens is great fun. Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman (author of Sandman comics & tons of books now). The premise is that the apocalypse is at hand, but due to a mix-up at the hospital,the antichrist is raised by a normal family in an England suburb. Great fun. I love how Famine has been passing time waiting. :D

I was lucky and found them soon after they were published here. I have 2 of the British editions signed by Pratchett! :) The Tiffany Aching books (young adult) can be good starts. We did the first 2 as read alouds. (Wee Free Men is first, then Hat Full of Sky) I probably would aim for reading in order if possible. The Color of Magic Light Fantastic Equal Rites The first two do go in order. In later books the character of the city seems to change some, so that's why I'd go in order. Pratchett does a very good job at giving enough info to be able to pick up at any point though. Guards, Guards is one of my favorites (and the first with the Watch). I think you'll do best to go in order at least with a series (so don't start with Soul Music if you haven't done Guards Guards first). And by looking some of this up... Snuff (Vimes) is out in October. Pre-ordered!

It's in 3 that the differences start. Some of the topics in Standards 3A were in 3B IP and vice versa. It's not hard to match up though - and I like the extra practice available with IP even though there isn't a standards version.

I haven't found the More Notes to be very useful. It's actually one component that I think I wouldn't have bought if I were doing it over. We only got through Diversity from MPH 3/4 last year. We use all components. I find the Teacher's Guide helpful with some additional information. More Notes extends that even more and does have some additional experiments.

Book link (minimal samples ... may also check out Rainbow Resource's site for what they have as samples). Singapore forums. (nowhere near as active as here, but some info there)

Enjoy Life does 3 chocolate bars: "milk" chocolate, dark chocolate, and one with rice crisps. Their chocolate chips are small chips but they taste just fine. I've melted them down and made a chocolate bunny with candy molds. I bought a large box of chips through amazon :) My son's also allergic to milk, so he didn't have chocolate until he was 6, I think.

I'd think you could use the HOTS separately, but I don't know how well it'd work. The difficulty level is pretty steep compared to the texts and the homework. I think the HOTS may even be a bit more challenging than the tests. Have you checked out the samples at the Singapore site? You could also ask on their forums...

Thank you!

I'm interested in the source... My son has had a dairy allergy since he was 3 months old. After a reaction at 1 year, we started carrying Epi-pens. We got lax for a time when he was about 4 years old. :glare: We were lucky. He had an anaphylactic reaction to cashews at 5 years old. We were home and had the Epis in his kit. He had none of the symptoms we were used to seeing; just him telling us his throat was scratchy and he thought he was having an allergic reaction. We didn't see any skin reaction. Gave Benadryl & Orapred and headed to the ER just in case. He started vomiting in the car and that's when I gave the Epi. He had a biphasic reaction; no hives until about 4 hours after the initial ingestion. Needed a second dose of epinephrine in the hospital (after the first when we arrived - and after the IV Benadryl). The hospital sent up food with dairy in it for breakfast. :glare: I'm still ticked about that one. To the OP, First, :grouphug: Second, you may want to ask your son what would make him feel safe. I agree that with the vomiting, you've got more severe reactions that probably would have been better to give the Epi. With my son's reaction, we were told a couple of times that we should have called an ambulance and gone to a closer hospital. However, we were only going on our son's comments. We saw no signs of a reaction. When we see the allergist, we ask our questions and then let our son ask any questions he has. He wears a medic-alert bracelet and we always check that the medicine pack is with him when we go out. I think that we may overreact to some things, but I feel that I watched my son come close to death. If we hadn't had the Epi and listened to him absent any signs of allergic reaction, I don't know what would have happened. I don't trust him with many people and my husband or I is always with him with the medications when we're out. Because they change ingredients, we read labels EVERY TIME we open a new package. If something was produced on shared equipment, we don't use it. We also don't eat out.

I can't even find the prefilled spoons anymore. Sounds like there was another contamination issue. I checked with the CVS pharmacist and was told that they've got less space and don't carry as much benadryl since allegra went OTC. I have been able to find the generic chewable bendaryls though... but just the occasional single box. :glare:

I haven't figured percentages. What we spend depends on the year. We had enough to make deducting on Schedule A worthwhile for 2 or 3 years.

Our state requires 180 days. I track those. We start June 1 (I'm not ready!!!) and work 5 days a week, taking time off as needed. This year we're going to try 4 weeks on, 1 off, then 5 on, 1 off. I'm also breaking our year up into quarters to help with pacing. We do take days as needed (or a week if things are really rough) and aim to end in April and take all of May off. When I started working, it was a bit of a transition from having the summers off to not having a break. We don't follow an agrarian calendar at home, so I don't see the point in starting it with our son with school.

And just as an FYI, some states have free subscriptions for homeschoolers to Discovery Streaming. SC is one.

I didn't even think of calling an ambulance when my son had his anaphylactic reaction. My husband was driving us to the ER and I was in the back. I ended up injecting the Epi-pen on the drive. It wasn't until we were admitted and told to call an ambulance next time that it even entered my mind that it was an option. So the reminder is definitely good. (in our defense, we weren't certain an allergic reaction was happening and were headed to hang out in the ER parking lot while we figured things out.)

:lol:

I'm so sorry. :grouphug:

I've been using this Neutrogena liquid sunblock for my face this year. It goes on smoothly and doesn't feel oily. You can still put your makeup on over it once it dries. I burn very easily and this is the first sunscreen since the gel sunscreen that I don't cringe when applying.