Rod and Staff is our favorite grammar program.

God worked on me for a long time with this. I read Chosen by God and Romans and fought against it. There was one thing that always sort of bothered me though. If my salvation was dependent on my decision for Christ...in other words if I chose Christ instead of Christ choosing me, how much faith would I need to be saved? What if I had a bad week, or a bad year? I had no assurance. Of course, Scripture should have given me assurance here, John 15:16 says, "You did not choose me, but I chose you." I was still not convinced of anything though. Then in college, a professor printed out a list of nothing but Scripture references on a sheet of paper that all dealt with God's Sovereignty and handed them out to the class. I went back to my dorm and looked them all up. One after another....I read them all in one sitting. It was like God was shooting down my whole worldview with each verse. I still didn't like this doctrine yet. But I could no longer deny that Scripture taught it. I love it now. It gave me the assurance I never had before. Unfortunately I have long since lost that list of references, but the Sovereignty of God is woven throughout Scripture, Old and New Testaments. Once you see it, lots of things make more sense. One of the most compelling verses for me is Ephesians 1:4-5 - Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.

The children don't let me read as much as I'd like. I usually work on a couple of books at a time, picking up what suits my mood: History of the Ancient World by SWB - I'll be working on this one all year. I'm trying to read it in sync with the kids going through Ancient History in TOG. No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie - Just finished last night Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg Above All Earthly Pow'rs - David Wells The Flying Inn by G.K. Chesterton - when I need a laugh Unfortunately I can really only read when the kids are asleep. If I try to enter the living room with a book they will all jump me. They'll let me sit at my computer, but will not let me read a book. Hmm, maybe I should hide a book behind my keyboard....

I store by grade level. We have a "retired" entertainment center that has bookcases built into it. It has a total of 8 shelves; 4 on each side. I labeled them each with a grade. This setup is for readers. I double-stack them to make them all fit. All the readers are also labeled with a color coded label to indicate grade level. For textbooks I put them together by subject. All the English texts are in a row organized by grade level. Ditto for science and math, etc. So far the textbooks take up 2 normal sized bookshelves in a bookcase. I keep them separate from the readers because I figure my kids may not all be on the same level in every subject at the same time. So I kinda store by subject AND by grade. Textbook subjects like English and Math are kept together by subject and readers are together by grade level.

Chiming in late here... DH and I are GCC alumni. It's a very good school...very challenging academically and genuinely Christian. It's also affordable as private colleges go. They do not take Federal money so any kind of Federal student loan is out. While we were there the financial aid people helped out with private loans though. I'm not really familiar with their economics department though so I cannot comment directly on that.

When we first started homeschooling I bought my dd a spiral-bound, blank timeline book from Sonlight. I tried to make my own figures by photocopying things from Kingfisher and such. This was entirely too much work. We did get it done (I only had two children then.), but it was too much. I bought the figures from Sonlight the following year. This went much better. But....I now have 4 children. I did a rough calculation of how much it would cost to buy timeline figures for all of them and got sticker shock. So this year I bought the Homeschool in the Woods timeline figures on CD-ROM. I figure we will save money in the long run if I print them out and glue-stick them in. Besides, my kids like playing with glue sticks. I will still buy Sonlight's blank timeline books for my youngers (I got my DS his very own book this year.) because I like them. They are made of heavy cardstock and appear to be sturdy. I printed out all the figures we would need for our study of Ancients this year. I cut them into strips and put them in an empty shoebox. When it's time to do a figure, my kids cut it off the strip and paste it in themselves. They may color them if they wish. HTH!

Nope, we don't say the Pledge here. DD learned it in AWANA. DS doesn't know it yet. We prioritize Bible memory and cathechism. Everything else is gravy.

My kids are close to the same age as yours. Believe me, I understand your frustration. The advice given to me by my mother-in-law long ago (she homeschooled 4 kids) was "Let the housework go." She told me it was impossible to do all the house-stuff perfectly and educate the children. The children are more important than a clean house. As for grocery shopping/cooking. I don't run any errands during school hours. I wil schedule the occasional Dr. or Dentist appointment, but absolutely NO errands. We shop on weekends. I try to have a rough plan for my meals at the beginning of the week. Nothing detailed in case things change, but I at least have the meat thawed and ready to go. I use the crockpot as much as possible. The result for our house is, the children get educated....my house is a wreck. Laundry is never completely put away. My house is cluttered, and I am perpetually behind on dishes. But the children are educated, and they will get older. Things will get easier when they can help more with chores. (I tell myself that often. I hope I'm right.) I have no idea if that helps you or not. You probably already do all these things. I can comisserate though. But I probably spelled it wrong. :001_smile:

:iagree:

I'm super-introverted here. I don't have a solution. I get cranky. Until my youngest is old enough to be sent upstairs to play quietly like the others, I think I will remain cranky. I think I'll go make myself a cup of tea now.... Oh, and no, we don't do playdates or co-ops here. Being "social" gives me headaches. Literally.

I like it. You don't need it to use Miquon, but I read through it before starting with DD and I think it really helped me understand the thinking behind Miquon. I don't use it at all now. It also has some neat ideas for explaining different concepts. Ideally if you could find someone to borrow it from, you could save the money but still get a feel for the method. I like having it because I think I may be a curriculum junkie.

:iagree: It never occurred to me to use these for marking textbooks until I got a catalog from Sonlight one year that had a strip of Post-It Flags included for marking your spot in the catalog. I thought, "Wow, what a great idea!"

Post it Flags However, my 18 month old has taken to removing them. He thinks this is really funny. I do not.

My dd uses Spongebob Squarepants Typing. It's relatively painless, and she finds it funny.

We use the tests. I want to get the kids used to tests, and R&S tests are not particularly stress inducing.

I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. John 10:9 (NIV)

Kitchenaid. Mine is Terra Cotta to match my kitchen. DH got it for me last year for Valentine's Day after my old cheapie developed a leak. I have no complaints. I read some negative reviews of it somewhere...not sure if it was at Amazon or not. But I can't relate to any of the complaints. It's pretty, too. :001_smile:

I actually don't have a dog in this fight since I had never even heard of CTT before this thread popped up. For our core curriculum I try to choose publishers that specifically uphold my family's very specific Christian Worldview (we are Reformed). If I cannot find materials which jive with that, I will turn to more generically Christian materials that are not necessarily in sync with our stream of Christianity. If I cannot find anything Christian at all that is suitable I will turn to secular materials. I do find it odd though that you would deny me the right to spend my money as I wish and train my children as I wish. DH and I do not teach our children about all possible worldviews and then give them an option of picking one for themselves. We teach Christianity as truth, the same as if we were teaching them 2+2=4. I don't really see why I should be required to view all curriculum with complete neutrality with respect to religion. Besides I don't buy the notion that anyone with a deeply held religious belief can completely keep it out of a curriculum such as this one. Math can be neutral...I can't think of any other subject that can be neutral though. Some part of their worldview will come through even if they don't quote their holy book to me or shake their fist at the sky metaphorically in their curriculum. I don't believe in neutrality. But like I said, I don't have a dog in this fight. I only responded to this thread because I thought it folly on the part of the author to try to hide his religious beliefs when directly asked. BUT he is certainly free to do so.

Yard sale. Old metal monstrosity, complete with rust spots. DH perma-mounted it to our school table. It sharpens beautifully. :001_smile:

Homeschool Tracker Plus

If I took a vote from every family member... No one complains when we go to Long John Silver. The kids love fish and hushpuppies. If it's just me getting to pick where we eat fast food... Chick-fil-A. Those little nuggets are addictive.

I went with Singapore over Saxon because my DH used Saxon when he was homeschooled and he HATED it as a program. He looked at Singapore once at a homeschooling convention and loved it. He thought it encourages better problem solving and thinking. That said, DH is very good at math, but he thinks that is in spite of using Saxon, not because of it. I've never seen Saxon up close and personal myself. Adding here: I just asked DH about this and in his own words he says: "Singapore teaches you to think mathematically. Saxon catechises you in math. Saxon is good at making kids memorize how to get the right answer."

My dd went right into 1A/1B at 5 and my ds is doing the same now. You can always take things slower if you want to cement new concepts as you go along. I really like supplementing with Miquon at that age too. The rods are immensely helpful for visualizing the math.

:iagree: We started from the beginning, but the third grade book isn't hard to dive into. The second grade text is a very gentle introduction to grammar. Over the course of the second grade text you learn what sentences, nouns, verbs and pronouns are. Grade 3 reviews all of those with more detail added in. We really like R&S spelling, too. I have never seen the reading program. HTH!

Here is the absolute best hamburger bun recipe I've found: Beautiful Burger Buns King Arthur has pictures to help with shaping. I usually use half whole wheat flour and half white. I also replace part of the white flour with wheat germ and ground flax seed. We just had these with lunch today. Fantastic!