Wow! No wonder I can never find a bra that fits quite right! According to this I should be wearing a 30B! I have been wearing a 32A or a 34AA when I can find them in the women's section, but neither ever really fit all that great so I've taken to shopping in the girls training bra section -- where things are mostly S, M, L, XL and often don't have cup sizes. Now I'm curious about online bra shopping... I wonder how well that would work out.

Thanks everyone! I've been researching the curricula you all suggested, and I was able to order Sara Stein's The Science Book and Jan Paul Schutten's The Mystery of Life from the library! Ellen McHenry's stuff looks pretty awesome. I don't think my boys have enough basic science experience to delve into chemistry just yet, but I'm going to keep it on our list for when we do. RSO is promising, but still seems very involved as far as planning and activities go... am I misunderstanding how it works? Also ran across Mr. Q's Science. Anyone have experience with this? It looks PERFECT for DS#2. Not so much for DS#1. But I'm thinking about figuring out a way to incorporate more for my visual learner while we work with BFSU. Thanks for the links! I really shouldn't go spending a huge amount of money on curricula right now, so we may just have to figure out a way to make BFSU work, at least for the time being. Maybe if I pulled out my highlighters and marked up my copy of it to help me find the key points in all that... verboseness, maybe then I could get somewhere with BFSU. I will, at least, give it another shot while I try to figure out what we could possibly replace it with.

Am I the only one who despises skinny jeans? I don't care if other people wear them, except that everyone else wearing them means that it's hard to find jeans that aren't "skinny" style at the store. I have issues getting my humongous hobbit feet through the leg holes, and then they're 4" too long (because I'm 5' tall) and I have to fold them up over my shins, and then I feel like I've been shrink-wrapped in denim and waddle around like a penguin.

Almost anything by Orson Scott Card. The Worthing Saga and A Planet Called Treason (the original, I've never read the rework Treason) are probably my favorites, though I've read Ender's Game 20+ times over the last 20 years, so it probably tops my list and I loved it's parallel novel Ender's Shadow and all the Shadow sequels. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett Guilty Pleasures (and it's first 5 or 10 sequels) by Laurell K. Hamilton Recently re-read Anne Rice's The Witching Hour and it was still a page-turner.

Having and using base-ten blocks has been extremely helpful around here (and I used permanent markers to color in the pattern of alternating 5s like RS has on their picture cards). One of my kids needs to touch and move things to learn, and having numbers with actual shapes and sizes has been the best thing ever for his sense of place value -- seeing that he can line up 10 ones and it's the same as 1 ten, feeling that he can stack 10 hundreds and it's the same as 1 thousand, etc. We also use RS's place value cards and abacus, money (as Sherry in OH described), and a chart with columns for the place values with place value discs.

I third Prodigy! We recently signed up for the Prodigy math game land my 7yo LOVES it! I'm pretty sure it's the definition of fun math supplement. You can make assignments (that the kids don't even know you made) so that they work on whatever skill(s) you want them to in the game. Otherwise, it seems to just go through the Common Core Curriculum (and there are a couple other, non-CC curricula you can pick from), moving forward as the kid demonstrates mastery. My kids also love the RightStart card games, but we use RS for math, so it's not a supplement.

I totally red shirted my DS#2... AFTER I tried starting him in K the year he was "supposed" to go and it being a HORRIBLE experience for everyone involved. (We homeschool through a public umbrella charter that requires kids attend classes 1 day each week.) His birthday is at the very end of Sep, the cut off here is Oct 1st, and school starts middle of Aug... so he was still 4yo when school started, but he was doing mostly 1st grade work. So academically, he was plenty ready, but socially and emotionally, he was waaay not. I knew that then, but I hoped that by being around older kids (not DS#1) it might force him to grow emotionally. Well, his teacher called me or I got a note or an incident report every. single. week. Really, it was awful. He had trouble staying in his seat, blurted out answers, and wandered and roamed when he was supposed to be at a station or participating in an activity. He got in trouble for refusing to do activities he deemed "baby work." He had on-the-floor-crying meltdowns and sometimes hit or pushed other kids when he got frustrated. By winter break he was saying that he was stupid and that no one liked him and hitting himself in the face when he got in trouble at school AND at home. So I pulled him out, and really, I think I should have done it much earlier. Sending him to K when he was *supposed* to go was one of my bigger parenting mistakes. It took months and months for him to recover. We still have some issues because of it. This year he's doing K again and is the oldest in his class. He's still a little immature compared to them, but he's much closer to fitting in and has had fewer behavior problems. Most parents know when their kid is ready for traditional school. I wish there was free pre-school everywhere so that under-advantaged families with immature little kids could choose to put off K for a year too.

Okay, no, I actually really like BFSU, I just don't have the energy/time/mental oomph to work through it any more. We haven't touched science in weeks and weeks. Maybe months. :ohmy: It seems I need something much more open-and-go. I hope to lump my DS#1 and DS#2 together for science. I'm not really sure what level they'd need either. They're in K and 2nd now, but both are working above grade level in math and reading. I think they'd need something more geared toward 2nd-4th grade, but they don't have much science background other than interest-led sciencey books from the library. We like secular materials and <3 evolution. Anything fit that description?

1st grade plans for DS#2, subject to change, lol: Math: continue in Beast Academy 3 (he won't finish it this year), and/or maybe begin Singapore (3?) Reading: McGuffey's 3rd Eclectic Reader Writing: WWE2 Handwriting: beginning cursive -- maybe HWOT or maybe mom-made cursive based on the McGuffey style; continuing typing instruction, but switching from Keyboarding Without Tears to Mickey's Typing Adventure Grammar: FLL3 History: SOTW2 Science: undecided. We're using BFSU now, but I think we may need to switch to something more open-and-go Music: hopefully we'll begin piano lessons Languages: continue Song School Latin 1. May continue ASL, but DS#1 wants to do Spanish instead, and DS#2 usually decides to want whatever his older brother wants Not planning anything for P.E. or spelling yet. I figure it's okay to put off spelling another year or two

Tentative 3rd grade plans for DS#1: Math: Beast Academy 5 Reading: McGuffey's 5th Eclectic Reader Writing: WWE3 Handwriting: Cursive of some sort... maybe HWOT, but I might make my own program for him out of the cursive style in McGuffey's Readers Science: Undecided, maybe continue in Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding, or maybe not History: SOTW2 Languages: Undecided. He doesn't really like ASL and wants to do Spanish like his friends. We'll probably still be doing Song School Latin 1 too. Spelling: We MUST finally start formal spelling! I have Spelling Power but haven't read past the first page. Hopefully that works out... Music: Want to start him in piano, but haven't worked out the details yet. P.E..: Beginning gymnastics, at his request Other: We're part of a public homeschool charter one day each week, and he'll probably take LEGO robotics, P.E., art, drama, and music or science with them. ETA: Forgot grammar! Grammar: FLL3

Yeah, it seems like we have 3 months out of the year where there is ALWAYS someone sick. This year DH even caught pneumonia and was out of work for an entire month! We've been schooling year-round to accommodate the large (1-3 month long), unplanned breaks we've had to take for moving, illness, etc, and also because I can rarely manage to actually do lessons more than 3-4x per week between DS#1's sensory needs and DS#4's therapies and medical appointments. The good news is that my kids are getting lots and lots and LOTS of open-ended free play time, lol! I'm trying to imagine my life, plus a baby and a 10yo... to me, you sound like super mom!

This list is pretty helpful. I'm glad it got bumped!

In case anyone stumbles across this in the future, the page with the link to The Theory And Practice Of Handwriting 1894 has changed to http://www.survivorlibrary.com/?page_id=1792

BTW, how do you come across free kindle books? Is there something you signed up for or a page you check regularly?

When your 7yo asks, "What's Play-Doh?" I've failed them *facepalm*

Cool, thanks!

Ours lifts and I really like it, but I've never had one that tilts and so can't compare.

Also interested

I think the program is solid and definitely works. It's obviously not be the best fit for every child though! No program is. That's why there are so many different programs for every subject. 100EZ lessons has worked well for us. My oldest two both made it through all 100 lessons and my #3 is working his way through now. I set a timer for reading and stop at 10 minutes for kids with shorter attention spans or 15 minutes when they have longer attention spans. We've never done any of the writing exercises, but finger-trace big textured letters or air-write instead. I've always supplemented with BOB books and Primary Phonics readers along the way to switch it up and take breaks from 100EZ Lessons as necessary. When we got to ow, ir, or, etc I've just said "[letter name combo] says [sound]", and I introduced the concept of silent e when we came to it. Just like, "Oh, hey, see how this is a long vowel, that's because of the little bossy e at the end. Remember we don't say the little sounds. If this word didn't have that little bossy e at the end, this vowel wouldn't have the bar over it and we'd say the short vowel sound." DS#1 and DS#2 went right into reading Dr. Seuss and Magic Tree House books after 100EZ Lessons. I've found the methods I learned for teaching with 100EZ Lessons helpful for continued reading instruction: reading stories twice, starting sentences over after getting past a word they were stuck on, and the slow-to-fast way of blending and sounding out words. It also got me in the habit of asking contextual questions periodically during a reading lesson. I got a lot of resistance from my DS#3 for the very basic stuff at the beginning, and then one day I started reading the scripted part, paused, and he finished reading it for me.... and I realized he had self-taught himself to read quite a bit already. So I'm skipping a lot of stuff and using mostly just the stories with him. I'm still figuring out how much he already knows and I'm finding he has some higher level reading skills with some big gaps in the basics; for example, he doesn't always read left to right. His blending can be very choppy too, so I'm using the say-it-fast and say-it-slow exercises with him, but he likes to read the words written all stretched out instead of repeating after me. I doubt he will finish all 100 lessons. He will probably move on to actual books soon. And that's okay! One of my favorite parts of homeschooling is the option to tweak programs and mix and match strategies to optimize learning for each individual child.

My DS#1 finished level E while DS#2 was in level B-ish (I think. It's getting hard to keep track!). I think E can be much less parent intensive, IF you have a kid who can be sent off do do a worksheet alone, which my DS#1 just isn't there yet, even having moved on from RS. I know G is meant to be entirely independent for the child. My DS#1 is doing Beast Academy now, with DS#2 in RS level C and DS#3 in RS level A. I find I must work with each of them individually every day. I try to give the others stuff they can do independently when I'm not working with them, like copywork, keyboarding practice, chores... or I just let them play! The older boys can play the games with the younger ones, so I really only HAVE to play games with my oldest, though I do often end up playing them with DS#3 as well because no one else has the patience to deal with his antics for very long. I set a timer for each kid's math, so it CAN'T take us all day.

RightStart C in the 1st edition and I love it! We started the year with 2nd ed. of C, but I really wasn't a fan. I much prefer 1st edition.

Thanks you guys! I have a lot to check out now. I didn't realize so many people use BA as a supplement? We've been using it as a stand-alone. Seems pretty thorough, just doesn't have much extra practice, which works well for my DS#1 since he balks at repetitive work.

Thanks for all that! We used HWOT for print, so I guess we can just continue with their cursive if necessary. And I'm a big fan of really old stuff -- I truly appreciate the link you shared! I'm more of a hiking boot kinda person as well, and I don't see a problem with it! I actually don't see a real point in learning cursive at all. I've gotten by just fine without it thus far. Typing seems like a much more valuable skill these days. But my kids have seen cursive and now really really really want to learn. Actually, my oldest has been begging to start for months, but I've been delaying since it means ME moving out of my comfort zone and learning something I'm not particularly interested in myself.

Thanks, Jackie! Do you know if Dragonbox is something I would need to buy separately for each of my boys, or is it something they could share?

I'm just trying to slow my 7yo (nearing 8yo) down a little. He's taken about a month to do each Beast Academy book (started in 3C and now almost 1/3 of the way through 4B). We will run out of BA long before they finish writing it if he continues at this pace. I'd planned to have him finish out BA and then try AoPS pre-A. So I'm looking for something fun for him to do during math time. He's not a big fan of worksheets and very much dislikes any kind of drill. He continues to play variations of games he learned in RightStart and loves most of the "recess" games in BA, but he needs more. I was thinking of looking into Life of Fred? Maybe Hands on Equations? Something else?? Is there anything that meshes nicely with BA? I'm open to any suggestions!