:iagree: I loved that McDonald's made apples available. I don't love that they are attempting to force my family to change the way we eat. That being said, maybe we'll change our occasional McDonald's meal with deep fried Twinkies, topped with whipped cream. ;)

:iagree:

I will be praying for you, too. I am an adoptive mom who breastfed 2 out of 3 babies, and that domperidone really was a life saver for me. Do you have a good breast pump? Other than letting baby be on the breast as much as possible, you can pump right after a feeding, too. You won't get much milk, but it will stimulate your breasts to make more milk. Be sure and drink lots of water, too. Most of the country is really hot right now, and getting dehydrated in the heat really does a number on a mom's milk supply.

:iagree: I have noticed that, too. You will find me in the grocery aisles with my cell phone out, figuring out the per ounce price of each item to see which is the best deal.

Thank you! :thumbup: I will remember that. And I will remember about Donna Young, too.

OMg! You're right! I didn't even notice that. (Does that make me a ding dong for having purchased some and not noticing? :001_huh: ) I guess it all stays here so it shouldn't matter as much, but that's pretty lame. How much money could they possibly be saving by making the paper slightly smaller? And the price is now .20 each. It used to be .15 each. I also haven't been able to find colored, lined paper this year, either. I understand it may be more expensive to make, but I would expect to be charged more for it. My dd loves to do some of her work (or play ;) ) on the colored, lined paper.

:iagree: I like http://www.worksheetworks.com/ In the English Language section they have some nice exercises for pre-handwriting, including a sheet for practicing with scissors. You can request different things and it varies each time. This one http://www.esl-kids.com/ is geared toward kids learning english as a second language, but they have good worksheets there, too. I like that the writing can be minimal on some of them. I love this blog http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/k4-curriculum Erica has a ton of great ideas. You can print most of her work individually for free, or if you decide you want it all, all at once, she charges a small fee for the whole deal. You can find a lot of good letter and word practice without having to write a lot. Then there's always www.filefolderfun.com Lots of good file folder games there, for different things to practice without writing.

That's good to know. Thanks!

That is a bummer. I was hoping that I could get the price match on Crayola Dry Erase boards B1G1 at the end of the week when I get paid. I am sure TRU will be out of the cool new ones that are white on one side and black on the other by the end of the week. However, I discovered that not only does the TRU ad not come regularly in the Sunday paper, but they don't have them at the store, either. They are only delivered online. And I'm sure Walmart wouldn't accept an online printout at a genuine ad. That is lame. Wish me luck on what I want still being at TRU on payday!

My favorite is http://www.filefolderfun.com/ That site is free. Another site I like is http://www.myffgames.com/ That one, the games cost money. It depends on what you are looking for. The second site the games are even cuter, but, they are all in color so you must use a color printer, and there are no templates so you can't adapt them. Not all the games on that second site are worth it to me. But I found it was cheaper to buy the CD on sale, so I wasn't complaining. You can also look for free or inexpensive things on www.currclick.com.

It's definitely worth it. I am not using the Trofast system for homeschooling right now, but my youngest has the short, wide setup in his room, under his bedroom window. He and his cousin climb and jump all over that thing and it's held up very well. They sit on it together and play on the windowsill, or they stand up and jump off of it. That one is the white one, as the natural one is more expensive.

Do you have the first names of Freedman and Marrin? I purchased TQ for the upcoming year, and you are right, it's not structured at all. It's rather overwhelming, so I'm not sure how much we will use it. I am not an organized person, so I while I like flexibility, I really need that structure to function well. I actually have Guerber from the Heritage History CD. I was really pleased to those books on the CD, because I had been looking at hard copies of the 2 books and they were about $18 each. So for the $20 CD, I got both Guerber's, plus nearly 80 others. I'm hoping that between these CD books and some Scholastic books with different History activities, I may be able to get some history poured into my kids' brains. At least my oldest. My boys will be in 2nd grade and a young kindergartener. I may save it for when they are both bigger and teach them together. Oh! I've also been enjoying the autobiography of Nat Love. I had never heard of him before I read a book by Steve Sheinkin and I had to look him up. VERY interesting read! He was born a slave, became a cowboy after the Civil War, and spent years and years traveling the country as a cowhand. Later, he worked on the railways, and saw all the parts of the country he missed as a cowboy. If you haven't read about Nat Love, you totally have to!! http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21634

:lurk5: Thank you for that wonderful book recommendation! That looks like a fabulous book! I'm thinking similar to the OP. I'm looking for just the right things for my kids, especially my 10 year old 5th grader. I think we will wind up reading original source books, or at least parts of them, and then doing crafts and other activities to go along with them. For original sources, I am using some books I purchased on a CD from Heritage History. We will be doing American History this year and these books are pretty interesting. I do like living books, though, and will be checking out more on this author.

My youngest will be 5 on September 13th and we will be starting Kindergarten for him this year. It will be pretty light. We will be doing FIAR, learning to read, and math, with hands on things thrown in here and there. I won't be expecting a lot out of him but I do think he's ready. Worst case scenario, it's longer than a year to do kindergarten, but I doubt that will be necessary.

I'm in WA and I just looked at our next week's ads. We don't have any penny deals next week. I wonder if I missed them all around here. :(

I haven't used workboxes yet, but, I am going to try my own version of that this year. I think I will have the upright, plastic, magazine holders someone posted previously in this post, one for each child. Then there will be up to 10 folders/pee chees in their file box. I'm going to number the folders, but they can work through them as they wish, unless it's something meant to be a group activity. We'll see how well this works out. I'm also hoping to file stuff ahead of time, so that all I will have to do is fill the folders the night before. Taking 10 minutes to do that each night seems easier than trying to get each child started on something while I work with one of them. Someone always winds up waiting for mom to give them something, explain something, or work with them on something.

:lurk5:

All of the Borders, except one, has already closed. I did find some good deals, especially right at the end. I found a really expensive book to help with social situations, that is good for kids on the Autism Spectrum. That was 60% which made it a great deal. The final weekend, everything was 90% off. It was definitely slim pickings, but I still found some fabulous deals. I will be checking them out. The children's books seems to go very quickly.

See, that's where I should have gone today. Dang it. I will have to check it out tomorrow or Saturday.

That is huge! My dd10 is biracial and I'm waiting for that day, too. She doesn't have any sisters to inspire her, though. Only annoying little brothers ;)

I know. We don't hang out there as much as we used to, but we became friendly with the lady that used to do storytime there. She and her dh worked at Borders. Hopefully one of them found a good job somewhere else during the previous closures. :(

I missed if anyone else started a thread about it. We all know Borders closed a lot of their stores. In fact, there is only 1 left in my area that I know of. But I just got an email from them saying they are closing everything permanently, and that their liquidation sale starts Friday, July 22nd. I would assume that would mean online, too. It says gift cards will be honored, Borders Bucks will expire July 31st, and members of Borders Rewards Plus will get their discounts until August 5th. So I apologize if this has been covered. But if not, better use any cards, points, etc that anyone has left. I will be looking for some good deals.

Thanks!

Yes, I've found this, too. :( The 2-pack of glue sticks and the 24-count of Crayola Crayons used to be .25 but have gone up to .40. I did see Toys R Us have a sale with the 24-count of Crayola at .25, but I think it ended Saturday. If I'd known Target's prices had gone up, I would have purchased at Toys R Us. At Target, the spiral notebooks have gone up to .20, too. Last year, I think they were still .15 each. They also limit you to 25 spiral notebooks per customer, too. I dont' remember if there was a limit last year or not. I had forgotten about Walmart matching prices. I will definitely have to take advantage of that!

That's what the website still showed, when I looked in the past couple of weeks. However, that's changed. I purchased level 5A at the homeschool convention and the rep explained they've changed it so it includes the parents' guide for the level you purchase. And yes, that's how it came. So you won't be getting just the DVD. You will get the parents' guide, too.