I have six children living at home, two adult ones and four younger children ages 11, 9, 6 and 4. I keep a big plastic bucket that sits on top of our refrigerator marked "Bored Bucket". The kids all know that if they ever come and whine to me that they are bored, they will be handed the bucket. This has only ever had to be used two times for bored children, they all learned pretty quickly to keep any bored comments to themselves. The bucket is chock full of cleaning supplies and a detailed mom written instructional bucket on how to clean each room properly and in it's entirety. Included in the bucket is a special toothbrush to scrub the grout and tiles on the bathroom floor. For some reason, my kids are never bored at all in our home. :lol: And we don't even have cable or allow internet use very often. On the plus side, they are all voracious readers and enjoy playing with each other and keeping each other occupied with legos, lincoln logs, playmobil and other group play toys. P.S. The Bored Bucket also doubles as a Discipline Bucket. We have Discipline Bucket written on the opposite side. I just turn it around when said child is acting up. On top of our fridge, I keep a large ball canning jar full of paper slips with individual chores written on each piece of paper such as: clean toilet, sweep kitchen floor, fold wash, clean out closet, rake leaves etc..... When said child gets into trouble, I make him/her pick a slip of paper from the canister and assign his/her punishment. If the child was very naughty, they role a dice and pick the amount of slips equal to the number on the dice. This might keep a very naughty child busy for hours. This has been a wonderful discipline tool in our home, I found that I never have to yell and my home gets sparkling clean. I sometimes tease them by asking them to all please misbehave today, I really need a lot of extra chores done on the weekends !

Hello, Could someone please tell me what age and grade range that this curriculum is suited for ? Thanks !

My 9 year old daughter saw on tv some Christmas carolers playing beautiful handbell instruments and now she wants to learn to play them. Does anyone have experience with hand bell instruments and how to get started learning to play ? We want something we can do at home, is there any type of self teaching programs we can do at home, like videos or something similiar ? Also, where can we find good hand bells for instrumental use that are not too pricey. Thanks for any help or advice you can give me !

Can anyone recommend a good high quality Rhythm Instrument Set for homeschooling ? I want a set made mostly from wood and of the good quality instruments that held up like we used in early elementary grades. My little ones want to have a fun band of percussion instruments, but everything I see looks very cheaply made and doesn't look like it will hold up to long term kid usage. When I do searches online, I can't tell what is made well and what is just junk. Any recommendations or advice would be so appreciated !

We have no debt at all, except for our farm, which we hope to have paid off in the next 5 to 7 years God Willing. We owe it all to Dave Ramsey, he got us and keeps us on track every month.

I want to purchase the Writing With Ease curriculum for my second grader who has had no experience with writing before. I also want to use this curriculum with my 1st grader at the same time. Must I purchase two of the workbooks and the Teacher Text or can I just purchase one of the workbooks and the student pages for my 1st grader? The workbooks are $34.XX each, but the student pages are only $11.XX each. I would save me alot of money not to have to purchase two workbooks for my 2nd and 1st grader and just purchase one workbook and the student pages. Is the student pages the exact same thing as the workbook but not bound ? I couldn't figure out what the difference is between the workbook and the student pages on the website. Any advice or help you can give me would be very appreciated.

I asked my husband for one of those automatic hand dryers like they have in restaurant bathrooms and gas station bathrooms. I am so tired of all my little ones dropping the hand towel on the bathroom floor instead of hanging it up after washing and drying their hands. I am constantly picking it up and replacing it with a clean one throughout the day. So I started brainstorming how to get them to keep the handtowel on the towel holder, when it occured to me that an automatic hand dryer like we use in restaurants would eliminate the need for handtowels in the bathroom all together. It would also cut down on my ever growing mountainous wash cycle and eliminate the germs that come from a shared handtowel. So practicality wins out and I want an automatic hand dryer for my bathroom for Christmas. I always try to find something practical every year that I can use in my daily life to ease up on my workload, it is usually homeschooling books or some cooking/baking apparatus. This year it is an automatic hand dryer to save myself from daily headaches and constant washing. Not to mention, cut down on the cold and flu germs that can originate from shared handtowels.

Hello, Can anyone tell me about how long R&S English for second graders takes each day to complete ? I want a good thorough grammar program for my second grader, but I also want a program that doesn't take a very long time each daybecause I have 3 other children to homeschool daily. Any help you can give me is very appreciated.

We follow Dave Ramsey's plan. We do cash envelopes and only use our debit card for things like online orders or important instances where we can't use cash. We have had no credit cards in the past few years, we paid down all debt, put away a nice 9 month emergency fund and we are currently living and will remain debt free ! Just working on paying off the farm now, hope to be clear of that in the next 7 or 8 years, God willing. Right now I am working on Christmas shopping for my little ones with all cash and with money we had put into evelopes all year long to save for Christmas. It is so nice to know that we no longer will have all those awful after Christmas bills coming in January. The anxiety and dread from the thought of those after Christmas bills was once overwhelming, now it is gone. Something I have been doing different the last two years is buying second hand for Christmas. I have been hitting yard sales, thrift stores and the GoodWill all spring & summer long to aquire nice toys, books and clothing for the children at very inexspensive prices. This has helped immensley to keep within our budget and still have a very nice Christmas for our six children. I have picked up wonderful things this past summer and now into fall from yard sales and thrift stores. Lots of Lego sets, including some great Lego Dacta pulleys and simple machine sets that retail for over $100 dollars in stores for only $3.97 in practically brand new complete condition at our local GoodWill. I also find tons of playmobile sets, I purchased yesterday at some yard sales a HUGE shopping bag filled with some pirate playmobile sets for only $5.00. My boys will be thrilled this Christmas ! Last month, I got my 8 year old daughter a beautiful large handmade and handpainted wooden horse barn complete with built in stalls and horses for $3.00 at a yard sale. She is a HUGE horse lover and will be nuts for this well made toy. I'll throw in with the gift some nice encylopedia hardback books I pickedup up at the Goodwill on horses for 97 cents each and also the complete set of the Pony Pal books that I found at a yard sale earlier this summer for only $5.00 for the entire set of hardbacks. The books will be a nice educational accompiment to the gift. I also picked up a toy she had wanted last year that was just way to pricey brand new in stores, it was the WowWee Robotic White Tiger cub that retailed for $59.99 last Christmas and I found last weekend at a yard sale in perfect working condition for only $5.00. This will be her favorite gift, she loves playing vet to her plush friends ! I got my 11 year old son some fun magic trick kits, some magic trick books, a "learn to juggle kit and book" and my very favorite find a Snap Circuit set in brand new still factory sealed condition all for only $3.50. He's been wanting a Snap Circuit set for the last few years and I am so excited to be able to give him one this year ! I just take the toys home, clean them up real nice if they need it and put them into a pretty box and wrap them up. My kids could care less if they come new in original package or not, I just tell them that Santa has gone Green and is saving money and being environmentally friendly by skipping those cumbersome boxes these past few years. This not only saves our family tons of money but also helps to eliminate all the torture we used to go through on Christmas morning trying to get the toy out of it's package prision of plastic ties and plastic holders that took us hours to take apart and then assemble. I also find incredible deals on homeschooling books at my local GoodWill. This past summer some of my favorite finds were the second edition of "The Well Trained Mind" in hardback for 97 cents in great "gently used" condition. I picked up also the much coveted by me book "The Well Educated Mind" in paperback for only 47 cents and yesterday while perusing the GoodWill for awesome houseware finds I found "Cathy Duffy's Best 100 Homeschool Picks" in paperback also for just 47 cents. I find tons of homeschooling curriculum with names like Saxon and Abeka complete with Teachers Guides for 47 cents for paperback and 97 cents for hardbacks. The Goodwill is one of my favorite weekly haunts to find great homeschooling deals and to save a fortune every year. As gifts for my 21 year old daughter, I pick her up really nice Brand Name designer and fashionable clothing at yard sales, thrift stores and the Goodwill for really inexspensive prices. I even found her a genuine and authentic Juicy Couture purse at a yard sale for just 5.00 that she will love for Christmas this year. If you are trying to save money, cut down on exspenses and live a debt free lifestyle, then hitting the GoodWill, thrift stores and yard sales are really a great way to go to economize and live a simpler way of life. Not to mention, it gives double points in the karma area for being Green because you are recycling items and cutting down on waste in landfills. You can't beat that !

Covering you in prayer ! God Bless and Be Well !

Praying all is well and a quick healing for him. Praying for peace of mind for you both. God Bless !!!

I like: Holden Duncan Trevor William Peter Jordan Elliot Thaddeus Nigel Graham I know some don't fit your needs, but I like these anyway and figured I toss them in there.

Some of my all time favorite Romance movies that I put on when I need a pick me up or just because I want to feel that "falling in love" feeling all over again are: Crossing Delancey (Amy Irving & Peter Riegert) Cousins (Ted Danson & Isabella Rossellini) Murphy's Romance (Sally Field & James Gardner) Two Weeks Notice (Hugh Grant & Sandra Bullock) Mr. Wonderful (Matt Dillion) Maid Of Honor (Patrick Demsey) Sweet Home Alabama (Patrick Demsey)

My whole family had it last week, my 21 year old daughter, my 11 year old son, my 8 year old daughter, my 6 year old son and my 4 year old son. As soon as I saw signs of it, first was sore throat and runny nose, I immediatley stopped all dairy in their diets, gave them tons of clear liquids and reved up on the fruits and veggies in their diets. The flu really did not impact them badly at all, I know it was the flu because my oldest daughter age 21 had it this past summer at camp and was really sick with it, but barely got anything this go round (just a mild cough and runny nose) because she had built immunities to it from having it over the summer months at camp. Her camp had huge amount of campers and couselors who were diagnosed with the swine flu. My little ones were sick for only 3 days tops, all had some sore throat, some worse then others. All had congestion, cough, some nausua and mild fevers. All had runny nose, clear and thin. I read alot of Dr. William Sears over the years and I knew from reading his books that when nasal discharge gets thick or ropey and turns green or yellowish, that infection is brewing. So as per his suggestions I keep the discharge thin and clear by taking them off all dairy products, keeping them well hydrated, giving them flax seed oil (something we take daily anyway) and most of all, taking them into a steamy bathroom for 20 minutes at a time every two hours round the clock as needed to unclog their noses and keep that nasal discharge clear and thin. I have been using the steamy bathroom trick since I had newborns and babies that when sick, didn't want to nurse because they couldn't breathe well and nurse at same time. So I spent hours with my babies going into a steamy bathroom every two hours to nurse them while they were sick and our nursing sessions were never impacted or had any problems. They also got well much faster and quicker with the steamy bathroom trick. Keeping the nasal discharge clear and thin keeps infection from brewing and cuts down on the flu side effects like respiratory problems (bronchitis and puemonia) and ear infections. So steamy showers are my biggest defense to getting them over sickness fast. That and lots of water, fresh fruits and veggies. Don't fret this flu, it was really one of the more milder flu's I've been through with my six children that I have been raising over the last 25 years. The media hype is incredible, but the actual flu is really not even a blip on my "momma radar" for worry. Remember, keep the nasal discharge clear and thin, use the steamy bathroom trick, remove all dairy from diet (dairy adds to congestion), rev up the fluids (especially water, tons of water). Let the kids drink from a straw if they don't like water, whenever I give my little one's a straw, I can get them to drink anything. There is something about a straw that makes anything otherwise boring become really fun to drink. Get some Dole fresh fruit frozen popsicles for them to eat, keeps them hydrated and helps ease the sore throats. Give orange juice for added vitamin C, feed them lots of fresh veggies and fruits. If it is warm in your area, get them outside in the fresh air and sunshine as much as you can for vitamin D. Let them sleep as much as they want, we took a break from homeschooling during this time and I let everyone sleep to their hearts content. Sleep aids in healing the body quicker. The whole sickness was gone and out of the house within 5 to 7 days from our entire family. My little ones had it for maybe only 3 days at most, after that they were back to their usual rambunctious selves again and back to schooling. And remember, this too shall pass.

I love romance books, they are some of my very favorite books to read when I want light easy readings where there is always a happily ever after and a beautiful engaging love story. :) I recommend Susan Elizabeth Phillips contemporary novel "Match Me If You Can". Actually, I recommend so many of her novels, but this is my very favorite of hers. It is adorable, perfect and wonderful !! I can't say enough great things about it. There is some sex, but it is very grazed over and nothing in vivid detail. Yes it is a sports setting romance, but there is very little mention of sports, so if you don't like sports, this won't matter a bit. Two more of my favorite's of Susan Elizabeth Phillips is "Kiss An Angel" and "Dream A Little Dream" both tear jerkers, but beautifully done story and as with all her books, always a promise of a happily ever after. I also recommend Deborah Smith's "A Place To Call Home" which is a wonderful romance that will make you laugh, cry and fall in love with the characters. Happy Reading !

Hello, My 25 year old son works as a head cook in a local country club and just found out that he will be laid off for a few months this winter due to lack of work in the winter months. He decided to take this time off to go to either North or South Carolina to pursue his dreams and look for a permanent job in one of the resorts down there in the cooking/restaurant field. It is a dream he always had since he was very young to live and work in the resorts down in the Carolina's, but we don't know anything much about the job situation or where is the best place to go for work. He only visited the resorts once as a child with his grandparents, but he fell in love with the warm weather and the resort environment and always talked about going to live there someday. Well, he has now decided that someday has arrived and I am full of questions about how this all will work out. Really, we don't even know much about living in the Carolina's at all, so any help or advice anyone could offer would be great. Can anyone recommend any good resorts that may be hiring and also places to live where he can start out that would be cheaper ( I figure living in resort towns would be very exspensive) so he would like to work in the resort areas and live someplace on the outskirts where it would be less exspensive. I am quite nervous about him just hopping in his car and driving down and seeing what happens and where he ends up (like he plans), I would rather be able to give him some good advice on where he might start out looking for work and to live, instead of just winging it, which at 25 years old, he still thinks is a real plan. I mean, I am glad to see that he is brave enough to just move to another state and look for a job in a whole new area and to pursue his dreams, something that scares me to death, since I have lived in the same area all my life. I need some mom advice, I am not the "wing it" type of person, I am the plan, plan and more planning type. But he is a free spirit and he wants to just go find his destiny and I am really scared for him. So any mom advice would be helpful too ! Sorry to run on and on with this post. Basically, I am looking for any advice on the job and living situation down in the Carolina's, which state is best for job searching North or South and what resort areas are good for working in. From one mom to another, I really would love advice on anything you can offer. Any help, guidance, or suggestions would be so very appreciated ! Thanks much !

Does anyone know where I can find Periodic Table Elements Flashcards ? I want to use them with my homeschooling plan this year when we study the elements, flashcards really help my children to remember well. Thanks for any help you can offer me on finding these flashcards.

If I may make one more suggestion, once you get to your homestead, don't rush into getting farm animals. We made this mistake, we naively assumed, that since we had a homestead, we needed to fill it up with animals. It was our biggest mistake when we first started out and the one mistake I wish we could have "did over". We sort of had this storybook version of a homestead/farm with lots of animals. So that very first spring after our move to our homestead, we purchased ducks, chickens, 2 more dogs (we already had one), 5 goats, rabbits, and thank goodness, my husband didn't allow me to get the pony I so wanted for our kids. The animals were lots of fun for the summer months, but when fall and winter came, they were very costly to feed. It would have been one thing if we purchased the animals (not the dogs) for meat consumption and butchered them before winter hit, but we got them for pets instead and we all fell in love with them. They also took up a great deal of our time in daily animal care, time which would have been better spent in the beginning, in getting our gardens and orchards started and making repairs to our homestead. It was our most costly mistake, we ended up having to give alot of them away, because we couldn't afford the high price of feed in the winter. We kept only our dogs in the end. The chickens never did lay enough to make up their feed cost in eggs, we let them free range in the summer, but between the foxes and hawks, we were constantly loosing them to predator wildlife. If I had to do it all again, I would have added animals very slowly as we gained experience in homesteading and farming. If we had a ready homegrown garden food supply for the chickens, we could have kept them at very little cost. But we were still learning ourselves how to garden and grow all our own fruits and veggies, so trying to feed animals was too much and we just couldn't do it. We still had many years ahead of us in which we would learn the how to's and do's and don'ts of gardening and fruit growing and adding animals was something we should have really waited on for a future time when our gardens and orchards could sustain them economically. Animals just added an unneccessary pressure for us, since we wanted to try to live as simply as possible, trying to feed all of them, was really eating up the money we should have been putting into working on and fixing up our farm. Anyway, all this to say, take your time and add animals very slowly to your homestead, it is some advice I wish someone who had been there and done that would have shared with me back then. I had the "dream" of this fantasy life of my children playing with animals and enjoying them all day long, the realities of the high cost of caring for them and the upkeep really brought that dream into reality quickly.

We live on an 11 acre homestead. What got us started and really thinking about homesteading and eventually moving onto one was reading Countryside Magazine and also the book Five Acres and Independence. They helped us to come up with ideas on homestead living, to get a good focus and idea on what type of homestead we wanted and they helped us learn techniques and skills to help us live well on our homestead once we got there. It is now 10 years later since we moved to our homestead and I still read over my old stock of Countryside magazines monthly and the book Five Acres and Independence and learn something new all the time. The best advice though, is to get yourself debt free first, it makes all the difference in "making it" when you get to your homestead. This will also allow you more options once you get to your homestead in what type of homestead you decide to purchase. We purchased a real "fixer upper" that needed tons of tons of work, but we got it for such a great price it was worth it to us. My husband is very handy and has done all the work himself over the years, our homestead has been a true work in progress and labor of love and we are still working on fixing it up some 10 years later. Much of what we wanted to do had to wait for years, because of financing. We didn't want to create more debt, so we saved for repairs over a period of time and did them as we could afford it. That made the difference for us in keeping our homestead when bad times hit us, such as layoff's, sickness, ectera. Many people we knew over the years who homesteaded, went into huge debt to do so and ended up loosing it when hard times hit to foreclosures or they had to eventually sell their dream property to survive. So, that is why it is important to get rid of debt first, learn to live on less, lots less and learn to enjoy the simple things in life. Learn to live on a cash only budget, learn to budget groceries, bills, scale down your lifestyle and learn the real difference between true needs and wants. Start learning to live on less now, it makes things much easier later. Teach yourself as much as you can before you hit your homestead, we read tons of books and researched everything while paying down our debts before we went shopping for a homestead. We didn't want to rush into anything without being prepared, we wanted this homesteading lifestyle not to just be something to do, but to be a true way of life for ourselves. Teach yourself to garden or if you live in town to container garden. Teach yourself to do small home repairs, read lots of books on do it yourself projects. Teach yourself how to live on less, get rid of the cable or satelite now and save that money towards your homestead, you won't have much time for them on a homestead anyway, we sure don't and it will save you a fortune in the long run. Teach yourself to hang out clothing on a line or if you can't in your area, hang it to dry in a room in the house, we used our mudroom and added a line to it for winter weather hang in's. Just learn to live more simply. It really does make all the difference, in fact, you will learn all these things from reading Countryside Magazine and Small Stock Joural as well as Five Acres and Independence. Good Luck to you ! It is a wonderful life, a wonderful way to raise children close to nature and with a deep respect for the world around them. My kids love our homestead/farm and it is such a blessing to our whole family. I love living the simple life, it is not for everyone, but for our family, it has made all the difference !

I have 4 children that will be using our workbooks and it costs me so much time and money to print everything out. I never knew about using clear plastic page protectors and dry erase markers, what a great idea ! Can you tell me where I can find these clear plastic page protectors ? Are the available at any specific stores or do I have to special order them ? Thanks for any help you can give me !

I have free time in the evenings when my littles are all tucked in bed, then I spend time reading lots of great books (we dont have cable or satelite) or I spend the time trying out new recipes by cooking/baking. Sometimes in the hot summer months my husband and I will sit out on our old farmhouse porch and listen to the night noises of the crickets chirping and just talk about our day and reconnect over glasses of lemonade. I am known to stay up late into the night making a new delicious concoction I found in some cookbook I was pouring over during the day. Cooking/Baking makes me feel so good and I enjoy having my family wake up to fresh homemade muffins, pies, cakes, cookies, breads or pastries on the table. I don't have the time during the day because of devoting it to homeschooling to make all these wonderful goodies, so my evenings alone are when I enjoy doing it. I also love using my "me time" to try out some new dinner recipes that I can cook up and freeze for a day when I am busy and have no time for cooking. Cooking/Baking makes me feel so peaceful and happy, it is one of my favorite "me things" to do. I remember many times as a child, with my old italian grandmother, waking up in the mornings to fresh italian pastries and goodies because she baked while we slept. I would dream during the nights about those goodies, since the wonderful aromas would waft up into our rooms above. I wanted to re-create these same wonderful childhood memories with my own children, who can't wait to jump out of bed and race to the table for a delicious homemade breakfast. Other then that, once a week in the evening my husband watches our littles and I head out "on the town" to hit the thrift stores or Goodwill shops in our area. I love to find all kinds of baking/cooking supplies at bargain prices, clothing for my family, linens, tablecloths, sheets, household supplies, books for our home library, learning videos and games for cheap. I also love to go to library book sales that our local libraries put on once or twice a year in the spring and fall. Since we have so many libraries in our local area, I can hit one a weekend throughout the spring and fall months. These booksales allow me to pick up excellent reading books and homeschooling books for as little as 25 to 50 cents each, it saves me a small fortune and I found that praying for a specific book before going, helps me to find that exact book that I was searching for. I am always blessed with my book bargains ! I make my lists of wants and needs in books and then head out armed with bags to collect my treasures. I like to do this on my own without my little ones, because I can spend a long time browsing and really picking out the treasured books carefully. I try to fill my "me time" up with things I really enjoy doing. This time helps me so much to stay peaceful and content and it so blesses my family by allowing me to be a better mother and wife to them. "Me time" is very important, find something you enjoy doing and do it to the best of your ability, you will be blessed for it !

The best thing we did was to learn about Dave Ramsey, develope a budget and then learn to stick to it. I give him tons of the credit for helping us learn to live on one income and prepare for our future, put money away for retirement, save for a rainy day and develope sinking funds to use for daily living exspenses and repairs/problems as they arise. Our next goal, finish paying off the rest of our mortgage. Truely, If not for Dave's system, we would have lost so much last year when our oldest daughter was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, my husband had to take off alot of days of work to watch and tend to our small children, so I could stay with her in the hospital and again tend to her when she came home and was recovering from the surgeries. There was so many oncologist visits, so many medical treatments, so many visits for bloodwork and testing. We had tons of bills that hit us all at once during that time, a broken water pipe that came to almost $3,500 dollars in repairs and payments. Then storm damage to our main barn which had to be taken down cost another $5,000 dollars and long hours of work by my husband. The time off work without pay, the added medical incidentals my daughter needed that insurance didn't cover, the co-payments and health aids, not to mention all our regular monthy bills and property taxes were due. The stress alone trying to deal with both a child with cancer and also surmounting bills, would have pushed us over the edge. But through it all, despite everything going on and how scared we were for my daughters health, we had this deep peace inside us that we were going to be okay finanically, which was one less headache in our lives. We had money set aside to cover these "just in case" issues, we wouldn't loose our farm, we wouldn't have to send me back to work and loose out on homeschooling our children and put them back into the public school system, we would make it through okay. Then we were better able to fully focus on her recovery and taking care of our family at the same time. Health issues that crop up suddenly throw you into such a tailspin and such shock that it is so hard to focus, to get your bearings and to just make it through each day. The financial peace we had was so wonderful, it helped us to hold onto something tangent when everything else was just storming around us. True, we don't have all the latest gadgets, all the newest things or go on fabulous trips around the countryside, but we have something far more valuable, we have peace of mind. That peace of mind is worth so much more then "things" that get broken and forgotten when the next new thing comes along. We are also very happy and content with our lives, our kids have a huge farm as a playground, they have good organic foods to eat fresh from our gardens and orchards, they have me home with them everyday to help them, to school them and to watch them grow. We are very blessed by God and feel The Lord's presence in our lives daily, through all the good and troubled times. Living our life today frugally, helps us prepare for tommorrow. It is how my grandparents always lived, my old italian grandmother lived through the hard times of the Great Depression and always taught us to prepare, just in case hard times came again, because they will come, they always do in some way or in some how. My grandmother's motto was "Have a today without, so you can have a tommorrow with". Which is very similiar to Dave Ramsey quote "Live like no one else so tommorow, you can live like no one else". My best advice is to hang out on the livinglikenooneelse message board, those posters really know their stuff and are a wonderful support system and read Dave's book "Total Money MakeOver" and then make yourself stick to it. Get the peace of mind and security that Dave's system inspires, it is so helpful when hard times strike and as we all know, it is only a matter of time until some hard time in our lives will strike. Be prepared and pray daily, start right where you are today, make the commitment, I promise you, you will be in awe of yourself and all that you can do when you set your mind to it ! Good Luck to you ! You can do it, you really can !!

If you have an Ollie's store closeby, they have many of the Hooked On Phonics Programs on sale really cheap. Certain days I have even seen them cheaper, where they knock off an extra $5 or $ 10 dollars. I saw the deluxe spanish for $19.99, The Master Reader was $49.99, Handwriting was $19.99 and Bible Stories was $14.99, Math Deluxe version was $49.99 and there was more, but those are what I remember off the top of my head.

If I may mention, I too wanted to work with my children on an Art History program and I looked into this one CSM but found it kind of pricey. So I searched around the internet to see if there was anything else that I could find "out-there" that may work as well (teaching the childen about Art History in an easy, fun and educating manner) but much less exspensive. I came across these art history games on Amazon called The Art Game The Renaissance and also one for Impressionist. They are available for $27.95 and seem to give a fun and interacting way to learn about Art History. From the description it says :Product Description Play two classic games of strategy memory and art appreciation. "Go Fish" is a favorite card game for all ages. In the Impressionist Art Game players fish for art by Monet Renoir Degas Pissarro Manet Caillebotte Cassatt and Morisot. In "Concentration " players win by matching different works of art by the same artist. While playing both games you will learn the story behind each painting and fun facts about the artists. Includes a full color book and a deck of 32 playing cards. The game comes in a beautifully printed box that is made to look like a hardcover book. It sounded really nice to me and great fun for the kids, since my kids all love Go Fish and I just wanted to share it with you in case you may have wanted to try something like this instead or along with the CSM program. It seemed like a much better price then the CSM's Art Cards which I heard some say can run up to over $100 for all the sets involved. This game and the Renaissance one and some supplemental free art history books like Usbornes Art History Guide from the library sounded like it could be a good "self put together" program at a much lower cost. I am also throwing in some library books called The Great Art Detective and The Great Art Scandel by Anna Nilsen which got excellent reviews on amazon. I am always looking for cheap and inexspensive or free ways to add to my homeschooling curriculum to save costs and stick with my budget, so I just thought I would throw these ideas out there in case anyone is interested.

My first immediate thought is I don't see how I could, I really don't, we are just squeezing buy on what we do make. My husband is our only wage earner at $ 34,000 a year (before taxes) and we have 5 children still at home. We do not get food stamps, Wic or any government help of any kind even though we could qualify, but his fulltime job (groundskeeper/landscaping at a state college) does give us really excellent medical benefits and free four year college schooling for all of our children and ourselves. With my oldest daughter's medical diagnosis (ovarian cancer) these medical benefits have been a lifesaver for us, as well as paying for all her college classes as she works towards her degree. We live on an 11 acre farm, we grow a lot of our own foods in our gardens and orchard, we live very simply, rarely eating out (once every other month), we shop thrift stores and yard sales, live on a strict budget and spend only $ 500 monthly for all grocery items including paper products, diapers, health and beauty, cleaning supplies ectera. We buy almost everything secondhand and we use the Dave Ramsey envelope system to cover our bills (no credit cards or loans of any kind, we pay everything in cash). Despite only having a very modest income and a large family of 7, we managed to completely fill our 6 to 8 month emergency fund, 15% into retirment fund, get ourselves debt free except for a small mortgage yet on the farm, and have put away money to fully fill sinking funds for car/tractor maintence, another used (read beater) car should either of ours break down, homeschooling fund, fixing roof fund, and home/farm maintence funds. We also put away money for property/school taxes, and a year ahead of money to cover car/home insurance and heating oil for the following year. When I think about it more, If I really had too and I cut all exspenses to bare bones, stopped filling additonal sinking funds, and lived on rice and beans and what we grow in the garden and orchard, we could probably survive on 3/4 of our income ($20,000 after taxes). But that would be really living tightly and a big hardship, but not impossible. We already have our bills really cut down, no cable/satelite, no cell phones just basic land line, no air conditioning, and I am going to start hanging our wash out on line next week, winters we keep the heat low, 2 vehicles and tractor were purchased used and paid in full. Yes, I could probably do it, it wouldn't be fun, but we could do it in a short term situation if we had too. Yet, when I think about it further, I am always very surprised at what we can do when we are put in the situation, so I am sure we could do it with team effort on everyone's part. Now that I re-read the original question again, I guess we did/do indeed live on half our income to put away the money for our emergency fund and all our sinking funds, I just never thought about it as living on half of our income. I just thought of it before as living very simply and squirrling away money "just in case". So yes, now I can say that I can do it and survive, because we are living it daily. See how my answer changed three times during my explanation <smile> as I pondered this question and thought outloud, I went from no, to maybe, to yes we can/did. ............learn something new everyday indeed !