Definitely take the time you need to rest and recover. It will look different for each mom. With our last, we got into routine right away as it was better for the older kids and it was when the baby slept the most. It really helped me to keep the read alouds handy and do that whenever the baby neede...

I use a single file box with hanging files. I label the hanging files with the week #, that way it is reusable year to year. I sort the papers based on the week # and fill my folders. It doesn't matter if you have one or three kids. You just put all the sheets in their respective folders. Some weeks...

You could take a look at "The Ordinary Parent's guide to teaching Reading" by Jessie Wise and Sara Buffington. You can skip to the end portion that deals with more advanced phonics and still use it to teach younger children to read. It is the most advanced and thorough teaching of phonics I have see...

What jumped out at me was: "My daughter is 4" "She is bored" "The books are over her head" In that case, it would be best to keep things simpler for the time being. Four and Five year-olds don't need "formal schooling" the way older children do. There is so much to learn right around you. Can you go...

Awesome thread! I need to save the wonderful lists provided by everyone!

Daylight savings time will affect it, because the sun will not be at it's zenith at noon, but at 1pm. It will change the way the shadow falls. But the experiment is mainly about observing the sun move through the sky, so you'll be fine.

We did K and Adv last year. It worked out surprisingly well. I started my day with the younger ones. While I worked with the K'ers my older two started on their reading/writing/math core which they can work on rather independently. Then the K'ers played and looked at books or even listened in while ...

I began using Apologia before coming to MFW. I have continued using it while still doing some of the science from the MFW curriculum. It's a fantastic thorough science curriculum and is still friendly to multi-level teaching.

We are at the point in First in which we are making the Spoon/Book folder for the /oo/ combination, actually day 29, but I have put off the making of the folder because of the following issue. My husband and I were both born in rural west TN, but my parents are from Arkansas and I have a more Arkan...

Love reading everyone's ideas. Some of mine are: Butter Noodles (any pasta with a sprinkle of garlic, some butter, and parmesean cheese-it's one of my kids' favorites) Beanie Weanies (sliced hot dogs in baked beans, I use Busch's Country Style- I had this a lot as a kid in daycare, it's a gross, ins...

How 'bout a bouncer?