Days with Hubby

Today husband surprised us by being home from work.  He took today off, and also took tomorrow as vacation days.  He had vacation days that he had not used, and was "encouraged" to take some of them this week.  This apparently is a slow week with his classes, and a good time for the residents to take some of their vacation.  

Tomorrow David and I are taking the children on a "field trip" to a local planetarium.  This will be so fun to do a field trip together as a family, and the children will get a science lesson too! 

It will be a nice, short road trip for J.  We will be able to see how well she travels for future "longer" road trips to visit family and friends. :)

I wanted to say concerning home-school.  We gave the online "Time4learning" a try during J's surgery recovery.  While I do love the idea of online schooling, for a full curriculum it just did not work for us.  So, I was glad when our Singapore Math, and Vocabulary Workshop books I had ordered came in.  IMO the online did not teach as in depth or explain as thoroughly as I had hoped.  

However, when J and J get into the upper grade levels of Jr High math, I'll probably switch them to Teaching Textbooks Math.  It is a CD rom that runs off of the computer, but I really like that they work out every problem for you.  There are also corresponding workbooks and textbooks that they will use with the CD rom.

What else...well, not much else I suppose.  My nocturnal tendencies are about to get the best of me...been very tired lately, and fighting a sinus/sore throat thing.  I've been drinking lots of green tea with honey, and it seems to be helping some.  :)  Lots of friends have been praying too! (Thank you)  I do need better rest at night, but having a hard time sleeping at night...then I'm so tired during the day...  

This too shall pass!

Brainpop- Thanks Cindalu

Hey, so my friend Cindy told me about this neat online program called Brainpop. It can be used as online school, home-school, or fun additional work for public schoolers and home-schoolers.

For home-school Math, I tend to like Teaching Textbooks for Math. Right now we are using Singapore Math, but hope to switch over to Teaching Textbooks Math in the near future...when we can afford to!

If I were to choose a full curriculum online, I'd probably go with the Time4learning program. Once we are able to do this financially, I'll probably go with these online programs. The other issue with Teaching Textbooks...All the product except Math5, Math6 and Math7 are MAC-compatible, however if you use Windows on your MAC they can be run on a MAC as well. They are working on grades 5-7 becoming Mac compatible (these are the grades I need though!)

However, I do think Brainpop is cool additional fun for those who prefer other curriculum. There is a bit of cost involved with it too. Compared to other online curriculum, it is very reasonable.

Perhaps someone out there may like using Brainpop full time too. :)

Enjoy!

Oh, and if you know of other great and inexpensive online home-school or educational sites, please do share in comments. :) Thanks!