convention loot

So, I think I have finally recovered from the convention last weekend. We had a great time, but I came home exhausted and with total people and information overload! Today I finalized my plans for the fall and sent in my Notice of Intent for next year and Regan's test results (in VA, if you do not file for religious exemption, you have to have your child tested every year, we do the CAT test because it is the least expensive and I can administer it at home...Regan did great BTW:).

So, here is what I got...

Diane Craft was the main reason I wanted to attend this convention, and she did not disappoint. I struggled with some learning "glitches" (as Diane would call them) throughout school and I have seen Regan and Micah struggling with some of the same things and have been drawn to Diane Craft's methods and materials. They just seem to make sense to me and I am hoping that they will "make sense" to my kids as well! I can't wait to get started with them and will be sure to post about our progress as we go!

Doorpost has some really great material, I could have walked away with half the table, but decided to start with this... we seem to be having a lot of tattling and fighting in our house lately, hoping this can help us to handle these situations a bit more productively!

Part of our resources for our study of the Orchestra. I ordered two more Classical Kids CD's and some books on other composers. We will be using the Story Of The Orchestra as our guide for the year and will cover composers in the fall and instruments in the spring. (Thanks, Jen for the great ideas/advise!)

Our science curriculum. The book on the top right (Discovering the Human Body and Senses) is a Dinah Zike book that is a 23 lesson curriculum with worksheets and materials for making a lap book and The Body Book (front left) has everything to make a model of the human body in it- should be lots of fun! I've also go an Usborne book Why Shouldn't I Eat Junk Food I plan to use (with library resources) to do a bit on healthy eating/living to compliment our Human Body study. Also, I just discovered this magazine and am thinking about ordering it as well, just for fun.

Our art curriculum. As an art major I always feel like I should be able to come up with my own lessons and material, but it just isn't happening, so I broke down and bought Artistic Pursuits, complete with supplies, so now I have no excuses... we will have art!

More Math U See blocks.

Just for fun... some summer reading (we are almost through Thimble Summer on Chickadee's recommendation, so we needed something new) and patterns for the blocks I bought the kids last fall.

I also ordered more Konos Timeline figures (I love my Konos timeline!) and All About Spelling level 1. Oh, and I almost forget! I found Konos Vol 2 at the used book fair, and the Electing America's leaders book too!

So, now all I have left to do is to put my Sonlight order in- Core 1 History, Bible and Read-alouds and Readers 2 intermediate and 2 advanced. Hubby and I are still talking about whether or not this is the year to take the plunge with Rosetta Stone, I am leaning towards French.

Whew! No wonder I was tired!