Homeschooling Carnival, week 42

I haven't made it to the carnival for a while, but this week I did because Shannon emailed me directly.

The theme of this 42th carnival is "42"! You might recognize that number from the hilarious sci-fi novel "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy". In it, the supercomputer Deep Thought computes the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything - and spouts out the answer as "42". (Well, then they go to finding out the exact question... if the answer is 42, what is the question?)

Anyways, I enjoyed that book as a teenager. Wikipedia lets us know that the author Douglas Adams just had that there as a joke. (Well, that whole book is just full of jokes, as far as I can remember...)

But, the 'meat' of all this is of course the carnival itself... Is homeschooling the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything?

My submission was how teaching math in early grades does not have to cost anything.