My dd did exploration history to pre-Civil war in year 1 and did CIvil War to 2000 in year 2. SHe is currently going over everything in preparation for the AP test.

With regards to children, I completely understand situations like the OPs where due to the economy or to health or to some other circumstances beyond the person's control, help is needed. But to Mammaducks, currently only 53% of households actually pay taxes. I seriously doubt that the OP family does and most families with income under 50K don't. WE are a family that does and I like seeing the money well spent. DOes that mean I think all aid should be cut off? No. But I think that the wise thing for people in financial straights is to not add mouths to feed. Is there a law against this? No. But it is common sense and in my opinion. the right thing to do. The OP says they are done with kids and I think that is a wise decision considering her husband's poor health. I can't even think of what religion requires you to have children you can't afford. Even strict Catholics who don't use artificial birth control, don't say you have to have kids.

WHether there are jobs out there or not depends on your location. Yes, some areas of the country are having very high unemployment rates and there are no jobs. On the other hand, I have seen a lot of help wanted signs up here in my area. With regards to a previous poster who asked if I had gotten a no skills job. Not for over 28 years since a) I am not no skilled b) I haven't worked for pay for the last 17 years. But my oldest did get a no skill job in FLorida during the recession (stock boy at a department store outlet). My dd is currently babysitting for 10 an hour. SHe is going to do this three times this week and will make $125 this week. I don't really consider what she is doing a no-skill job since she does have both CPR/FIrst aid Training and Babysitting training plus she is taking care of an ADHD child and she is particularly good at that since she is ADHD herself. FInally, I strongly encourage the OP to do sewing. THere are so many of us out there that will pay for hand sewn items. THis she could do at home with her children.

I am so looking forward to doing this next month. DH came home from his trip and asked why we had all this equipment. I reminded him that we would be doing egg hatching. He asked how much it cost and it really wasn't all that much. He didn't seem pleased that I said I will do this again when we have our own home and I get to raise some chickens.

:grouphug: for your family. It is such a sad time and unfortunately, one that too many of us have experienced. :grouphug:

I don't live there but it really looked like we might get stationed there four years ago and my girls had major spelling problems so I looked into this. For any child with a problem, I would choose a friendly umbrella school. If you are a Christian, I don't think this would be a problem. I knew one mom who homeschooled with the county but only her daughters were registered. Her disabled son was still a pre-schooler so I don't know how they would have dealt with that.

While I was very active as a youngster and did have swimming lessons, tennis lessons, and rode my bike all the time, I never was on any sort of team. My dh didn't even have any sport lessons and wasn't any teams either. So what did we do with our kids? Made sure they did sports at some time. Currently both girls are on soccer teams and after Memorial Day, one will be in dive and the other on dive and swim teams. I think it has had a definite positive influence on them. I would say that just like dh and myself, none of my kids are particularly athletic. But I know that more activity helps my girls control their hormonal outbursts better and it did also with my son when he played soccer as a teen.

I think I have most if not all of them. If I looked for a long time, I could probably find the one from Ohio which was when my next week 21 year old was 6. I probably also have the paperwork from CA, NM, and know I do have the paperwork from FL and VA.

We were living in Belgium when my oldest applied for college. He didn't do anything differently in applying than he would have done in the US except that it was more expensive for us with express delivery and such. We didn't get a good deal from FAFSA since they don;t care where you live or how much the cost of living, travel, etc, is. He started off by going to a college that gave him a half tuition scholarship plus work study. The only tests he took were the SAT and the ACT. He was accepted to most colleges to which he applied.

I had a cleft palate. I am 47 and have no problems at all. I did have some speech therapy as a child. I only had a cleft palate and not a cleft lip so people don't know that I had this unless I tell them. I never was considered special need and in fact, was in the gifted program. Except for possible speech therapy, there should be no other issues.

I would have a hard time worshipping in a church with the preacher have ripped jeans and flip flops. I am not saying that there can't be a church like that because it probably does help some become believers. But for my family, church is much more formal and we really like that. We should all go to what we feel is best. It is one of the good aspects of so many churches. You can usually find what you are looking for.

Thanks Peela. My girls are studying Earth Science now and these were very impressive pictures to show them. I told them this is one big reason I find earth science so interesting.

My family went on a long vacation (and for my dh, start of a school) in late Aug to Sept. 2001. WHile we were driving from NM to DC, in Louisiana, a car veered off the elevated highway and fortunately, went to one off the few stretches that actually had land on it. His car stopped at the trees. I used the binoculars to see the mile marker and called in rescue. We had stopped and dh and ds went to the scene. The man was badly hurt. Several paramedics who just happened to be driving by stopped and wanted to render aid but had no large bandages. My ds had recently prepared a large first aid box as part of a BSA requirement and we gave them a large bandage. THen in September, we dropped off my dh at the Fort and got on I95 to go to the Mall and visit the museums. We didn't get there. We had the radio on, heard about NY, saw the plane, and then saw the black smoke. We weren't at a point where we could see what was hit and it took a minute or two for the radio to announce it but we all knew that plane was gone and people on the ground were dead. We got back to the Fort before it closed and watched the towers fall down. THen my kids had plenty of other experiences with terrorism. Going to Madrid about a month after their bombings. Getting our weekend trip to London cancelled because of its bombings. Having a Turkish port have a tourist bus bombed a week before our cruise went there. I am so sorry for your son. I will pray for him.

My dd has a much bigger difference in her SAT and ACT scores based on the PSAT and practice and now real ACTs. We decided to concentrate on the ACT. Every college we have looked at accepts the ACT. In fact, as homeschoolers, several said SAT plus subject tests or ACT alone. That alone is a good enough reason to solely do the ACT. It is also cheaper.

I don't think she needs a British history since she did a lot of that while we lived in Belgium and viewed the complete A History of Britain with Simon Schama too. I will look into Foundations of Western Civ.

I am praying Chris.

WE did take a trip and took our girls. It was fantastic. We were living in Belgium then and we drove down to Venice, got on a cruise of the Mediterranean for 8 days, picked the car up and went off on a driving tour through Slovenia, Hungary, SLovakia, Poland, and back through Germany to Belgium. It was really great and on the cruise we got some alone time together. This year, for our 25th, we are going on another great trip. This time we are flying to Wyoming and taking in the Northern Rockies of both the US and Canada. Again we are taking the girls. In five years, our 30th, we won't have any young ones at home and will go on a great trip by ourselves.

How in the world do you get online glasses? How do they fit? I don't think I could get this done. WHen I go to get my glasses they take a lot of measurements, not just one. Especially now when I think I may need trifocals. Maybe you can if you have a simple prescription and no astigmatism but with astigmatism, correct fit is essential since the lenses have to fit directionally in a certain way.

I forgot to add that there are cultural differences in more formal too. SO in our island church in FLorida, I consider Aloha shirts and nice pants with a belt to be perfectly acceptable clothes. The grown men didn;t wear t-shirts though. THe women certainly did= nice t-shirts with skirts. I saw that as business clothing there in FLorida because it was the style most people in more formal occasions wore. DId people wear suits-yes, but less so than her in VA where it is colder and a more normal dress. When we lived in New Mexico, many men wore bolos instead of ties. Women tended to dress in skirts and hardly any women in a suit. But again, the style was what I would consider business wear or sit down restaurant clothing. My own sociological observations is not that wealthy congregations dress down and poor congregations dress up. What it reflects most is tradition and worship style. So in the poor neighborhoods surrounding U. of CHicago where I went to school, on Sundays, you would see very well dressed AA women with outfits with matching hats and similarly well dressed children. They would be going to Baptist, AME, or Holiness type churches for the most part which in another area may have more casual clothing but there, it was their best. In the churches I have attended which are semi-liturgical (United Methodist and Presbyterian of three different denominations), the usual dress is more formal than dressing to go to a soccer game or McDonalds. On the other hand, some of the non denominational churches we have been to with homeschooling events seem much more casual. We have also visited Anglican churches and Southern Baptist. Anglican ones were also more formal and Southern Baptist had more of a mix but with plenty of people dressing up again like as if they were going out to a Sunday Brunch at a nice restaurant.

I thought there was a time limit for food stamps that started in the 1990's. I think it is a lifetime limit of five years or something like that so that people don't rest on the laurels and think others should provide. I think what the OP needs to do is not have any more children, have her husband see about getting a second job, or get a job herself on weekends or evenings. There are jobs out there for relatively unskilled people. Retail sales like cashiers, waitressing, motel breakfast people who put out the cereals and make the coffee, and other such jobs. DO they pay much- no and that is why I say get a job when your husband isn't working. That way you have no childcare costs. Maybe the more useful way to get more income is for the husband to get some more education and get a higher paying job.

To Sandra, yes it is Belgium where the money follows the child and it really does work a lot better, The health benefits and pension benefits are part of the very big problem. They are at a level that isn't sustainable. I always vote no on school bonds and tax increases. I don't single out the schools either. I voted for almost 20 years in California. We would always be having bond issues for everything. Dh and I would consistently vote no. They would consistently be passes. Now CA has very serious financial difficulties mainly because of all the bonds that were passed. I see that children get educated with very little money. WHile I know that special ed costs more, I don't see a problem with large classes. My older brother went to a very large first grade classroom at a Catholic school and everyone was reading by Christmas. I think the classroom had 38 kids. I know my brother didn't suffer any ill effects from it.

Hi all, My two girls are doing western civ next year. My yonger likes to read a textbook so I got her Speilvogel. My older really remembers things much better with audio. NOw from my previous round of homeschooling, I have Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, HIgh Medieval Ages, and a course on Reformation and CHristianity or something like that. I also have History of the Byzantium so I think I am very good to go with ANcient and Medieval TC courses for her. NOw I need to figure out something for after the reformation. She has done US HIstory for two years so we can skip all references to US. Any suggestions?

We are doing How the Earth Works because that is the one the library happened to have on display, and I was looking for a earth science course. For one of my girls, it is her first higher level science course. FOr the other one, it is her third after chemistry and after starting biology. I watch this with them and we normally take about 45 minutes for each 30 minute show what with discussions and looking at globes and atlases. The other sciences in this show are mostly physical science level stuff- not full blown chemistry and physics. My older understands more usually but in some cases, particularly with the motions of the earth, the younger gets it easier. Neither of the two have had physics yet but the younger has a better grasp of physics naturally, I would suggest going on the website and checking the titles of the lectures. Then you will get a better feel for what each teaches.

My youngest came in when the GMA was on this computer and said that it was stupid and she doesn't want to do that. SHe is my most whiny kid and yet she thinks that doing no schoolwork is a way to become a loser. That said, I was in a homeschooling group that had a lot of unschoolers before. We had educational fieldtrips and group classes. The kids were doing all sorts of things that showed learning- winning contests, state fairs, getting published in the paper, etc. I didn't see the kids as any less educated than my more formally educated. I don't think that they were really hardcore unschoolers though since I know the parents used many of the same books I did. I don't think any of them just never thought the kids math. But I think the main thing was that many kids do want to learn. Not all of them, like my whiny thirteen year old who complains a lot, but many of them. I was concerned about my education in public schools as a kid and I started collecting old textbooks and reading them so I would get more educated. No one told me to do this but I got the idea my education wasn't that good by reading older novels and decided I needed to learn some grammar and some other things.

My older dd had night terrors and hasn't had them for a few years. SHe would wake up screaming like she was really scared, her eyes would be wide open but not like she was looking at anything, and she would walk. SHe was not awake and we would have to put her back in bed. She would not remember them and sometimes would say something rather nonsensical. She was also our only child who had sleep walking, bedwetting until age 9 or so, and now that she has outgrown all those problems, she has insomnia at times. She is also our only child that probably had a abscence seizure but that only happened one time so it isn't considered epilepsy. Do thse things happen separately? Sure, but just as often you get kids with a cluster of slepp problems. In her night terrors, she was never awake and never asking for anything. You could see she was asleep even though her eyes were open since they looked really vacant.