I've always wondered if she was a borderline asthmatic. She tends to get respiratory distress more often than my other two. Could this be a symptom of RSV? My 9 month old nephew was with us for 12 hours over two days last week and he was dreadfully sick. He's much better now, but the doc says he had RSV. Anyone have any experience with RSV in a 5 year old? Can a 5 year old even get it?

For the last week or so, every night when my five year old goes to bed she spends an hour or two coughing. Not a productive congested cough, but that seal-bark-croup sound. She doesn't cough like that during the day. I finally sent my husband out for cough syrup so she could get to sleep and the pharmacist sent him home with Delsym which helped for a few hours and then she woke up around midnight and started all over again. I gave it to her again tonight (an hour ago) and she's still "barking." What do I do?? :confused:

Maybe this is a dumb question, but if there's some grand abbreviation list out there, I haven't found it yet! What is MEP? And I agree with everyone who has said, don't get bogged down! Stick to the basics and do the fun stuff as it comes along and you have time (and energy!). I'm teaching 4K and 5K this year and I have to remember that if school only takes an hour today, that's okay! The time they spent outside in the backyard tracking the neighborhood owl was more than enough science for the week. :001_smile:

You could do a "cakewalk" for special decoration items for the houses. Something to get them up and moving a little. Only have 4 or 5 participate in the walk at a time. Maybe little candycanes for light posts as the prize.

We're lucky to live close to the zoo, botanic gardens, nature center, etc so I try to remember to plan an intentional field trip at least once a month. Most of those places have free days/afternoons, but for the zoo homeschooling makes the membership price worth it. We don't have to spend the whole day, can come and go as we please. So for us, the "fun stuff" of homeschooling has been being able to have lots of field trips and arrange our schedule to suit us, not some institution!

Thanks!

Thanks for the reminder. Need to find that business card of that lawyer that friend gave me that time a while back that I put away and keep forgetting about...

I would think that at this point, with so many missed doses and few days worth of not taking it at all, he needs to go get a new prescription and start the antibiotic regimen over. I don't know about Augmentin in particular, but it's my understanding that the reason you have to keep taking them even after you start to feel better is because of the way antibiotic work they need to be in your system 24/7 for a period of time to fully defeat the infection. I suggest having him call the clinic (or the pharmacy he got the meds from) and tell them what happened.

If so, when do I do it? I started dough for english muffins and I'd like to bake them in the morning.

...can be found here: http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/10/do-whatever-he-tells-you-the-blessed-virgin-mary-in-christian-faith-and-life The article begins with a joint statement by a commission of Evangelicals and Catholics together, then goes into an Evangelical statement and the Catholic response. It is an excellent conversation and I think would be highly suited for many who have posted here. On the topic of Mary, the Catholic Church teaches that she was born without sin (of her parents Anne and Joachim), conceived Jesus as a virgin and that she "died" as a virgin. Whether her body actually died as you and I will is a point that the Church has no official position on. We do not know. They do teach that her body was assumed into heaven as Jesus' was. The Catholic Church has always been concerned about the translation of the Scriptures which is why there may be some confusion about the accuracy of any particular translation. Just as you might translate a Latin phrase one way, I might translate it another. The two translations might appear to mean the same thing, but upon further reflection, their true meaning might differ. Thus, the emphasis on which Bible may or may not have an accurate translation certainly has merit for anyone who reads them. If you're curious to read more about Mary from both a Protestant (Evangelical) viewpoint and a Catholic one, the article really is very good!

It's nice to hear that my kids aren't the only ones constantly hungry. I can't get them to eat more at mealtime either. They'll eat three apples a piece at snack, but heaven forbid they should eat an entire sandwich at lunch!! I've tried severely limiting snack time and the quantity they can have at those snack times, but it doesn't seem to help their mealtime appetite. They just go hungry. I like the idea of an open fruit policy, except that they'd eat us right out of a grocery budget and make a mess of the kitchen, too. I'll have to think about the logistics of that a little more. Maybe a jar of trail mix on the counter they can have as much of as they want. Anyone want to share a "trail mix" that doesn't have nuts or chocolate I could let my kids (22 months, 4 and 5) have unsupervised access to?

I do it, too. I admit to slipping out of the room to go do, well, anything. And it usually involves a candy bar that *might* have gotten misplaced in the bathroom closet. :D

I have been taking notes furiously, but I'm going to try for one more... :lurk5:

I'm so glad to read that I'm not the only one out there facing this problem. We don't use OPGTR, but Phonics Pathways. For months this fall my daughter would throw a fit whenever I pulled it out. After letting it sit gathering dust for a month and just using letter magnets occasionally and letting her read Bob books, a friend told me she writes from OPGTR on the white board and voila! It worked for us, too! We spent a few weeks working solely on the board and I was able to bring out the PP book without a fight. After those few weeks of board work, she's been fine reading out of the book. One of the things we do is that she has a blank piece of paper to cover the words she's not looking at and that helps keep her focused and with visual tracking. And I try to remember at least once a week to let her read from the white board as a break from the book. Good luck!!

Usborne books has some great castle and knight selections! Like someone else mentioned, they have a make-a-castle book. If you go to: http://www.myubam.com/ecommerce/results.asp?sid=L2975&gid=90634658 you'll see the search results for "knights." Dover Publishing, as well: http://search.store.yahoo.net/cgi-bin/nsearch?catalog=doverpublications&query=castle lots of making castle books!

Mine's getting a new Maglite flashlight. The really big heavy kind that's practically indestructible. He kept his old one by the bed and took it with him when he had to inspect the noises from the other room in the middle of the night. So maybe it's a self-serving gift...I'd like him to have something on hand besides the lamp! Not a very expensive gift (around $20 for a really nice one) but he'll love it. I also thought about getting him a fancy weather radio - the kind that is always in sleep mode until it alerts you when there are severe weather alerts from NWS. Again, maybe self-serving (we get a LOT of tornado warnings, only a few tornadoes thank God) but he's the kind that send us to the closet while he goes and watches the storm from the front porch so he'd think a weather station was pretty cool. Good luck! I like the box idea.

Oooh, fire... :lol: What a ton of awesome ideas! Keep 'em coming, please!

I spent a month in St. Petersburg, Russia as an undergraduate and the two things I remember eating the most of were "blini" which are Russian pancakes that are served sort of like omelettes - with ANYTHING you want inside (you can get them sweet with jam and powdered sugar or savory with mushrooms, etc). You can google "blini" and when you make them you'll find that they're thinner than American pancakes but not as thin as a French crepe. The other thing was carrot/raisin salad (shredded carrots, raisins, lemon juice and maybe dill). I should point out that there was dill in almost everything. Both of those things are really easy to make and you can have fun with "toppings" for the blini.

We've had Flat Stanley in our neighborhood before and my girls would be THRILLED if he showed up on our door! If you're still looking for places for him/her to visit, please PM me!

Besides observing, identifying and classifying rocks and minerals what can you do that's hands-on and engaging? I know we can make rock candy, but otherwise I'm sort of clueless. These activities need to be geared for the 4K-3rd grade crowd. I should also point out that I don't want to spend any money putting the activities together unless absolutely necessary!

It sounds like maybe she's not charging them enough rent. I would expect (as a renter) to be paying an amount equivalent to the landlord's mortgage + homeowner's insurance + a good bit more to cover the landlord's risk. If they're paying a reasonable rent (for the area) and her mortgage is a reasonable mortgage, then she shouldn't be in a position of being particularly financially vulnerable. She might also look into something like American Home Shield. It's an insurance policy that covers most things that go wrong with houses (plumbing, electrical, HVAC, most appliances, etc) and can be very valuable (particularly for landlords) when things like the air conditioning go out! You simply call their 24 hour number, tell them what's wrong and they send the appropriate contractor out. There's a service charge of something like $60 per call. But again, if it's the a/c that needs to be replaced, I'll take $60 over $3,000 any day. There's my two cents. I hope she finds the peace of mind she needs!

Ouch, ouch, ouch! Boy oh boy and I in the wrong career! I should have been a childcare worker! Only on very rare occasions can we afford a babysitter for our three (5, 4, and 22 mos) and when we do, we use a fellow homeschooling family's teenager. We usually pay $2/hour/kid. So, $6 an hour for all three. Now if I come home and find the house in good shape, the kids happy and worn out then I'll round up by a few dollars (say it was 4 hours, which would be $24, I'd give her $30). A good friend of mine worked nights/weekends as a nurse and had to have a sitter at the house on Mondays while her husband went to work and she slept (having worked a 12 hour shift the night before) and she paid the same, $2/hour/kid. Again, in both cases it was a fellow homeschooling family's teenager. And we live in west TN if that helps, where the cost of living is MUCH lower than say, DC or NY!

It's been a rocky first semester of homeschooling for us...figuring out how to do it with a little climber in the house and with all the distractions of being at home in the first place. We've had some good days along the way, but lots of struggles with attitudes and lack of patience. Even with ending up at the pediatrician's office this morning (which took up the WHOLE morning!), we still managed to get all our schoolwork done!!! YAY!!! I finally planned a reasonable amount of work that was accomplished within a reasonable amount of time and everyone was REASONABLE about it. No tantrums, no fits. Even the sick baby just hung out and played while the girls and I did school. So for all of you new homeschoolers out there who are still struggling like we are...success is coming! :hurray:

The best deal I've ever seen on a Wii bundle was from Sam's Club. A Wii, the Wii Fit Plus, the Wii Fit Balance board, 2 controllers, 2 Nunchuks, Wii Sports and all the cables you'll need for $332.88. It's still there...

Gifted a set of what? Audio cds? Memory Work Resource cds? The new (3rd edition) Foundations Guide isn't dramatically different than the 2nd edition. The memory work is almost entirely the same. The new Foundations Guide has much better prompts and the layout is a HUGE improvement. If by "cards" you mean the Veritas Press history flashcards, then yes the old Foundations Guide will work with VP cards, as I understand they haven't changed them recently.