What about Gary Blackwood's Shakespeare Stealer series? http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Shakespeare-Stealer-Series/Gary-Blackwood/e/9780525473206/?itm=3 My kids have both enjoyed these, and they might give a fun introduction to the world of Shakespeare. There's another book called The King of Shadows, by Susan Cooper, that mine have enjoyed, too: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/King-of-Shadows/Susan-Cooper/e/9780689844454/?itm=1 I've never found any kids' versions of the stories that we liked. We've just always read summaries or the full text and then seen the plays either live or on video.

Currently: Robot (for my son) National Geographic (because we're receiving the end of my father-in-law's subscription) UU World Other things we've received in the past and might renew at some point include: Smithsonian Scientific American Newsweek I picked up a copy of Good a few weeks ago at Whole Foods and really enjoyed that. I'm considering a subscription when I get around to thinking about it.

. . . which, as always, is a little different, given my daughter's situation: I laid out her transcript the year we started doing high school work and just kept it up to date as she continued. I also kept a file with course descriptions and reading lists for each subject. I was very concerned that the time would come when some admissions officer would ask to see that stuff, and I wouldn't have time to recreate it on the spot. So, I took the time to log it as we went. (My theory was that I might "waste" a little time documenting things no one would ever care to see, but I would rather do that than risk blowing my kid's chance to get into the school of her choice later on.) When it came to the actual admissions thing, she applied to only one school, because it was the only one that offered an appropriate program for her. Along with the application and required essays, we submitted the transcript, three pages of one-paragraph descriptions of all of her courses, and two pages briefly describing her various extra-curricular activities. It seemed like the best balance we could strike between providing "enough" information and risking overwhelming them with paperwork. And I was able to pull it together quickly and confidently because I had the raw materials at my fingertips. I plan to take pretty much the same approach when it's my son's turn.

I'm so glad it went well. Pirates of Penzance is one of my son's favorite shows. He's seen it live several times, in addition to watching a couple of different versions on DVD, and was in a junior version of it last spring. It's definitely fun. Now, we just have to figure out how to turn your kids on to ballet . . .

How did it go? What prep did you end up doing? And did your kids enjoy the show? I was thinking of you when we went to the opera here, and I'd love to hear how things turned out!

You know, I quit worrying about whatever they had to say about homeschoolers when I heard the clip in which it was clear not one of them knew what the word "suffrage" meant. I know the whole "consider the source" thing isn't supposed to be logical, but, honestly, with such ignorance on display, how can their opinions matter?

We do ornaments, too, but they're not a stocking thing. I make them each an ornament every year, which they receive the night we decorate the tree. My daughter aways gets angels (like the ones shown here: http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-Christmas-cross-stitch-kit-beaded-mill-hill-angel_W0QQitemZ270301939037QQcmdZViewItemQQssPageNameZRSS:B:SRCH:US:101 ), because I made her a couple of them when she was little, and she demands that I continue the tradition. But I now design my own and try to personalize them to her current interests/activities. This year, the angel will commemorate our daughter's attendance at her first real on-Broadway show. We have no specific tradition for my son, except that he gets an ornament. This year, I'm stitching the logo for his model rocket club, along with the year, and affixing that to a 3-d mini rocket I'm making from cardstock. They each also get to choose an ornament to purchase each year. This year, they both bought them while we were on vacation in New York. As you said, the idea here is that they will accumulate enough to take with them a "starter kit" when they grow up and move out.

I was thinking of charitable stuff. That might work well for my daughter, if we did something animal related. (We adopted a manatee for her one year, which was a big hit.) But I haven't found anything yet that wows me . . .

So, as I posted in the other thread, we've got the big stuff under control for our kids. But I'm finding myself pretty much stumped for stockings. Neither of my kids is big into candy/sweets. We usually try to stick with small gift items for the stockings. But here's the tricky part: A few years ago, in a fit of something-or-other, I started "theming" the stocking stuffers. It was easier when the kids were younger, because I could always go with stuff related to favorite characters. But they're pretty much past that nowadays. Some years, I've copped out and just bought everything in a favorite color, but that's been done. Certain things are traditional: They always get a pair of silly socks and a new toothbrush. So, what's going in your kids' stockings this year?

We more or less gave up on credit cards several years ago. We do now have one with a small credit line, just so we can say we have one, but all of our regular purchases are paid for when we make them. I can't tell you how much I enjoy not having the "January blues" I hear about when those bills start rolling in.

I assume you've looked here: http://www.peacepeas.com/cgi-bin/cpshop.cgi/mugs

We're big into having gifts be surprises here. And we've never done the Santa thing, either. So, I don't know what they'd say they "want" if you asked them. And, before I type out the lists, I should say that the majority of these things are things they would probably get, anyway, at some point during the year. So, it's not quite as extravagant as it sounds. 13-year-old daughter: Karaoke machine with two mics so she and her dorm-mates can duet Broadway soundtrack CDs to go with the machine iPod Nano in her favorite color, engraved with a personal message Crocheted pouch for the iPod Snarky t-shirts from her favorite online store CDs of soundtracks featuring a Broadway performer she admires Assorted books Personalized photo book documenting her theatre/performing experiences 10-year-old son: Sewing machine and accessories Building set my husband is assembling Khet (a board game involving lasers?) Nice, matched, collector's editions of Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings Assorted other books (mostly about samurai) Whatever DVDs my husband finds on sale and thinks our son will like Personalized photo book documenting his theatre/performing experiences And, yes, we're shopping already. We actually did a lot of it online last week, and now I'm just waiting while the packages roll in. I think all that's left, really, are the sewing machine and the karaoke thingy. I was up until almost midnight last night working on the photo books and hope to have those done by this weekend.

My daughter had no use for even the "learning to read" books. She learned to read with regular kids' picture books, then jumped to chapter books. We did dip into a middle school literature textbook one year, because she was interested in poetry and it had a good unit. But readers? Nope. My son liked some of the very early, easy-to-read, controlled vocabulary books when he was younger. But, in terms of "literature" once he was a capable reader, we never used those, either. I would say that, unless your kids ask for them or you feel there's something specific to be gained, it would be perfectly reasonable to drop them at this point.

My son loves Percy Jackson (but that's definitely fantasy), the Tokaido Inn series and especially the Ranger's Apprentice. He's even decided to learn to sew in order to make himself costumes based on that book.

We've been homeschooling for about 10 years. I started when my daughter was in preschool and taught her through to an accelerated high school diploma. My son is now 10 and working on more or less a middle school level. We decided to try homeschooling on a trial basis as a result of our daughter's experiences in preschool. We realized that we could never put her in a regular public school, and we couldn't afford the one or two private schools that might have worked for her. No. I'd never even heard of homeschooling until after our daughter was born. No. I went to the closest educational supply store and bought a "complete kindergarten curriculum" workbook. We sat at the kitchen table for about an hour three or four days a week and worked through that. We also read books, listened to music, etc. Our own loose intepretation of TWTM approach. The specific materials are in my signature line. Oh, I've read about pretty much every approach. I'm kind of an education junkie. Then it all just goes into the mixer and comes out as what works for us. Early on, my husband and I identified three goals that we hoped to achieve. We wanted our kids to have a rigorous, broad-based education that provided familiarity with the big ideas and major themes of history, science, literature, etc. We wanted them to know how to find information and educate themselves for their whole lives. We wanted them to be able to think for themselves. When I read TWTM for the first time, I recognized those goals in the classical approach. The day-to-day being here and staying on track part is the hardest thing for me. I get bored and irritable and sometimes really tired of being "on" all the time. Especially when one of the kids is going through a rough patch (what we call an "emotional growth spurt," for example), I sometimes find it really draining to be both mom and teacher. The actual, hands-on teaching comes naturally to me. I've been hanging around and flirting with education pretty much as long as I've been alive. I was a natural student, and I think I'm a natural teacher. And the research and curriculum planning and all that stuff is not only easy but downright fun. I love remembering the many afternoons spent cuddling on couches and beds and reading aloud. I'm not sure what it says about me, but I can't think of any advice that was really meaningful. I've certainly gotten help here and in other online communities with specific challenges, but in terms of most of the "big things," I think I've had to kind of find my own way. Figure out what works for you and your children, rather than getting tied up in one, specific "method." I firmly believe that finding an approach that is comfortable for you will always result in a better education for your kids (not to mention a happier family) than trying to squeeze into a box someone else designed.

Whether to laugh or cry? We mostly chose laughing.

I hung on through algebra with my daughter, by which point she was saying she hated math. I suspect (something about which I carry much guilt) that this is because she found it so frustrating to try and learn from someone who not only didn't really get it but disliked it. For geometry, we enrolled her in a class with Florida Virtual School, and it made all the difference. Things went downhill again the following year with algebra II, but at least she no longer thought it was her fault. I learned my lesson. And the minute my son and I started having tension about math, I enrolled him in the FLVS middle school math course. He has now finished that sequence, and we're working together through the University of California open access algebra course. The funny thing is that, for the first time, I actually GET IT! There's something about the way this course is written that actually makes sense to me. So, we're doing fine.

We'll be doing the middle ages and Renaissance next year, and I've been looking for materials. I just can't find quite the right series to go with my other plans that is also available through either my local library or Netflix. I'm stil considering it, though.

I'm not sure why, but I've just never cared for SOTW. (Sorry, SWB!) It may have something to do with the fact that my kids are never the right age/stage for the volume that goes with that historical era. So, we have used a variety of other things as spines for our history studies (children's history encyclopedias, the Peter Bedrick History of the World series, etc.). Last year, I went looking for something else to add to the mix, to provide more of a through-line. We ended up with CHOW for the computer. We're spreading it out over, probably, three years, having him do just the stories that align with each year's historical era. He likes it, but, again, for us it's just a supplement.

We're not seriously cutting back. Thus far--although I am mindful that this could change in the blink of an eye, especially given my husband's job--we haven't really felt any differences. Ou income has remained the same. We don't have a mortgage (because we rent). In fact, we're a little better off than usual because my husband inherited a bit of money over the summer. So, we're just kind of chugging along. We even bought a new car last month and are looking to replace the other one with a newer (but still used) model. However, I am very, very aware that this could all go downhill in a heartbeat. So, I am thinking ahead and preparing myself emotionally for ways we could cut back and adjust quickly if we had to do so. My husband did choose to purchase insurance on the recent car loan that would make our payments for a while if he were unemployed. This is the sort of thing we never do, but opted for because of the current uncertainty. I'm naturally pretty thrifty in terms of shopping and so on. I keep my grocery spending below the national average just because I can. Also, we've been vegetarian/vegan for a long time. So, we haven't had to worry about cutting back on meat in order to save money. But we do buy some luxuries and treats that we could give up if we needed to economize more: my husband's frozen convenience foods (which I would replace with single-serving leftovers), my son's soy ice cream and chocolate chips (which could be replaced with home-made cookies or popcorn), my name-brand diet soda (which can be replaced with home-brewed iced tea and/or store brand soda), etc. In terms of other spending, such as clothing, we tend to try and buy good quality items that will last. And I launder things carefully. My husband and I sometimes go to or three years without buying anything new. We've all had an infusion of new clothing recently and could go a long time without buying more. My son and I started doing most of our reading from the library several months ago. And given the number of books we consume in a year, that's not an insignificant savings. I've already ordered much of our homeschool stuff for next year. And, if I had to pull the plug right now, we'd have enough to get through. And, of course, there's all the usual stuff we could cut back or quit: cable, tickets to various shows, our son's activities, etc. We've been broke before and survived. So, it won't flatten me if we have to go there again.

. . . my son is using: Classical Writing Aesop (with samples I dug up to coordinate with his history/literature reading) Galore Park English Prep Book 2 (skipping the writing, since we're doing CW). This covers grammar (which we review and put into use in the CW assignments), reading comprehension and some very basic literary stuff. In theory, it could cover spelling, too, but we're doing only a very half-hearted job with it. Word Roots software for vocabularly For handwriting, I'm just making him do some of his assignments in cursive. I have a free cursive font my husband downloaded for me a couple of years ago, and I type out his rough draft and print it in that. Then he copies it. We're past phonics nowadays, but I used some plain vanilla, off-the-bookstore-shelf workbooks (FlashKids, McGraw Hill) along with Starfall (www.starfall.com) and the Nora Gaydos Now I'm Reading books.

We more or less followed TWTM model. The primary thing we did differently was that we didn't use the WTM-recommended texts for spines. Instead, we went with the National Geographic Visual History of the World supplemented with whatever else caught our fancy that year. My daughter read the appropriate sections of the National Geographic book, read through the supplemental books, read selections from The Mammoth Books of How It Happened for primary sources, watched documentaries from Netflix and the library and www.learner.org, did research on any subject that interested her, wrote papers and did projects. It was plenty. In fact, she took Western Civilization I and II in college last year and said that they covered almost nothing she hadn't already studied. They did go into things in more depth, but she was amply prepared.

My son is making snowflake ornaments for friends, teachers, etc. I bought unfinished wooden cut-outs, which he will paint and then finish with spray glitter. My daughter decided to make God's eyes for her friends and dorm-mates. She ordered the supplies and has been working on them in her spare time at school. So, I haven't seen any yet. The ornament thing is kind of a tradition in our family. Otherwise, my son wants to make something out of wood for both his dad and his sister. I'm thinking he might like woodburning. We're headed to the craft store later today to see what we can see. For the last several years, my daughter has personalized a nutcracker for her brother. (He dances, including in The Nutcracker, and has a collection of them.) I think it started when she dressed a nutcracker in a miniature of the cast T-shirt from his first production. Last year, she copied his Halloween costume. This year, I think she wants to dress the nutcracker in a ruff and robe like my son's choir wears. This one will be a bit tricky, since we need to find a nutcracker to start with that doesn't have a beard.

My son is in his fourth year in The Nutcracker. This year, he's a party child in the first act and one of Clara's pages in the second act for the main performances. He's also understudying Fritz and will dance that role in the abbreviated, weekday performances for the local schools. He's in all six of the local shows spread over two weekends (plus the three school performances), but at least we don't have to go to Tampa this year. Just last night, I volunteered to supervise backstage for, I think, six shows. I'm not sure what I was thinking. He's also prepping for a holiday service/concert with his choir. As a matter of fact, he's got a two-hour choir rehearsal this morning, followed by five hours at the dance school later. My daughter will be home from college around December 11 and will go directly into rehearsals for an alum appearance with her local choir (the sister group to my son's boychoir). She's also agreed to sing for our church's Christmas eve service and possibly to assist with the mini-concert the younger kids are doing earlier that evening. So, I'm not sure yet just what her schedule will look like.

. . . DYS hasn't been that helpful. But our experience is, of course, unique. We never got around to having our daughter professionally evaluated/tested. For a while, we figured it wasn't significant, because we were doing just fine homeschooling and planned to continue. Then we hit a point at which outside help would have been nice, but we couldn't afford to pay for testing on our own. We applied to DYS by portfolio when my daughter was, I think, 9. She was turned down, because they wanted more information, specifically, official test scores. We set it aside and went on with our lives. When she was 10 or thereabouts, she took the Explore and earned scores that ranked on Davidson's chart. But, at that point, she was thriving academically with what we were doing at home and was finding social opportunities through community theatre. So, I filed the thought and moved on. Then, when she was 12, she took the SAT and, again, earned DYS-worthy scores. By that time, she was starting to wilt at home and clearly needed more than we could give her. So, I sent the accumulated new information in to Davidson, and this time, she qualified. It was about the same time, though, that she was admitted to the early entrance program, which simultaenously took her away from home (meaning she wasn't available for any get-togethers), put her in daily contact with other gifted girls and kept her too busy to make much use of any DYS resources. So, we have periodic conversations with our coordinator. And it's nice to know that I could call on them for help if my daughter's situation changes in the future. But, at this point, DYS is a line on her resume. That said, I do know people who just love the program and who have benefited greatly from their involvement. There is, for example, an e-mail group of DYS families in my state, and they plan periodic informal meet-ups at museums and similar venues. And I'm sure that must be a great support system for both the kids and their parents. I'd say you have nothing to lose by applying (other than the time required to complete the application). The people are nice and seem to want to be helpful. And, again, I hear good things from other folks for whom the services have been very valuable. For us, the timing just didn't work out terribly well.