Ooh. Me too! Cool. I'll have to try that.

What a cool idea. I have a list sortof like this started but I know there's a bunch more places I'd like to go that I don't even know about yet. http://www.lhf.org/visit.html < It's a living farm in Iowa that has an indian village and 1850's town Williamsburg Gettysburg < My dad lives right down the road from this so we'll probably get out there a bunch Washington DC I'd love to take a month and explore Europe with the kids to learn about European history.

I'm afterschooling two that age and we use Hooked On Phonics. I bought the set (K through 2nd grade) before I found this site and found out that there were other programs. We like it though. I've got one that's reading fantastically and the other that is doing just fine. It's fun, they get stickers, and it goes fast. We don't use the CD's though, I sit with the girls and work with them. ETA - ElizabethB has a great page for phonics stuff. I spent a ton of time reading everything when I first started teaching the girls.

Although I dearly love everything HP I'd probably go with Addams Family because it's unique and probably not overdone this year. Alice in Wonderland could be fun too but I lean towards the slightly spooky for Halloween.

We afterschool right now. When we have kids that we can claim completely as our own then we'll homeschool. DH seems as excited by it as I am.

Oh it's been years since I tried sewing anything. I love what you guys have done though. Maybe I'll try again. Thanks for sharing your creations.

You read my mind this morning. After all the posts on gifted children I was feeling a little left out. My kids are smart. They're accelerated for their ages. They are not gifted though. Just normal kids, that enjoy learning, and pick up on things quick. I'm totally happy with that too.

Me too! It's amazing how much depends on me. It doesn't matter if everyone else sleeps in - if I get up on time we get out the door on time. If everyone else gets up on time and I sleep in (just a bit) - we're all late and half dressed and we forget lunches and are eating PB&J for breakfast on the way to work. I don't get it. I really need to get my butt out of bed by 6:30 to have a happy morning. Guess the problem is getting my butt into bed earlier.

How was the Turkish Delight this morning? Did it setup? I'm very interested in seeing how this saga ends.

Thanks for the advice. We'll keep going with phonics then. What can I say - I see all this mention of Singapore math and science experiments and want to just jump right in. We're really liking listening too SOTW in the car. We don't do anything formal other than look at the globe to see where they're talking about and listen to the CD's but it's really interesting. Even for the adults. Oh we do! Tons. She gets books from the school library to add to our evening read alouds. If she brings home another Magic Treehouse though I'm gonna cry. She loves them and I dread them. What can you do though? I sit there and longingly look at the Laura Ingles Wilder and EB White books sitting on the shelf as I read the entire MTH series.

Praying for you. And as my grandmother says - this too shall pass. :grouphug:

I too love Halloween. And for the same reasons you do. And I had my heart set on doing the Wizard of Oz. We just moved to Kansas and have a blonde girl and a brunet girl. Dorothy and the Good Witch. Perfect. Except one wanted to be a scary witch and the other wanted to be a pirate. :glare: On my next batch of kids I'm going to do like you ladies do and just let them find out what I'm going to let them be. At least these kids still let me dress them in matching outfits. I guess I should be happy about that.

We get all of ours from the library. It has a good selection and the ones they don't have that I'm interested in we can get through interlibrary loan. The extra benefit to that is that when we're done with them, we don't have them sitting around taking up space. It's unlikely that we'll relisten to many audiobooks.

It's actually been pretty cool here all summer long. Unusual. It has gotten even chillier lately though. We've already got leaves on the ground.

Thank you for asking this question. I was at the Singapore website this morning looking for books for my K'er and wondered what on earth I needed!

Sophia and I are almost through with the K HoP program. She's reading beautifully. I'm really delighted with how well the program worked and how she's doing. Now I'm looking ahead to what's next for her. I realize that my earlier plans for the year were way too ambitious so I've dropped all my high hopes of doing elaborate science experiments after school and all that. We are reading/listening to SOTW in the car in the morning though. My options on what to do next are to start with HoP for 1st grade or maybe start math. I've heard good things about Singapore and Saxon curriculums. I don't know if I should take a break from reading or continue with that. Should I get a math curriculum and alternate days between reading and math now that she's actually reading? We have custody half-time so I don't have every night and weekend to work with her. Usually about three weeknights and every other weekend. Also we don't get home from work until 5:30ish so I don't want to spend over an hour on afterschooling. The school she attends is doing an acceptable job. I don't have any great complaints really. We'd of course prefer to homeschool but due to the fact that her mother has an equal say in her education we won't fight a losing fight.

I loved the Incarnations books and recently reread them. Books 1-5 are the best, 6&7 start being questionable. Completely agree with the Xanth books. Really enjoyed the very early ones and stopped with those. After reading Book 7 of the Incarnations books I would agree that Piers Anthony is something of a dirty old man. Too much objectionable sex for my tastes these days but as a kid I loved them.

I recently switched a read aloud. I picked one that was too above their level and they had difficulty following it. I knew after the first chapter though and switched to Little House in the Big Woods. Instant difference. Instead of being fidgitty they calmed down and paid attention. Oh no! Don't tell me that about Mr Popper's Penguins. We're finishing a boxcar children tonight and MPP is next on the stack. I hope I don't hate it.

Nutella - added to the grocery list. YUM. I'd replace the honey because nutella is sweet and more that consistency than PB.

We accidentally started with SOTW 2 because that's what I grabbed on the way out the door this morning. Listened all about the Roman Empire on our way to work/school. We all commute in together - it's pretty cool. (Homeschooling and DH being self-employed would be cooler though! Someday.) There were a few questions about barbarians that we discussed in more detail and tonight we'll look at the globe and see where all these places were that the Romans defeated. Tomorrow though we'll try to start at the beginning of history and get SOTW 1 in the car. ETA: I also found it very interesting to listen too. Double bonus. I'll have to talk to DH after work and find out what he thought of it.

Just got the books on CD for listening to in the car and around the house. Thinking about getting the books too. I'm excited to get started with them because of how much everyone else loves them.

Ugh. She sounds very interesting. (Not really in a good way.) Maybe I missed this but how old is stbxH? My DH is 34 and has a friend his age that dated a early 20's girl. He didn't understand how the guy could stand being around her, she was very immature and I can't imagine what they talked about. I would be so incredibly angry about her calling him a sh**. I can't imagine anyone talking to a child like that. Even if it's joking ... still not acceptable in my book to cuss at a kid. However, I also wouldn't say anything. I imagine this woman will be merely a footnote in your son's life and won't make much of an impression. For the sake of keeping things civil I would bite my tongue. We had a situation recently where I was livid but kept my mouth shut ... mostly. Sophia's step-father told Sophia that he thought Cameran was a bad kid. Sophia of course repeated this to DH and I. I was really beside myself because these kids LIVE together and he's going to say something mean about her. It just seemed like a very tacky mean-spirted thing to do. I talked to Sophia about it and we decided that it was a hurtful thing to say and we didn't agree with his opinion. I never said anything to him though I would have dearly loved to. BTW, Cameran isn't a bad kid at all! She's very outgoing and brave which makes her do things she shouldn't. Like last summer when she decided to jump off the diving board even though she didn't know how to swim and someone had to jump in and get her.

We have a Suburban and love it. The gas mileage isn't fantastic (about 13 mpg because we have AWD) but we knew that when we bought it and use my smaller Volvo for daily driving. Might not be possible to do that in your situation. Road trips in the Suburban is a dream though. We can pile so many people in it and they are all comfortable and can carry lots of stuff. Growing up we always had Suburbans (three bench seats - could seat 9 pretty comfortably). I suspect as long as I have kids we'll have a Suburban in the driveway.

It was resolved amicably (luckily) but we hadn't discussed it with her. It was a long weekend trip and we had never in the passed discussed those. They do what they want on their weeks and we do as we please on our weeks. There isn't any hostility on either side but we aren't really "friends" discussing our plans. It is extremely rare that we ever switch times. The last time that there was really a major switch was when the ex went on her honeymoon and we kept my step-daughter during that time. Sorry to hijack your thread. Good luck. :grouphug: I know it seems pretty tough now but I know it will get easier once things settle down and you get adjusted to a new life and routine.

I saw Franny K Stien listed and my girls love those books. I read them aloud and they'd be good (maybe a little easy) reads for someone that can read Magic Treehouse. They're also kind of funny even for adults. Nothing of questionable content in them.