I have a plastic Salton yogurt maker that I like. It was about $15 when I bought it several years ago. It makes one quart at a time. Here's my recipe 2 cups non-fat dry milk plus enough water to make 3 cups. Microwave for 3-4 minutes to scald milk, then let cool a few hours to overnight. Add 1 container cheap yogurt with active cultures. Let sit 9-12 hours, then chill in fridge. Flavor just before serving with strawberry preserves.

I don't use a loop yet, but I'm thinking of it. It looks like your loop is set up to touch each subject once: Math => English => Latin => Science => History => Geography => Fine Arts => Logic => repeat I think that if you want to modify your loop so that you do Math, English, and Latin every day, you could change your loop to something like this: Math => English => Latin => Science => Math => English => Latin => History => Math => English => Latin => Geography => Math => English => Latin => Fine Arts => Math => English => Latin => Logic => return to beginning

I just recently discovered audio books. I find that what works best for us is just playing them in the car. I tried playing them at home but it just didn't work well for us. If DD5 asks a quick question, I just talk over the CD. If she has a longer question, I stop the CD. My kids loved The House At Pooh Corner. We just started Charlotte's Web. I second the recommendation for the "Rabbit Ears" CDs. Oh, we also tried "Winnie-the-Pooh", but whenever Piglet talks, he also snorts in a way that sends my girls into peals of laughter, and they miss most of the story.

Well, that is the setup (a bunky board instead of a box spring) that I use for my kids' beds. Granted, my kids are young, but I have also slept on their beds on occassion, and I never gave the height of the bed a thought. It is a few inches lower than a regular bed, but once you are laying on it sleeping, it doesn't really make any difference. Now, if the bed were for someone elderly or with impaired mobility, that would be a different story.

I'm not a fan of either set of books, although I like the few Amber Brown books that I've read better than the JBJ books. I won't go so far as to ban the books, but I won't buy any of them, I won't use them as read-alouds, and I won't do shared reading with them. If DD wants to read them, she can check them out of the library and read them on her own time by herself. If DD acquires some of these books on her own, I'll let her keep them, but I'll try to make sure that she has access to lots of quality books and role models as well. As for the kid grammar in JBJ, I actually find it less annoying than all the incomplete sentences that I'm finding in the Magic Tree House books that DD is currently reading, yet I haven't heard anyone wanting to ban the MTH books because of their grammar.

Sounds like a good plan. My daughter is also resistant to correcting her handwriting after she's written something (not just reversals). I find that I have much better results when I gently remind her how to write problematic letters and numbers just before she actually starts writing them. I'm sorry if my previous post didn't come out correctly. Mostly, I saw a lot of posts that said not to worry about reversals, but I found that with my daughter a little effort on my part made a noticable improvement in my daughter's reversals without waiting years for the problem to self-correct.

It might not be a lefty thing. It might just be a new writer thing. I noticed that my DD reversed several numbers, expecially 2 and 3. I finally realized that she reversed those numbers more often because they are written starting clockwise, but most round letters (c, s, g, etc.) are written starting counter-clockwise. She was just starting the 2 and 3 with the same counter-clockwise curver that she uses for most of her letters (like c, g, q,a, s, f, etc.). After I realized what was causing the mistake, I explained the clockwise/counter-clockwise thing to DD and she rarely makes those reversals now. As for correcting your DD or not, it depends. When she sees numbers in print, can she instantly recognize them? Is she generally comfortable writing letters and numbers, and gets most of them correct without much thought, except for the reversals? If you point to one of her numbers that is reversed and tell her that it is reversed, does she immediately see the problem? If you answered "yes" to all of these questions, I don't see any harm in pointing out reversals to your daughter and encouraging her to write them correctly.

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I also recommend buying the RightStart cards. The ones from RightStart have lots of neat features that would be hard to duplicate. For example: In the basic and multiplication deck, the numbers are in a handwriting font so that it is very easy to tell the differnce between a 6 and a 9. Also the numbers are in the corners of the cards, so that you can see the numbers when holding the cards in a "fan". The cards also have no other distractions on them. The corners deck cards are actually slightly rectangular, rather than square, and are a bit thicker than card stock. They are also fairly small and colored. The colors are important. It would also be a pain to figure out what numbers to put on each side of each card. I don't know about the time or money cards. I don't have either.

I voted no in the poll. If he has been out of the water since last summer, will waiting another year make much of a difference? Given your previous statement about paying off debt, how would you feel if a large chunk of that $500 went to your debt? Ugh. Outside in the heat with a toddler is no fun. However, it sounds like you wouldn't be able to use the pool in the heat of the day anyway. Between the pool not opening until 2, your toddler's nap, and supper, most days you probably couldn't go until the evening. Is there a museum or similar indoors place with air conditioning where you could get a membership? Your older kids would probably like it when they go - but how often would you really go? You say the membership is for a family of four. Would it be possible to get membership for just three of you (two older kids and one parent)? If so, would it be much cheaper? Then either you could take all three kids during the day, or you could take just the big guys out in the evenings while your husband stays home and puts the two year old to bed.

I am a left, DH is a lefty, and DD4 is a lefty. I am teaching her printing without a specific curriculum. Here are some thoughts on common issues for lefty writer: Paper slant: I fought with DD4 on the paper slant thing. I kept trying to show her the proper way to slant the paper. I finally gave up and let her slant it whatever way was comfortable for her. I noticed that I myself don't follow any prescribed slant to my paper. Pencil hold: The proper pencil hold (the way the fingers wrap around the pencil) is the same for a lefty as for a righty. Watch out for a proper tripod grasp that is neither too loose nor too tight. Hooked wrist: A lefty does not have to write with a hooked wrist. Just have the wrist stay straight, just as the wrist of a righty is straight. Smearing existing writing: A lefty is also capable of writing so that the hand does not smear what was just written. In the early stages when the letters are big, this will be a difficulty. However, once the handwriting gets smaller and requires smaller movements, it is possible to place the hand below the line of writing and angle the pencil so that the existing writing is not smudged. The hand will obscure the writing so that it can't be seen, but it will not be smudged. For beginning handwriting, don't worry about it. Stroke direction: For a lefty, it is more natural to write a horizontal line (like crossing a T) from right to left. However, most handwriting curriculums that incude direction arrows, have the horizontal strokes written from left to right, which is more comfortable for a righty. (Both the lefty and the righty tend to draw horizontal lines from the midline toward the hand in a pulling fashion, rather than pushing the pencil.) You can either require the stroke direction of your handwriting curriculum until it becomes automatic for your lefty, or you can choose to ignore the stroke direction of horizontal lines. Here are some thoughts on beginning handwriting: You can observe small motor control in coloring, drawing, dot-to-dot stuff without adding handwriting on top of it. That way you can see if something is a smal motor skill issue, or a lefty issue. I found that tracers did not work for my daughter. She could trace a row of letters beautifully, but then have no idea how to form the letter on her own. I taught letter formation in a sugar tray (a baking sheet covered with sugar/salt) before starting handwriting on paper. That way she was able to focus on how to shape one letter at a time and erasing was easy and fun. Plus, there are no lines to worry about. Only after she was able to form all of her letters comfortably did I transition her to paper. When I transitioned her to paper, she was already pretty good at forming the letters, so now we are working on placement and size on lined paper. Above all, go slowly. I hope this helps. DD2 is going to be the only righty in a family of lefties. We'll tackle that bridge when we come to it.

Are you a member of the RightStart yahoo group? There is a file in the group where you basically make only one of each set (ten triangle, hundred triangle, and thousands triangle) and use pre-printed versions of the rest, so there are only 30 actual triangles to glue. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/RightStart/files/ The file is Tens Fractal Pyramids.doc http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/RightStart/message/3671 Hope this helps.

Back when I made dairy yogurt, I'd add dry milk to the mixture prior to incubation to get the thick consistancy that I like. I'd use dry milk, regular milk, and some commercial yogurt as starter. I'd mix the regular milk and dry milk and microwave it to scald it. Then cool it, add the starter, and pop it into the yogurt maker. When I tried making soy yogurt, I did basically the same thing, except replacing the regular milk with soy milk and the starter with commercial soy yogurt, and leaving out the dry milk. (I didn't know that dry soy milk powder exisited and I haven't seen it in local stores.) The result would look okay when I took it out of the yougurt maker, but would fall apart after sitting in the fridge. I tried mixing in different thickening agents, like tapiocia, but it would separate. I tried straining it in cheesecloth, and that was better consistancy, but it was too bitter afterwards. That's all I remember.

I hope someone answers with an easy recipe, because I've tried making soy yogurt and I can't get it to come out right. With dairy yogurt, I'd add dry milk, but I can't do that to soy yogurt.

I'm probably in the minority here. I started trying to train my kids to watch tv in the mornings before breakfast when they were one year old. We also have a standing movie time at 5pm when I cook supper. Then the kids also get to watch whatever we (DH and I) want to watch that comes on before bedtime. I figure that while tv and movies are not as good as interactions with a person, I am not willing to provide live human interaction before breakfast or when cooking supper, so I use the tv as a babysitter at those times.

Go for it. I am trying to teach myself piano, and it's been fun. I'll never play well, and I don't want to. I just want to be able to play a few Christmas carols for the family to sing together. A year ago I didn't understand a note of music and couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Now I can do recognizable renditions of several songs from my textbook. I'm finding that it takes a lot of practice - a few minutes every day. However, having an inexpensive electronic keyboard makes it easy to slip in a few moments here and there.

It sounds like you are making the right decision for your son for *right now* for the reasons you mention. It might not be the right decision for your son next year, or the year after that. Or maybe it will be. However, you have plenty of time to decide about the future in the future. My daughter also just finished up a year of preK at a private school. She is a very social kid, and she loved it. I also enjoyed the kid-free time I got. However, I will be homeschooling her for kindergarten, because we believe that it will be best for our family overall. However, I have not commited us for beyond kindergarten. I am looking forward to this first year of homeschooling to "test the waters". If I don't give homeschooling a chance, I know that I will always wonder what it would be like.

I'd take the food away. Loss of a snack won't cause a kid to starve. I'd also remove access that type of food, explaining that "since you can't eat that type of food responsibly, you can't have any of it for the rest of the day," and then provide only non-messy, boring snacks for the rest of the day, like plain bread. You might also get your kids to police each other by stating that *everyone* will be restricted to the boring snack if *anyone* takes food out of the kitchen. I'd also clearly state which foods are allowed out of the kitchen and why and when. Each time we have food in the living room, I'd restate that it's a special occassion and an exception to the general rule. If you want to be less restrictive about drinks, you could allow plain water in a container with a lid outside the kitchen. (I'm thinking sippy cup or sport's bottle.) That way, it's a boring, but healthy drink, unlikely to spill, but easy to clean if it does.

A neighbor has *washable* dry erase markers for her pre-school kids.

The main thing that keeps my kids quiet during church is snacks, usually a small bag of cereal.

My dad had me memorize poetry when I was a child. I didn't like doing it. I forgot most of the poems within days or weeks of when I had finally "memorized" the completed piece. I don't remember any of it now. Because I had a bad experience memorizing poetry myself, I won't be having my kids memorize poetry. It's a shame.

I like the FIAR and similar lists. When looking for picture books at the libarary, I "browse the spines" looking for the little stickers that indicate if a book is an award winner of some type. In general, I go for reading lots and lots of picture books versus hoping to find just the gems. I check out more picture books than I expect to read. I then pre-read them at home before reading them aloud to my kids. Here are some books that I stumbled across at the library that I don't hear others mention, yet struck a cord with me for their gentle handling of difficult subjects: "The Other Side" by Jacqueline Woodson and E. B. Lewis A lovely book about a friendship that breaks a racial boundry. "Tomas and the Library Lady" by Pat Mora and Raul Colon A true story about Tomas Rivera and the library lady who helped him to love books. The book is a snapshot of his childhood as a migrant worker, but the author's note at the end explains how he grew up to be a university chancellor. "The Lotus Seed" by Sherry Garland and Tatsuro Kiuc Historical fiction, a multi-generational story about a Vietnamese girl who flees Vietnam for America. "Marvelous Mattie" by Emily Arnold McCully A biography of "The Lady Edison". A great book for budding inventors and discussions about life in the 19th century.

I just discovered that my library has a decent selection of books on CD. I like the idea of audio books, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Do you allow your kids to play loudly or in a different room during the audio book? How long to you play the book - one chapter a day? more? less? Do you listen to the book too? Do you progress through the book in order, and then you're done, or do you replay some chapters? I guess that I need to find a way that works for my family, but I'd like to hear how others manage it.

It could be a scalp thing. With a barrette or clip, a small portion of the hair is pulled back, but most of the hair hangs naturally. However, with a ponytail, all the hair is pulled back so that the hair strands point up instead of down. Sometimes when I put my hair in a ponytail when I haven't for a long, long time, the change in the hair direction feels weird / uncomfortable for a while until I get used to it.

We use cloth napkins. We go through *lots* of napkins every day. The girls (4 & 2) are constantly needing fresh napkins. DH and I usually share napkins with the girls. The girls like clean napkins for each meal. Plus, they eat a lot of snacks on a napkin. Plus, they still spill a lot. I usually leave used but still clean napkins on the table to reuse, but the girls are constantly getting fresh napkins out anyway. The napkins started out red. Now they have faded to a dull pink. If I had to do it again, I'd get a different color (but not white).