Oh! That is so gross. I'm guessing that this is *not* one of the advantages of "being disorderly".:lol: Sorry I'll go back to lurking now! (not in a creepy way I hope)

I couldn't count but I know it is alot. DH and I joke that in our house the bathroom is the only room in the house without books. Some families *only* have books in the bathroom. :001_huh: We have 12 bookshelves although some are not full. Hmmm. Maybe I'll fill them for next school year!!!

Praying for your friend that it will soon be a happy time of getting to know the baby!!

Hi Ballzy I have used SWR in the past and looking at your post made me start thinking. I would say keep going since that is the advice I heard so much when I was on the yahoo group but the ladies there might have different suggestions. If there are no other posters with additional advice and information I would suggest signing up for the SWR yahoo group. They would be able to help you out. They *know* SWR and can point you in the right direction. Here is the link.....I hope it works! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SpellToWriteAndRead/ HTH Once

Thanks LizzyBee I actually went looking for your post after the news of the Hopkins family. Good to hear the news that she is a little better. Praying for her!

Praying here too. They are a wonderful family!

WOW That is a great sale! My kids love the Sum Swamps game and SWR users could use the clock face stamps. Iguana Factor is a good multiplication game. Those things are not on sale though. I guess it is their end of school year sale. Welcome to the board PenKase!! I hope you enjoy the helps. Once

I agree with the above post. It really depend on the child. My Dd hated it and I felt very artifical doing it. We went with SWR. It is a bear to learn but once you "get it" you can use just the phongrams to teach all through the day whatever you are reading or writing. I have heard others rave about 100 EL so it must work with one type of learner. Visual maybe....which my daughter is not. Sometimes you just have to try something if you are not sure and see if it works especially with the younger ones. Chalk it up as experience if it does not and try something else. It is inexpensive so the risk would be small. HTH

I would get rid of alot more than what was comfortable. A few favorite books fine but alot of what I kept I wish I had ditched. The books just sit there and collect dust....and I paid $2.50 a pound of my own money to move them three times!!! I am the type of person that will always have a favorite new book and very few do I revisit (except for the bare minimum of kids school books and my Bible and journals). I could have bought a whole lot of new books at that rate. As far as clothes, I have mostly second hand so I wouldn't take any more than what I could pack in a suit case. I would keep my pots and pans but then again they are very special to me. I have copper that would be hard to replace. I hate my disware...some is chipped from moving and some is missing from being broken. I would not take furniture. It is very heavy and styles change so much. But I do not have any family heirlooms so that gives you some perspective. I have been teased by my friends for a long time for being very spartan. I do not have lot of extra unused stuff in my house as it is and I tend to not attach to stuff (We have few pictures and scrapbooks). I understand that I maybe unusual that way. I have moved alot in my married life and had to pack and unpack all by myself. We paid for three moves across the country and one across a border. We left alot behind each time but I never regretted it. Go light is my advice. Life is too short to dwell on the stuff. God provides!

My best advice is to sell everything. Do not pack it up. It is expensive to move to another country and I shutter to think of all the old stuff I have that could be new today if I had just left it behind. JMHO!

I am praying here too! Keep us updated.

My first wants to be a dress or a house designer. My second wants to be a zookeeper. He has never wavered on this one and it was one of Dh's secret wishes for himself. My third wants to swim with the dolphins and sharks. His second choice is a firefighter. I'll be proud of them all no matter what!!!! :001_smile:

Three for me! Very cute.

WOW! That site has a lot of interesting stuff! Thanks!

This is a great way to spend time with your little ones. Have a wonderful Easter! http://www.annieshomepage.com/resurrectioncookies.html HTH

Empty???? No seriously I think I have a meringue (sp?) recipe. I'll go look it up. There's a little story that goes with it and you bake it the night before.

Plain rubbing alcohol takes off even sharpie markers. Our gets sparkly white when I use it.

This is all very helpful. Thank-you. I looked on the other thread for some info and suggestions. They were helpful too. I have to go for now but I am putting this out for anyone to reply. I will be back tommorrow!! Would you or do you play logic games with your younger kids (8 and 5yos? Assuming that they like them and that it is not pressured. I think I know where I stand on this, if the kids like 'em why not. But I am curious if others have choosen differently. What are your thought and is there some reason to not do it yet. I would not consider myself strong on the Classical side but I see it has worth for an overall pattern to child intellectual development. Where do games fit into all this? Do you? Do you not?

The kids fight at other times too but it is worse during game time. What confuses me is that they can play a game peacefully without me *during the day*. I have been laying down the law about the quibbling and that has minimized it recently. But it still rears it's ugly head during games *at night*. I'm starting to think a game night would not be a good idea now. Maybe we should do game days after school time. But then the baby is up and playing with all the pieces and taking stuff and gennerally being strong a strong headed two year old. Sorry for the rambling.... I noticed the other thread from this morning so I'm ging to go look at that one too. As usual, I am 12 hours behind all the other smarter moms!:001_huh:

I will pray for you !

This is good Whisperlily. I do like that rolling face. Makes me really smile. We do the same things. Informally and prearranged. Together and separate. Except we do not order the pizza and eat popcorn. Dh and I notice that arguing is very common. They do not argue as much at other times....even when they have started a game on their own. But if I am there it is all out war sometimes. They fight about what game we will play ...who gets what colored game piece......who sits where....etc. I think family games are a great forum for learning these skills but I'd like it to be peaceful *sometimes*. I'm thinking I am missing some key piece of knowledge (aside from the one that says kids will be kids):glare: I know when my kids play games by themselves that my oldest daughter "takes over". I am not that personality so my approach is very democratic. I wonder if a more formal approach would work for this or just make it another chore to do.

Just throwing this out there. I am curious and thinking of starting a regular one but have a few hitches to work through. If yes, how do you do it? I know this sounds dumb but read on.:confused: What do you do with children that have large differences in ages, bedtimes, interests, etc? What do you do with your *intense* personalities? Intensely competative or sensitive? Would you do it alone without DH if he was not interested? If you only have time for one game, how would you decide? Do you play educational games or just fun ones? What if your kids liked logic games and they were in grammar stage? I'm all ears ladies. Let 'er rip! :bigear:

My son *loves* his Sticker Pedia book. It has about 200 stickers of various dinos and a short paragraph discription of each with info about where and when each lived. There are size pictures to compare a person with each dino and lots of other cool stuff. There is a Cd ROM for the computer that you can print off all the pictures too. Right now, it is his self assigned copy work. :001_smile: They are cheap between $10-15. HTH

This is really the answer from someone who does not know....so I will be watching replies. I really just wanted to subscribe to this tread. My understanding of HOD is that it is very Charlotte Mason style. Meaning living books savored slowly. Short lessons expecting high quality. Copywork to help with spelling but there are spelling lists too. It is a clearly Christain curr. that uses biblical passages through out several subjects. You open the book and go. I have heard that Carrie does a wonderful job helping you "eat an elephant one bite at a time". To see - go to the website and poke around. http://www.heartofdakota.com/ It is very user friendly. Start by placing your child on the chart according to skills and look up the determined level. There is a week of lessons for each level given as an example. TOG is very Classically minded. History, rigor and Latin. The TOG has several binders that are very large that give alot of information to the teacher. You buy TOG (one of four levels) and use it in a 4 year cycle until graduation. The teacher helps are smattered through out along with activites to do that are related to the history covered. Bible is covered through out. There is a book list for several ages and abilites and worksheets you are allowed to copy. Think rigor.....this is why people like it. It is a very full program meant to last for your family a full twelve years (provided you buy the four levels). http://www.tapestryofgrace.com/tog_fast/index.htm Again, I have not used either so this is just an overview. All I know I have looked up on-line. Please, if there are any HOD and TOG users out there with more info than I know, I would appreciate it too. Trina

I couldn't stop my daughter from reading it! Not that it would want too it is great stuff. The activity book is a must as it gives you lots of maps, hands on stuff and questions for narration. It is for younger children but I wish sometimes that there would be more of how life was back then rather than the wars. I do like the fact that the whole world is covered. So for example. We are doing the Middle Ages. What do you think of????...castles right. But we are on lesson 16 of 38 and we are just beginning the castle parts. I think that all the previous posts are great. I just wanted to chime in with an "I second that".