Our plan is to stay in Georgia and hope the money doesn't run out for the HOPE grant (free tuition at in-state colleges if you maintain a B average. Lottery money). When I mention the possibility of a fourth, DH always says we can't afford to send four kids to college. "Umm, sweetie? We can't afford to send ONE kid to college," I remind him. At least if we had another, the current batch would be all the way through by the time s/he was ready to go.

Thanks everyone! I bookmarked your blog, Satori--very nice! Well, I put a bunch of stuff in my Amazon cart and was surprised to discover just how fast I can go through $200 :eek:. I haven't actually bought anything yet, but I've got some of the "You Wouldn't Want to..." books, Black Ships Before Troy, a book of Roman myths, a pyramid excavation kit, a couple of Jim Weiss CDs, and a few other things in there. I didn't mention before so as not to unnecessarily complicate my post, but I did Ancients with my oldest when he was in kindergarten, so I have a good many books left from that (some of which we used, some of which I saved for the next time). So I already have several books that have been mentioned here, too. Thanks again for all the suggestions--I'm getting excited about next year!

...what would you buy? I'm not sure yet how much I'm actually going to spend, but just for the sake of discussion :) I'll have a 4th grader and a 2nd grader (with a 4 year old tagging along, as always). I'll get some books from the library, but our library's not so great. Books, activity kits, CDs, whatever...tell me all your favorites please!

Ours is up! Off to read now!

That's about the same level my DS6 is at, and I plan to have him continue through the rest of the Explode the Code books (he's on 4 now).

Ah, but I trust you think there have been some things that have happened since then that are also worth learning? You can insist on the importance of maintaining the old while also acknowledging the usefulness of the new? I'm just messing with you, really--I've seen in past threads that "language evolves" isn't going to convince you on this point. Which begs the question....oh, wait, no it doesn't. Seriously, though, while I believe the "new" definition of myth can be useful, I can't really understand not taking someone at their word when they say they weren't using it that way. At any rate, as far as I can tell, the worst thing we can accuse the OP of is saying that she doesn't believe the Bible is literally true.

You know, I just checked Dictionary.com, and they claim the first use of myth to mean a falsehood happened back in 1840. I think Bill's crusade against that usage is probably even more futile than my annoyance with people misusing "begs the question" ;) ETA: I hope no one is offended by my choice of the word "crusade" --either for religious reasons or because I'm giving it a meaning it did not originally have E(again)TA: "crusade" was first used in this figurative sense in 1786. Has THAT been long enough yet? ;)

The MMR is a live vaccine and has never had mercury in it.

Curriculum night--fun!! Yes, thanks--I'd love to take a look at it when you get it. Thanks--that's kind of what I was thinking might be the case. My goal for the past couple of years has pretty much been just to get him to stop hating history (and I've had some success), so I don't want to suddenly throw something at him that's TOO challenging. On the other hand, I think it's definitely time to start expecting something more out of him for history. Our library is....not the best, so I doubt they'll have the books, but I'll definitely take a look and see.

I'm trying to plan out history for next year. Tentatively, I'm thinking of doing SOTW 1 for everyone together and giving my oldest son (he'll be 9) supplemental work/reading. He's more a fan of science than history, so I'm considering using Joy Hakim's Story of Science (the parts that correspond with SOTW 1) for his extra reading (and then maybe having him do extra research/writing on the topics that interest him from it). With what ages have people used this successfully? He's a very strong reader, but has probably a pretty average background in science, and I don't want to frustrate him with concepts that are over his head.

Frog and Toad and Little Bear

This one always works well for me, and is really yummy: http://southernfood.about.com/od/chocolatecakes/r/bl30623p.htm The recipe they link to below it for "creamy butter frosting" is amazing, too. But then, is there anything more wonderful than buttercream frosting? no, there is not. ETA: I guess butter is out for you, though. Sorry. I was just kidding--the frosting is no good; you didn't want it anyway!

My SIL went to UNC Asheville, but it's been awhile (she graduated maybe 8 or 9 years ago?) I don't know a lot about it, but I know she had a good experience there. She majored in environmental studies and works as a naturalist at a nature center near us, so a similar field to what your daughter is interested in. I can ask her if she'd mind if I pass her e-mail address along to you or your daughter if you're interested.

I am, err, just about to finish Michael Pollan's Second Nature and will have a review up later today. Then I'll start Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith, which I read about right here on this very message board.

I missed this part my first time through this thread. I guess I think with any really great literature, poetry or not, reading and reading and reading again IS how you get the most out of it. Or at least reading very carefully. So reading a poem, which demands that you read carefully to get any value out of it at all, is excellent training for reading a longer work, where you could skim the surface and still get the idea, but will have to do much more careful reading to really analyze it. Reading prose really shouldn't be easier than reading poetry; it's a different skill set, but there's certainly plenty of overlap.

As someone else mentioned, throwing out poetry means throwing out much of the Bible, Shakespeare, Homer, Milton...and on and on (not that Frost and Yeats and Whitman aren't losses enough). There's really no way to study literature without studying poetry. Our literary history is rooted in poetry. If one of the arguments for studying Latin or advanced math is that they train the mind, that they teach us to think critically, I'd argue that we can say that at least as much for poetry. Every word in a good poem is essential; one has to consider its meaning, its placement, and its sound to understand why it's there. Understanding poetry requires intense, careful, thoughtful reading--attention to the structure, the grammar, the rhythm. Parsing a poem can be a rigorous exercise in critical thinking. I also think that the kind of close reading poetry requires is an excellent skill to apply when reading prose, where sloppy analysis can be gotten away with more easily. I guess I'm always a little mystified when I read poetry bashing on a classical education board; are people seriously questioning the value of Shakespeare and Homer? Or are those somehow not real poetry in some people's minds? Because it is poetry, and to read poetry well one has to, well....learn how to read poetry.

8 and 6 year olds get around 10 hours 4 year old maybe 10 1/2 to 11

This is the earliest I've ever finished mine, and I'm still only on page 4! http://kokotg.blogspot.com/2010/01/january-25-29-2010.html

We ordered from Ideal for our first chicks (then added in a couple more later that we bought locally). Don't have any real complaints about Ideal...one of our chicks was sick and died a day after she got here, and another ended up being a rooster (the sexing is only something like 90% accurate). But the ones we still have are lovely chickens. Mostly we ordered from them because they were about the only place we could find that didn't have minimums and would leave out the "males for warmth" if we didn't want them. They ship them priority mail, and then the post office calls you at 5 in the morning to come pick up your squawking box of fluff :). It's exciting.

Okay--good to know!

Would the other chickens beat up on the silkies, though?

They are....New Hampshire reds were developed from RI reds, I believe. They don't lay as well, but they're better meat birds (which doesn't help us out at all). Our two are complete opposites in personality. One is super friendly and curious, the other is our most skittish chicken and, umm, our dumbest. Poor girl.

We have five girls right now, but we're thinking of adding to the flock this spring, so I'd love to hear what everyone has and why they love them. Right now we have two New Hampshire Reds, a white leghorn, a barred rock, and a buff orpington. So I'm looking to add some different things. It looks like the minimum order for us (not near a city) from My Pet Chicken would be 8 chicks, so I'm thinking of ordering 8 and then keeping our 3 or 4 favorite ones and selling the rest when they get old enough to go outside. I'm looking for good layers with friendly personalities. New egg colors would be a nice bonus, too :)

Thanks again everyone! I've been reading through all the links (some I've heard of before, and some are new to me), and getting lots of ideas. I think I'm still leaning toward the reading schedule and Journey through the Bible book Audrey posted. Still looking over the Kay Arthur stuff. I found out that someone is publishing a NRSV kids' study bible that's going to be out in the summer, so I may look at that. IME, the more conservative denominations don't use the NRSV, so I'm assuming a study bible that uses it would work for us.

Is Right Start worth it? I ask myself that nearly every day ;). So far I've always answered yes, though. Like one of the PP, I've started setting the timer for 25 minutes with my six year old (doing RS B), because his attention span doesn't go much farther than that. What I'm really worried about is next year when I'm trying to do two kids at once. My oldest does Singapore and has always done fine with that, but RS works really well for my middle kid.