NRSV

2 of my 3 are still in pajamas right now. So, yeah, we don't much care. I remember when my stepmother first started homeschooling my little sister (many years ago), she actually took her to a store that sells school uniforms and picked some out for her to wear at home while they did school. The people at the store clearly thought she was insane. She doesn't do that anymore, 3 kids later; I don't think it lasted long :).

Thanks everyone! I think I'll hold off until next year, and I will definitely take a look at the programs you guys have mentioned. Spelling Workout was my default choice, but I'll look into the others, too. Both DS8 and DS6 have been begging me to do spelling bees for them (dorks! ;)), so I think I'll try to start doing those, or some variation, using the ETC words for the 6 yo.

What about giving him a visual to illustrate it? Like draw a line next to a square on a piece of paper and ask him, "how many of these squares can you fit in this line?"

Right now for language arts, my six year old is doing Explode the Code 3, reading out loud to me, First Language Lessons, and WWE 1. I bought All About Spelling for this year, but we both hated it, and it was a giant time suck, so we gave it up. I keep meaning to add a spelling program back in, but do I really need to? I was flipping through spelling books at Barnes and Noble this weekend, and it really seems like a lot of it would be similar to what he's already doing in ETC. His spelling is decent, as long as it's a word it's pretty easy to get a grip on phonetically. His reading is coming along, but he still has a way to go before I send him off on his own with a chapter book or anything. So....thoughts? Will I destroy him forever if I hold off on formal spelling until he's a stronger reader? My older son is such a natural speller that I haven't done a formal spelling program with him in years, but I suspect this one is going to need a bit more work with it. TIA!

Barefoot Book of Pirates Not really a classic, but a collection of pirate stories from around the world

I'm pretty sure that when I was in grad school, the library had a policy that the person who had the book on a long term loan had to return it if someone else requested it. That's how I remember things, at any rate, though it's been awhile....maybe you could ask if they have a policy like that at your library.

Toys R Us has all their Playmobil stuff 20% off right now. I just bought the pyramid for $83 today at the store. If I had ordered it from the website, it would have been $90something with shipping, but still cheaper than I've seen it anywhere else.

Depends on the friend, but generally $10-15. We might go up to $20 for a close friend.

I haven't bought long pants there in awhile, but I always found H&M pants to be designed for the long and skinny--which makes sense, since it's a Swedish company. I don't know if they've Americanized their sizing lately, though. They also generally have adjustable waists.

Last I heard, the organizers' updated estimate is 600,000 to 700,000 thousand, which they say they got by comparing crowd photos from past events. Wonder if they're comparing crowd photos based on the official estimates of past events or the organizers' estimates ;).

1.2 million is NOT an estimate from the police. It's a rumor that got on twitter and spread like wildfire.

Really? It was the top story on CNN's homepage for much of the day. Even the organizers of the protest who were originally spreading the false 1 to 1.5 million rumor (misattributed to ABC news) have backed off of that claim and admitted they were in error. The only vaguely "official" estimate is the 60,000-70,000 figure from the DC fire department, but that's actually not official, either, as they've said that whoever gave the number to the media wasn't authorized to do so. It is, of course, pretty standard practice for event organizers to inflate numbers at these things. Go through the Wikipedia entry on DC rallies and you'll see that anytime there is an official number, it's much lower than the organizers' estimate. Now me personally? I'm still waiting for CNN to report on the new poll that shows 70% of doctors support a public option. Bias is very much in the eye of the beholder.

bookadventure.com

I'd put it aside for now and focus on her reading for awhile, and then come back to it and try again when her reading takes off. I personally don't worry if "grade levels" don't match up in different subjects (my oldest is doing FLL 4 but still finishing up Writing with Ease 2), but if you want to stay on track, you can easily do FLL 1 in under a year. It takes a school year or so to finish if you do 3 lessons a week, so you could just do it 5 days a week if you wanted to go through it faster.

Last year we read two that I remembered from when I was a kid, The House Without a Christmas Tree and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

About 1900 sf for 5 of us. We have 4 bedrooms, but we're only using 3 of them as bedrooms (1st floor master is our school/playroom). It's a very good size for us.

Staying on property is totally worth it to us. We tried off property last year, and it just wasn't the same. Of course, some people swear by it, so it all depends on the person. We get 2 connecting rooms at Pop Century--during the off season, that's about $160/night.

I'm talking about the lesson itself, and comparing it to something like Singapore. It's not necessarily more time consuming for the student, but it is for the parent, because it's scripted and I have to sit there with him the whole time and can't be helping another kid at the same time. I have three, so it's something I have to think about. My older son does Singapore, and I spend a few minutes going over the lesson with him and then he does it on his own.

I've been using it for a few weeks now with my 6 year old, and we love it. I held back from getting it for awhile because I was worried about how time intensive it looked. It IS pretty time-intensive, but it's worth it, IMO. He's really getting all the concepts quickly, and he's enjoying it a lot.

Yeah, that's what I do with my six year old. I just repeat his answer as a complete sentence as a model for him and have him repeat it.

My DH is a public high school teacher without a degree in education (he was a math major). At least in "critical need" fields like math and science, it's usually fairly simple to get certified without an education degree. He didn't even take any classes in education; just did a one year "mentorship" program while he was teaching. He taught for a year with a provisional certificate by just passing a couple of tests. I was in grad school in an English ph.D. program before I had kids. Had I finished and gone on to teach at the college level, I would have had much more teaching experience (I taught 3 semesters of freshman writing, was a teaching assistant for one semester, tutored ESOL, and would have done more had I continued) and "training" (a one semester seminar on pedagogy and a 2 day workshop before each year started) in education than my husband did when he started teaching high school.

My son has been working through Life of Fred: Fractions in the evenings with my husband, who's a high school math teacher. I knew my son was enjoying it, but I didn't realize how much DH was, too, until he came in last night and announced, "Life of Fred is great! All my students should be doing it!" Then he started reading over the website about the upper level books and really getting his math geek on :) "That's a PERFECT way to explain functions!" "Modern geometry--ooh, cool!" etc. So there you have it: both mathy eight year olds and their math-loving fathers wholeheartedly recommend Life of Fred.

Ours is up!

He's not basing this on any evidence from the study. He's basing it on his own assertion that the SAT is an accurate measure of critical thinking abilities and achievement tests are not.