:iagree: LeapFrog's Letter Factory is awesome. We also have Talking Words Factory and a few others. DD loves them all.

LOL, this sounds a lot like our house! I love staying home with DD and wouldn't change it for the world, but I can only take so much "playing" each day! There are a lot of hours in the day, just because we find some school things to do with our 3 yo's doesn't mean we're not playing, cooking, having playdates, going on outings, playing, reading, and playing some more with them, too! DD also has an active imagination and will often stay in character for school. Her favorite is to pretend a monster is after us, so we have to hide under the blanket while we read our sonlight stories. Then we use our MUS blocks to build a trap for the monster.

I just ordered Piano Party A for DD (4 next month) because she has been asking, scratch that, begging, for me to get her her own piano book and start teaching her. I spent some time checking reviews and other boards where it had been talked about and that seems to be the best book for starting with an under 5. But, I play myself, so I feel okay starting her out with just a little here and there in a relaxed way. Even being fairly accomplished on the piano myself, I don't plan on teaching her once she really gets going with it. We plan on starting her in lessons sometime in the next couple years. I agree with a previous poster that instrument instruction is one better done by someone else.

I hate when that happens! It recently happened to me with a lot of Critical Thinking Co books. I usually prefer to use buy it now. I rarely bid anymore. I never remember to get on right when it's ending.

We use All free and clear or Purex free and clear. It's what we use on our clothes, too. Tide is evil! (I'm *highly* allergic so I may be slightly biased :p ) Or we sometimes use soap nuts, but not often. I've always intended to make my own detergent, I just never have.

Yes, it happens a lot more than most people realize. Vaccines are not 100% effective. And as another poster commented, I think more of the vaxed cases go undiagnosed because they don't test for it as quickly as they would on a non-vaxed child. Last year DD and I both got pretty sick with exactly the same symptoms and presentation. They sent me home telling me it was just a virus and to get rest and fluids. But because DD wasn't vaxed, they immediately tested her for everything under the sun. Even though it was obvious that whatever we had, we had the same thing.

I love our Mei Tei. It was always DD's favorite to be carried in, too. Mine was from a WAHM from DS. I actually liked my wide shoulder straps that cupped my shoulder. I felt it spread out the weight better. Mine is reversible and one side has a large pocket. I didn't end up using the pocket as much as I thought I would, but it was nice to have. I debated having a hood attached, but decided against it. I never missed it. Definitely just make sure you reinforce all the seams and attach the straps very securely. That's why I didn't make my own, I wasn't sure how to do it to make sure it was strong enough. Now that I've seen and used one, I'd feel a bit better about it. But I'm just like that and do better with an example.

I think this is a great idea! I have a preschooler who WANTS to do school. I do not push her in any way, but I'm constantly looking for new ways to keep her interested and challenged enough to be content. We do a lot of play based stuff, but she also loves and *requests* lessons and workbooks. I always prefer to search for prior threads before starting my own, but there is so much to wade through on the k-8 forum. I click on thread after thread thinking it might be applicable, but then it's about 5th grade or something. Even just browsing, it's nice to read about things that will come up later and I do lurk in some threads dealing with older issues, but most of it is just not where we are. It would be awesome to be able to go straight to a preschool sub-forum and be able to browse through threads that have a lot higher rate of being applicable to where we are right now. I also like the idea of having a thread I post being seen by more people who are in the same place. The forums move so quickly that things get buried. I post about something academically related to my preschooler and chances are at least 90% of the responders are not into that. Ok, I appreciate your advice to just relax because it's just preschool, I know you are just trying to help. But I would really like to also hear from several people who are on the same page as me. But that's not very likely on a board that moves so quickly. Posting in a preschool sub-forum would ensure that you get more of the preschool people seeing it. And yes, there are a lot of other places on the net for preschool helps such as blogs and things of that nature. But that's not the same as being able to ask questions, carry on discussions, and bounce ideas off each other.

I use the term preschooler. I don't think it necessarily implies that she is attending preschool or that she will be attending ps soon. I don't think I really call her my preschooler, though. More a description of where we are in homeschooling. When I'm referring to her, I usually say my 3yo. If it was a homeschooling discussion, I'd probably say "I'm doing xyz with my preschooler" For next year, I've mostly been using PreK.

I had similar issues after having DD, along with extreme fatigue. I thought iron, but that checked out okay as did my thyroid. Mine ended up being a Vitamin D deficiency. I'm now on 50,000iu a week.

I love it in theory, but I often fail miserably. At one time I was FLYing really well and I loved it then. I do still try to implement her ideas. Setting a timer for 15 minutes really does make a bigger difference than you'd think. It really helps me to not get overwhelmed with bigger cleaning projects. The emails are a pain if you get them all, but when I was getting them I set it to digest so I only got one a day. If I cared, I could browse through it, if not it was just one to delete instead of dozens. Now I don't really use her system fully as intended, but I have learned to tweak certain parts so it works for me. I like the idea of zones, but I don't do a zone of the week for deep cleaning, deep cleaning rarely happens! Instead I have a zone of the day that I focus on a bit more than the others. And I zone my house my way, not hers, though it's similar. I also like the idea of morning and evening routines, but I put what *I* want on them. I think flylady really helped me when I was clueless as to how to make all this housekeeping stuff work and really needed my hand held. Once I got the hang of it, I dropped the specifics and can now use the ideas but do my own thing.

I've been using a Montessori-inspired method with DD for about a year and a half. Started when she was 2.5. I say montessori-inspired because it is definitely not all montessori, but I draw heavily from the ideas and presentation used in Montessori. Some stuff really is, some stuff closely resembles, and some stuff isn't at all, but is presented in the same way. I have a blog that gives an idea of our shelf activities, but I'm new here and I don't know if it's okay to post a link....? I definitely don't consider it 'set it up, leave it, independent work'. I work closely with DD the first time she explores a new activity. I have her watch as I do it, then I guide her through it as she does it. Once she understands how to do it, she works on her own, but I am always still right there. I may be reading or playing around on the computer, but I'm always very aware of what she's doing. She's pretty good about getting 1 activity, doing it, cleaning it up, and putting it back. But that took some practice and she still forgets sometimes if she spies an activity she didn't notice before that she becomes excited about trying. We sometimes use the mat on the ground, but she usually prefers to sit at her table.

I'm a Christian and anti-abortion. I don't consider a medical condition that risks the mothers life where the baby has no chance of surviving, an abortion. That's just getting medical attention. I had no idea it was even a question to anyone.

DD (almost 4) is on limited dairy and 1/2 dose miralax daily.

Yeah, now that I've finished the story and collected everything it's pretty boring. I was going to complete each potion once just because (I'm kind of a completionist), but after wasting time and energy on one and then feeling tied to my computer to watch the brewing time and then messing it up at the last second, I decided I was done. I've completed the practice potion and two others. The third was where I gave up and decided it wasn't worth it. I haven't been back on since. I do think I'll go back when Chamber opens because I did like reading all the extra little "read about"s.

I found it too annoying to be woken up in the middle of the night. I had minor complications from my c-sec, so we were there 3 days (my mw was going to send me home after a day if I felt up to it). For some reason their standard time to do baby measurements and such was 1am! They'd come in wheeling the cart with the scale and everything and basically do a full checkup in the middle of the night. The first night I let it happen because baby was awake having just woken up to nurse. She'd nursed enough to be happy but hadn't fallen asleep. The next two nights I told them sorry, she's sleeping, try again later. They didn't like it, but hey, she was asleep on my chest, what were they going to do, take her from me? :) I figured if it wasn't for my very minor complications keeping us there, she would be home with me that night, so they had no reason to check her out. She was cleared by the pedi to go home 24 hours after birth, so really they could have ignored her completely as a stay in guest of mine. Too bad they didn't see it that way! Your baby is beautiful, congrats!!!

I did finally get in! yay! I'm in Ravenclaw, ChestnutStorm 23601 Wand: Hawthorn, phoenix feather, 10 3/4", hard I'm having a hard time with potions, too. Not enough practice before it counts against house points AND you are wasting ingredients. This is one thing I think a regular mouse would be better for than a mac track pad.

My vote is for ASL, but I just love sign language! We have been signing with DD since she was born, so it's just part of our daily life, not so much an added school subject. We planned on doing French for school study, but I'm starting to think we should go with Spanish instead. ASL is just a given for us, we'll continue with that regardless of any other languages or if we stop homeschooling for whatever reason.

I'm so sad. It's been almost 9 hours and still no email that I can enter. If it's not in by the time DD goes to bed and I can actually check it out for a while I'll be miffed! I'm anxious to get the email now, but really I couldn't get on and explore now anyway.

I had ideas until you said no fantasy lol. In case you don't find any non-fantasy ones that totally grab their attention, I highly recommend the Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull. And Narnia, if you haven't gone there, yet.

How long did it take for you all to get your invitation to get started? I registered and got the confirmation email and followed that. Then it said I'll get an email when I can come back to get started. Minutes? Hours? Days? I registered this morning and still nothing.

My DD(3) loves it, but she only does the lessons about half the time. She often just plays in the playroom. The lessons are too repetitive for her, she gets bored. I actually did part of one lesson for her yesterday because she opened it, saw where she was and said nevermind. I knew she knew it so I just clicked through for her so she could go on. We bought our subscription through HSBC for much less than normal price. That was definitely worth it. I don't know if I would pay full price. At least not at this age when she doesn't consistently do lessons.

DD - PreK Sonlight P4/5 Science - Big bag of science experiments Math - Singapore EB (or MUS primer, or MEP, or just play. Still not 100%) Geography - geopuzzles and States and Capitals Songs Critical thinking - prek books from Critical Thinking Co Handwriting - HWT prek w/ stamp & see and chalkboard Phonics - ETC online Language - Song School Latin and Signing Time Plus Kumon workbooks and a lot of hands on activities and play

www.kellymom.com Herbs/natural treatments

I decided against vaccinating one vaccine at a time. I researched each one and weighed all the factors together. Ingredients, rare vs common disease, serious vs mild typical outcomes. I also factored in that DD would not be in daycare and was breastfed and that DH does not have high exposure to stuff (like say a nurse or doctor would). If you're unsure, I would recommend reading up about them so you can make a fully educated decision. It's not something that you can find your right answer by deciding whether to go with the doctors or family. There is no one right answer for vaccines. It depends on your specific circumstances, how you feel about the ingredients, and how you weigh the other factors. I started with The Vaccine Book by Dr. Sears and from there researched further where needed. I felt he did a pretty good job of giving a solid look at things without being drastically one way or the other.