When my son took the PSAT as a sophomore, his reading score was at the 92nd percentile. I researched ways to help him improve and found this book on Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Reader-Erica-L-Meltzer/dp/1479224715/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452353689&sr=8-1&keywords=Critical+reading I could tell right away that it was helping him bc his scores on the practice tests were improving. We just received his PSAT scores and he is in the 99th percentile for reading! He only missed 1 out of 47 questions! He gives ALL the credit to that book.

Thank you - so the actual PSAT score doesn't really make a difference? In other words, someone who barely made the cut off has as good of a chance to be a finalist as someone with a higher score? If all the semi finalists turn in the paperwork, make good grades and submit a good essay, how do they choose? After reading the info again, it looks like students who do well are "commended", and those who make the cut off for the state are semi finalists. From those semi finalists, most will become finalists as long as they meet the requirements (regardless of how high their score is). Is that correct?

I understand that there will be a different cut off score for each state and making the cut off doesn't mean you are a finalist. I'm confused about how a semi finalist becomes a finalist. I know that to become a national merit scholar, you have to jump through a few more hoops, but are there more hoops to jump through to be a finalist?

Fat Brain Toys website has great recommendations for toys for each gender/age.

These are great ideas!!! Thank you!

My youngest is 10 and has been so sad since finding out Santa wasn't real. I think the hardest part for her is that her older siblings got to enjoy the magic of Christmas longer bc she was the youngest, but now that she knows, the "magic" is gone. We are still going to give Santa gifts and fill stockings, but she is still sad things "won't ever be the same". So, I've been trying to think of some other fun traditions for our kids. I thought a secret santa might be fun, and someone mentioned the "Christmas Game". Do any of you have fun tradition type ideas for older kids?

Saw this today and loved it! Well worth your time. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

Thank you for the compassion! I've been upset with myself all day for not asking for a local anesthetic before he started the incisions. I just assumed it was all standard procedure. When I go back in for the follow up, I'll ask why he didn't give me anything for the pain.

I went in today for a phlebectomy, and it was the most painful procedure I've ever experienced! He made 24 incisions up my leg to insert the numbing meds, and each one sent excruciating pain through my body. I usually handle pain pretty well, but I was in tears by the time it was over. Is that normal? I keep thinking he should have applied a local anesthesia before cutting into the veins, but he never even mentioned it as an option. Nitrous oxide would have helped too ( and a bottle of hard liquor)! All they offered was a piece of gum and a ball to squeeze to help with the pain. It felt like a medieval procedure with all the cuts and yanking out of the vein. It really was traumatic!! Is it supposed to be so painful???!!!

Like some of you, I really struggled for years thinking ps might be better for her than homeschooling. I didn't think she was getting a very good education bc every day there was a battle. I was constantly stressed and guilt ridden thinking she was behind, and that stress really hurt our relationship. I was on her all the time to do her work, write neater, take school seriously, stop procrastinating, etc. When she was old enough to take her school to her room to complete most of it, we were both happier. I put off working one on one with her bc it usually didn't go well, and I could count on at least one argument about something every time we worked together. One time she told me, "I feel like the only time you talk to me is when you have something to say about school!!" She was right and that only added more guilt and frustration. We decided to put her in public hs this year, and she is thriving!! She currently has straight A's, is adored by all her teachers, jumps out of bed in the morning to get ready for school, and the BEST part of all is that I'm truly enjoying our relationship now!! I like her - I REALLY like her (always loved her, of course). We laugh about her crushes and have long conversations about her day. I never have to remind her to do her schoolwork bc she is so motivated to impress her teachers. The other day she told me she wanted to join the academic team, and I literally had to scrape my jaw off the floor! I am so proud of her!! I wanted to write this to encourage those of you who feel like ps might be a better option for your children, but you're reluctant to turn over that responsibility to other teachers. I know it's scary, and you feel like a failure bc this homeschool thing is supposed to help you build a close relationship with your children and provide the best possible education with the most educational opportunities, blah blah blah. It's simply NOT TRUE for every child (or every mom)!

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/10/17/448323916/can-a-cancer-drug-reverse-parkinsons-disease-and-dementia?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2042 Just wanted to share!

your 14 year old son (just before entering public high school) asks you, "So, when is recess?"

I hadn't considered that his eyes may have gone back to the way they were before vision therapy. Ugh! I do think we need to get a thorough evaluation for him. His schoolwork is much harder for him than it should be. I did purchase Jungle Memory to help improve his working memory. I'm going to look into Seeing Stars. Thanks!

Great ideas! Thanks for the advice!

My son (12) gets so frustrated when copying from the board or another piece of paper! He told me he has to look back at the paper several times just to copy one word (part of the issue is he's a horrible speller). Copying from the board brought him to tears, so I started writing on a sheet of paper to make it a little easier. How do I help him? Is there something else going on? He "graduated" from vision therapy 3 years ago.

My son (12) is so frustrated when copying from the board or another piece of paper. He told me he has to look back at the paper several times just to copy one word (part of the issue is he's a horrible speller). Copying from the board brought him to tears, so I started writing on a sheet of paper to make it a little easier. How do I help him? Is there something else going on? He "graduated" from vision therapy 3 years ago.

You might want to look into buying a very old, cheap vehicle for his insurance. You can get liability only, and he doesn't have to drive that car if you would rather him drive a different one of your vehicles (he'll be covered for all the family's vehicles). -At least that's the advice my agent gave me. If you're trying to save money, you don't want to add him to a nice vehicle with full coverage.

Yes, I agree; however, I also believe they take the idea of Biblical purity to an unhealthy extreme. Nolongerquivering had this on her blog: Josh Duggar: How Purity Culture Created His Downfall http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/2015/08/josh-duggar-how-purity-culture-created-his-downfall/ "Since seeing a pattern emerging out of the wreckage of Josh Duggar’s life I’ve almost started to feel sorry for him. His scandals merely illustrate the troubling reality of what happens when a set of extra Biblical religious beliefs repress normal human sexuality. Modesty culture hurts men too. In his statement Josh is blaming what happened on pornography, which is not the entire truth. It’s the lifestyle his family lives, it is the poisonous belief system that women are solely responsible to keep men from lusting, it’s the teachings that sex is only for marriage and the reproduction of children, it’s his disgraceful parents groping and kissing each other in front of all the kids like hormone-addled teenagers while pushing the idea of all sexual thoughts, expressions or actions outside of the marriage bed are sin. What has led to his downfall is the natural result of a religion that treats sex like a disease. How many times on the Duggar television show ’19 Kids & Counting’ have we witnessed the Duggar girls spotting a female dressed in something ‘immodest’ by Duggar standards and uttering the word, “Nike†so that the boys know to look at their shoes? This is part of what the Quiverfull Fundamentalist movement does, assume that men cannot operate sexual self control in the presence of naked flesh. They reduce men to an animal nature." I bookmarked this article http://www.thomasumstattd.com/2014/08/courtship-fundamentally-flawed/ last year because so many of my homeschooled friends think courtship is the way to prevent divorce. If you believe courtship is a good idea, I think it's worth your time to read this opposing view on why courtship is fundamentally flawed.

Even if the gospels were written 10 years after the crucifixion, that is more than enough time for the legend to grow! Dan Barker wrote the following: The documents that contain a resurrection story[30] are usually dated like this: Paul: 50-55 (I Cor. 15:3-8) Mark: 70 (Mark 16) Matthew: 80 (Matthew 28) Luke: 85 (Luke 24) Gospel of Peter: 85-90 (Fragment) John: 95 (John 20-21) This is the general dating agreed upon by most scholars, including the Westar Institute. Some conservative scholars prefer to date them earlier, and others have moved some of them later, but this would not change the order of the writing [31], which is more important than the actual dates when considering legendary growth. Shifting the dates changes the shape but not the fact of the growth curve. I made a list of things I consider "extraordinary" (natural and supernatural) in the stories between the crucifixion and ascension of Jesus: earthquakes, angel(s), rolling stone, dead bodies crawling from Jerusalem graves ("Halloween"[32]), Jesus appearing out of thin air ("Now you see him") and disappearing ("Now you don't"), the "fish story" miracle[33], Peter's noncanonical "extravaganza" exit from the tomb (see below), a giant Jesus with head in the clouds, a talking cross, and a bodily ascension into heaven. Perhaps others would choose a slightly different list, but I'm certain it would include most of the same. Then I counted the number of extraordinary events that appear in each account: Writer Extraordinary events Paul: 0 Mark: 1 Matthew: 4 Luke: 5 Peter: 6 John: 8+ ------------------------------------------------------- * I think this (from Richard Carrier's lecture given at Yale in 2000) is enlightening as well: In 520 A.D. an anonymous monk recorded the life of Saint Genevieve, who had died only ten years before that. In his account of her life, he describes how, when she ordered a cursed tree cut down, monsters sprang from it and breathed a fatal stench on many men for two hours; while she was sailing, eleven ships capsized, but at her prayers they were righted again spontaneously; she cast out demons, calmed storms, miraculously created water and oil from nothing before astonished crowds, healed the blind and lame, and several people who stole things from her actually went blind instead. No one wrote anything to contradict or challenge these claims, and they were written very near the time the events supposedly happened--by a religious man whom we suppose regarded lying to be a sin. Yet do we believe any of it? Not really. And we shouldn't.[1] As David Hume once said, why do such things not happen now?[2] Is it a coincidence that the very time when these things no longer happen is the same time that we have the means and methods to check them in the light of science and careful investigation? I've never seen monsters spring from a tree, and I don't know anyone who has, and there are no women touring the country transmuting matter or levitating ships. These events look like tall tales, sound like tall tales, and smell like tall tales. Odds are, they're tall tales. But we should try to be more specific in our reasons, and not rely solely on common sense impressions. And there are specific reasons to disbelieve the story of Genevieve, and they are the same reasons we have to doubt the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection of Jesus. For the parallel is clear: the Gospels were written no sooner to the death of their main character--and more likely many decades later--than was the case for the account of Genevieve; and like that account, the Gospels were also originally anonymous--the names now attached to them were added by speculation and oral tradition half a century after they were actually written. Both contain fabulous miracles supposedly witnessed by numerous people. Both belong to the same genre of literature: what we call a "hagiography," a sacred account of a holy person regarded as representing a moral and divine ideal. Such a genre had as its principal aim the glorification of the religion itself and of the example set by the perfect holy person represented as its central focus. Such literature was also a tool of propaganda, used to promote certain moral or religious views, and to oppose different points of view. The life of Genevieve, for example, was written to combat Arianism. The canonical Gospels, on the other hand, appear to combat various forms of proto-Gnosticism. So being skeptical of what they say is sensible from the start.[3]

Love this quote about the weird stuff in the Bible: “You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?†― Dan Barker The weirdest part of the Bible, IMHO, is the fact that God didn't write it. He wrote the 10 commandments with his finger (Exodus 31:18), but he leaves the Bible up to man to write?? Wouldn't you want your holy book to stand out in the crowd? Why leave any doubt that it's from the creator of the universe? Jesus was (supposedly) God in the flesh with capable fingers and writing utensils, but he's not going to bother writing down (and preserving) any of his teachings himself? He thought it was a better idea to wait 40 years and have men who weren't even eyewitnesses write the gospels? How does this make any sense?

A couple of things I haven't seen on this thread that I think are interesting and worth trying - Intermittent fasting (for 12-14 hours a day) http://www.newsmax.com/health/Headline/mini-fast-Alzheimers-ketones-brain-health/2013/02/07/id/489390/ Kirtan kriya. Meditation for only 12 minutes a day http://www.anti-aging-articles.com/Kirtan-Kriya-Brain.html

For forty years, I found it pretty easy to cherry pick my way through the Bible. The Noah story didn't bother me all that much until 3 years ago when my daughter started asking questions about it. It was easy to take the view so many Christians take on this story - God is God, who are we to question his ways, etc., but she is the one who opened my eyes to the horror of it. She was looking at our big children's Bible at the picture of the ark and the raging waters when she asked, "Mommy, what happened to the people who weren't on the boat?" I replied, "Well, they drowned." Then it only took a second for her big blue eyes to tear up, and she asked, "What about the children??!!!" It was in that moment that I realized I couldn't do it - I couldn't teach her that a loving God drowns children and little babies. She knew that didn't add up, and I did too. There is nothing, NOTHING my children could do that would make me want to hurt them - let alone drown them! I'm sure you all feel the same way. How is it possible that we are more loving parents than God is??? That was the beginning of my deconversion. Not long after that, my son (9 at that time) told me he kept hearing voices in his head (we didn't know at the time that he had/has OCD). These "voices" told him to do various harmful things to himself to prove he loved God (jump off your bunk bed, hit your head on the wall 10 times, etc.). I was shocked that he thought God would want him to do such things and said, "God loves you! He doesn't want you to hurt yourself to prove your love for him!" My husband (not in front of our son) said to me later, "Why wouldn't he think this about God? God asked Abraham to KILL his son to prove his love/obedience, so it's not surprising that ds thinks God would expect him to do harmful things to prove his love." It was at that point that I stopped teaching the Old Testament to our children. As far as weird goes, how about Genesis chapter 30. Jacob's flock of striped goats is stolen, so he peels the bark off some branches (to make stripes) and puts them in front of his plain flock when they're mating. Seeing the branches makes their baby goats striped! Another story that always baffled me was the ascension of Jesus. Why did he float up into the clouds? Because that's where heaven is? I think the craziest Bible story award goes to the one in the gospel of Matthew (27) where the tombs are opened and the dead people walk around in the streets (zombies?!) after the crucifixion.

My sister found out after she had several miscarriages. Her dr. treated her during her next pregnancy with lots of folate and blood thinners. Her little boy was fine - actually, he is brilliant (due to meds?) I was tested too, even though I never had a miscarriage. I have it, but I can't remember the specifics. I've had some health issues and wonder if it's due to this mutation (premature menopause at 37, trouble with high blood sugar, joints are constantly popping, mild depression and anxiety).

I didn't say religion was the cause of her psychosis. Religion is the reason she believed a place like hell even existed in the first place! Religion is the reason she believed her children might end up there. Religion is the reason she believed an early death would save them from it. Taken from a transcript: (http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130284) But even in her confused state, Yates was clear about her motivation — killing her children was an attempt to save them from going to hell. Puryear: "What did you think would happen to the children when they were killed? What did you think would happen?" Yates: "In their innocence, they'd go to heaven." Puryear: "They'd go to heaven?" Yates: "Yeah." Puryear: "You were worried about them going to hell?" Yates: (Nods). Puryear: "You thought that was a possibility?" Yates: "I just thought since they were so young … (cries)."

I hate religion because it teaches that you have to believe something (without a shred of evidence) to avoid eternity in hell. That lady was mentally ill, but it was her faith that led her to believe that she was ultimately doing what was best by assuring their place in heaven. It's the same reason that a 9 year old (who is not mentally ill) hopes my daughter dies before she's 20.