Treat your cat with at least two doses (two weeks apart) of pyrantel pamoate (Strongid). Roundworm transmission is fecal oral, so your kiddos can get it if they touch cat's behind and then chew fingernails, for example, but it is really rare. In humans, the larva undergo aberrant migrations and so kids have been found with larval migrans in their retinas and other places. Have them wash their hands well after playing with the cat and see your pediatrician if you are concerned.

I am in Minnesota and know plenty of people who have used Mayo. They are great and I would go there in a heartbeat for anything complicated. Be prepared to "wait" for an appointment, it may be months so get on a list now. Also, if you are looking for hotels, the Kahler Inn and Suites is right there and offers free parking and breakfast, which is very hard to find in Rochester. And if you happen to be there the weekend of April 15-17, you will be there for the state homeschool conference. So book hotel early because Rochester has lots of conferences, etc. that keep the hotels busy.

We have IB in many middle and high schools here in MN. edwatch.org has quite a few interesting articles on the program if you have time to read. IMO, if you value national sovereignty it may not be the program for you. If that is not an issue for you then it is considered to be academically rigorous. I have problems with the whole Earth Charter, multiculturalism, lack of classics (too many dead white guy authors) kind of stuff attached to this program.

Be thankful you're not a horse, we'd have to shoot you! :D

writingfoundations.com has online courses Excellent teacher (we have taken her courses live) based on IEW type format. Check out her website for more info.

I have read most of the series out loud to dc 11, 9, and 7. We are currently in The Dry Divide, the second to last book if I am counting right. This is a tremendous series. I put "gosh" if a character says OMG. I don't recall any GD references but there are a few harsh characters in some of the stories so I could be mistaken, but usually I am very sensitive to language. I would give it another chance.

Technically, cats really don't need baths because they are good groomers. If a cat is sick they may not groom themself as well and may need some additional help, but then they should also be brought in for a check-up.

That's true. But for us in MN, it would be a local issue. We have 13,000 lakes and the states used as examples above may have local scarcity of water resources (like I know the largest lake in GA is man-made) and the water shortage for the San Joaquin valley has something to do with state environmental regs and the protection of smelt, right? So I don't think it is automatically a federal issue either, it can be, but it doesn't have to be.

My ds9 loves the game Memoir (overpriced board game made for two) that has lots of add-on packs all surrounding WWII battles and strategy. He has also checked out EVERY book on the subject including ones that had a pic or two of holocaust victims...we were very open on this as we had distant cousins that died there and also others that came here because of the persecution. I also let him watch The Longest Day (WWII) and Sergeant York (WWI) and lots of History Channel documentaries which are usually really well done.

So I shouldn't suggest Beau Brummel?:lol: Sorry, but I expect people to post funny things to serious questions sometimes. There are just too many quick-witted individuals on this forum.

I'll add it to the list:lol:. I've read the Title 13 sections that they quote on the form and they give Congressional authority for the survey to be taken but I still think the language regarding it being mandatory for me to fill it out is very ambiguous. I called the Census Bureau and the gentleman I spoke with could not tell me which Federal law I would be breaking by refusing to answer the questions. I will definitely let them know how many people are in our dwelling but not much more than that. I guess I just wanted to know if I was the only rebel out there;), thanks for all your responses.

Exactly.

I've only read through the first four pages or so and already the questions seem rather intrusive. Why is it important for the federal government to know how many bathrooms we have or how many miles my dh commutes? Does anyone else have a problem with this? I am planning on sending in something to abide by the law concerning the Census but this seems over the top in so many ways.

We did San Diego to SF in 12 days and that included trips inland to Edwards AFB, 3 days in Sequoia, up to Yosemite, through Sacramento, etc. Some great FREE tours included Guide Dogs for the Blind (just north of SF in San Rafael) and Jelly Belly (also north of SF a little in Fairfield). By far the highlights were the diversity of the terrain (Mohave Desert vs. mountains vs. beach) and swimming at Newport Beach. We were the only ones in swimsuits in the morning (being landlocked Minnesotans) while everyone else had wetsuits with boogie boards, and that was in August.

The Estate Tax is one of the most egregious there is. I did hear somewhere that Congress already has a "retroactive" reinstatement of this tax in the works. So even if you die and leave your company to the children, or whatever, they will come back to steal, ahem collect, what they think they deserve from your hard earned lifetime of work.

Our local PS uses it, many in MN do use it. The parents I know hate it. I have a friend who is a principal at a local PS and was "impressed by the great marketing":confused:. Another friend teaches high school math and college math and he can't stand that the elementary school uses EM, thinks it is awful.

I am familiar with it as a sweetener in sugarless gum. It is toxic to dogs and cats. Beyond that, I know nothing.

Need more details to answer this adequately but... Math, Language Arts, Bible....that would be bare bones. Let them delve into history and science that they are interested in if there is an "overwhelming" factor here. Latin and Logic are extras. Music, art, PE, all extras. I use Saxon Math and Rod and Staff grammar...talk about boring! Spelling Workout F is the 6th grade level. And Read, read, and read some more, and then write, write, write at will.

Why not just serve Pigseye beer?:lol::lol::lol:

I actually use both science programs simultaneously. I've used all four years of GD and we are recycling through the biology stuff this year. I've added in Apologia's land animals and botany this year as well. Next year will be Earth Science again, so I am planning on GD for half the year and Apologia Astronomy for half. My eldest will be in Apologia General next year. She is doing an outsourced Bob Jones Science 6 this year with a local co-op in prep for that. I plan on using Apologia for most of our high school courses unless something even better comes along by then. I have an undergrad degree in pathobiology and a veterinary degree (so I have lots of science but I don't like teaching it;)) and I think my dc will learn a lot more than I ever did through high school.

I have a suggestion. We did this for our friends whose parents were babysitting their 3 kids for a whole week! Their parents are probably older and little more fragile than your in-laws. While the grandparents were there, we had the kids come over for long playdates every day (us and another family) to give the grandparents a daily break. So they still had the kids for dinner and to put to bed and breakfast, but the rest of the daytime hours they were occupied elsewhere. Maybe you could arrange that with a couple of friends?

I understand, I tend to drop subjects during the year rather than add them! :D R&S 5 is fairly hefty compared to PS 5th grade English, although the PS students are probably doing more book reports. Why not have your 5th grader write a paragraph a week on a history item that interests them. For example, if you are doing Ancients and are in Greece, have them write a summary about the Olympics or somthing else from your study that week that they find interesting. You are the editor so go through it with them and help them choose better vocabulary, eliminate passive sentence structure, increase sentence variability, etc. Then they put their final draft in their history notebook.

I have two natural spellers and one not so much:001_smile:. I still have them go through all the levels of SWO, my eldest is in currently in G, as they learn latin roots, prefixes, suffixes, etc. and I add in Wordly Wise for vocab. They also get vocabulary through an outsourced IEW class. After SWO H I plan on going to Vocab. Roots or whatever that program is called.

We are using Flying Creatures in our Co-op this year, so I don't do anything with that but we have the book. At home, this was a biology year so we spent the first 8 weeks on Human Anatomy, now we are in the Land Animals of the 6th day, we do one lesson a week and some of the experiments, in the Spring we will do Apologia's Botany. Last year, during our Physics year using God's Design, we also read the Swimming Creatures book for fun but we did not do the Ocean Box.

What level are you looking at? I've used R&S 2 through 6. The writing assignments are thorough enough but not that exciting. I outsource an IEW class for 4th and 5th grade where the dc are writing fables, narratives, essays, and summaries. I think R&S covers the mechanics of writing fairly well, but I would still have dc writing other assignments related to history or science as well.