OP: You are awesome! Your kids are so lucky!

I have purchased the Piano Wizard set, and I am incredibly NOT IMPRESSED. 1) One has to jump through several computer steps to be able to play, instead of just turning on and the keyboard to play. 2) The cheapo keyboard that came with it didn't even last a year. It's great value was in taking it apart with dd one night to see how keyboards are put together. The replacement keyboard we bought for $100 is of far superior quality to the one that came with Piano Wizard. ------------------------------------------------------ Do you have any music background of your own? If you do, then try to teach your kids yourself. 1) This is a second vote for "My First Piano Adventures." Buy both the lesson book and the writing book, and see how the two books coordinate very nicely. Your kids are a little older, so you may want one age group older than what dd5 has been using. 2) Games games games!!!! Last year's homeschooling convention had a workshop by a piano teacher who inspired us how to teach piano concepts with games. Unfortunately, her website is not as up-to-date as it should be. Beg your local convention to book her. MelissaWillispianostudio@gmail.com www.MelissaWillispianostudio.blogspot.com Look for Melissa Willis Piano Studio on Facebook. She has a little story that teaches kids all the names of the keyboard notes within the story! There is another game called "Race to Middle C" that is dd's favorite! 3) The Big Book of Music Games by Debra Olson Pressnall and Lorille Malecha also has games for music, but it is not as exciting as the games from Ms. Willis.

Reassure your son that LOTS of kids have this as an issue. And, yes, it IS confusing. They look alike but one is forwards and one is backwards!!!! Two ways I have taught this: 1) This will sound a lot more confusing that it really is: 1a) Teach child the spelling of the word bed: b-e-d. They need to do this orally before they write it. 1b) Now make two fists, thumbs inside. 1c) Bring the two fists together so the heel of your hands is touching and the upper part of your fingers is touching. Your hands are NOT clasped; they are just two fists touching. 1d) With fists still touching, raise both pointer fingers in the air. This is a "bed." Notice that the b is on the left, and the d is on the right. 1e) If child is confused about which letter is which, remind him to "Make your bed!" He has a reference he can take everywhere he goes. 2) This method is easier for me: 2a) Write b and d on the whiteboard/chalkboard/paper. 2b) Ask child which is which....and if they don't know, that is just fine. 2c) Using a different color (or writing implement), add an upper hump to the b to make it a B. You couldn't do that to the d and have it look right. I hope you find what works for you and your boy. Hang in there! I've taught many, many, many 5yos that outgrow this.

Yes, you were right about the law and homeschooling, but unfortunately, she was not in a place to hear what you had to say. An apology from her would be nice, but that is not your job. Your responsibility is for YOUR PART. If it was I, and I saw the mom next week, I hope I would be the bigger person, approach her, and say, "I'm sorry we disagreed last week. I feel bad about that." Say nothing about homeschooling. Say nothing about Kindergarten or Pre-K or the law. Just do your part to apologize and move on. If she brings up these subjects at this time, just smile and pass the bean dip. I would do this for the following reasons: 1) You DO feel bad about it. 2) Your children are taking lessons here, so you may see her often. You don't want a mortal enemy, when (other than this one disagreement), she may be a good friend and resource in the weeks, months, or years to come. 3) Your children are taking lessons here. Whether they are watching or not, this is a good time to model "bridge-building" behavior. Kids don't know these skills innately. They need a lot of examples and practice doing it. 4) Your children are taking lessons here and may be interacting with her children. You don't want your children's potential friendships put at risk by bad feelings of stuff between the parents. Dd lost her best friend this year because of this. The other mom was so mad at me that she barely spoke to me for over 6 months. It took me a long time to even know she was mad, and I had no idea why. For over a year now, there have been no playdates, no trips to the pool together, no birthday parties attended or other shared group activities. The only good thing about this is thegirls graduated from preschool and would have been going their separate ways for Kindergarten anyway.

What an excellent question! Here's where we are at: Dd is 5.5, and officially starting K this year. Last year, we worked through most of "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." At the end of each lesson, the child is instructed to write two different letters (random, but assigned). I always instructed dd to write 3 capitals and 3 lowercase for each letter. We used "learning to write paper" with the dashes in the middle. I circle and star the ones that are the best looking. There was also a lot of letter practice in Saxon Phonics K, which we just finished, so dd is very competent in writing letters. -------------------------------- This year we are hoping to do more copywork of sentences. We are using "Primary Arts of Language Writing" from IEW. Since dd is already a competent reader and writer of letters, we did not purchase the entire recommended set from IEW; just "Primary Arts of Language Teacher's Manual" and the Writing DVD-ROM that goes with it. Section 1: Writing Letters: 31 lessons We will skip to lesson 24 when they start writing words. Section 2: Copy Work and Style: 40 lessons "The daily practice will help make printing automatic in preparation for composition." We will do this. Section 3: Composition with Style: 16 weeks of lessons By this section, copywork has ended, and writing begins. As you can see, copywork has a very brief life in this program. Unrelated comment: I wish I had purchased the spelling program from IEW. I am nervous that dd does not have a traditional spelling curriculum for the next year. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perhaps the question is, "What do you want out of copywork"? If your goal, like in the bolded quote above, is to "make printing automatic," then you may not need a lot of copywork......or you may need to do extra until you feel your child has reached that goal. If your child enjoys copywork, and other necessary subjects like math or phonics or [fill in the blank] are still getting done, then you may want to do extra copywork. If you want to link copywork with spiritual training (bible verses) or philosophical thought (motivational or famous quotes), or memorization, you may do more copywork; or your copywork may have a different personality. Isn't is awesome that we can each tailor a specific education around our own child's and our own family's needs???

Here is what another mother (from a different thread) did for around the world studies. I have saved it for a couple of years in my "Curriculum plans" folder, and we will do it next year or the year after. This year we are doing states. Hi, My 7 year old son, 5 year old daughter and I are doing Country of the Week as our "social studies spine" in our homeschool this year. We gleaned the basic program structure from the Brightly Beaming website (thank you Katrina) and then built on from there. We are enjoying this year! For science each week we have chosen a plant and an animal which are representative of that country's flora and fauna (ie Bamboo and Pandas for China), On a page of "story book paper" (one can download this paper from Donna Young's free homeschool printables website), we have printed a picture of the plant on one side and a picture of the animal on the other, written facts about the animal/ plant on the lines below their pictures, three-hole-punched the page and placed it in a 1/2 inch binder (our "nature notebook") in the form of a two page spread. We also use DK's animals around the world sticker book for a fun review of animals and continents. Each week we listen to songs from the country we are studying on the "Wee Sing Around the World" CD. This exposes us to the language and music of that country. We do one craft each week from the book "Around the World Art and Activities: Visiting the 7 Continents through craft fun" by Judy Press. We try food from each country we study. Some of it hasn't gone over so well; but some the kids have really enjoyed. We try to play a game or do an activity from each country...I've asked some friends on Facebook who live in different countries to help me with that one :). For Japan we flew kites. For Mexico we made a pinata and busted it. For Brazil we played soccer... For story time we have been reading selections from "Around the World in 80 Tales" by Saviour Pirotta/ ill. by Richard Johnson, and DK's "Children Just Like Me" in association with UNICEF. I then give the kids short writing assignments (or oral assignments that I write down for them rather) such as "What if you lived in this child's country and were his/ her friend? What would you eat? What kind of house would you live in? What would you play with? What would you wear?", etc... I write their answers into separate special notebooks which I've labeled "__________'s Journey Around the World Journal" Oh! At the beginning of the year we made passports (little notebooks with dark blue cardstock covers and 1/4 sheets of plain typing paper inside) complete with a small photo and information about the child on the inside of the front cover. Each Friday, when we have finished studying a country, we go to the pretend "consulate" and see our "head official" (none other than my dh)and the kids report to him all that they have learned about the country. Then he solemnly takes stickers of flags from that country (from Dover "Flags of the World" sticker books) and affixes them into each of their passports as a "stamp". :) For math, spelling, and phonics we do our own workbooks/ games/ programs--we don't try to tie that in to the Country of the Week program. That's all I can think of for now. I hope that some of this post is helpful. Thanks! I like the idea of passports and the kids being expected to remember something at the end of the week. HTH

I'm ridiculously excited about this fall. I'm so excited, that even dd is excited about things we will do this fall! Besides math and phonics, I am hoping that we will be doing a state by state study for geography, learn Spanish, and read as many Caldecott winners (or Geisel winners, or Iowa Goldfinch winners) as we can! For unit studies, we will do an old Usborne system called "10 Terrific Weeks" for Apple Tree Farm, then for Ocean studies. I'm wiggling like a 5yo just thinking about it all!!!!

That's awesome!!!

I don't remember how long our ants took to arrive, but I know that I missed them on delivery day, and by the time I got them late in the day, only 3 were left alive. (Poor little critters!) My experience is that they DO ship in the summer. I'd telephone the vendor with your concerns, and telephone the post office, too. Maybe they can flag them at the post office, and you can pick them up if you know what day they are expecting them. I remember going with my dad first thing in the morning to pick up boxes of 50 or 100 chicks from the post office I wonder if they would do that for ants.

--Field guides to identify wildflowers The newest one that I like the best is this one from the Otter Side of Nature. Item #0106. There are many places you can find field guides similar to this one. http://www.ottersideofnature.com/cgi-bin/csvsearch.pl?mydatabase=db4&mytemplate=tp4&order_by=Item_No=abc --Books: See if your library has either of these. America's Prairies and Grasslands: Guide to Plants and Animals by Marianne D. Wallace Wildflowers, Blooms, and Blossoms by Diane Burns (Take-Along Guide Series of books) --Field trip to local nature center or nature event and discussion with rangers. --No study of Wildflowers would be complete without a discussion of Ladybird Johnson and her project to beautify America's highways and interstates. I can't find anything at our library, but maybe you can find enough online. http://www.wildflower.org/ --Look for online websites to help identify what you have found. Type in "Identify Wildflowers" into Google. I have had mixed success with these websites. --There is also surely an app for identifying wildflowers, but I am not familiar with apps. I don't have a fancy phone; I don't even text! --Nature Journal: Have kids draw a picture of something at least once a week. It may be a leaf, or a flower of a wildflower or other outside plant at this time. You may need to say that everyone needs to draw something different (one person draw flower, one draw leaf, one draw insect on the plant). There are websites and blogs that can give you more info about having your kids Nature Journal as part of homeschooling.

We're part of Frontier Girls (like Girl Scouts, but we don't sell cookies, and there is a certain amount of volunteerism required). Frontier Girls has an award called Life Skills. You could mine these lists for ideas: For K-2 (Otters) For 3-5 (Dolphins) ETA: My links above didn't work. You may just need to go to the Frontier Girl website and poke around to find the Life Skill Award lists. Sorry! As my kids grow, I also hope to require them to: --Learn to drive a stick shift vehicle --Learn to rewire a lamp; rewire an outlet --Swim (I didn't learn until I was an adult!) --Write Cursive (some schools don't teach it anymore!) --Set up and maintain a website/blog --Write a check, balance a checking account, how to online bank --How does interest work, compound interest work, and what are good or bad choices for borrowing money --How to fill out a job application --How to write a resume --How to confirm information (by checking 2-3 sources); what is a reputable source (Wikipedia, CNN, Government website vs. Cousin so-and-so's blog or "Someone said on FB." --How to navigate an airport (finding gates, reading screens, finding baggage --How to read a map; how to plan a trip with a map without using Mapquest or GPS; how to use a map when you are lost! --How to write a letter of request (requesting information or clarification); how to write a letter of complaint --How to deal with unsatisfactory customer service on the phone (keep a record of who you spoke to, when, about what, and what is their title/contact info) --How to check and change oil in car, and other fluids; how to change a tire Of course, my oldest dd is 5, so we won't be working on a few of these for a while......:D

We have a Fridgidare Gallery. We bought the biggest one we could get. Imagine that it could hold 3-4 bodies. I think this is the one: http://www.lowes.com/pd_240838-2251-GLFC2528FW_?PL=1&productId=1068595&cm_mmc=search_google-_-Appliances%20Refrigerators-_-Freezers%20Chest%20Models%20Frigidaire-_-glfc2528fw

When we went browsing for a freezer for our garage, I had my heart set on an upright because I remember my mom losing food in the bottom of the old chest freezer at home. Plus, she's short (I'm 5'2", too!), and things on the very bottom were simply hard to reach. When we got to the store, we toured the chest freezers, too. We ultimately decided on a chest freezer because: 1) We got more bang for our buck. We got more freezer for the cost. 2) We knew our freezer would be in the garage in Iowa summer, and every time we opened the door, we would not lose all of our coolness. and 3) The new freezers have WONDERFUL dividers to organize your food, plus three baskets to organize smaller or more frequently used items. For example, our freezer is divided into sections of: --Frozen vegies --Frozen fruit --Sweets (choc chips, cookies) --Ground buffalo --Other cuts of buffalo (steaks, roasts, brats, hotdogs) --Other miscellaneous meat (chicken, brats, ham, bacon) --Bread (we bake 9 loaves at a time) --Easy freezer meals (frozen pizzas and other stuff from the frozen foods section at Sam's Club; it's a cheaper meal than fast food when you can't cook a real meal). --Smaller section is full of butter and cream cheese that we buy in bulk. It's nice to not have to run to the store every week for butter. --One basket is mostly full of frozen juice --Another basket is full of 1-lb blocks of cheddar, mozzarella, and feta cheese That is not all of the sections, but you get the idea. Yes, things do get mixed up if one category is overfull and the other is less full, but everything gets sorted out when we defrost every couple of years. Oh, and I have a little stepstool that stays in the garage next to the freezer so I can reach stuff on the bottom! :)

We're in the same boat. You are soooo right about being familiar with bible themes, and as your kids age, you will see references to biblical stories EVERYWHERE in art and literature. I would really like for dd to know these stories as well as I did growing up (Evangelical Christian, church 3X/week), but I do not plan to take her to church. Plus, some of them are really cool stories! A boat with all the animals; Joshua and the battle of Jericho; David and Goliath; Jesus feeds the 5000! A couple of months ago, we read through one of the children's versions of bible stories; NOT the bible. We used a version that I had gotten second-hand, and although it was the right level for dd5 and it had both Old and New Testament stories, it spoke of God literally, and as if the stories were true through and through. (No intended offense to those who believe differently than I). As a result, we had several conversations about how to tell if a story is true or not. If I had to choose again, I would have chosen a version that was not so literal. Perhaps others have good suggestions for this. In a perfect world, if we have time and are still homeschooling when dd reaches high school, we will read together through the actual bible and discuss it. Our reference material will be Asimov's Guide to the Bible

No advice. Just :grouphug:. You have done the right thing by taking in your nieces. You are making a world of difference for them. There is understandably an adjustment period for EVERYONE. Any chance you can skip homeschooling for the rest of the summer and just spend time with the kids?

Find the balance between when to work and when to take a break. That is a tricky judgment for every child. My child is 5, so the expectation is different than if she was 15yo. For example, yesterday, dd didn't want to do any more schoolwork. Then she went to her bed and promptly fell asleep for a 2+ hour nap. Hmmm.....no wonder she didn't want to do any more work. Likewise, dd earns a privilege (tv time) after a set amount of work is done. For our family, what works is for me to divide her work into 10 parts. She earns 30 minutes of tv after 4 parts are done; then after 3 parts; then after 2; then after 1. If she turns in her time during the day, it must be educational tv. If she waits until daddy comes home, she can watch junk (Spongebob, Pokemon, whatever cartoons she found from the library). During "break," I move the laundry along, offer a snack to the kids, prep supper early in the day, or get the next lesson supplies ready. The intensive, time consuming, and most important lessons are done in the early sections (Saxon Math, Saxon Phonics.....). Easy stuff (like some "rhyming word families" and "sight word worksheets" and Explode the Code) are saved for the end of the day; by then dd just needs to do a few extra worksheets to gain an extra hour of tv. Also: In spite of allowing dd to nap when she feels she needs extra rest, it IS important to work every day. When we miss a several days of schoolwork in a row, we have a battle to get back in the swing of things. Likewise, if dd dinks around too much on lessons early in the day, I make her work past breaktime and save her tv time for later. We especially do this if the baby is sleeping.

Loverboy makes hummus in my food processor without a recipe. He just adds what looks right, and does a lot of taste tests. His hummus is AWESOME!!! Recipe: a couple of cloves of garlic chickpeas (canned or cooked; rinsed) olive oil lemon juice salt to taste The favorite flavors in our house include adding: --ranch powder, to taste (add salt AFTER adding ranch because ranch is very salty) --curry (same thing about the salt) We serve this to our kids with pretzel sticks.

Loverboy's brother was a psych major for his undergrad. For grad school, he took got a Master's in departmental organization or group hierarchy or such. He works in human resources.

Some families I know send 13yo boy out to dinner with Dad. They dress up (nice pants, button down shirt, possibly a tie or jacket) and go out to the fanciest restaurant in town. Just the two of them. Some families use this as a time for "the Talk," but rather than getting into too many details in a public place, it may be a better time to 1) Reassure and encourage son that he can come to the parents at any time for any discussion. 2) Discussion expectations of how to treat women, since even though most 13yos are not dating (and should not be dating IMO!), 13yo boys in a group can make poor choices in speaking about women and how they treat women. 3) Plans for the future: 3a) 13 is just before high school. Does ds have any plans for how he wants to prepare for college? Take a language? (Our college requires 3 years of a high school language to opt out of college language requirements). Does ds have a career goal or interest? Examples: If he wants to be a policeman, should you sign him up for Tae kwan do? If he wants to be an actor, should he do lots of writing in high school (many successful actors make work for themselves by writing scripts, eg: Matt Damon/Ben Affleck, Sylvester Stallone). If he wants to be a journalist, does he have subscriptions/access to major newspapers and magazines to read now so he will know all the major players, policies, and history when he is working as a journalist? 3b) "Many lifechanging events occur between ages 16-25. We hope you make good choices in this time period so you have a good life." Below are questions/topics to mention on this subject. They don't need to be answered in any detail at age 13 or at all at age 13, but I DO think that both boys AND girl should be aware that the choices they make in these next ~10 years can set them on a path for life that can be difficult to change if they make bad decisions. Examples: What kind of grades in high school are you going to get? (Good grades lead to more college opportunities.) What classes will you take? How hard will you study? Will you work in high school, or just study? How much time will you put into dating? Will you get your gf pregnant while still in high school, and how will that change your life? Will you marry before you finish your education? Will you have kids before you finish your education? Who will you marry, and what good and bad traits will they have; will you get along with their family? Will you have a college job working in fast food (not that there is anything wrong with that) or working for your college advisor getting experience in your field of study? How many college loans will you take? What role will drug and/or alcohol take in your life? Who are your friends, and do they encourage you to make good choices or bad choices? And on and on.

Lucky Ducks (Warning: it's noisy!) Some sort of lotto game like Zingo or Number Bingo or Alphabet Lotto If you want to avoid Candyland, play Zoofari. It's the same thing, but with an animal theme. We play a lot of Cariboo in our house. I don't think Hasbro makes it anymore. I don't know why. It's a great starter game! Look for it secondhand in the link given. I've also had really good luck with games from Learning Resources. You can also make flashcards of 3-letter CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words with pictures to have the kids spell out with refrigerator letters.

Things I tried that didn't work (but may work for you): Candied ginger (I threw it up!) Sea bands Ginger tea Saltines Eating [1/2 c of yogurt] before leaving bed (worked for #1, but not #2) Eating every couple of hours (worked for #1, but not #2) Eating small meals (worked for #1, but not #2) Avoiding junkfood/fast food of ANY kind* (worked for #1, but not #2) Things that did work: Gum Lots and lots of gum Gum in the car, gum in the living room, gum in the kitchen, gum in the bedroom Birth I would chew a couple pieces of gum to help my nausea. If I felt more nausea come on, I would add extra pieces to my mouth as fast as I could until the nausea subsided. My record is over 9 pieces. I nearly threw up the anti-nausea pills on the delivery table before my C-section. (Gum is not allowed in the delivery room). ***Additional note: if you are having trouble keeping your Prenatal vitamins down, call your doctor immediately! My doctor switched me to "2 Flintstones Chewables per day" for the remainder of my pregnancy. I hope you have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. Hopefully you have supportive family and access to healthcare professionals that will be wise and knowledgeable to help you through this time. *hugs to you* *chocolate is excepted

We have three cats in our home. They are all male. They are all 6+ years old, or older. They sleep together, sit in the window together, and groom each other. They also jump on and chase and bite one another in normal jockeying for dominance. (The biting on the back of the neck in a dominance gesture). The two younger ones are littermates. The older one is a former "lab cat." He had been used as "quality assurance" for a local company that makes medications and vaccines for "companion animals." (It's not as bad as it sounds. He spent his days in a room the size of a livingroom that was filled with kitty condos and cat toys. The vet and the vet techs made it a point to play with the kitties every day. ) There were 10-14 in the room. My vet tells me that cats are not usually solitary in the wild; traditionally they live in a colony. I know many cats that are okay as solitary cats, but that may depend on how much time you plan to devote to playing with the cat. As a nanny, I assigned one 5yo to get a toy and play with the cat for a minimum of 5 minutes at least once a day. If you are concerned about the kitty being alone, then ask your local shelter about a pair of kitties to adopt. Sometimes pairs of adult kitties are displaced, and although they have spent their lives together, they must be separated to find good homes for each of them. You could give them the stability of staying together. Whether you go with a single cat or a pair of cats, the shelter can give you an evaluation of the cat's behavior, temperament, and personality to gauge whether the cat(s) will be a good fit for you and your family.

To train mouse skills for the computer, get Reader Rabbit for Babies and Toddlers. http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Company-Playtime-Matching-Differences/dp/B004U8VB9C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331301891&sr=8-1

1) Starfall.com, as recommended by prior poster. I would spend the $35/year for the expanded service if your child can run the mouse by themselves. http://www.starfall.com/ If they can't, then get Reader Rabbit "Babies and Toddlers" for easy games to practice the mouse. http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Company-Playtime-Matching-Differences/dp/B004U8VB9C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330844027&sr=8-1 2) Bob Books. The library may have them for you to check out; or you can do a search on Amazon. Just read them to him over and over. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bob+books 3) Games: If he can sit for games, there are lots of games to teach sight words or CVC words. See what Teacher Created Resources has to offer. Games for preschool: http://www.teachercreated.com/products/search-results.php?q=games&x=0&y=0&level=preschool Games for K level: http://www.teachercreated.com/products/search-results.php?q=games&x=0&y=0&level=kindergarten 4) Make a game to learn color words. Print each color word on an index card in it's own color. Red will be colored red; blue will be colored blue; etc. Make a corresponding card written in black. Child matches red and red; blue and blue; green and green. The child learns their color words, and they learn to LOOK at the word. (I made fancy cards on the computer, but index cards are fine). 5) Get or make some CVC words on flashcards like these: http://bogglesworldesl.com/phonics/cvc_wordcards.htm Put one or two cards on the fridge at a time with refrigerator letters. Play the game with him of finding all the letters to go on the card.

I can top that. My last haircut was made last year by my 4yo dd (now 5). She had cut her own hair, and she would only let me clean up the edges if I let her cut my hair, too. I put two hairties on my ponytail and told her to cut between the two.