You never know, he studies hard and he plays hard. Maybe the boxing club met on the lawn!

Any experiences appreciated. It is a normal silk (I think) neck tie. Thank you!

This seems too obvious to suggest to a group of other homeschoolers, but...books! Of course, they always get books, but I've learned to look for the gems -- the reference books or coffee table books in their current hobby or interest. These have been the greatest hits and have seen continual use: For almost teens to adults: - Laura Ingalls Wilder Country, Anderson - The Mary Frances Sewing Book, Fryer (also ...Housekeeper, Cook Book, Knktting...) - Crochet, DK Publishing - Surprise Inside Cakes, Rettke - Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts Storey's Guides (you name it, our dd, who aspires to raise animals, wants them all) - Storey's Guide to... Raising Miniature Livestock, Raising Chickens, Raising Goats, Training Horses... - Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds (if they're really into chickens) A beautiful book. - Special Effects - The History and Technique, Rickitt (some pages may be too intense for some) - Handyman in your pocket, Glover - Usborne Illustrated Dictionary of Math (Ds received when he was 10. He has moved on to...) - HarperCollins Dictionary of Mathematics Ds has taken many of his favorite books with him to college, but, let me think... Oh, I can zoom into a photo of his college book shelf...here are a few of his absolute favorites: - 10.000 Jokes, Toasts, & Stories, Copeland - The Colossal Book of Mathematics, Gardner (and many other Gardner books) - The Annotated Alice, Carroll and Gardner - Mad about Physics, Jargodzki - Mad about Modern Physics, Jargodzki - The Expert at the Card Table, Erdnase - Scarne on Card Tricks, Scarne - Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook, Piven - The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography, Singh Family Books: - Cartoon anthologies like Peanuts hardbound books - Animal: The Definitive Visual Guide, DK Publishing- Unbelievable and weighty! - This Book Made Me Do It, Woodward - Roller Coasters, Rutherford - Brewers's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable (we all use this a lot!) - Material World, Menzel (photos of families from around the world taken in front of their homes with all of their possessions surrounding them, as well as a biographical sketch of the featured family. Fascinating! - Fictional anthologies are a standard each year, too. And, I always add to their religion shelf a new Bible, missal, or book by Ann Ball.

How I think it will help the annotation exercises in IEW's windows is that she'll have more terms in her working skill set to find when annotating. Basically, she'll be able to solidify knowledge of literary terms as we come across them in Teaching the Classics and Windows, and then she'll (hopefully=) make more meaningful annotations. We shall see!

Thank you for sharing. This will round out Jill Pike's lessons nicely for dd. She needs to practice a skill for it to sink in, and I think w/out this extra workbook practice, she'd miss a lot in annotation.

Thank you!

I think I'll use it to round out our IEW Windows/Teaching the Classics course this year. Is it consumable? Would it be helpful for dd and I to each have our own copy? Thank you!

Leaves after Mass on Thursday morning!

Meet Zoe:

Katilac Said: Remind him that the school will have its own extensive book collection, lol. I will remind him of the school's library, and he will soon learn that there just isn't time to read what one choses during college. I remember getting a library card to our public library after graduating and browsing the stacks. I was thrilled to have the whole world of books opened up to me again. Of course, he will be more well read during his college years than I was d/t the type of school he is attending. His kindle should allow him to leave a lot of his favorite fiction at home. Most of his books, though, that he cannot part with, are about recreational mathematics, science topics, and other favorite resources.

Aw, thanks for the update! When people say 'minimal' I worry that ds is taking too much. It is still a lot of stuff. Besides the basics (clothes, toiletries, and small pantry items), there is his book stash (extensive), rubric's cube collection, and office/tool supplies of all kinds. But, what about the organizational items? Is it a help or a hinderance to send underbed drawers, stacking shelf type bins for the closet, and baskets? What about toiletries and food? Does he just go with enough to get started or should he stock up?

"If in doubt, throw it out!" Also, my understanding is that you and your family get used to your handling of food and can, therefore, tolerate a certain bac. count in your food. Someone new comes in and :ack2:

It's over on the college board...see you all over there at my home away from home! :seeya:

A hot cup of coffee.

I've gathered so many lists of what to pack (especially helped by the 'college packing for minimalist boys' thread), now I need the 'How to pack' help. The reason for all of this searching, reading, and gathering into my Evernote 'Ds College' folder is mostly because no one IRL knows what I am going through...and you are all my best homeschool friends right now and have been all the way through! Even if I have been virtually a lurker. Hope this is helpful to someone else! How to Pack: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/401775-hope-this-is-okay/

Will try!

Thank you for that link. Mine is hanging in my closet with a cloth dress cover.

UPDATE: This morning when dd went into the kitten's room, she did not hide, and she has finally eaten...a lot. Very playful and no problems being touched. Thank you for all the advice -- wish I could multi quote. Especially Reflections' product suggestions, and slr1765's story about her loving cat was so sweet!

Am I allowed to submit a post with a link to a three year old thread that I think is timely for a lot of others? Thank you! ETA: That is...if I even know how to link! :laugh:

We no longer have a dog btw...old avatar! But, that is our 7 yo cat who is doing her own adjusting. She slept in Dd's closet all day -- hasn't done that in years.

Thanks for sharing your experiences -- very reassuring! The flat against the corner/slinking crawl surprised me and caused me dismay! I've had 4 cats, two of which I got as kittens, and neither of them behaved like this. They acted like skittish kittens, to be sure, but they walked around the house normally and explored. My concern was that d/t the extremely controlled non-home environment, her age, and the mom's abuse, she'd be 'imprinted' or something and never be a normal cat! When we arrived home from being out today, we headed down to spend time with the kitty in the bathroom=) Dd played with her (very playful and climbed on us freely) while I read aloud and we ate our snack. I figured, that's what we do upstairs, might as well do it in her temporary domain. The plan is to move her Friday to the master BR where she spent time yesterday. This time I won't worry so much if she sleeps deep under the bed and won't come out. :001_smile: This story from Matryoshka helped me a lot: We adopted a cat that stayed under the dresser for at least a week, it may have been more. One of the sweetest cats we ever had, after he adjusted. Storygirl's post about the cat in the basement for two weeks, too -- I really can breath easier now! Yes, the zoo. They do testing on house cats before they do things on big cats, from change of diet to reproductive factors.

Update: Dd spent some time with her this morning. She came out of hiding to eat a few bites, play with a string and even gave herself a little bath. I guess we are making progress!?

This is not the coming home story we expected! We adopted a kitten from the zoo yesterday. She is 16 weeks old. They kept her so long so that all of her vaccinations would be complete and immunity highest. At the zoo she lived with her mom in a crate-like windowless room, having some contact with zoo caregivers who fed her and played with her occasionally. They weren't specific about it, but a week ago or so the mom went into heat and rejected the kitten -- attacking her they said, so they separated them. Dd had a plan to slowly adjust her to our home and get to know our family cat gradually over a few days (using separate rooms at first then moving up to a dog crate in the living room for a few hours to get them familiar with each other and so on). But, this kitten is slinking around like a ferret whenever she moves, and, yesterday, spent hours in the corner of our room standing up chest flat against a wall in the corner behind a dresser, with her tail wrapped tight against its leg. We moved her to a bathroom so she could still hide, but we can reach her easier. She allows us to hold her and even plays with a string for a moment before she runs back to hide. This seems beyond normal adjustment. We plan to do what we planned, but even more slowly. I wanted to see if any of you had some words of encouragement or advise. I will be out for a funeral but will look forward to hearing from you when I get back. Thank you!

Can we use the ALGOT 30" frame as a mini-fridge cart? We'd rather spend $43 than $129 (the container store cart)! Thank you,

Other than read Kareni's posts about college applications very carefully, the best thing we did was hire a tutor to help DS organize his thoughts for application and scholarship essays. Beginning late summer before senior year through fall, DS met with a local writing tutor (philosophy grad student) who discussed each essay's topic with him. At first she made notes of their discussion, went over the notes, and helped him organize an outline for the paper. We used her for the first edit, then we edited it ourselves. Later, when DS got the process under his belt, they met over Skype to discuss, DS took his own notes and gathered them into a sound outline, and we took care of all the editing ourselves. This was such a successful plan for DS, who balked at first at any of the essays he was asked to write. One of them was, "Discuss the place of beauty in a liberal arts education." DS stopped at the word 'beauty' and figured he would never be able to write that essay! Well, that tutor drew him out and I'd say that my favorite part of his senior year was overhearing their conversations where our normally non-introspective son shared ideas on many subjects, including beauty. He received a lot of kudos on his essays, btw.