Sometimes I would write out a name (or other words) for them to copy when they get there. Still somewhat slew and choppy in WWE 4, so good to find a system now! I try to keep them mostly together so I only need to spell it once. If there is a long enough disruption I will have someone repeat the sentence again out loud.

Wow, good luck. At first read I thought you meant the "interview" was going to be that long. I was worried about staying "interview fresh" that whole time!

When we lost power it was nice to still be able to hear things on the range. The stove was electric. We also had a propane dryer and propane heat, neither of which functioned with the power out since they have electric igniters. I never had to call the propane company for a fill, they kept track of degree-days and came out to fill when needed and left a bill on the door knob.

My kids could not focus on me and history when surrounded by "all the books, mom!" They were distracted by the books, even in the absence of other people. Even when sitting in a low book-count area. YMMV :-)

I use the topical series and usually mix together a couple of topics for variety. One thing you wouldn't get are the tests which I can't imagine using, but sometimes paradoxically miss anyway. It is working, but if I were to do it over I would get the series formatted as a currículum. Either way, we do fewer problems in sections she seems to understand and more (sometimes circling back) in sections she doesn't seem to get.

I would limit my plans for what will be done that day. I would also intentionally include her - play a game or two, have her take the English spelling test, participate in a dialog?, listen to somebody read-aloud, whatever makes sense. If your dc will be enhanced by a visitor acknowledge that up front by having them present an art show, recite or read a poem, review previous history work, or something along those lines. You've signed up for demonstrating a homeschool day, but it is okay if it is a bit window-dressed and not a "typical" day. How nice of you to allow a visitor!

Catapults should be easy, finding lizards to shoot from them... Can dh and siblings dress up as rich tourists to invade at some point? Sorry, I haven't read the book (yet), just watched ¾ of the movie in the hospital a few weeks ago. Sounds fun, though!

That always leaves my brain tired! I don't know the ages I'd your dc, but my elementary age kids loved hearing a picture book read. What a great experience!

Conversation is not the number one reason people list for studying Latin, though. The OP asked Why Latin? and the reasons often stated for that are vocabulary, grammar, and logical thinking. It seems as though you could get those benefits from any foreign language study, EXCEPT Latin is the one where curricula focus on those aspects. For any other language you need to be fluent in the language or use higher-level, less accessible texts.

Thank you for the heads-up. Mine have never participated in a math contest and this looks like a good place to start (and maybe end, I guess). Plus, there is an open testing site within a mile of us. Any tips on preparation? My dc are perhaps accelerated, but not gifted and I can see they will be nervous.

The artisan bread book didn't work for me. We do soup once a week in the cold days. I make a double batch of soup and three meals worth of rolls. Then I freeze the extras and use them in subsequent weeks. I highly recommend this method! ETA: often making rolls healthier changes the taste a bit and the new taste may need to be acquired. Also, making them healthier often changes the characteristics of the rolls - denser, less fluffy. Depending on where you as a baker and the tastes of your family, you may want to start with an easy, straight-up white bread roll as a baseline and then move out from there. King Arthur has a Whole Grain cookbook.

Maybe you can find a resort that offers family therapy and kill two birds with one stone! But really, Miss Mousie is right, what kind of annoying, what kind of vacation? Lacking that info, I like the ideas of trying to have some separate space and maybe cutting back to one weekend a year. I also think you are smart to keep dh out of it, then he is there for relief when you return.

Keep in mind that on CL, it is standard (where I am) for people to respond offering a lower price. I suggest start with a listing on the high end of your range. In 2 weeks lower (if needed), repeat as necessary.

I don't think you could fit 3 no-back boosters back there (mine is a 2005) and reach the buckles. The middle seat in the third row is skinny. ETA: I forgot you are buying seats specifically for this, perhaps you can work with the seat dimensions and find skinny boosters that would fit.

The middle school books definitely reference older reading material a la Stephen King and Michael Crichton. The approach is exactly the same as the elementary books although those use good junior fiction references (and slightly shorter sentences), so if something catches your dc's eye it is easier to hand the book over without so many reservations (or to hand it over at all, depending). Maybe I've spent too long in the world of FLL, but it is hard for me to think of Killgallon as a grammar program. Each section introduces a grammar term, uses it with no mention of previous lessons, for a week, and then no additional mention until the end of the book review. We are using it as a supplement. Every couple of weeks I pull it out and we work through a unit. I like Stripe's idea of doing a sentence hunt for different types. If your ds has no interest in the chunking exercises you could skip or skim them pretty easily. Done as written, my ds would collapse under the psychic weight of all the writing, so we tweak the program to suit us, as with everything.

I just reread 8's thread discussing Latin with Ester María, lots there to consider. One practical point, rarely discussed, is that there are a number of Latin programs written for upper elementary or middle school age which actively discuss grammar topics, and this is more difficult to find for other modern languages, unless you yourself are fluent in the target language. Granted, my experience is limited, but while I could find a number of Latin programs that start off discussing nouns (and articles), then verbs with conjugation right up front the same has not been true for Spanish. The Spanish programs I've looked at start with colors, numbers, and conversational phrases, and many of those programs end before grammar ever becomes a focus. Great if you are trying to incorporate early conversation in the language, but far from focusing on grammar or logical thinking that seems to generally be considered the advantage of learning a new language. This seems to be often overlooked in the "Why Latin?" or "Why <any foreign language>?" questions. I have a limited Spanish background, so with my kids we started with Spanish precisely because I could make the study conversational. Now, as we are adding in Latin and setting it side-by-side with the Spanish and English grammar they already know, I can see their understanding of grammar AND their understanding of the usefulness of foreign languages grow. Spanish is no longer just a language for telling people your name, and Latin can be more than sailors and boats.

Do you have a university nearby? We do, and a lit if naive Russian speakers live near to one another and share common activities like piano and ballet classes. There are even a couple families who share homeschooling duties, which was interesting to me. Sorry, I'm wandering. My thought was if you are lucky you could find a student interested in a side tutoring job. Perhaps you could work out a barter set-up.

Similarly to dmmetler and Miss Mousie I would ask back, nicely, what it would look like outside the car if we were there. That could lead to a nice, distracting, more rational conversation.

I'm always attracted by the graphics, but then the text is so piecemeal and dry, no one reads them. They are almost more like subject-specific dictionaries. With cute pictures.

Maybe it will go the way of cursive handwriting and by the time you are ready to teach it it will be (is?) strictly a novelty.

I want to come back and express more sympathy since my first post sounded flip and I'm sure it is not "interesting" when you are suffering through it. Hope you are feeling better soon.

Laura, you poor thing. I'm sorry you aren't feeling well, but from the title if your thread it sounds like a really interesting disease.

If you haven't used the program before I would get WWE3. Level 4 us a step up in difficulty, and even SWB says level 4 is not necessary for all students. FLL probably doesn't matter as much, 3 vs 4.

Correct. One or the other. The workbook is open and go, to use the manual you would need to pick all the reading selections.

I've never heard of this. Sounds cool, I wonder if I can figure out how to leverage this with my dc.