Socks are really small, so I can tuck them in my purse to work on anywhere: waiting rooms, standing in line, kid-oriented symphony, at the park, traffic jam, etc. Please, please, please, point me in the direction of this. :-)

Seems like it is worth calling. As a new, out of state graduate student I was offered in-state tuition in addition to a stipend. Through no clever action of my own. - out of state tuition is financially difficult for anybody. - your son will obviously be an asset to their program, they want him and will want to count him as a graduate (meaning they will want him to be able to stay all 4 years.) -they can offer it for one year and see how he does (I can't imagine an issue, but they might feel better not committing to 4 years up front) Get the right person in the phone, lay that out politely, and then see if they can do anything for you. "DS is a very strong student, and your program is his top choice, but I'm doing the math and it looks like just freshman year will cost us xxx. Is that correct? Would it be possible for him to pay in-state tuition rather than out-of-state?" Then be sure to leave enough silence on the line for him/her to answer (you may not need that reminder, but I often do). Good luck!

Very common problem, my 5yo dd has the same trouble, particularly with the teens. Every couple of days we play "First to 100" which I found at math-salamanders.com. We each have to say the number we land on. When my dd says the wrong name for a number, I take the time to say something like, "this is twelve, it has one group of ten and two units" I'm hoping that will help teach place value ideas while we are working on number names. Does Horizons user manipulatives to show groups of ten? Working with those also helps make the number names clearer. I would keep moving on and doing new things, but add in games, and take time to explain (over and over) the correct names. If you try that and after a few weeks don't feel like there has been any improvement, you could look at an alternate naming scheme as a temporary approach. I think Right Start math teaches those numbers as "tenty-one, tenty-two, etc." for awhile. Bet you won't need it, though.

We generally taper off in May and June and then start easing back in during July and August. During the taper down we finish up programs from the school year, usually history, maybe writing or science. We keep math and foreign languages short but steady through the summer. I like to start SOTW in August because everybody likes it and there are so many chapters! That said, we always take a week or two off altogether, for camps or planning or sanity. :-)

The BFSU Yahoo group has some sequence documents for book 1. I would be happy to email you a copy of the one I put together if you pm me. Good luck with whatever you decide!

The first book of BFSU didn't require a ton of prep. Find or make a proposed sequence of lessons (the Yahoo group has some, or you could post on here), then, after teaching a lesson I would skim the one for next time to see if I needed to think ahead about anything. Don't feel like it is an all or nothing commitment, either! You can try, and if it doesn't work out for you, we won't judge you. :-)

Thanks for the heads up! I put it on my phone and then told my kids, so now I have relinquished my sole-ownership of the phone (first game I've allowed). Ah well, had to happen sometime. :-)

We went to a birthday party during peak, weekend hours. Just what you might expect. My dc loved "shopping" with the tickets you win from the games. We spent the ride home explaining the actual cost of the items, quarters to tokens to tickets to Smarties (one roll) and compared that to how many Smarties they could buy if I just have then the quarters and they went to a regular store. Took off a lot of the shine. I like the daytime meet-up space idea, though. Especially with the coupon.

You just use the Invisible Glass spray? I go ahead and use invisible paper towels and invisible fairy housecleaners, too.

Oh, sure! We just read the Captain Cook chapter in SOTW, and I was dreamily revisiting some of my favorite scenes.

I wanted to do a laid-back introduction to Latin this year, but I laid too far back. We are halfway through the year, but only a third is the way through the book. I'm trying to sell it as a positive that we won't be taking a long, gappy break over the summer...

Ha! I'll be no help to you. We just got through the Nature of Matter section in book 2 and I've been fighting the urge to get book 3 so I can look ahead. Can you get the .pdf as cheaply as book 1? That would be less than a venti-anything. Do you feel t the need to hang onto it? Maybe we could work out a deal...

I can't help with Japanese specifically, but some other basic language games I have used to encourage speaking in another language are - Guess Who? Rory's Story cubes, and Headbandz (sigh). You probably wouldn't have to actually buy any of them if you wanted to try making your own versions.

For Spanish immersion for your Iittles you could check out Salsa from Georgia Public Broadcasting. We do that once a week. One of the local libraries here has online access to Muzzy - a similar program. Once a week with my 8yos we use two of the four Paquetes Educativos from Tin Man Press. Once a week they read to me and then translate, usually part of a Sapo y Sepo (Frog and Toad) story. Twice a week I secularize a religious language arts program written in Spanish for Spanish speakers. I like that it is introducing basic grammar and lots of vocab we wouldn't normally see, but it is a pain to secularize it. Someone here mentioned Yabisi Spanish curriculum and when we finish the books I have I'm going to look at that again. There are a lot of programs available to teach Spanish to older students, keep searching the threads. Oh, I have better luck searching with Google. Type something like: Spanish curriculum forum:welltrainedmind

The idea is intriguing, but I'm such a box-checked, I don't know that I can realistically put it into practice. However, I have been considering a modified version for history. Follow SOTW again (mostly for my younger dd), and have my olders pick from a range of topics (in the time period) to study in depth with a paper or a project or... Our science program already moves around between topics and presents a lot of information, although perhaps I could elaborate on that, have them select a topic to read about and present? Would you do something for art or music? I also have to be careful not to get too creative/focused on my olders at the expense of my younger dd. :-)

Use your judgement about his interests, but I say don't miss these series- Mouse and Mole by Yee Dodsworth by Egan Commander Toad by Yolen Mercy Watson by DiCamillo Uh-oh Cleo by Harper Ivy and Bean by Barrows (slightly older, hilarious)

Does she know enough to listen to a podcast like News in Slow Spanish? I got a big Practice Makes Perfect workbook based on board recommendations, but I haven't tried it yet...

Here's what I use from America's Test Kitchen: Dough- 4 c. Flour (I use 2c. ww) 2 1/4 yeast 1 1/2 salt 2 T. Olive oil 1 1/2 c. warm water Mix., rise 1 hour. Use or freeze. That makes 2 pizzas for us. Sometimes I double the recipe, then freeze, so I only need to "make" it once a month. Sauce- 2 T. Olive oil 2 cloves garlic 1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes Salt and pepper Saute garlic in oil for 1 or 2 minutes. Add tomatoes. Gussy-up as desired. Plenty more than needed for one pizza. I freeze the rest in single servings.

I've had them train that young (and not). I say it is (almost) never too young to TRY. Just don't let yourself get terribly vested (easier said than done) so that if you have to back off you can.

You don't need to buy a specific cleaner like Eucalan even. Just use a bit of dish detergant, squeeze, gently with your hands, rinse, do the towel thing Sun said.

If you call the gas co. to ask, they will likely send someone out post-haste to check for leaks. But if it were a gas leak you would smell it. Try the hot water experiment. Does the buzzing happen when the furnace goes on? Same idea as the hot water. If you shut the furnace of for an hour (and don't freeze to death) I wonder if you would hear it in the mean time. We've had an annoying noise when there was debris in the intake duct, rattling whenever the heat or a/c was on. Sounds crazy-making. Good luck!

Have you done a search of the board? There are quite a few Latin programs out there, although, for an 8yo the two that come to mind are Getting Started With Latin (GSWL) and Song School Latin (SSL). We've been using GSWL this year with my soon to be 9yos. It is a nice, gentle introduction. I like the way it introduces one new thing in each lesson. We do a fair bit of it orally. I also tie it into our Spanish studies. I'm no Latin expert, so you may be able to turn up other options with a search. Good luck!

We've been studying Spanish for a few years and started GSWL this year. We do Spanish 5 days a week, and Latin 3 days a week. I plan to bump up our frequency of Latin, and, if necessary, ease up on Spanish, over the next year. We will move to Lively Latin next. For Spanish we use a mix of resources that I've put together.

For our family - for the first 6 months (7yo) they practiced 2 10 minute sessions a day (later bumped to 2 12 minute sessions, now 15 each) I stay out of practice as much as possible. I am more involved now, but for us, especially at the beginning, I wanted it to be between the teacher and the students. We have a marble jar, one marble if you practice twice a day. It holds about 120. Once it is full we do something in the$5-$10 range per child. As a few pp have pointed out, I'm working on moving them away from playing each piece twice through, to having them focus on trouble areas and beat.

We are doing SOTW for world history, on year 3 of 4. I do American history as a separate subject that I sketched out to a 3 year cycle (I think I wanted them to end at about the same time). It has worked great. This second half of the year, things are aligning, so in World History we are spending a week studying/reviewing the American Revolution that we studied in depth last spring. Nobody is phased by the two separate topics covering some of the same things. As a counter point, I know many people are more comfortable folding American history into World History. Spending a little extra time in each time period to focus on events in the US.