I can give you a tip. If you get a lizard don't get an iguana unless you want to eventually invest in a much larger aquarium. I had one that my mom took when I got married and it lived 14 years. The aquarium we ended up needing to house it was 2ft X 2ft X 6 ft and then we had to build a shelf around the top of the room for her to hang out on. She didn't do much in the aquarium but go to the bathroom and come down into there to eat her bowl of food. Which can't be just lettuce like many think. They should have things like collard greens or mustard greens as their man staple and then like yellow squash with it, and some fruit from time to time for a treat. I don't want to turn you off to them but they do require a real commitment and live much longer than many think. If we ever got a reptile again I'd most likely go with some sort of newt, or anole.

I chose other. We've tried many but the only one that's worked and my kids like is Growing with Grammar

I was a hair metal junkie in the 80's! I love Bon Jovi (still do) and saw them in concert about 10 times. Between the ages of 16 and 23 I never missed a concert if they came near Milwaukee WI. LOL I also saw Def leopard, motley crue, poison, warrant, and many others. My all time favorite songs from the 80's though would have to be and Friday I'm in love by The Cure I also loved a little known Milwaukee band called The Gufs.

We have a rainbow one although we didn't pay for it. The people we rent from left it behind for us to use. It's definitely sturdy and I'd say worth the money. We also have one that we bought from Sam's club that has been dismantled and moved to my moms house and then reassembled for the few times we get to go back and visit (we live 1000 mi away) that one is also still very sound and was so worth it. My kid love them.

We will be starting our 3rd year in less than an month and I think we're good to go, so I put myself at a 1. I know for Math we're spot on as my kids begged to go back to saxon last year and so that's what we're doing. I'm pretty calm about Language arts although I will be using WWE and AAS which will be new to us but they also look like what I've been looking for all along. History and Science will be new, I'm a little worried about getting them done, but have reconciled this within my mind by saying that if we need to take it at a slower pace and use it into next year too that's ok. Science was a big change as I had bought REAL Science Life level 1 and then my kids looked at it about a week ago and said they wanted something else. After some research they said NOEO Biology 1 looked much better and more fun so after they pitched their case for changing to something else to dh and he said it sounded good I bought it. Now that I've poured over their site again and again I think my kid were right. I think we'll enjoy it a lot more than we would have the REAL Science.

I used to sell Pampered Chef and thought I'd always love stoneware. I have since gotten rid of all of it and now have Aluminum sheet pans from a baker's supply store. I bake all my cookies on them with parchment paper. I always used parchment paper even with my stones though. I love the stuff. I've thought about getting some Silpats, maybe now I will.

Last year about the half way point I decided to get a bit more organized. I got each of my kids a 1/2" binder and used M-F tabs. I then put all the worksheets or blank paper we'd need for that days lesson behind each tab. We never do school on a specific time schedule, ie: 9-9:3 math, 9:30-10 Language arts etc. So this way the kids can pick what it is they want to work on in which order. They know that history and science, depending on the day, must be done together so they usually put those last on their pile. They usually never pick the same order each day either. This way they felt they had a say in things, but I may try something different next year. I might start the specific times for specific subjects but we'll have to see, it will depend on how long certain things take us. Everyday though any sheets that aren't needed for the next day or a day later in the week are put in each child's "inbox" so I can check them over. I just have a couple of plastic paper sorter things like you'd see on an office desk for an inbox or outbox that I had left over from when I had a home business that I use for this. I gave each child their own so that I can easily keep straight who's work is who's.

Aug 4th is the big day here. We've started the first monday in Aug since starting 2 years ago and it works for us.

My answers: KitchenAid Mixer -nope not anymore. I just sold it on ebay. I got a Bosch universal in red a for x-mas and I absolutely love it. I wish I'd gotten one many, many years ago. Vacuum- I have a Dyson Animal 14 that has now been relegated to the garage. We've had it 2 years and contrary to what they say it doesn't keep suction anymore. After repeated calls to the company they won't do anything about it, so I bought a Bissell pet hair eraser and it works so much better. Nice shoes? A pair of LLbean hiking shoes. Reusable grocery bags? Yep for about 6 years now. Nice bookshelves -- nope, the movers the navy sends ruin almost everything each time we move. They took 2 big chunks out of our brand new solid wood bedroom set. So until we're done with moving we're only buying things we have to put together. As for my booKshelves-- After 3 kids they don't make booKshelves that are pretty in the size I need.

Thanks so much. I called the Public school and the main school office here in Chesapeake and got a great big fat "NO, we don't serve your kind" for a response. I do have a call to the VA state reps from United Streaming and will see what they say if they call back. If not I may just have to bite the bullet and buy it from HS buyers co-op. Oh well it was worth a shot.

At this point I'm mostly adapting things simply because there isn't much for secular hsers out there and what there is a lot of times just isn't that good. I'm doing ok with what I'm using now as far as it being pretty easy to adapt but I know as we get into the high school years unless someone come up with a new curriculum I'll be on my own for that.

Thanks I'll give it a try and see what happens. I haven't had any contact with the local school, just the SI's office where my LOI was sent and they were very nice, hopefully the school will be too.

I'm in Chesapeake, Anyone know who I should call. I don't need the name but do I call the school closest to me, or the SI's office where I send my letter of intent? Thanks for anyone that can help.

Hi all, My dd loves audiobooks. She prefers ones with the actual books to follow along to, but I will take your basic listen only books. I was doing a search online and found 2 places One is Jitterbug.com the other is Simplyaudiobooks.com Does anybody belong to one of these. We love netflix but thought this would be nice to have too.

You know I've never made large lunches like Spaghetti or tacos since we tend to think of those as dinners, but that sound like a good idea. I have in the past given my kids 2 choices such as hot dog, or chicken nuggets so it works kind of like PS they tell me their choice in the morning so I'm prepared come lunch time. I always made sure it was 2 similar things as far as prep so it wouldn't be hard for me to do. One thing we do since my kids hate sandwiches is something I call "Peasant lunch" basically it's a cup of soup, some sort of bread or crackers, cut up cheese cubes or cold cut up grilled chicken or turkey and some sort of fruit. I got the idea from when I worked at a hospital it was the most popular lunch for the employees in the cafeteria. It was a personal "loaf" of fresh baked bread, cheese cubes, apple slices and a cup of soup of your choice. I just expanded on it.

Yep, and my parchment paper and saran wrap too.

We always start the first Monday in August. This allows us to take a nice long break at Christmas time, or if they only want a couple weeks then we wrap up in early May.

Well I was pleasantly surprised Saturday morning when I came downstairs at around 10am (hubby let me sleep in and then I got up showered, and did a little cleaning up in our room and the laundry room) to find a fedex box on my table. I checked the return address and it said it was from PHP. WOOHOO my WWE had arrived and I didn't even know it was coming as I hadn't received a shipping notice. I wasn't able to look it over but I did open the box right away and set it over by my computer near the couch so I could check it out later when the kids settled in for bed that night. THAT WAS A LONG WAIT :tongue_smilie: I read the whole first part that covers the basic program and the grammar stage. I'm so happy with it. It really opened my eyes, and reassured me that my son who's going to be starting 4th grade this year isn't really behind. He went to PS for K and part of 1st and we had a lot of phonics work to do when he came home so he'd had no real exposure to writing and how to do it. After going through the book and having him do the Evaluation for year 1 (I was following the book's recommendations on how to place him in the program) I figured out that he should start with Year 2, I knew he wouldn't be ready for year 3 or 4 but wasn't sure if he needed to go all the way back to the beginning or not. I was surprised that he actually enjoyed the copywork and narration exercises from the Year one Evaluation week. He even memorized the first copywork passage without me asking. I love that the book gives you the first weeks lesson for each area your covering and then gives suggestions for the next few weeks when you'll cover that topic so you can pick your own literature, history or science topics to use. I was however grateful that I also got the Student book for Year 1 that has it all laid out for me. I think for this year I'll also get the Student book for Year 2 which would have all the selections for copywork, narration and dictation laid out for me so that we can really learn the process before jumping into the deep end and picking our own. My dd who will be starting 1st grade this fall and who will be doing WWE year 1 started looking through the student book and loved that there are small black and white pictures on the narration pages. She asked me, "Mom if you write down the words for me do I still get to color the picture?" When I said "of course" she was overjoyed! The book seems to really give me the writing exercises that I've always wanted from FLL without the grammar aspect that just wasn't working for my kids. I'm overall very happy that I waited patiently for the pre-order to arrive, and didn't jump into ordering something else. This is exactly what I've been looking for. My dh even looked things over and read the beginning of the book and said "That must be why Ev seems so flustered when he talks to, we've never really taught him how to put his ideas into words" He's completely right, we've been so worried about penmanship, grammar and math that we never really thought to teach our son how to get his thoughts formed into words that he can use to convey them to others. I hope my little initial review helps some, and I also want to send a big THANK YOU! out to SWB for all her hard work on the program.

I think you were totally in the right. They shouldn't label the section "religion" unless they are willing to be encompassing of all religions. I think the title of Christianity would have been better. I was raised a Christian but am not practicing and I'm still in a personal search for what I believe. Where I live that's not the norm, especially for homeschoolers. We've been unable to find a co-op or any other groups to join because all of them in our area want you to sign a statement of faith and we're not willing to do it. Anyway, just wanted to say though my situation is different I have an idea of how you feel and would have done the same thing.

I have used HST for the last 2 years but it seemed like overkill for the grades my kids are in. We'll be starting 1st and 4th this fall and I've made up some basic spreadsheets in excel for the year to let me know how many lessons a week I need to finish things by the end of the year. As we do the lessons daily I'll write them in on looseleaf notebook paper I have in a binder. It will be like a daily journal. I think it will be a bit easier for me. I don't have to keep a record here like I did in FL, but thought it would be safer to have one just in case. Being in the Navy we never know where we'll be going next and what the laws will be.

I concur! No comma and it's a badly written sentence.

when I woke up this morning (dh let me sleep in) and there was a box on my table from PHP!! I never got a shipping notice so I didn't think it was coming. I can't wait to get some time to sit and read through it.

Mine's all in the signature as well

Yep that's right pistachios. My oldest son loved nuts so we gave him a little bowl with pistachios and a few minutes later thought boy those went down fast. I then looked at him and thought he had a big boogie hanging out his nose, nope it was a pistachio. I got it out as it was right near the end, then I got a flash light and saw there was another one, not too high up so we kind of pushed on his nose in a "milking" downward way and it came out. I look again with the flashlight and low and behold there's one way up there. Now he was only about 2 and didn't really understand blowing his nose so after about an hour of trying we took him to the ER. Waited about 30 minutes and then waited another 15 for the DR, just before the DR came in the darn thing fell out. Turns out the salt on the nut irritated his nose making his nose run, thus lubing up said nut allowing it to slide right out.:tongue_smilie:

I just wanted to say that I'm a secular hser. We do not attend a church nor do we do any sort of religious training in our home, but I love these boards just as they are. I frequent another board that is said to be all inclusive too and I'm definitely more in the minority there as a secular than I am here. I've found many secular friends here, as well as many Christian friends that choose to use secular materials. I can honestly say I wouldn't necessarily be happier if there was a specific secular area, because as others would say sometimes it doesn't matter if who answers in Christian. If I'm looking for curriculum I'll specifically post that I'm looking for something secular. If I'm looking at a post about a curriculum I've not heard of before and it turns out is Christian or something I'm not looking for who cares, that's how I learn what's out there. I'm not offended if someone doesn't specifically state in the title that the hot new thing they found is Christian, no biggie I'll just remember for next time that a post about it probably won't interest me. I do get a bit ticked if I post about something in a clearly secular way and someone tries to tell me to "turn to the scriptures" and things like that, but that's never happened to me here, it has in other places, which is why I like it here as is. I'm free to be me and I'm free to let others be themselves.