Thank you so much! You may have just saved me. My son was in the middle of year 2 of Mandarin with a native speaker when we took him out of school. I have had no idea of what to do with him. We were already looking into some of the open courseware computer classes at MIT, so this seems like a great fit.

How funny! My WW post is about donating hair, too!

Bacon is telling me that this doesn't count as wordless because of the address in the photo. Oops! :0 http://msmathmom.blogspot.com/

I'm sorry that you have lost power and hope that things are restored quickly. Ask your BIL to move the freezer for you just to give you peace of mind. For what it is worth, after Katrina, we waited about 48 hours before we stared taking things out to cook. It actually turned into a nice neighborhood event with all the grills brought out into the street and everyone bringing things from their freezers to grill. We took what we could eat and shared the rest with people who needed it.

We are using SWO now, but I am ready to make a big switch. For my natural speller (Bacon), SWO is a bore. She is getting the words, but I don't know that she is learning much about spelling. Little Peanut is doing okay, but she is struggling. I think she needs more structure than she is getting with SWO. I'm thinking of switching to Sequential Spelling after our break in May.

Now y'all are making me think that we should pause and take a look at the poetry book. How are y'all working your way through the book?

I agree that the Practice books are the place to really, well, practice what you learn. We are new to this, but here is what we are doing. First, we read Grammar Island together. It took us a couple of weeks to get through. Next, we decided how long we wanted to spend on Practice Island and divided the sentences accordingly. We are aiming for 10 weeks, or 10 sentences per week. Right now I'm feeling like that is ambitious. I don't think we will work this quickly for the Town series. After a week with Practice Island, we started with Sentence Island. Again, we looked at our timeline and decided that two chapters a month suited us. We started by reading an entire chapter and then doing the suggested writing assignments in the teachers' section of the book. As you can see, we are including our own fun assignments as we think of them. After a week with Practice Island, we started Building Language. We read the first part of the book and then study one stem per week. In that week, Maggie looks up each word in the dictionary and prepares a half page in a lapbook based on what she learns. So far each page includes the meaning of the stem, a creative way to display definitions of related words, and either a poem or simile to remember the stem. We have not started the poetry book yet, but I hope to start after Spring Break.

I hope this gives someone a giggle. My 8 year old is loving MCT. It suits her quirky personality so very well. Yesterday, as we were reading she observed that it would be easy to talk like Yoda by putting the direct object or subject complement of a sentence first and then saying the rest of your sentence. She then came up with this writing assignment for herself: Write ten sentences in the style of Master Yoda. Then find the direct object or subject complement of the sentence. Leave it to my kid to come up with a Star Wars related grammar lesson. :D

I can't wait to see all of these! It is a highlight of my week. Wordless Wednesday- A Girl and Her Dolls

I agree that it is wonderful!

We have started to eat our way around the world. This week our menu is inspired by Canada. You can see it on my blog: Our Menu for the Week of March 7th

This sums up what we have been doing during these last few rainy days. http://msmathmom.blogspot.com/2010/03/wordless-wednesday.html

Thanks for asking this question. I am planning a summer day camp co-op with a group of other moms and we wanted to do a play one week. Now we have resources for plays to use!

Instant Gourmet makes a product called awake-a-steak. We bought it at our local Fresh Market.

We are using SWO along with MCT. I don't love SWO, but my daughter does. She is a naturally talented speller, so I'm going to stick with what is working for her.

We are about 4 weeks in to the Island series, and I can say that it has been a perfect fit for my 3rd grader. She absolutely loves it! We are using the basic package and it is fine. Save the $70 as others have said.

I'm interested in this topic, too. My 8 year old is begging to start Latin, and I know that once we start, my 6 year old will want to participate. I wonder if I should make Peanut wait or find something that works for both of them.

Thank you so much for sharing! I remember participating in Book It! when I was in elementary school. My girls are going to love it.

We made this blackberry french toast casserole for Christmas and it was a huge success. What if you made the meat casserole and this one so that everyone had a sweet and a savory option? http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1932538

I always pay because I've found that DS is one of the best sitters I've ever had, and that includes my MIL. :lol: If I was planning to pay someone outside of the family to do a half-rate job, well I'm more than happy to pay my oldest to do a superb job. And the girls prefer having their brother as a sitter because he is fun!

I love Ree! What a great idea. My comment has been added.

I am doing my own thing for my 3rd grader and Kinder. We are using National Geographic's World Atlas for Young Explorers as a spine. I wish you had a library, as that is what we are using for supplement, but there are so many great resources online that you should be able to give your boys the chance to experience the sights and sounds of different places. Our plan is to cover a 2 page spread each week. (Right now we are covering the beginning section that teaches how to read maps.) For each region we will do some combination of reading literature from that area, recreating art, making food, listening to music, and trying to find a contact in the area to send a postcard. My older dd will work to learn to find every country on a globe and to name the capitals. She will also learn geography terms and how to use latitude, longitude, and GPS devices. I want to work in some geocaching for that. My younger dd will work to learn the continents and oceans, an animal from each region, and making a book of flags.

I jealous of the experience and for a trip to Bellingham. I did research there as an undergrad and fell in love with the place. Would love to move the whole family back that way. Please share your experience when you return!

I agree to not panic. My oldest DD was a month or two into 2nd before it all clicked, and then she just took off.

Bedtime for the girls is around 8:30. They all go to bed at the same time, but my 8 year old is up by 6 am, my 2 year old usually follows by 7:30, and my 6 year old drags to be up by 8. My son was once a night owl, but he is recovering from mono. He is sleeping about 14 hours a day now, and this is an improvement!