My daughter was/is a daredevil also that has mellowed a bit with age. She had a rubbermade closet organizer in her closet. I didn't think anything about it was dangerous...I had two active boys before her. I caught her one day trying to take a nap on the lowest shelf four feet from the ground, so I took that shelf off and thought that was the end. Then I heard a little "help" from her room one day and discovered she was using the narrow pole as a climbing pole and had gotten her pants stuck to the empty shelf bracket. She was suspended 4 feet in the air attached only by the back of her pants. I got her down and told her never to climb the pole. She said, "I wasn't climbing the pole." HA! After that the whole system got out of her closet until just recently. Two active boys were nothing compared to her! It's like she didn't have any common safety sense. I am bringing her to my brother's outdoor adventure ranch next month and she can safely climb a 50 ft. tower. She will love it. Beth

So, I'm now making sure he gets those problems right. I had a teacher do this to me in college. We had to show that we got every problem right on our homework for math. This was a pretty rigorous, math major math class. The first ever problem I had to prove was 0=0. It took me the whole semester. Finally, I think the professor was just so sick of me in his office while he tried explaining this problem to me, he just gave me the answer. So, I guess I'll give my son that same experience. I'm sure he'll love it. Beth

When you correct (if you do) your child's homework and they get a problem wrong, do you have them do it again? My ds makes stupid computational mistakes often enough - it's not a lack of understanding, just a lack of attention to detail. So, let's say they get 5 wrong out of 30, do you make them find what they did wrong? When do they have to correct their mistakes? The next day? Beth

I am finding the "help me" battle gets worse as they have moved to almost independent learning. Ds had a bit of it last year when he was 12 and is now trying it again at 13. He asked for help on questions in his science book a few times already. I told him that I would have to read the sections he just read for myself and he could do that just as easily. I'm no longer an answer machine because I am not studying the textbook with him. He did find the answer. Amazing. :glare: My attitude is now, "The answer is there. Find it." Beth

I skip a lot of stuff. If they need manipulatives, I have those nearby. For example, yesterday, I skipped making a bar graph out of paper. She's been there done that. No need to review Beth

Our landlord came into our house without an appointment while dh and I were "occupied". Walking in the yard unannounced was the least of our problems. Beth

We couldn't fit anymore into the car... My real reasons is my #3 pregnancy was hard due to having to take care of my disabled son at the same time. So, we adopted #4 and being in our 40's now, we're tired. I guess the energy amount of the children has overpowered the energy level of the adults so we're done. Beth

All creatures great and small by James Herriot. It's about a veterinarian in rural England. I like them a lot and am not even a big animal person. Beth

I have white and like it just fine - the plain thin white plates. I used to have a set of nicer plates, but they got all chipped and looked bad. I have two boys doing my dishes so it just makes sense to have something light and something that's really hard to break. My mom also had the same dishes and replaced them with fiestaware once all the little people were out of the house. I will probably do the same. Eventually, I'll have nice dishes. Beth

For those who pre-soak grains in buttermilk, yogurt, or vinegar, how do you keep them from making every baked good sour tasting? I've tried bread with an overnight soak in 1 T yogurt per cup of water - sour. I've tried oatmeal with an overnight soak with 2 T buttermilk per cup of water - sour. I'm going to try a muffin soaked grain, but I have a feeling it too with turn out sour. Any way to do a good soak for health benefits yet get rid of the sour taste? And for those who lurk and are wondering why I'm doing this (see here for starters), I have a couple of children with gut issues who can learn soooo much easier when their gut is working properly. For our daughter, it's a huge difference. We can take her out in public without frustration and she can learn without constantly getting distracted. :tongue_smilie: Beth

I just noticed that Tynker - a learn to code program is available to homeschoolers for $50 per student. This is a 4th-8th grade program. It looks interesting and I may consider it if my 7th grader is not too overwhelmed with the load I am giving him this year. Beth

You just have to find a "regular" person in Canada who would buy a bunch and ship it to the US to be distributed. There's got to be someone here who would do it. It would be a financial risk for someone, but I'm sure they could sell a bunch of copies. Beth

Sounds like someone in Canada or Australia should hook up with someone here and mass ship books to be distributed by that person in the US. Or is that illegal? Beth

You are supposed to do drills - I have used Flashmaster. I like Singapore to a point, but a weakness with it is that it doesn't review and children can wind up forgetting concepts already mastered. For my ds who went through 6A, it was everything to do with fractions (adding, multiplying...). For my ds who has completed half of 3A, it has been how to subtract with borrowing. While I do love Singapore, I don't want to have to figure out how to make it more spiral so we're jumping ship. Make sure you figure out how to review concepts already learned. Beth

My daughter's speech therapist asked her what a pilot was. She said, "The guy in the palace." He was confused. I was a little confused until I out that with her Jesus dying on the cross obsession at the time she was thinking Pilot in the Bible. She had no idea that a pilot was a person who flew planes. Beth

My land line cost went up again. Basic service with nothing extra is costing $30 a month with internet service at $40. I'm starting to wonder if there is a better option for getting a cell phone as my primary phone. Is there a way to get internet for my home with a cell phone service? Is there a way to make your cell phone hook up to a regular phone? Where do I even look? beth

My friend does HOD with her 8 children. She gives them the appropriate age manual and expects them to complete it on their own. When they get to a point where they need a teacher's help, they come to her, but otherwise they are on their own. She buys all the books each child needs to go with their manual and everyone just checks off the boxes when they're done. Beth

My friend does HOD with her 8 children. She gives them the appropriate age manual and expects them to complete it on their own. When they get to a point where they need a teacher's help, they come to her, but otherwise they are on their own. She buys all the books each child needs to go with their manual and everyone just checks off the boxes when they're done. Beth

When we brought our daughter home from China at 2 1/2, she was used to a crib, so we gave her a crib. We were concerned that she would wander the house or get outside without us knowing (which she had already figured out to do). She easily got out of it. We tried a crib tent. She broke through two of them. We figured out she was using her closet organizer as a climbing gym and was jumping off of her 3 drawer dresser. So, we took everything out of the room (including the closet organizer), put her mattress on the floor, and reversed the lock on her door so she couldn't get out. We even took the window openers to her windows because she was opening the windows by herself and we were concerned she would get out the window or leave it open on a negative temperature night. We were truly concerned for her safety because while she had ability to do all of this, she lacked common sense. We even thought about taking a traveling play pen and using it upside down over the mattress on the floor. It can be scary when a young child has ability without wisdom. Beth

I pay all the bills and know how much everything is. DH doesn't know and as long as everything is going smoothly, we just swim along. With big purchases, he asks what the financial situation is. My job is to try to make the most of his paycheck and tell him when our expenses are getting over his income. Last time I told dh his income wasn't enough for our expenses, his company decided to fix payroll "abnomallies" and start docking his pay 20%. I'm still peeved about that one. Beth

Personal Care Attendant for an elderly person or a disabled child/adult. Around here, they are always short on people to fill the spots. Beth

I think the "slackers" being referred to around here are considered non-schoolers vs. un-schoolers. The unschoolers (in my opinion) are the parents who work harder because they are following interests and have that creative bent that helps them tie in a bunch of subjects around an interest. For example, the family finds an interesting bug on a nature walk, goes home to research the bug, draws the bug with detail labeling the bug, writes a poem around a bug theme or some other academic pursuit that follows the interest. A non-schooler wouldn't even get up for the nature walk much less do anything academic with it. These are the just let the kids play video games all day with the hope that someday, they'll ask to be taught to read. And even at that point, they may never get around to actually teaching them. Beth

I live in what is considered a moderate to high regulation state. Even if the government decided to change things up and require school districts to spend more money to regulate homeschoolers, it wouldn't happen. There isn't the money to do it. We keep records "just in case", but also realize the school administration all over is stretched thin just trying to keep the public school going much less trying to find out what one family is doing or not doing. I remember a few years ago asking on this forum about a friend who was working almost full time to help her husband's business who admitted she "never got around to doing school today". It became a little bit of a debate on how can we judge another homeschooler's plan of action, who are we to say what xyz child should be doing each year, and how to encourage another mom without actually saying, "you need to focus more on your children's education!!" So, a whole year went by of "not getting around to doing school". She did finally get her act together, but her oldest children suffered and are one year behind in all the basics. She lost a year which in the grand scheme of things is not much, but with the radical non-schoolers, there are years of "not getting around to it". I guess it all boils down to parent involvement. Even in public schools, parents who are not involved in their children's education have children who often do not perform as well. I hear what everyone is saying though. I work hard at schooling my children and do it consistently (almost to a bad pendulum swing to never missing a day for anything). It annoys me to no end that I/we who work hard at this can get lumped together with those who make no effort at all. Beth

I take CC memory work and use it to co-ordinate with what my kids are learning so they memorize in context. This year, since we are getting into the middle ages and early american history, they will memorize a Shakespearean sonnet and we'll try the declaration of independence. I found a rap song for 99 cents that goes through the whole thing. I also am going through IEW's poetry program for other poems. TWTM has a lot of suggestions for longer memorization pieces in the book related to the time period you are on in history. Since we have the CC timeline cards and song, we just use those for the timeline. Beth

My poor husband. He should thank me that I don't bring stuff up as much as my mind thinks about it. Beth