A marine bio professor I TAed for once dared me to eat the eggs from one of the live sea stars we were dissecting. He knew me well enough that I would do it without any reservations or flinching. He wanted to gross out the squeamish freshmen. It worked. They were not bad. No different than roe in sushi.

LBB (age 11) Hits: Lightning Lit American Lit History Odyssey Level 2 Early Modern (LBB does not like the earlier levels with crafty stuff like history pockets. Early Modern has lots of writing which he does like.) Kinetic Algebra Teaching Company Geology Cooking classes from me Misses: NEM1 (it was too easy, poor choice on my part) CyberEd Earth science (he is finishing it, but again too easy and he just does not like it) Qster (age 6) Hits: Math Mammoth Light Blue (curriculum not just worksheets) Complete Book(s) of Science, Grammar, Geography Grades 3-6 (he loves these colorful books and they are challenging enough to last a little while) Even-Moore Daily Geography (he finished it in a month, but loved it) Pokemon Learning League Miss: Singapore Math (he understood the concepts fine, but just did not like it) SOTW 1 (the storytelling format is not our style. I don't know why I even tried since it never worked with LBB either) Lapbooking Me Hits: Moving more towards a Core Knowledge type schedule Realizing that it was time to start high school with LBB (started in November when he was 10). This has brought so much calm to our day. LBB is finally feeling engaged and challenged and I am scrambling less to keep up with him (although he is still speeding through science and math at warp speed). Miss: Trying to follow WTM too closely with Qster

My oldest will be done with high school at 13 or 14 if he takes a full four years to complete the requirements (halfway through 9th now). I do not know if I will officially graduate him then or not, but it is important to have the option if needed. I graduated at 17, but could have done so at 16. I only went to school half time for my senior year and worked full-time.

Let's see... Me: Atheist Obsessed autodidact Learning to play guitar at 35yo Artist that has shown in galleries and museums Writer Politically moderate, but I am registered Democrat for now so I can vote in the primary. Usually I am independent. Two kids with no intention of ever having more. Love video games Dh: Western Region Director for a Fortune 500 company Atheist Same politics as me Obsessed with video games Travels a lot, but works from home a lot too. 36 yo We met in elementary school, have been friends for 27 years, were high school sweethearts married at 19 & 20, now married 16 years (wow run-on sentence).

We have very little selection here so the difference between the discount (WalMart) and not discount (Safeway) grocery stores is obvious. I have noticed the prices have gone up a lot more at the "discount" store and changed very little at the regular grocery store. Now the prices are comparable making there very little reason to settle for the lower quality at WalMart. Not that Safeway is always that great, but they are worlds apart in quality and selection. A real butcher shop recently opened in the next town over. They have nice high quality hormone free meat that they charge the same or less than the grocery stores. They buy locally and butcher it themselves keeping the price low and quality high. We have eaten more meat lately than I can ever remember. Oh, and they will BBQ it for you at no extra charge if you call ahead. Unfortunately, the fresh produce season is very short here. Except for blue and black berries, the rest is often not as good as produce brought in from more appropriate climates. The berries though...mmmm. The other big local fresh food is seafood, but I cannot eat most of it (allergies).

I have never used a program for science. My kids do so much on their own there is no need. There are many books for children on both Darwin and evolution now. I don't know what ages you are teaching, but here is a short list with books that span several age groups: Darwin and Evolution for Kids: His Life and Ideas with 21 Activities The Tree Of Life: The Wonders Of Evolution Mammals Who Morph: The Universe Tells Our Evolution Story Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution Eyewitness: Evolution From Lava to Life: The Universe Tells Our Earth's Story Born With a Bang: The Universe Tells Our Cosmic Story For older/high-school age readers I would recommend Selfish Gene, Blind Watchmaker, Ancestor's Tale, and River Out Of Eden all by Richard Dawkins.

Dh used to just be tolerant leaning towards supportive. If you had asked him then he would have said he was fully supportive, but it did not necessarily show in his attitude or actions. Since our one trimester last year trying the public schools and all that went on with the endless counselor meetings about the boys' giftedness and lackadaisical teachers that thought gifted kids were problems to be solved, dh is now not only 110% supportive, he is down right enthusiastic. Before I think he saw it as one viable option for our kids education. Now he sees it as the only option. He has also been making a much bigger effort to be involved in a positive way lately.

What version of Word are you using? 2007 has some calendar templates in the tables section.

Another online only family. We have 10Mb cable internet, but no tv service. We also watch a couple shows that we buy on Xbox live (Lost, Numb3rs) so we can watch them on the big tv in HD.

The academic and the character trait are combined: How to find information and learn on their own and how to think independently. I cannot take much credit for them learning to read. To me it is a skill like walking and talking. You can guide a child, but they have to figure out how to really do it on their own.

We bought our cybered subscription through them. All went smoothly.

Ds11 does one or two full five paragraph or longer essays each week along with several pages of either comprehension questions or the various writing assignments from History Odyssey L2 Early Modern (which I think is much more writing intensive than how I see other L2 HO levels described) which vary from one paragraph to one page biographies and forms that get filled out about events. Right now we are in our American Lit block (alternate with HO). He is doing a few pages of comprehension questions and two multi-page writing projects over the next 12 school days. He also writes a couple of paragraphs using the challenge words from Vocabulary from Classical Roots every week. Normally he would be doing some writing for science too. We are in an in between phase waiting for him to finish Algebra 1 before he starts AP/Clep chemistry. Both boys, ds11 and ds6, are doing the cybered Earth Science for fun in the meantime which needs no writing. But realize he is essentially and advanced ninth grader, so the amount is not that unusual, or at least I do not think it is. He is done around lunch time everyday, so he is not exactly slaving over a keyboard all day.

I would give 3/4 to the local women and children's shelter and the rest to the Richard Dawkins Foundation For Reason & Science. Both are organizations I already try to make contributions to whenever I can.

Ditto that!!!

I said four, but I guess by your definition of fluency it would have been younger for my oldest. I don't really know when he reached that fluency point. Four was when I caught him in his room with a flashlight finishing the Harry Potter book his dad had been reading to him at night. Dh was both proud and a bit hurt that ds did not want to wait for him :o Ds11 reads at a college level now. Ds6 reads somewhere around a middle school level, maybe a little higher.

I love fabricmartfabrics.com for high end garment fabrics. They get a lot of end bolt and end of season designer stuff. You have to watch the deals because they change weekly, but you can get some amazing pieces for cheap. I still have yards and yards of Ralph Lauren denims I bought in one of their value packs. It was something like 5 pieces per pack for $15 and each piece was supposed to be a minimum of a yard and a half but was more like 3 or 4 yards and extra wide. They are also a great place to buy buttons and zippers in bulk. Sometimes they have zipper-button bundles for $5 that are several pounds (yes pounds) of mixed buttons and around 25 various high-quality zippers. I also like fabric.com and thaisilks.com.

That is such a difficult decision. I had to make a similar one at her age. Can she find a less intense dance class or different style (jazz, swing, Latin, etc.) to participate in where she would be challenged but not at a high enough level for all the stress?

Singapore has some fun and inexpensive art instruction books for that age. They give a short lessons on an art concept like colors or pattern, then there is a worksheet, then instructions for an art project that always uses easy to get materials. Funny, I had forgotten about these books entirely. I found them out in my garage a few minutes ago then came in and saw your post :)

I gave ds11 his choice. I encouraged him to choose Spanish because dh and I already speak it (not-native speakers, we learned in school), but he choose French. I decided to learn along with him. He has never studied Latin formally, but we have done tons of work with roots which is helping him a lot. On the plus side, dh and I can still speak to each other in Spanish if we don't want the kids to understand us.

Let him play electric guitar. He can plug headphones into his amp and you will barely hear anything. You can also get a set of mutes for his drums to muffle the sound for practice. I started electric guitar a few weeks ago :) My family has been forced to listen to me playing "A Horse With No Name" over and over again the last two weeks. I am kind and plug in the headphones at night, but in the afternoon they can just listen. I think I have the song down now, so maybe they will get to listen to something new. Oh, ds11 has been begging for drums.... they make nice electric sets now so he can practice with headphones too (when I finally buy them for him).

That's sounds like so much fun. I started learning electric guitar a couple of months ago and now I find myself wanting to learn everything!

The idea of formal art classes makes my very mature not prone to outburst ds11 cry. He dislikes the whole idea that much, so I do not force it. Ds6 loves art. I think the best way to learn is to just create. He has tons of high-quality supplies and some learn to draw books. The kids see me painting and drawing everyday. They ask technical questions and I answer them. They both know what chiaroscuro and grisaille mean, so I think their informal learning will do just fine.

Fall?!?!?!? I was just starting to think about Spring!

First Start French is NOT student led. It requires quite a bit of work on the part of the parent, IMHO. I just returned my copy to Memoria Press for a refund.The student text has no lesson reference material, just questions to answer and the lyrics to the songs. The teacher must read the teacher's manual then teach the material. We are using a combination of livemocha.com (free), My French Coach for the Nintendo DS, and reading copies of Astrix in French with a dictionary at hand. Ds11 and I are learning together, but do our work independently. It seems to be working well for both of us. Even dh, who has always claimed to be foreign language challenged has started the Nintendo game and is learning.

We like Brain age for the fun aspect, but I don't think it is really educational :) Word Coach, though, is very educational. Like Brain Age it does have a certain amount that is supposed to be done daily, then a rest taken. In one week I am already seeing a big improvement in ds11's spelling.