Yep... it weighs you and calculates your BMI based on the height you enter. You can have that info locked with a password if you don't want others looking at it... though they would have to intentionally go look for it, it isn't floating above your Mii's head or anything. I don't know how it will work long term, but I just finished 30 minutes of exercise, and I worked up quite a sweat--I did several balance exercises, several aerobic exercises, and a couple of the strength training exercises. My favorite so far is the balance one where you tilt your body to make the balls roll through the holes... fun! For aerobics I'm enjoying the step and the hula hoop most. My boys are busy racing each other on the 2 person run (you need to have 2 controllers for this). So far so good!

A couple of quick ideas, though not a curriculum: 1. This catalog has wonderful resources that follow the liturgical calendar: https://protestant.creativecommunications.com/index2.php They have a catholic site as well, but I linked the protestant. They sell nice little devotional booklets for various seasons, etc. Fun to browse! 2. Online you could always follow the liturgical calendar at: www.textweek.com This is a site used (I would guess) mainly by preachers. They link the selection of texts for each week with a whole slew of commentaries and resources. It might be fun to follow along the readings at least, and it always notes when a different denomination varies from the Revised Common Lectionary. 3. Have you thought about attempting to follow the hours as a devotional practice? Not sure if I've seen anything for kids, but I love these: http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Hours-Prayers-Summertime/dp/0385504764/ref=pd_sim_b_2 These are seasonal (I have them all) and there is a pocket edition available that is MUCH smaller and portable (these are big hardbacks!).

Lol! We lucked out... my dh took the kids to the mall to spend some birthday gift certificates they were given. They walked in Game Stop to shop, and dh asked if they had any Wii Fits. Nope. They shopped for 20 minutes or so, and the guy went to the back... because a truck was pulling up. They had a huge pallet of Wii Fits on the truck, and he received them and pulled one right off for us. All in the timing! But I do think that they are starting to ship out the second wave to stores...

We started a 1500 piece jigsaw puzzle on Saturday. It has been several years since we've done one--dh and I used to work puzzles before we had kids. I'm enjoying it... but it's also one of those that is mostly just one or two colors, with huge swaths of similarity, so it is taking FOREVER. I thought I'd ask the board just for fun...

:iagree: This is a great description of my experience as well. I want my kids to have the kind of education that I really longed for, and never found until I went to college. Luckily I did a lot of reading on my own, but it still didn't make up for the time, the seemingly endless time, I had to spend dozing my way through years of pointless classes.

I believe that children who learn to read "naturally" do use sort of a whole language method. I've never done systematic phonics with my older son and he was reading at 2. We did teach the names and sounds of letters, but the rest of it he put together on his own. I remember being given the advice that he should have to work his way through a phonics program regardless of how well he read, but after a thwarted attempt at the beginning of PP, we simply skipped it. He reads fluently even when reading aloud--no whole language skipped word syndrome here! The words that stump him are generally ones that would stump anyone who had never heard them pronounced--recently he said the word "chassis" (which he picked up in his reading) as "chas-iss" instead of "chas-ee". Someone who learned phonics might easily make the same mistakes, and we simply correct him when we hear a mispronounciation. He spells easily and well. My younger son is just beginning to read at 4, and we are starting phonics with him, so it's not that I discount phonics. He clearly has different strengths and may very well need to learn more phonics before he can read fluently. I just don't think they are necessary for all children--and one of the wonders of homeschooling is that we can do what works for our child, regardless of how others might fare with the same approach.

I don't even really count June as summer... we're still doing school, I'm still busy at work... July really starts summer for me. I just can't wait until the 23rd, when we head back east for vacation. A couple of weeks of pool lounging (sorry, Colleen) and I'll be feeling fine!

It's a pun on "Hi-Fi", which was short for "High Fidelity".

Oh, boy, I don't like my fat little Mii!! (Or my fat little me, for that matter.) Has anyone had success actually getting more fit with their Wii yet?

Dh and I were both 22. We've been married 15 years this month.

There is also a workbook format that I have posted on Lulu for free download. http://www.lulu.com/content/796912 I'm not quite done with Vol. 2, but I should have that posted soon as well.

I do spend time in the sun, but I cover up or I BURN. Every summer we go on vacation and I spend full days in the pool. My boys and my dh tan, I burn and peel. If I'm very very careful and stay in the shade, use sunscreen, wear hats and generally hide from the sun, I just stay white without that irritating red phase. I wish I had been so wise in my youth--I'm covered with freckles from years of insufficient sun protection. I have auburn hair and a very pale complexion. "White as a ghost" just about covers it. Actually, while I don't really look anything like my avatar, we do share the same skin tone...

I love watching bats at night! When we visit our family in Virginia every summer, I sit in my upstairs window and watch them swoop down and catch bugs around the streetlights. I guess they look a little scary up close, but they fly so acrobatically from a distance... and eat up all those bugs.

Lol! I'm actually online early Sunday morning finishing up my sermon--which starts with a section about George Carlin. Funny this was the first thread I was when I stopped to take a break!

My 4 year old does this! I don't think it's an age thing (my 6 year old can scarf up sugar if it is offered!). In fact, yesterday we went out to lunch. Both boys requested a kid's chocolate shake--a big treat! We said fine. Younger son drank about 1/3 of his (it was in a small cup--so maybe 1/2 cup worth?) then ate his lunch. Then threw up his lunch on his plate. As soon as it happened dh and I looked at each other and said "Too much sugar!" We don't have sugar at home a lot, so it had been a while. Candies, cookies, cake--these have much the same effect. Luckily we don't eat a lot of those things. Sugar free popsicles are our usual dessert. Should we have him tested for diabetes?

Wow! Now I feel strangely guilty... there isn't anyone else who sees a movie most every week? My parents don't see many movies anymore, but I remember seeing a matinee every Sunday after church, and I remember my mom talking about walking to the kid's movies and spending all day there in the 1950's. My inlaws see at least as many as we do, probably more since they can see the "grown up" movies without worrying about childcare. Guess we're just weird!

We also are really liking Growing with Grammar!

We used to see 1 or 2 movies a week BC (Before Children). And it has only been recently that they have been old enough to see kid movies, so now we've become "child appropriate movie" afficionados--though I think my boys like action/adventure stuff more than many kids I read about here. So Narnia or Spiderwick was OK, though I would guess that many kids might find it scary... Anyhow, pretty much if we CAN see it with our kids, we do. After four years or so without seeing many movies, it really feels like a luxury.

My kids really like the magazines by Cricket publishing. We get Spider and Ladybug (both fiction) but they also have non-fiction magazines. Click is the non-fiction for up to age 6, Ask for ages 6-9. It's not all science (some would be social studies, I guess), but mostly science. http://www.cricketmag.com/shop_magzines.asp No advertising, great content.

My kids have been imitating it for days ever since I said it drove me crazy in the preview! But I have to say that it was much less a problem in the movie than I had imagined. My kids, on the other hand, are still driving me crazy by saying it over and over! Arrrgh!!!!!

I figured she was his wife or girlfriend from the future (his personal future, that is). My other guess was that she is a future self, who has introduced herself to him--but can't Dr.'s only regenerate 10 times or something? We love Dr. Who! Though I'm already missing Torchwood... sigh.

How about the Jasper Fforde novels? The Nursery Crime series makes me crack up! I'm also a big Wodehouse fan... and I love Connie Willis. Good Omens is fantastic too... heck, pick any one of these!!!

Was posting on the Wall-E thread and realized that we pretty much see a movie with our family every week--usually a Friday matinee. Sometimes dh and I see a "grown-up" movie as a couple, but more often we see movies alone and spot each other the free time (no family to babysit, unfortunately). How often do you see movies, on average?

We caught an early matinee this morning... I really enjoyed it, as did dh and both ds's. I had been afraid that the voice was going to annoy me, but it wasn't said so frequently that I found it grating. I particularly loved the animation on the first part of the movie. Moe was my favorite character.

We're using EPGY for math. Ds has completed grades 2-3, both this year. It has been a big hit! He can move at his own pace, and I love that they use proper mathematical terms right off. It's really the only subject that he BEGS to keep on working at, even when he has completed a session. Ds says about EPGY "Geometry, statistics and probability are fun." We pay a discounted rate (I think we pay 40% of the listed tuition), and it only took a day for them to approve the financial aid, if I remember correctly.