Teaching to the test means that the state thinks you need to know, A.C. Y.Z so who cares about the rest of the alphabet. We can touch on them, but really this is what we focus on the whole year. Lara

Even when he's a man he's still your kid. Some things transend time. I think I'll always call DD2 Kiddo. My mother still my uncle "Little Brother". When should you call him something else?, I guess when he starts acting like a man. Even as a man, he'll call you mom, so you'll call him______. Lara

My DD will be 10 in July, we went through this last month. I personally think its a time of year thing. In PS she was year round 9 weeks/three weeks, this year in a VA she's doing the typical sched. Summer was super boring, school too long. We took almost two weeks off (nothing was getting done anyway), by almost I mean 2 days one week with 3 half days, the same the next week. We also taked about how different it will be next year when momma goes solo-3 weeks/one week all year long. When we came back, we caught up on 7 weeks of social studies in 1 week! Now to keep it up...... Lara

My last house had 26 window with horizontal blinds that needed yearly cleaning. (more actually) I watched my neighbor spend and entire day in the spring cleaning hers. I realized it took 20 min per window to spray the blinds in the shower, dry them off, and clean the window. I refused to spend an entire day doing this, so I figured 26 windows, 52 weeks in a yr, one window every other monday. Didn't even feel like work. So I TRY (doesn't always work) to plan all my chores this way. Laundry 10 loads a week=1.5 per day (10 min) Bathrooms -3 bathrooms= 1per day (10 min) vacuming- 1 section of the house per day (5-10 min) the microwave (once a week) monday the kitchen floor (once a week ) tuesday the entryway stairs (once a week) Friday sheets- I change every 2 week, 5 beds= 1 every other day. Wed &Sat (my goal is to change sheets one night of the week, randomly, the whole family helping, this way I can root through a teenagers' room without looking like a controlling mother, and they can't hide stuff, because you never know when this will happen) As for tidying and children- I don't feed until the rooms house is picked up That is 3 times a day. Lara

As a parent who recently pulled her child from a brick and mortar to a cyber school, and will pull from the cyber school next year I sort of have a different persective. We have a good school district with some of the toughest graduating standards in the state (in fact they are loosening those standards to save money by allowing Sr's to graduate with the state req's now). We had some great teachers and some yucky teachers. We had one teacher who had been teaching for a long time and you could see in her eyes and attitude that she was beat. When we went on a field trip and all she did was try and keep the special needs child from running wild, dominating every conversation, picking his nose in front of the librarian, and asking the policeman 50 times about what the k-9 dog's favorite food was---you could see how her day in the classromm was h*ll. I felt for her, but MY child was unhappy in the classroom and not doing as well. The 3rdgrade teacher was new, (not young-she went back to school when hers started), that year was as waste for DD. LOTS of parties and not much structure, every time I visited the class it was chaos (sp?). These are teachers that need monitoring (they need help). In cyber school I find thay we are doing better, the school is looser in the manner that we can turn in assignments and I can really help out. They school still teaches to the test however and is still tied to whatever is the "regulations". Here are the things I have learned: There is a complete lack of comunication b't parents and teachers with regard to curric. How can I help my child with homework when I don't ever see what is going on? I get 10 pages of math a week, but don't know how to help my child do it, because I didn't learn whatever method you are teaching and my child thinks I'm stupid and we are all in tears. Teachers need to be monitored: problems in most classrooms can probably be solved if people would just look inside the room, (have an older teacher show the new guy some methods on crowd control, SEE that the older teacher is overworked with 2 special needs children and cannot teach when she is spending all her energy controling 2 trouble makers) This is not against special needs child integration, just seeing something that isn't working and needs to change (perhaps give the teacher an aid, maybe rotate the child to another teacher for while) Stop teaching to the test---this is stupid, yes we need some way to find if learniing happening -this way isn't really working. It's sort of like having Dr's learn to the test and they don't know the rest (so they can't dx anything NOT on the test) Perhaps we should take yr grades away alltogether. Only have children be at their level in each subject, no more 1st grade, 2nd grade etc... As to perental involvement- this is hard, on many levels, there are those who push too hard (ie-over progam the child in 75 activities) and those who are not involved at all-either eay is hard on learning. Why is school the way it is? Why not year round? Why does it get out at 3:00 and not 5:00? The current structure is so that children could help with the crops, get home in time to milk the cow. Now parents have to pay someone to watch the child all summer (causing them to work more to afford this-thus no energy for homework). Keep the child until 5:00, work slower, more individualized, not have homework. School year round, with lots of breaks (we are going the 3/1 week), then there is no loss of info and need for a review every new year (what a waste). Lara

My mother celebrated her 50th birthday at Georgetown law school. Not to be a downer, the only real problem, was people didn't want to hire an older person (of course she's also psycho-so maybe they were just smart!!). Lara

Here is something that concerns me with this situation: Once a visual connection is formed, there is the potential for obsession. If he sees your boys, he may form a desire that could be acted on later without your knowledge. Once your boys see him, a bond of trust is formed (the same on they have for any guest in your home or distant relative) He could instigate communication with them later and you not know, esp if you don't think to worry and watch for it. I don't like pictures of my children anywhere unknown people can see, and I certainly wouldn't let a person PROVEN untrustworthy near them. DH can meet him at a restaurant,you and the boys can stay at home. Lara

I had a gas stove once......ah, those were the days!!! We've been here 7 years with a glass stop piece of cr*p. Who would ever buy one of these??? They don't boil water. The burner constantly cycles on and off (too keep from breaking the glass---which broke on the one burner I NEVER use). When it does finally get hot, it takes forever to cool down. I burn stuff, I'm constantly cleaning boil overs (which run down the fron because there is no "catch"). URGG. I have melted more plastic containers than I care to recall because you can't tell when they are hot, (yes I know about the little light panel that shows when the burner is hot--explain that to SH (Not short for smart hubby). My dream is a new (or used ) gas stove, the gas runs just 10 ftt from the stove, not hard to convert. Alas...books, shoes, groceries. Lara

There is a website I found that has all types of learning for free cnx.org it has colleges professors sharing text books, it has neighborhood teachers sharing music lessons. It takes a while to go through--its on my 'when I have more time' list. But think it really has a lot of higher learning. Lara

I find doing things gives people something to talk about. So...pictionary, volleyball, crafts (we had our wedding guests paint our dishes- we bought the dishes and the paint and brought it back a week later to be fired) I'm not up to date on the newer games- but isn't there something with a DVD? Lara

I didn't really have a bad school experience. I had poor parenting. We moved a lot and I had a lot of holes in my education because one school would teach something at the beginning of the year and I would move there at the end. School came easy for me and I never learned how to discipline myself. I never learned study habits, or had someone tell me to practice my music, I skated around living off natural talent until my JR YR in high school, when it all stopped. I couldn't continue: so I quit band, failed trig, cheated my way through AP history and french. (I still graduated in the top 10% of my class in a respected school district.) I guess my decision to HS comes from my mother's complete lack of attention and my commitment to put my children first, no matter the cost. When my oldest was having some social and mild academic problems, I took the time to figure out the problems (mainly she was bored and lacked self discipline) and create a solution- to have one set of rules. one environment, one person to learn to please all day long. When I saw her doing what I did, living off talentand not learning, I knew I had to intervene. I've gone the charter route, but next yr I'm going solo because I see that I can do a better job, (I checked out at least 20 books on HS, and when I read the WTM I just KNEW this was the way --how does the song go? I saw the light!!) SO here we are, step by step doing it. Lara

Stirring the pot keeps things from sticking to the bottom. Sometimes its good to mix things up. Lara

We have a Sylvania 1GB mp3. I bought it at the grocery store (and Toys R Us ) for 10$. It charges on the computer. Small lightweight, has a clip to attach to clothes. We've never filled it all the way up. Of course my children are still young. Lara

Oxiclean, love it!! Use hot water of course. It also gets rust out and I've had great success with getting blood out of my sheets. Lara

Every time I don't wear one at home, someone comes over or I have to chase a dog down the street (ouch!!!). I wear one all day long every day. Mine are big, they are not as perky as when I was younger. You can tell your daughter she can hold 'em up now or tuck 'em in later. I cannot stand being in front of someone w/out a bra, I fell like there is a sign that points and blinks "LOOK HERE". I don't wear one to bed, but if I don't wear a top, I have those walking around naked and nobody seems to notice dreams!! Lara

Our summer sched. is going to be July & Aug 5 days a week, 1-4 (I don't let them outside during the hottest time of day anyway. So this way, they get to play 8-12, school 1-4, (only some subects we need reinforcement on or catch up) and play 5-7. In Sept. We'll add more subects and go to 5 hours a day but I'm trying for a 3 weeks on/1week off monthly sched. for the rest of the year. We seem to need more frequent time off, wee really kick butt at school that way. Of course this is my first year, it all go to cr*p before halloween. Lara

Professor Pigs (google it) math was fun and downloaded for free. Lara

I made a simple excel program that I enter 1-2 times a day and I tally the hours for the day, it tallies the hours for the week, then I save it to a file at the end of the week. I don't have a to-do list, I make a pile of work for each child at night, along with a math warm up on the board. I took all the workbooks, tore out the backs, and on Saturday I put a weeks worth of sheets in protectors for each subject. I make a daily pile along with related books. At noon I record the hours/details to my excel program (while I still remember)and again at 5:00 pm. the program has three children side by side, M-Sat. I tried to attach it but I don't know how. Lara

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Baby books? I don't think I even took pictures! Lara

Try a fabric store. Even Walmart has the clear plastic on a roll in the fabric dept. Lara

I think scavenger hunts are great. You can do a birthday theme: find a penny from DD birth yr, find a watermelon that weight 7lbs 5 oz etc.... You can do a camera theme: take a picture of the scavenger team in a yellow bathtub, sliding down the firemanls pole, in the lockup, in tree, on a 1997 minivan etc..... Lara

This is one of those threads where I'm gonna get into trouble......... Pets are pets,they come second. If you live in an area where heartworm is really bad, go for it. I personally do not think its healthy for pets to get all the shots every year, I'm more of a every 2 years type of person. I do not come into contact with a lot of other pets to be exposed, my dog almost never gets out of her yard. I did know someone who was a nurse who got the meds somehow and did shots for all the pets in the neighborhood. See if your vet (or another) can do just a shot clinic (no exam). In this economy they will understand. I have no problem stating that my children need to be fed before the dog gets parvo shots. I find most vets good at riding the fence b/t what is best for the pet, and what is best for the human family. Ask what he feel can be left off until later (one month, 6 months, 1 yr). Lara

We have a 'recent items ' list? Lara