I've thought about this quite a bit. I was working almost full time hours at age 15 while still in high school. At 16 I did have a full time job. I wasn't expected to pay rent, but if my parents needed money for something I gave it to them. I was not taught to manage that money AT ALL and really imo might as well not have been working as I wasn't working towards anything. I moved out when almost 18. I don't think I will ask my children to pay rent, however if they are 18 and have a job but aren't in college I will expect them to pay for their own expenses, car, gas, phone, food, clothes, etc. I will also, if needed, help them manage their money by helping them to set up a savings account and setting aside a certain % of their money. If they are in college I would probably still expect them to cover their own expenses minus food. If I am more financially secure by that time I could see contributing more towards their expenses such as a family plan for phone and whatever I could manage. I think my children may want a job before they are 18. If so, I will not ask them for money for rent nor their expenses, but if they want extra things I can not afford they will be welcome to buy for themselves. I will however, expect to be handed a portion of the money to be put into a savings account for them. This will help them be able to put a down payment on a car or home. I wish my parents had done this. Even though I had been working since I was 15, and babysitting before that, I had nothing but the shirt on my back when I moved out. Not cool.

My children are really enjoying Writing Strands. They are 10 and 12 and are using Level 3. We hadn't used any of the previous books though, so I'm not sure what Level 1 and 2 are like. They actually ask to do writing now. :)

We hadn't used WS in the past, but started with Level 3 this year. The kids really like it so far. They actually ask to do it, lol. We used WWE when they were younger and I did like it. I like WS because they are enthusiastic about writing and it is easy to implement, but best of all they are learning writing skills. They are actually thinking about the instruction and applying it to their writing.

My children and I really enjoyed Simply Grammar and the free GrammarLand book. There are free worksheets on google docs to go with GrammarLand. We're now using KISS grammar and will soon be using Grammar For Middle School.

:iagree: This is so true!

thank you for the info :)

I've been using Sentence Composing for Elementary with my 4th and 6th graders this year. I'm looking ahead to next year and considering which book(s) to get. I have a few questions. :) Is it essential to use the Story Grammar before the Middle School Grammar? Is it good to use the Sentence Composing book and the one of the Grammar books at the same time or are they redundant? TIA!

bump :)

I'm fine with our dining room looking like a school room. :) While we do read alouds on our family room couch, the majority of school takes place in the dining room. The computer desk, 4 bookshelves full of books, art supplies, and school supplies, posters, maps, and a large chalkboard on the walls fill our dining room along with our table and chairs. It is part of our lifestyle and I want our home to fit our lives. It would be way too inconvenient for me to try to have it any other way. We are a family of 5 living in a house about 1200 sq ft.

I'm curious if anyone has used the book Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Retelling? It has good reviews on amazon and google books. My ds could really use some extra help with summarizing and I was wondering if anyone has a review of this book they could share.

There is definitely more sibling rivalry between my older two who are just under two years apart. They have a definite love/hate thing going on and are the best of friends or the worst of enemies at any given moment. My youngest has a 6+ year gap from them and there isn't much rivalry at all. They are very understanding of her and she is treated like the baby of the family by us all. That said, my sister and I had very little gap in age and she hated me when we were children, but now we are very good friends. We call each other all the time and talk about everything. My older brother had a large gap in age from me and we got along well in childhood. He didn't like some decisions I made, mostly my choice of boyfriend and he disowned me. My brother has since apologized, years later, but our relationship has just never picked back up. I'm still with the same man and we are great together, he is a good man and father and I feel so fortunate to be his partner in life. So yeah, I do think a 6+ age gap certainly can mean less sibling rivalry in childhood, but as far as their lifelong relationships I doubt it has little to do with anything.

Dawn- If you feel this cat will always have the tendency to bite I totally understand not wanting to take her to a shelter or rehome her. If it came down to it with our cat I think I would put her to sleep before I would have her in someone else's care. I would just feel too responsible for the consequences. Google cat bites. It is often very, very bad. I do believe as much as 50% of cat bites get infected. Its been awhile since I researched it, but I remember being quite alarmed between what I witnessed with my sister (who still has nerve damage) and what I read online on medical information sites.

OP- I completely agree that Lois really should have known better to try to grab a hiding animal like that. I hope she takes every last bit of the antibiotics and keeps a close on on her wound. Cat bites can be very, very bad. My sister was bitten by my cat and it got horribly infected. She was on my back porch and when her son opened the door my cat ran out. My sister was afraid the cat would run away and grabbed her and wouldn't let go. The cat hissed and tried to get away and she grabbed again getting a tighter hold on her, pulling her hair and that's when my cat bit her on her hand. The cat had never bit before, nor after this incident. My sister didn't blame her. The bit didn't look bad, but it did draw blood and even though we squeezed the wound and cleaned it out right away it got horribly infected. It was awful. There is a certain bacteria cats can have in their mouths that is very bad. All that said, I'm so sorry you are in this situation. I too have a cat that bites (not the cat who bit my sister). She is not a mean cat, she is a very nervous cat. She was born in my home and has never been abused or mistreated. She is a sweet cat, but I've decided to quarantine her for lack of better choices. She bit my youngest daughter who was always very sweet and gentle with our cats. My daughter had taken a curtain tieback out of the laundry basket, the cat was sitting on a dining room chair. Dd was slowly waving the tieback in front of the cat to try to get her to play. The cat bit her, hard enough to draw blood. I saw the whole thing. Since then she has bitten my son once and me several times. She is a lap cat and loves affection. Each time she has bitten since that first time it has been because she was being gently put off a lap, except for once she bit me when I petted her on the head because she wasn't aware I was there I think and it surprised her. She has drawn blood biting twice, twice left marks, but didn't draw blood. Other times she didn't bite hard enough to leave a mark. Putting her outside or rehoming her just isn't an option in my opinion. I would feel so responsible if she were to bite someone else. We've been lucky and not had any infection from her bites, but I've seen how awful it can be and I can not have her around my children anymore. We tidied up our garage as well as we could and made her a nice spot out there with a cat bed, food, water, litter box, and an oil radiator heater. It is the best I can do right now, though it makes me sad for her and feels wrong. Dh says he wants to turn half the garage into a room, leaving the other half for storage, but I'm not sure when we will financially be able to manage that. I think I'll feel better about it once it is actually a room without storage clutter in it, though I seriously doubt it bothers the cat at all. I do pet her and take care of her needs and I'm not afraid of being bitten as long as I know she knows I'm there. I also block her from getting on my lap when I'm petting her so that I don't have to put her off my lap, as that is a trigger to her. I am afraid she will bite the kids because kids are loud, kids tend to move quickly, etc. and she is just too nervous to deal with that. She can't bite just because someone is trying to play with her or pets her gently on the head and she didn't realize they were there. Not okay. :(

I don't count assigned books. They're assigned to read a chapter a day, 4-5 days a week for 36 weeks during school time. I'm usually reading two books aloud to them at any given time. The books they read on their own? Wow I'd hate to have to count and keep track of those. :) A love of reading is by far most important to me.

I love Pink Quartz Minerals makeup. She's on etsy and has her own website too. Her makeup is the best and the only kind I have ever used that I will ever use again. Seriously, I'd otherwise do completely without. It feels wonderful, nothing compares. You can ask questions to her directly on etsy, though you have to have an account I believe. She only uses 7 ingredients in ALL of her products (not that all of her products have all 7)-Mica, Titanium Dioxide, Zinc Oxide, Iron Oxide, Tin Dioxide, Ultramarine Blue, Kaolin Clay. Foundations contain Mica, Titanium Dioxide, Zinc Oxide, Iron Oxide, Kaolin Clay, Ultramarine Blue.

I'd say as along as a child has access to art and crafting supplies, no. We have a lot of materials available. Dd 3 does enjoy doing pre-made activities like paste this here, cut this here, etc so I do include them in our activities. She does like the Kumon workbooks. I wouldn't say she *needed* them though. She has access to glue, scissors, paper, markers, paint, foam shapes, stickers, crayons, colored pencils, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, puff ball things, etc. She makes art daily on her own. She's a big fan of scissors and glue these days. :)

:iagree:

I don't have a blog, so aside from that, what would be the best way to share a pdf of homeschool materials I've created? Thanks!

What font do you prefer to read and type in? I'm curious what others prefer. :)

My dd 3 is soon to be 4. We've been using worksheets/activities/workboxes and doing The Letter of the Week. She loves PreK. I'm considering making my own PreK 4/5 for her as buying anything is not an option right now. I've been able to find good things for free online, but am considering making some things because I want them a certain way. I'm wondering what others would want if the could have the *perfect* PreK letter curriculum or *perfect* PreK literature unit studies? For the curriculum I'd like to focus on letter sound of the week. Here is a list of things I'm thinking of: 1. letter mini book with pictures to paste in the correct box, such as page says alligator, parent reads the word alligator, PreKer pastes alligator in a box above the word on that page, each book would be 6-8 pages 2. worksheet with the letter on it and blank space, another worksheet with pictures of things that start with that letter, depending on scissor skills Preker or parent cuts out pictures, PreKer pastes them on the page 3. paper puppet animal starting with the letter to color and glue on craft stick 4. build a word mat with two pictures of two things starting with the letter and mini letters to cut out either by parent or Preker, parent help PreKer spell the word, PreKer pastes letters in correct box, such as picture of ant with three boxes below it and the letters a n t inside little boxes to paste correctly I would prefer to make these all blackline as the printing would be cheaper. I'm wondering what else you would want to add, or if any of the ideas aren't something you would do? For the literature unit studies I plan to retell classic stories such as The Twelve Dancing Princesses and Jack in the Beanstalk. We've been using pictures I've printed for stories and she will retell the story after I've read it to her using the cut out pictures. Then we will play the story together. She LOVES doing this. I'm okay at drawing and adapting the stories to be more age appropriate. I'm considering making drawings that will go along with the main events in the story very well for quite a few classics.Other ideas I have include a page with pictures to cut and paste like stickers on a blank page however she wants, a mini book with very short recaps of main events, and pictures to cut and and put in the correct order of the story sequence. I was trying to think of what other activities I could include in a literature unit study? Thanks for any input!

I'm trying to remember the book. Had to be either something by John Holt or possibly The Teenage Liberation Handbook? Something I read years ago that was an older book described what 'unschooling' might look like in different families and some of the descriptions were definitely what I would consider homeschooling rather than unschooling. I didn't know John Holt coined the term. It has been a long time since I read something by that fellow. :)

I believe the word unschooler has evolved and it therefore makes sense not everyone uses it the exact same way. Seems I recall reading it was used in a broader sense previously to encompass anyone not going to school (what most would now call a homeschooler). Now whenever we say unschooler most picture a radical unschooler, but really if there weren't variations of unschoolers why would we tag the word with the adjective radical? When I hear unschooler I don't picture a radical unschooler unless the word radical precedes the unschooler. I picture what would more likely be called a relaxed/delayed academics/child led homeschooler. :)

Pork roast cooked slow with cabbage, diced apples, and honey. I would usually cook mashed potatoes with this, but I'm on the Specific Carb Diet and can't have them so I may not. I'm sure the rest of the family would still love to have them though. :)

Hi :) I managed to finish some things for Christmas. A felt playhouse cover for the card table for dd 3, a hat with Mario for ds 10, and a scarf with attached mittens for dd 11, and rice bags for everyone. I also made dh a hat he's been bugging me about (not complaining, happy he finally wanted me to make him something). :) I started a hat for my sister. I want to make dd 3 a hat and mitten set with rainbow colors, but I'm in no hurry and haven't yet decided exactly how I want it to look. Dd 3 got some calico critters for Christmas and I want to make some clothes for the ridiculously adorable little things. I just started planning/researching/scratching my head over that today.

I recommend Jari Love. Some of hers are $4.98. She'll kick your butt! :) I love the Get Ripped 1000 for $11.98 I think.