Nevermind. Apparently you have to order the plus to stream to your tv. UGH!

Is it possible to stream shows from hulu through my wii so that I can watch on the TV? We've done this successfully with Netflix but there is a particular show we want to watch that is on hulu but I can't figure out how to get it to work. I just signed up for an account thinking that would help. Not a plus account, just a regular account. The show is a free one. I don't understand. Maybe hulu doesn't stream but that doesn't make much sense. What am I doing wrong?

I haven't bought anything yet. I just discovered something called an Mp3 player. Any thoughts on those? Here's one on Amazon, a little cheaper than a shuffle but with a screen. It has decent reviews if you get different earbuds. And these speakers look fun, also good reviews. I'm thinking I should start small and go with a simple Mp3 maybe before we jump on the "i" band-wagon. I know I'm a dork. I really really like CD players and discs. I am always one of the last to move forward.

I didn't know about iHome speakers. That sounds like what we would want as opposed to docking that it can't sit on. Thanks for the tip on how many you're getting for the price. :001_smile:

Maybe. He does like to listen to sermons and I thought he could download them from our church's website instead of requesting the CD all the time. But it doesn't sound like the shuffle would work for that kind of thing. Just music?

Oh that looks cool and it's the right price!! So how does one choose songs on the shuffle if you can't see the title? Is it a numbered system? I didn't even think about that.

Thanks for chiming in. This connector with USB end...what is that designed to do? Is that how you connect it to the computer to download the music? The guy at the store was not exactly sure what came in the box. He pointed to another cord that I would have to buy to connect it to a docking station. He did tell me it wouldn't sit on it nicely like the other products. It doesn't fit. But my son won't know the difference at this stage of the game. If he gets the use out of it that I'm hoping he will then maybe he can save up himself for an upgrade. Thanks for the tip on the accessories. If I ask maybe the store will let me open the products and plug them in and make sure before I take it all home.

It is a shame the way newspaper routes are going. My kids have had 2 different paper route but got laid off of both of them because both went to an adult only delivery system. So recently a route opened up in our neighborhood and I took it and gave him part of it to walk. I drive the rest of it in my beat-up car with another kid who gets out and runs it to the porch. :D:D

So I'm still stuck in the CD player mind-set. I'm not techno-savvy and I have very limited dollars. My oldest son has developed a serious jazz addiction. He likes to kidnap my laptop and listen to music on it in his room while doing school. This is a problem because other children have assignments here and there throughout the day that need the laptop. He also has a small paper route that nets him 3 hours walking time in our neighborhood. It's going to get brutal outside soon and maybe a little music would pass the time by nicely. :001_smile: I thought about getting him an i-pod shuffle for Christmas. The worker bee at the store said that he could load 200-400 songs on it. He wasn't terribly familiar with the shuffle. He said I could get an inexpensive i-pod docking bay along with a special plug for attaching when he's in his room and maybe didn't want to wear the ear buds. I'm looking to spend about $100 for the whole set-up and if I could get $25 at i-tunes to fit in that budget I'd be very happy. I have never bought anything like this. What do you think?

Thank you for sharing all that. That's a lot of info. I'm not sure how to boil it down for my 12yo to be able to apply it. But it is very cool to know. :001_smile:

:party: Exactly, my frustration!!! Great post you linked. Thanks so much. She phrased it so much better than I did too. It is nice to know I'm not alone with this struggle.

That makes total sense. I didn't like Phonics Road either. :)

Oh, O.K. I did not like the markings at all. I think we tried another system with markings too. Phonics Road? The markings are just busy work for my natural spellers and is not the type of thing that helps the one with poor visual memory. It seems to be a tool that tries to enhance the distinct "look" of a word. I suppose another goal of dissecting is to have students slow down a minute and pay attention to the word. Then when they've taken the time to "see" it, they can better remember how to spell it. Thank you for mentioning it. This has been a good discussion for me. I'm thinking that my son with his peculiarities would be best served by some aural means of encoding. He can spell beautiful because several years ago I told him to say Bee - a - u - ti- ful. Now how many of these mispronunciations he can fit inside his head before he overloads, I have no idea. But visual cues are lost on him. The kinesthetic tools we learned from Spelling Power were also lost on him. In fact, my dh is a poor speller as well and he has a set of words that he mispronounces. Ones that are hard to spell, not hard to say. For example he says sky - ence instead of science in informal goofy conversation. I don't think he has a problem sounding professional in work situations. I hope not anyway. :D The apple doesn't fall far with this one apparently. Oh, my poor boy.

We did too. I remember learning as a very older child...6th/7th grade...that the proper term was crayons. I spent my early years in Houston, if that explains it as a regional thing.

I don't know why the uproar about the Disabilities Act. I know there are those who think that disabled children are better served in an educational institution with specialists and such than at home. Perhaps it is something along those lines. There was recently a case in our papers about a family refusing cancer treatment for their child and were taken to court. Homeschooling a disabled child might be seen as withholding necessary treatment.... I don't know. I'm just brainstorming.

This nice thing about Spelling Power is that there are no spelling tests and there is no failure. You dictate words and when there are 3-5 misspellings you stop and study. I mentioned above that it worked O.K. for us but that it was very, very time consuming. We reviewed the misspelled words every.single.day. He just needed large amounts of repetition to get the words to stick. But his writing this year has just been atrocious so I don't know how much long term retention we got out of all that time invested.

Thanks for chiming in abrightmom. The link to their forums was so incredibly helpful!! I read many questions that people asked and Denise's responses. I think that LOE probably will not address the specific problems we are dealing with. It's unfortunate, but good to know before spending the money. LOE sounds like a fascinating study in etymology and linguistics. But I don't have the time to delve into that these days. Maybe one day. :001_smile: We'll probably continue with our "say to spell" tricks that we come up with. It sounds like LOE relies on this method too. Unfortunately there were way too many el words on Denise's list to hope for a memory song. :glare: Oh well. We did studied dictation last year with HOD and he did O.K. This year we are using Rod & Staff, in fact (very perceptive :001_smile:). I do love R&S but the spelling book is a struggle for this one. We seemed to have some moderate success with Spelling Power after adapting it to fit this child, but it was so very, very, very time consuming. I'm beginning to think that immense amounts of time are what it's going to take for this one to be a good speller. And I'm not sure that's where I want to put so much of our time. Thus far, my other children have not had to invest copious amounts of time to learn to spell adequately. My oldest won our metro-area's homeschool spelling bee with minimal study. And my oldest girl is pestering me to enter her because she thinks she can win it and win the regional bee and show up her brother. :tongue_smilie: I'm glad my 3rd son got an official diagnosis of poor visual memory or I would not have nearly the sympathy that I do for him. And I do have a lot of sympathy for him. It's hard to be the misfit in a house of natural spellers. Poor guy.

How does Spalding address choosing the correct phonogram when spelling? It was very helpful for decoding, but it's been several years since I used it. I didn't finish it with my son and didn't take my girls through it. Something about it annoyed me but I don't remember what. I probably thought it was overkill. Is that the one that used different markings to study words? It seemed like overkill for my older ones who spell naturally and not helpful for my son who just can't remember what words look like whether you mark them up in different colors or not. But I may have given up too soon. I don't have my copy anymore, but could get one easily enough. It's definitely more affordable. :001_smile:

I looked for Apples and Pears once a couple years ago but couldn't find a good way to order it. Can you link me to the site? I might be internet shopping challenged. :001_smile: ETA: Nevermind. I was able to find it. I'm sure it was the price tag that threw me for a loop. And I am almost positive that when I looked at it some years before there was not a look inside option and I could not spend that much money without at least peeking into the book. I'll have to spend some more time there and see if that might help him.

My 12yo has poor visual memory and cannot spell well. He does not have the ability to tell if a word "looks" wrong which seems to be an important component in my own experience and as I watch my other 4 natural spellers. It is kind of ironic that this is the ONE child that I took through the Writing Road to Reading. He learned all his phonograms with flashcards and he reads about average. I think the reason I delved into that program years ago was because he was also a struggling reader. The phonograms helped; vision therapy helped even more. I have an appointment tomorrow to peruse someone's LOE materials and see if that might be something that would help him improve his spelling. The price tag is outrageous. AAS is similarly outrageous imo, once you purchase all the levels. Of course, if it will help it would be worth it. Here's my question for veterans of either program or a similar program. On his last spelling test he had words that ended with "el", "al", and "le". The endings were all pronounced the same and he had no trick to help him choose the correct ending. And I have no trick to tell him. I rely on my memory. Our spelling book didn't have any trick to tell him either. Is there a trick? This is just one example. He knows how to spell the sounds. But oftentimes there are so many legitimate choices. Is there rules-based help for this or some other type of help besides just remembering that it's either metal or mettle but never metel or metle. It's nickel not nickle or nickal. It is enough to make his head spin and mine too. Because I just "know" what is right. I cannot tell him why or give him any tricks except to overpronounce the vowels. You know maybe the kid needs a silly song that incorporates all the commonly used "el" ending words - A ballad with a goofy yet memorable storyline that would jump into his head when he's wondering if it's el or le. Does that exist? Thanks for reading my treatise. Sorry about that.

Hands-down Charlotte. It's on *my* short-list for a fourth girl. (There's a .00001% of that happening.) The name is not as rare as one would think. If that affects your decision. We did have a hard time naming our fourth boy. The first 6 are family names. We just ran out of good names when our last came along.

I've been doing laundry at the laundromat since March. I can get clothes for 9 sorted, washed, dried, folded, and put away in 2.5 hrs. once a week. It's incredible. I used to spend countless time fiddling with laundry and it was never completely done. We do store our clothes in dressers in bedrooms. Having dressers with plenty of room is key. Through the week we just have to get dirty laundry in the hampers. My dh just asked me if I wanted him to save up some money for a new washer. I said NO NO NO!!!! When we get down to 5 people in the house, I'll think about it.

Frankly I don't think anyone should use a toilet while standing. Even if he doesn't "miss" a little bit of the mess still splashes out of the water same as when the toilet's flushed. Everyone should sit all the time. Standing is for urinals. There is no need for the seat to be up ever unless the potty is being cleaned. I doubt I'm getting much cooperation in this area except from my 3yo. But my guys want to make it *look* like they are cooperating because splashing urine drives me INSANE!! :cursing::banghead::cursing: They put the lid down to keep from getting caught.

Years ago I saw a recommendation in a homeschool publication for a specific edition of this book. I *think* it was from Veritas Press. It caught my eye because the reviewer said they never, ever recommend abridgements but that this one was exceptional and made the book more accessible. I searched and searched and searched for where I had read this information when my book club picked it, but I couldn't find it again. I truly think edition matters. But I'm at a loss as to which.