Once when I took a sick baby to the doctor he said that the cold air was exacerbating the illness. I don't even know if the doctor had labeled it bronchitis. We did have some breathing treatments as part of the healing process, and maybe abx. I can't remember exactly. I do remember his comment about the cold air because we were accustomed to walking daily and I had to cut that out for about a week or so during this illness. Also I remember the doc debating whether to bring him back in 2 days for a recheck but didn't want him to have to go outside. I can't remember what he decided. But that was more than just a common cold. For a common cold, if they have the desire and energy, yes, go play outside.

Saxon Math 5/4 and up. Rod & Staff English My Book House

I am so amazed at how many books you gals read. This challenge has been good for me as I had really let my personal reading slack off. But it is a challenge to get one book a week done even with my audio books. I didn't log a book for Week 3. :glare: I think trying to read Ahab's Wife did me in since I wasn't all that keen on it. I wish the library had had an audio. I ditched it at 100+ pages in so I could keep up with the challenge and not get sidetracked on one book. I did get my school-age dc to join the challenge. Hopefully this will encourage my reluctant readers to read more and will also encourage my book worms to keep written tabs on what they're reading. Friday we finished reading Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett. This was a fun Art History Mystery that the kids enjoyed. We learned a little bit about Vermeer along the way and also pentominoes. We now want a set of pentominoes to play with. My dd's started listening to the sequel The Wright 3 at bedtime. I also started listening to The Penderwicks on Gardam Street with my dd7. This book is about 4 sisters and their widower father who has started dating again because of a deathbed letter from his wife brought to light 4 years later by his sister. I put 1776 on hold halfway through. McCullough does a good job making history accessible and interesting but I needed a break. Maybe I'll get it back out in a month or so. I'm determined to finish Phantom of the Opera this week. I also still need to finish the Peck audio book ds13 and I started. Monday we start a new read aloud - Socks by Beverly Cleary. I am currently listening to Mr. Pip by Lloyd Jones. The only white man left on a tropical island becomes the local teacher when the other whites are evacuated due to war. He has no school books and is limited to teaching the kids only what he knows. He does invite the parents to take turns coming to school and giving talks on topics. But the greatest thing he does is to read Great Expectations aloud, one chapter per day. Of course, this exposure to Dickens is profound for our teen protagonist. I'm only half way through and thorougly enjoying this book. And because listening to books has become synonomous with knitting to me I will share that I have knit my very first sweater. :party: Well, almost. I have half of the last sleeve to go and I will be finished. Granted it's a sweater for Kit, dd7's AG doll. But I have learned several new techniques that I can apply to a "real" sweater later on and of course it worked up fairly quickly and with scraps I had laying around. My 2012 Year in Review. 4 - Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett 3 - Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith 2 - Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 1 - To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee I want to share what my dc have read but don't want to make 5 different lists since some of the same books will keep appearing on each list so I am just going to lump them. My DC 2012 Year in Review. Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling Little Women by Louisa May Alcott The Ides of April by Mary Ray Ben Hur by Lew Wallace Do Hard Things by Brett and Alex Harris To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger Darth Paper by Tom Angleberger Cabin Fever by Jeff Kinney Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Michael Morpurgo Mary Bloody Mary by Carolyn Meyer Beware Princess Elizabeth by Carolyn Meyer Happy Little Family by Rebecca Caudill

That has happened to me a couple of times too. It's kind of frustrating. But it's only been a couple out of lots of for sale posts.

:grouphug:

I started the school year with HOD: Little Hands, Bigger, CtC, and Rev 2 Rev. I added some things of my own. I also dropped things from the HOD guide. I had my 8th grader in Rev and my 4th and 6th graders in CtC. My days were full juggling the 2 younger ones and my highschooler, giving each child an individual English/writing lesson, doing the together portion of CTC (I did none of the together portion with my 8th grader) and keeping up with our Latin. That's an understatement. My days were extraordinarily full. At the end of that full day I still needed to evaluate the work my kids had done. I couldn't evaluate it well because I had not read it. They were doing it independently and I had no idea if they were understanding the information or thinking about it well. I had thought that the way HOD was set up would help my kids make those important connections that I thought I was missing. It did not. My kids needed a mentor to guide them through and I couldn't do it with HOD. There just was no time for me to keep up with their reading, read through their writings and point out those connections. Their days were full too, very full. For my elementary students it was too much. And yet, it didn't feel like learning but a manic pace of box-checking. By the end of the day we were all so exhausted, we just didn't care about discussing or taking things to the next level. We just wanted to get all the boxes checked so we could do something else. ANYTHING else.

We run a very frugally tight ship around here. But if I added up where the dollars were going, it's most definitely towards music. The kids have band and choir classes which are very reasonable compared to most classes I've seen advertised. They also cap tuition at 3 kids. Yay!! We also do marching band in the summers which is another cost plus new pants/shoes when necessary. Also, the cost of the instruments. I wish we had enough for private lessons as well. But we invest what we can and try to get the most out of that.

:grouphug::grouphug: Somebody from my old church was murdered on Sunday. We worked in the children's program together. Upstanding model citizen murdered in his bed in the best neighborhood. It is absolutely shocking that stuff like this happens.

I need a sign. Very fun. I have a tendency to lose it more often than I would like. I am learning instead of yelling to just stay calm and say very deadpan and calmly (but not frightening...I'm more mumbling to myself) "I'm very angry." "This situation is making me very frustrated." "I really want to scream my head off." Just saying that out loud helps to calm me down and refocus with a calm spirit. Exasperated but calm. I think I need a frowny face to go with my self-talk-down from the temper ledge. ETA: I just printed off this frowny face. I'm going to glue it to some poster board and tape it to an extra ruler. I wonder if I should find a happy face for the flip side. ETA 2: Yup. I found a happy face

I didn't mean to give a virtual smack. I promise. We burned out too. Big time. I'm not going to put all the blame on HOD. I added a few things to it. I was running 3 guides (plus the pre-school guide) My oldest started highschool (homeschool) and that was throwing me for a loop. Plus random personal junk going on in my life all adds up to Burn Out. :D I decided to do less but do it better. We do the 3 R's, and a low-key history and science. I purchased nothing, but used what I already had or what I could get at the library. We are all happier now. I do not regret trying HOD. I was so infatuated I was not going to be settled on the idea until I had given it a try. I really had talked myself into HOD being the end all. I bought almost everything used and sold everything except the notebook pages. So in the end, it was not a very costly experiment. For those trying to put together a used HOD, I had very great success with half.com. They will discount your shipping if you buy from the same buyer. I could easily find 3 or 4 books from one of the larger sellers and 3 or 4 more from another. That sure beats amazon's 3.99 flat rate. Check addall.com too. I ended up with a beautiful science book for Bigger (one of the pricier ones) one for about $3. Some company was having free shipping that week and I just stumbled on it at the right time. It was not a bookseller I typically used so I never would have looked there if it weren't for addall My 4yo is still using Little Hands. She so adores the finger plays that teach the sounds of the alphabet. Her enthusiasm for it makes Little Hands one of my all time best homeschool purchases. Of course, if I'd tried it with my oldest son, he probably would have thought it was dorky and I would not have such a high opinion of it. :001_smile:

We would draw a rectangle to represent the total earned. Then we would divide the rectangle into 5 pieces. 3 of those pieces total 17.50. If you can figure out what one piece is you've got it made. Generally from there they should see that 17.50 divided by 3 will give them the value for one of the pieces or 1/5. Then the illustration makes it very easy to see that you add all the 1/5 pieces together to get the total. And you add the 2 pieces not colored in to get what was left. I tell my kids when in doubt, draw a picture.

If you are using it currently and you like it and it's working for you, DO NOT SWITCH. I repeat. DO NOT SWITCH. If the time comes that it stops working for you, there's plenty of stuff for you to choose from and plenty of ladies here who will help you find it. Your kids will not be harmed in any way if you decide to switch to Sonlight or MFW or whatever in a couple of years. Don't by into the myth that you have to start at the beginning of something so that you don't miss anything. Everybody misses something. Most of us miss a lot of things. Keep forging ahead, and enjoy the ride. I repeat. DO NOT SWITCH. DO NOT SWITCH. :D

My kids pull that carp on me I tell them they have to stick it out. etc. etc. My 13yo plays the trumpet and has since he was 9yo. Every once in a while he starts whining about wishing he played something else and can he switch. I tell him no. Because a) we purchased him a trumpet b) he's very good VERY good at the trumpet WHEN he applies himself. c) I suspect he's just whining to hear himself whine. (It's his nature.) Learning an instrument and mastering it has its ups and downs. Try to ride out the down slumps. Now my 11yo has been playing the baritone since he was 9. It is NOT going well. He is not progressing AT ALL. So, after 3 years of it we will let him switch in the fall. I prefer him to stick it out the rest of this year. Thankfully we did not purchase the baritone, though we could probably sell it if that was the case. My tuba player and flute player are happy little clams. Hooray. :D In your situation I would have your kids commit to a year and reevaluate. There really are a lot of ups and downs and the newness wears off and then it's buckling down and getting to work. There are great rewards to the making of music. It just takes some kids longer to get to those rewards than others.

I have received and used previously owned items from everything on the list. They have been from relatives and friends though. I don't think I would pay for many of these things from a stranger. ETA: took another look at the list. yes I have purchased from strangers shoes, socks, and children's bathing suits, oh and diapering items.

It depends on where the drama is coming from. Sometimes you can't control the amount of exposure. Sometimes life comes at you like a hurricane.

I have complained about the workload in the upper guides particularly Rev 2 Rev which my 8th grader started the school year with. It was his first foray with HOD but there wasn't anything in the work that led me to believe that he didn't have the skills necessary to do it or do it efficiently. Frankly, there is just a TON of work assigned. The things we started dropping before we dropped the whole thing were very busy-ish. The lapbook for the composer study took a lot of time just to assemble. The State Study book was also a lot of busy work. And the Map Trek map was simply printing out both the student map and the teacher map and copying the teacher map. And the amount of material to copy, most days was enormous. And there just didn't seem to be a lot of learning to go along with it. Not that I don't think there is value in copying maps. I don't know. It may have flowed better if I could have walked him through it but that is not how I designed our day. Short answer. I don't think lack of skills had anything to do with the sheer amount of assignments expected in Rev 2 Rev.

I've not tried it nor heard of it. I use Sweet n Low. Why isn't white sugar working for you anymore?

:iagree: And if it's so darned important they need to state the date.

Sweet! Photographic evidence. The other day the 2yo ate the homework. I wish I had a picture. You had to see it to believe it. :D ETA: He turned 3 last week, but he was 2 when he ate the paper.

:grouphug::grouphug:

This summer we covered those marble notebooks with felt and then used Ed Emberley's picture pie 2 book to cut out animals from extra felt and glue them on. They turned out really cute. The kids made them for a kid craft show that didn't get much traffic :glare: so now they are all ours. :D Tangent...back to decoupage

Well I had never heard of flushable liners. Sounds amazing. My mom was the only one I knew who had done CD and I just did it the way she showed me. Have you heard the story of the woman who chops off the ends of her ham before she bakes it? :D

I would not join a church that hounded me for anything. But it's been my experience (limited, I admit) that the hounding churches don't really care if you're a member or regular attender. Equal Opportunity Hounders. :D

I think we posted at the same time. I didn't want you to think I was referring to your post when I mentioned our Wed. off. How funny. I've never known anyone (not in our band) to take Wed. off. If we were just hanging out at home, Wed. probably wouldn't work well either. We need structure here too, big time. :D All my big kids are gone from 8-3 on Wed. and following a schedule, just not mine. It's lovely. I get to pitter at home with my littles. Catch up on housework, grading, etc.