Hi Jami, Where can I find Acricola? I looked at the other sites you linked, but this game wasn't listed. I also found Settlers of Catan at Amazon.com, but there's some issues with the durability of the game board for the new edition. Has anyone found the pieces too flimsy? My boys are very hard on everything. Flimsy game pieces will not last long around here. Thanks! Beth

I really struggle with taking things too personally. I realize that everything is not about me and that the world does not revolve around me, so I really can't explain why my first reaction is to consider contrary comments or actions as a personal affront. Luckily, I now realize my initial reaction is sometimes unreasonable, so I take a step back, reevaluate, and react later when I'm calmer. Unfortunately this doesn't always happen though. However, having a more rational mindset (when I can or when it's warranted) has made a big difference in how I interact with my husband. He really is on my team... Take care, Beth

"You are never a failure if you are acting in your child's best interest." I've come to the realization that what someone else does with their child is not a judgment on what I'm doing or not doing with my child(ren). I find that it's difficult to be different or stand out regardless of my age. I think that the term "homeschool failure" was so foreign to me because I define the above problems you mentioned more as parenting failures with the exception of #4. I think Jami made the same distinction in a previous post, but I can see how the terms can be interchangeable. There's a fine line here between our roles as parents and teachers. I think that's why this subject is so sensitive; it cuts right to the core of how we identify ourselves. My plan is for success too, and I have a strong commitment to see it through. Only time will tell though...

I have Art of Argument planned out into 51 lessons. The 51 lessons were scheduled for 3 days a week which would cover 17 weeks or about one semester, but my son likes it so much he's doing it everyday, so he'll finish in just over 10 weeks. HTH!

Ours is about 23%, and I feel very comfortable with what we pay. Electricity, water, cable, phone, and internet take another 6% of take home pay which brings us up to 29% of our monthly take home pay for our total housing cost. I think this is reasonable. If we were spending 31% of our take home pay on the house alone with utilities, then I would pause and think twice too. However, in this economy it may not be wise to make a housing change, but I would look at tightening the budget in other areas if possible. Good luck!

I'm not sure of the difference, but syllabication is also a word. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/syllabication The authors of Latin Alive! use the term syllabication and define it as the act of dividing a word in order to reveal its individual syllables. I really can't see a difference in definition from syllabification on Wiki though.

I've planned out high school from the beginning so that I would know where we were going which helped me make lower level decisions. However, it's only been this past year when my oldest started 7th grade, that I've started buying books and resources specifically for high school. HTH!

I suddenly feel like I live in a very sheltered homeschool world. The homeschool graduates that I interact with are few in number, but very successful in life. Take care, Beth

What is a homeschool failure? (thrown out to everyone, not just Lovedtodeath) Is it someone who enrolls their child in public school or private school? I've known many families who have done this, but I definitely wouldn't characterize the time they spent at home a failure. Their children are very well prepared for school, but homeschooling through high school was never a goal. Is it a high school graduate that can't get into college? In my experience I've seen college postponed because of finances, but rarely because of a poor education. There are colleges at some level who will take your money and enroll your student; whether the student can stay there is another story...but there are many other factors involved in that scenario. Generally, a poor education will affect the classes you need to take before college level courses can begin. I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but overall, is college a defining point for homeschool success? I've really never thought about the term homeschool failure before, and I would like to hear other definitions. I'm trying to determine what I would consider a homeschool failure for us, but honestly, I've never thought that I wouldn't succeed...is this positive thinking or just being naive?

That's why SWB always gives a couple of options in her recommendations; every homeschool has a different need based on our personal preferences as teachers and parents. I extremely dislike The Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History because of its old world secular view of history. In addition, I really don't think that the writing is challenging enough for the upper logic ages (7th & 8th grade). Of course, the biggest draw back for me is all of busyness on the pages which is why I didn't use KF too. ETA: For me, history is the most challenging subject in our homeschool. Luckily, we aren't very history-oriented, so I've been able to plan and organize a decent exposure during the grammar & logic stages, but it is far from perfect.

I'll second Streams of Civilization Volumes I & II; I'm using them at a very slow pace from 5th to 8th grade.

At this point, I'm not sure. If the doctor can fix the mistake with no lingering side effects, then I probably wouldn't. However, if the 1st surgery is going to cause future problems or medication, then I would consider it. Be careful what you sign as you get ready for the 2nd surgery. It sounds like you are being very level-headed with this. I'm not sure I would be so objective in your shoes. I hope the second surgery is successful, and you can put this all behind you. Good luck!

Snapfish advertises prices as low as $0.29 each, but you have to purchase 240+ cards to get that price. I only need 50 cards though. Right now Winkflash.com has their cards 40% off, so the price per card is $0.23 each and there's no minimum order as far as I can tell. HTH! I'll watch for other posts to see if there's a better deal out there, but I need to order mine soon...

I have to tell someone this, and you all are the only ones who will appreciate it. We were in Austin yesterday, and my MIL watched our boys for us. Instead of fighting the crowds, we had coffee together in the morning and lunch at noon. In addition, we hit a few of the stores that we don't have here. While I was browsing at Half Price Books, I found the Teaching Company 6-DVD High School Chemistry course by Cardulla for $29 (including tax & teacher discount). This program is $254.95 at their website, and TC puts it one sale each year for $79.95 plus shipping. I only paid 1/3 of their sale price, and yes, all 6 DVDs work and the course guidebook was included!

Here is the progression of our Greek studies for my two oldest sons: 2nd/3rd Grade: Greek Alphabetarion by Bluedorn 3rd/4th Grade: Elementary Greek Vol. I by Gatchell 4th/5th Grade: Elementary Greek Vol. II by Gatchell 5th/6th Grade: Elementary Greek Vol. III by Gatchell 6th/7th Grade: New Testament Greek for Beginners by Machen along with the Study Guide for Machen's NT Greek for Beginners by Thompson NT Greek is a high school level program (that's what it was written for back in the 1950's), so we divided the text up into 3 years. This book as 33 lessons, so we will tackle 11 lessons a year and take about 3 weeks to do each lesson along with the Study Guide. My boys are also creating their own Greek lexicon which is their least favorite part because of all of the writing involved. My youngest son will follow this same sequence once he starts 3rd grade. HTH!

Just a few that stand out this morning: The Grouchy Ladybug by Carle The Carrot Seed by Krauss Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? by Carlstrom The Red Carpet by Parkin The Big Green Pocketbook by Ransom & Bond We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Rosen & Oxenbury I believe I read most of these from Before Five in a Row, and they became instant family favorites.

I don't think these have much help with spelling, but for grammar, punctuation, and writing, I would highly recommend Rod & Staff English Handbook and Descriptive English Grammar by House & Harman. HTH!

For the last 18 months, I have had terrible service from our regular postman. I caught him lying several times on delivery confirmation items: one item was marked as delivered, but never was and another item was marked as 'customer not home', even though I watched him drive by my house in the rain. I complained to our local Postmaster, but I also copied all of my complaints to the "contact us" link at http://www.ups.com. After the 2nd lie, I also copied my complaints to my local state and federal representatives. The Postmaster is rather cool with me now, but I got my point across that I expect honest and reliable service from the Post Office. In addition, I now pay a little more and use Fedex or UPS when the option is available, and I pay most of my bills on-line. I made this change quite clear to the post office too. My postman is now required to hand deliver all of my packages that don't fit into my mailbox to me. He's still not friendly, but I haven't had any problems since this summer.

My older boys are mostly independent in their studies, so I don't read aloud to them during school time anymore. I do read aloud to my youngest son, but it's not books that I can finish in a month (ie., SOTW, McGuffey Eclectic readers, etc.). Therefore, it was difficult to determine how much I read aloud. I do read aloud a little each day at lunchtime, but that goes slowly, so I guessed it was about 1 book a month. My DH usually does the read aloud at night. He reads the things my boys like, but I don't: LOTR, GA Henty, Sir Gawain & the Green Knight, etc. Honestly, reading aloud is not my favorite thing, and lately, I've been opting for books on CD. Our library just purchased more Jim Weiss audio books, and I checked out a bunch of them for our Thanksgiving break.

My youngest son is doing 2 digit addition and substraction in R&S Math 2. However, the problems follow the triplet work that he is doing along with place value questions, so it's been a relatively easy transition for him. He still gets a little confused with carrying, but I have him do problems on our white board each day before his worksheet to help him remember the process. Repetition has been key for him.

What about Galatians 6:17 -- Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. HTH!

I have to say that I'm very pleased with Omnibus I this year. My 7th grader balked with the amount of writing at first, but he's adjusted well. The other day he told that he actually likes writing the essays because he learns a lot from the process. I was surprised at this unsolicited comment, but relieved that he sees the benefit from the assignments I schedule. This year I require 1 essay and 1 paragraph a week in Omnibus I. The program calls for 2 essays, but I scale one of them back to a paragraph since he also has a writing project each week in CW Homer. I did modify the readings for my son because I felt that a lot of the books had themes that were too mature for him right now. I plan to go back and pick those up his senior year. I scheduled 23 books from Omnibus I over 32 weeks this school year. We'll either finish early or spread out some of the books at the end of the year. I'm also pleased with the discussions we are having. At the beginning of the year, I was doing a lot of talking, but my son is catching on to the Socratic dialogue approach, and he's looking for more issues to discussion as he reads and thinks about the questions. Thanks for asking! I'm feel really comfortable and confident in our homeschool this year. I was a little apprehensive as we moved into the junior high world, but other than an increase in the writing assignments, there really hasn't been much difference in our day-to-day interactions. ETA: I'm not assigning any credit for this since I modified the program, and my son is only in 7th grade.

For history, I would recommend the series, A History of the English Speaking Peoples, by Winston Churchill. It's a 4-volume set that I found at Barnes & Nobles. It's very well written, and even though I'm not a history buff, I'm really enjoying this series. A great book to get an overview for science is Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy by Hazen & Trefil. I've also been reading through the Apologia Elementary series as my boys do these books. For math, I'm reading and working through the upper level math series that I plan to use with my boys. I'm using the 1960's series by Dolciani which includes Modern Algebra Bk 1, Modern Geometry, Modern Algebra & Trig Bk 2, and Modern Introductory Analysis. HTH!

I would put the 7th & 8th grader in the same level and start with Classical Aesop & Homer for the Older Student and have your 4th grader start with Aesop A. You don't want more than 2 levels of CW going in one year, so keep the older 2 together. My oldest son will start Diogenes next year in 8th grade. Diogenes is actually scheduled for 7th grade per the CW schedule (http://home.att.net/~classicalwriting/Placement.htm), so I think Diogenes will be fine for a 8th or 9th grader. HTH!

We haven't given up anything yet, but we did decide to forgo the home improvement project we were going to start next January. It's now on our 3-5 year short term goal list.