Thank you :)

I would tend to put it at a 2nd grade level when comparing to other homeschool math curriculums. Not sure how it stacks up to public school math though.. Ds just finished 4th grade and used TT 7 this year with no problems so I would think that a 2nd grader using the 3rd grade would be fine as well :) .

Feet pictures are second in weirdness only to giant, close up pictures of just your eye :001_huh: . Pics of food crack me up because NOBODY ever posts dinner on the night they were low on groceries and fed their kids waffles, olives and dried apricots, lol. I also greatly dislike when folks feel the need to inform me that they've just jogged 84.2 miles....or that they just kicked butt during an INSANITY work out. A.Nnoy.Ing.

Hello all :) My older ds, recently turned 10 and a rising 5th grader, will be starting at a local Classical Study Center come this fall. He'll attend 2 days a week where he'll study history, literature, writing, grammar, Latin and science. His class will consist of other 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. He'll have assignments on his days off and we'll also cover math, bible, art, music, misc. language arts, etc.. at home :). We're both excited about this new chapter. With him being a the older end of the age range, I have complete confidence that he'll adjust just fine with jumping into different curriculums that we've never used. I would, however, like to work a little on writing over the summer. With having a new baby this winter we didn't get a chance to work on writing as much as I would have liked...and this is most definitely the subject that gives him the greatest anxiety. The co-op uses IEW, a program and method we're both unfamiliar with. We've done a bit of narration, copywork and dictation in the past. He's had basic instruction and minimal practice on the technical aspects of the writing process, basic outlining, how to write a paragraph, etc.. I've been looking through some websites and have a basic idea of how IEW works (creating keyword outlines and then using those to re-write stories along with encouraging "dressing up" your writing with strong adjectives, etc..). I was wondering, without ordering the whole kit and kaboodle..what I could do to prepare us both (at least a little) for using IEW this upcoming year. I was looking at the books on LogosPress (Imitation in Writing) and was wondering if going through one of these would be useful... Thanks so much in advance for any help you can offer!

We know a local homeschool girl who makes and sells wands :). You can check them out here! http://www.facebook.com/pages/All-R-Wanders/169160653121036

I don't think you can really compare free/creative writing abilities with directed, expository writing as they really are two separate things. The former is more of an inborn ability while the latter is a learned skill. Ds (9 - 4th grade) will write pages and pages of beautifully written stories complete with correct grammar, punctuation, spelling, paragraphs, character and plot development, etc... but ask him to write a narrative paragraph about what we read in history that day and he panics and freezes up. With that said, your 2nd grade dd's writing sample seems very age appropriate :).

..but even after folks have posted in them and I haven't read the responses yet, they still don't show up. I'm pretty sure when I've posted threads in the past I could see them in the "New Posts" thread....but I could be mistaken....

They show up in the forum I posted them in...but when I hit "New Posts" they never show up there... Thanks in advance! Jenn

Thanks again for the responses :001_smile: . Five posters have responded "Yes" so that makes me feel much more at ease! Jenn

P.S. - Here's a photo of the little bug...everytime he's nice and sleepy I try and get some sweet, sleepy newborn photos...but every time he wakes up and argues with me, lol.

Thanks for the responses :). And no, I'm not insulted at all, lol. My other son is almost 10 years old and I had forgotten how much anxiety having a new baby can bring!

Hi everyone, I gave birth to our second son on the 7th of this month. Everything went beautifully and we're all smitten with our newest arrival :). Yesterday, a family member mentioned that the baby has a "Simian Line" or "Simian Crease" on his left hand. Basically instead of having three distinct lines on his palm the two upper lines are merged into one line that goes all the way across his palm like this...... http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/08/01/health/adam/17226Simiancrease.html Of course I went and googled it and found that a Simian Crease can be associated with all sorts of genetic disorders. According to what I've read though, it also occurs in 1 out of 30 typical folks and if it's not in combination with any other abnormalities or markers, there is usually nothing to worry about. The baby seems fine...he was a good size (9 lbs 2 oz), had a healthy size head (95th %), scored 9's on both his apgars and has been nursing like a champ. Overall he looks and seems like a perfectly healthy baby....but there's still that little voice in the back of my head whispering "what if...". However, I don't want to get all nutty calling my ped. demanding genetic testing quite yet. Soooooooooo, this sounds like an odd request, but if you could look at your hands, your kiddos hands...your SO's hands and let me know if it really is that common in typical kids, etc.. I would really, really appreciate it and it would help to put my mama's heart at ease a bit. Thanks so much in advance!!!!!!!!!! Jenn

Ds's (9) favorite gift was a SpyNet watch. It takes video and audio recordings and does all kinds of other neat spy-ish things. He hasn't turned it off for the past 4 days. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004USRAWO/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B003AUDFHW&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0QJA00EC3T3ADB0YZ71C

Ds is 4th grade so this most likely won't be of any help, lol, but here we spend.. Independent reading - 1 hr. daily Spelling - 15 minutes, 3x per week (Sequential Spelling) Grammar - 20 min. - 30 min. daily (Rod and Staff English) Writing - 1 hour - 1 1/2 hours daily (mix of written narrations and dictation from across the curriculum, Winning With Writing and assigned writing)

As a landlord, please, please, PLEASE inform the landlord about the dog. Wait until it actually shows up for confirmation, but please tell him. Just be upfront about it. Telling your landlord that you're thinking of getting a dog because the policy has changed might backfire on you. He might be worried about losing not one, but two tenants to the issue and just give you the go ahead to get your own dog. Animals, dogs in particular, ruin rental units. Not only that, but if someone heaven forbid gets hurt by the dog, he could be in a world of trouble. I think you're 100% validated in your concerns. I know powerful breed dogs get a bad rap and most folks who own and love them will tell you that they wouldn't hurt a fly. It doesn't change the fact that I personally know two families, one whose young son was killed by a neighbor's pit bull and my aunt who lost an arm due to an attack from her own rotweiller whose situations would have been drastically different if the attacking dog wasn't a powerful breed dog. In the case of the young boy the mother wasn't able to physically remove the dog from her son....I can assure you that if the dog had been a less powerful breed she would have been able to. I would never let my children play at someone's home who owned one of these powerful breeds and I would be horrified to find one was living upstairs from me. Once again, tell the landlord.