I'm sorry...I understood that. I wasn't trying to argue with her. I was just sharing my current frustration with those two words and the lack of context/verbal tone in texting that causes misunderstanding when I text with this particular friend. Thanks for trying to clarify though. :)

I write "yeah" to mean yes, and in my head, it has a short vowel sound. I write "yay" to show excitement and it has a long vowel sound. I have a close friend who uses "yeah" in place of "yay" (I think) and "yea" in place of "yeah" when texting. To me, the word "yea" has a long vowel sound and means yes when the Parliment is voting on a new law. It confuses me every time she uses these words in a text (which is quite often) and I have to stop and decipher the meaning each time. In fact, I CHANGE my texts to her way of spelling those words, just so that she will understand what I am trying to say. Drives me crazy! :willy_nilly: My other pet peeve: your versus you're

15 so far: Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Aruba, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Austria, England, Ireland, Gibraltar(if that counts as a separate country), Italy, Greece(Crete), Turkey We lived in Spain for 3 years, so that made it easy. My son was born there and we can't wait to bring him back to visit! I love to look around the house at the items we've brought back from each of the places we've traveled to....they all bring back great memories. I am so thankful for the opportunities we had to travel so much.

As far as I remember, you had to buy all 6 levels. I would've bought them otherwise, but I didn't need all the levels either. It may have been split into lower and higher grades, but I really don't think so.

This is my sister-in-law's blog...what a small world to stumble on this post. She has not blogged about previous cycles because this is her first year in CC I agree...and thanks on her behalf for the kudos. I'll pass them on. ;) Hearing what she is doing with the kids this year is part of the reason I am considering CC for next year. Imagine that...a four yr hsing veteran (hahaha) learning from a "newbie". We are all on this journey together, aren't we?

Add me to the list! Let's see, most here homeschool for religious reasons. Most co-ops have statements of faith that I don't agree with or teach science/history from a Protestant perspective. I am Catholic so that doesn't work for me. Plus, I don't homeschool for religous reasons. I homeschool for academic reasons mostly. So, I tried the Secular group, but the thing is, I DO teach religion and we DO incorporate our Catholic faith into some of our lessons. So that didn't work either. So, next we tried the Catholic homeschoolers...makes sense, right? Nope...too fundamentalist for me, which was made perfectly clear to me when I received an email from someone I barely knew about the evils of tubal ligations after I casually mentioned 4 kids were enough and the doc would make sure of that. Apparently I am a cafeteria Catholic after all. lol Wow! do I feel out of inadequate with my fellow local Catholic homeschoolers. No saints pics on the walls, my kids could NEVER sit through adoration, and we DO dress up for halloween as ghosts and monsters.:angelsad2: I aspire to be the stewarts of our Faith that they are to their kids. Add to all this, the fact that my husband is a pilot who is out of town half of every week, mostly on weekends. We try to school while he is gone, so that we can do family things while he is home....so we are out and about during the week and have our noses to the school grindstone on the weekends. oh, plus no family to help out....seems like most people here are from here. Not me. :glare: All this equals no homeschool friends and barely even any non-hs friends. My closest friends are all people I met while we were in the Navy and they live all over the globe. Never get to talk to them anymore (did I mention 4 kids?) but they still are my closest friends. We just moved to a new neighborhood though, and the kids are making friends. I even get to talk to the neighbors sometimes (on those few weekend evenings we are already finished with school and outside). Although, I usually hear the proverbial " I don't know how you do it" at least once in every conversation. I just do. I can't explain it, so let's not feel pity/awe for me, ok? :tongue_smilie: I'm just a normal, not-overly-religious-Catholic-who-still-thinks-my-faith-is-important, a-little-bit-traditional-schoolish-and-little-bit-classical, single-mom-half-the-time-with-a-super-supportive-hubby, strict-with-my-kids-but-need-a-lot-of-work-on-myself-as-an-example, introvert-but-in-need-of-close-friends, sarcastic-but-sensitive, and crazily-overwhelmed-how-do-those-other-perfect-homeschoolers-do-it, kind of mom. Should it really be this hard to fit in??????? :lol::lol::lol::lol:

Seems like I've had the opposite experience of many of you. I used to have very heavy and longer periods (5 very heavy days plus 2-3 lighter days), although they were very regular - always 35 days. Since the tubal (which I had after c-section 4), my periods are sometimes a couple of days early or late, but are only 4 days - one very heavy day and three minimal days. I tend to think it is all hormonal changes. I am definitely having other strange issues I attribute to hormones, but I thought it was just from getting older. Didn't realize there could be hormonal complications from the tubal - interesting. My issues are skin related....super sensitive and easily irritated, including private areas. The only reason I say they are hormonal is because they happen at the same time of my cycle each time they happen.

How weird....you basically just described my day earlier this week. Right down to a 1st grade neighbor, who doesn't know how to read, coming over to play in the afternoon when school was out because of flooding. Then I saw your screenname and wondered: do you possibly live in Chattanooga? Maybe we are neighbors. ;)

Me too! Don't you LOVE it? And I thought it was only my MIL that did this.:lol:

Sadly my best one came from my mom. When I told her we were going to homeschool, she said, "Isn't homeschooling for parents that can't let go of their kids?" Really? I had no response because I was shocked! Another one I got recently was "Oh, that's right, your homeschool. How's THAT going for you?", said in a certain tone of voice. In the meantime, her almost 5 yr old son was smashing my 4 yr old's hand with a train and subtly shoving him out of the way, while my son was politely saying "excuse me, please". Hmmmm.... I wanted to say "oh you send your son to school; I can see how THAT is going for you."

Thanks for posting the pictures...it helps to see just how well the magnification works! This is on our wish list now. :001_smile:

"I want to read" said ds#1. "I want to read a chapter book" he said. "I want to read this MTH chapter book to you, Mom" So Mom sat down to listen. It went achingly slow. So Mom had a plan. She shared it with ds#1. "You will read one page and I will read 2 pages" said Mom. The one page was achingly slow to listen to. The two pages were painfully choppy to read. After one MTH book, Mom said "Let's wait". She said "Let's wait and read these in a couple of months". She said "When it is easier for you to read them". Ds#1 read the rest when he could read himself. Then dd#1 wanted to read MTH like big brother. Mom said "You can read them yourself. You are smart". And she added "Or big brother can read them to you". She said "I have to take care of baby brother (chuckle)". ds#1 and dd#1 have read all the MTH books many many times. ds#1 and dd#1 are proficient and confident readers. ds#1 and dd#1 will eventually read MTH to ds#2 and ds#3. Someday Mom will read 500 page books again. Until then, Mom will gladly listen to almost any book that ds's and dd want to read out loud. But Mom doesn't think she can stand to read MTH books again. Ever. One last funny thing about Mom....MTH books are NOT the only children's books where Mom changes sentence structure when she reads. This becomes a problem when reading to kids that can read themselves. :tongue_smilie:

As homeschoolers, we should no that grammer and spelling should defiantly be seperate cirriculums. (admittedly, I ALWAYS have to look up "separate" when I need to type it! ) :lol:

How cool is your library? about 78 during the day and 74 at night :tongue_smilie:

:lol::lol::lol::lol: I am laughing so hard, tears are actually rolling down my face! Thanks! I needed this today!

Me! :seeya:

I had terrible Carpel with my first and last, but the first was by far the worst. It was really only at night. I would wake up with throbbing wrists and I just didn't understand it - how could I get Carpel at night in both hands??? Anyway, the doc gave me a "soft" splint. It was like a brace, I guess, but without a hard splint in it. It really did help to have it on. With my last pregnancy, it wasn't as bad. I just made sure to rest my hands level with my body when sleeping, not to rest them up on my pillow. If they were up on my pillow, the Carpel was really bad. HTH. Good luck!

non-published, but aspiring...I have a children's book written, but it's in need of some adjective-tweaking. Someday, when I don't have kids to teach, toddlers to entertain, mom's taxi to drive, etc, etc, etc, I might get to work on it and submit it. I am also anxious to start a blog one of these days.

toast :)

Last year, I instituted "sibling time" which worked well to combat many issues and I think I am going to use it again this year. We have a pretty detailed time schedule (because my ds8 CANNOT stay focused unless he has a time limit/schedule for subjects). Late in the morning, close to the lunch break, I scheduled time where my dd6 would have sibling time with ds3. I had a "project" or activity scheduled each day. This included things like playdough, stamping (tape butcher paper all over the table and use huge stamps to stamp wherever and whatever), painting with water books, puzzles, matching games, etc. They would work together for 20-30 min. I would use that time to work on whatever subject my ds8 needed the most help with or that I wanted to remain uninterrupted (like reading). This way I knew ds3 was occupied by dd6 and that she was keeping an eye on him. After the alotted time, ds8 and dd6 would switch. ds8 would play with ds3 on the same activity/project and I would work with dd6. The main rule was that this was time for ds3. Even though ds8 or dd6 was also playing with playdough, for example, their main priority was to HELP ds3. They could not become so absorbed in their own project that they were not engaged with ds3. A few great side effects happened. Of course, I was able to spend precious alone time with each school aged child (I had always already made time for ds3 myself earlier when the olders were doing independent work). ds3 ended up spending much more time on this activity (40-60 min!) than he ever would have himself. You would think he would have gotten bored after the first 20 min with dd. But, that was not the case, because switching siblings made the activity seem like new. lol! dd6 and ds8 have entirely different styles of play, that ds3 was happy to continue with a new sibling. Lastly, and probably best of all, they all seemed to get along better, even after school hours. dd6 and ds3 are OFTEN at odds with each other. This scheduled play-together time seemed to help that somehow. I think because dd6 started to develop more patience with ds3. Sadly, that has flown out the window this summer! lol I plan on changing the projects this year to include some actual learning for ds3, like ABCs and counting, etc. My only problem is that this time was always scheduled last year during ds1's morning nap. Well, sadly, he now only has one nap a day (gasp) and ds3 has one at the same time. I do get a lot done with the school kids during that nap, but I really enjoyed having that sibling time. So I just need to figure out what to do with the 14 month old during this time! HTH Sorry I am so wordy!!!:glare:

Trail Guide to Learning by Geomatters. It is meant to be three years of American history. The first year is Paths of Exploration and covers Columbus, Jamestown, Pilgrims, Lewis and Clark, Daniel Boone and Trails West and is for grades 3-5, but can be tweaked higher (with a suppliment) or lower. We are using it for a young 2nd grader and a 4th grader. Yr two is Paths of Settlement and covers up to the 20th century, I think (grades 4-6). Yr 3 covers Industrial Revolution to Current (grades 5-7). The curriculum includes Copywork/dictation, Reading, Word study, writing, geography, art/drawing, and science. We just started today, but have done a lot of research and looking at reviews. I have never heard a bad review. We like it so far! Good luck. HTH

I've never been to Williamsburg, so i can't speak to that. I LOVE historical Boston. The Freedom trail is wonderful. It is so cool to see Paul Revere's actual grave and the old churches, etc. Plymouth is also wonderful. And this past spring, I took the kids to Old Sturbridge Village in central MA(period village like Plymouth, early 1800s). It is so big and there were so many things to learn about there - the kids loved it! Plus, MA is beautiful in Sept - Fall foliage is spectacular. Of course, that also means hotel prices will be higher.

:lurk5:

Can anyone share their experiences with Meet the Masters? Did the kids like it? How easy is it to teach/implement? Did anyone do different age levels at the same time (ie 5-7 and 8-9) Thanks in Advance!!

Trail Guide to Learning Paths of Exploration...we can't wait to start!!