You did very well!!!

We spend very little on clothes. We get tons of hand-me-downs so all I really need to buy is socks, underwear, pajamas, and jeans. Oh, and shoes. But I don't think that I spend even $1000 on clothes for my whole family in an entire year.

You didn't include an 'other' on your poll! It totally varies for me depending on how much time I have at the moment and how many posts there are. Sometimes I just read the first post, but usually I try to read all the posts, at least scanning through them if there are more than a couple of pages.

Lots of snails and slugs here. I felt like I was running an obstacle course trying to avoid stepping on them when I was out for my jog this morning. But, yes, they do come out in the rain, and if you're anywhere near my parents in North Carolina where they're having severe drought, they may not be very easy to find. Are you on water restriction? Can you possibly set a sprinkler on one area of your garden for a few hours to trick them into coming out? I have no idea if this would work or not, but it may be worth a try if you're not going to break any laws. :) Good luck.

My dd is allergic to milk so she drinks goat's milk. She doesn't like soy milk or rice milk. It's so expensive that I don't cook with it, though. She doesn't have severe allergy - just gets a rash, and a little milk doesn't affect her too much.

I named our school Chapel Hill Academy because at the time the road we lived on was called Chapel Hill. I really never need to use the name for anything, but, even though we've since moved, I still think of our homeschool as Chapel Hill Academy, mostly because we move too often to change the school name with every move, and because I think it has a nice ring to it. Maybe, to reflect your Catholic faith, you could call it Trinity Academy, All Saints Academy, or something like that.

I totally agree. Dh says they have good vehicles that are designed to make it out - maybe the landrovers with snorkles - so they're pretty safe. But I just think they're being really bad examples to people. Can't they just set up some webcams and reporters stay a safe distance? Makes no sense to me.

I voted other. I grew up in a suburb of NYC (about an hour north of the city), but people always used to say that I had a Canadian accent. Eventually the Canadian (which came from nowhere because I've never been to Canada - weird) accent faded and I had a pretty standard American accent. I've lived in the UK now for 8 years and now I have an American accent with a British accent sometimes appearing, usually in questions.

I've thought about this a lot. We used to live in an evacuation zone in Florida. We were never given a mandatory evacuation, but when Andrew came through, evacuation was recommended and we did go inland a bit. We boarded up our house unnecessarily countless times because of hurricane warnings that never hit us. One year we had just finished taking the shutters off the windows after a category 4 storm missed us. We went out to a wedding during a category 1 storm because we had just become so immune to hurricane warnings. While we were out, some of the hurricane shutters blew off the roof where they were stored and hit the neighbor's window. Fortunately no one was in the room and he had been planning to replace the window anyway, but it just shows that you never can tell what will happen with a hurricane. But when you are given the warnings that these folks in Galveston were given, especially after seeing the destruction caused by hurricanes in Florida and New Orleans, and you don't evacuate, that's just plain foolish. I think that in that situation the rescued person should be billed, but in reality, I think that it would be very hard to collect on the bills. By the same token, right now we live on the coast in England, and we often see rescues. It's got to cost so much money to get the helicopter out here to lift people off the rocks or grab a surfer who was caught in a rip current. I question whether or not the people should help pay the cost of the rescue. Sometimes it's a 'valid' rescue where someone was taking the proper precautions and just got caught out in a bad situation, but in many cases people need to get rescued because they weren't keeping an eye on the tides or they weren't experienced enough surfers to be out in the conditions they were in. The problem is that it would be almost impossible to establish whether or not it was a 'valid' rescue or someone was just being stoopid. We have a friend in Ireland who was surfing in very big surf - I think about 30' waves or something like that. He's an extremely experienced surfer and was well in control, but someone saw him in the water and called a rescue helicopter. He and his friends waved the copter away because they weren't in danger and didn't need rescuing. Later, he got a bill for the 'rescue' that never happened. Why should he have to pay? He didn't call the helicopter. He didn't want the helicopter. And he didn't even make use of the helicopter. He was fighting the bill last I heard. I don't know what ended up happening with it, but it does raise a question about paying for rescues. I guess, that if he had been smart he would have notified the coast guard before he went out, told them where he was going and what he was doing, so that they didn't assume that he needed help. I don't know what the answer is.

I know exactly what you mean. I go through the same thing periodically. Homeschooling is really hard work, especially when you add it to all the other things that we have to do as a mom and wife. This year I've changed some of my curriculum choices to make things a bit easier for me. Though I love the things written in WTM, I find that they are beyond me in some ways. With the way my life is right now, I can do better homeschooling if someone else does some of the planning and organizing for me. I've switched to Sonlight for history and Apologia for science. They require very little of my time for prep work. In addition, I switched from R&S grammar to Easy Grammar. It only takes a few minutes for me to go over the lesson and he does the rest on his own. I don't have to spend 20 minutes or more every day with him going through the exercises orally. It's great! You may not want to make the same choices that I have, but there are other programs that are not so time intensive as the some of the WTM recs. Hope you can find something that works for you.

:iagree: If I had the money, I'd hire tutors to help me teach my dc.

This year I've put my planner in the front of my Sonlight IG notebook. In the past I've put it in it's own binder, which I didn't love because an open binder takes so much space on the school table, or brought it to the office supply store to be spiral bound. It contains: one year at a glance calendar a running calendar with 1" square boxes that allows me to write holidays, events, etc a week at a glance calendar for me to write detailed notes of things to do 180 record pages where each day I record what I did with each child in each subject book lists history plans science plans

Depends exactly what you're looking for. A Child's Geography book 2 is a great study of the Middle East. If you just want dc to learn country borders and bodies of water, capitals, etc, Mapping the World By Heart is for 5th-12th grade. If you want to do something on countries and cultures, My Father's World has a one year geography course for 2nd-8th grade, Sonlight's Core K is an introduction to world cultures for 5-7yos, and Winter Promise has a Children Around the World course for elementary. This year I'm doing a year of world geography and cultures with my PK and 1st grader. I didn't especially like the look of the Sonlight program and the others seemed like they would be too old for my dc, so I've just gotten the Trip Around the World, Maps and Globes, and Geography A to Z books that MFW uses (for $1 each at a used curriculum sale - yea!) and I'm supplementing with the DK books How People Live, Children Just Like Me, and Children from Australia to Zimbabwe, along with some great stories from and about various countries. Hope you find what you're looking for.

Okay, I found a link on the web site that Donna linked. It says that a natural born citizen is one who's parents are citizens and at least one parent must have lived in the US. So dd (and the ds that was born here) do qualify! Thanks!

As far as I understand, John McCain was born on a US military base, which actually would qualify, I believe, as US soil, kind of like an Embassy is US soil. Obama was born, I think I read, in Hawaii before it was a state, but it was a US territory, so he's okay. I guess I was just confused by exactly what a "natural born citizen" is.

Honestly, if I found a naked boy that I did not know naked on dd's bed I would not stop to ask who he was and what he was doing there. I would assume that dd was in danger. I would act to protect her first and ask questions later. I'm sorry, but there are way too many stories of some freak breaking in and raping a girl, that that would be my initial reaction. I mean, it's not as if the dd ever invited the boy over to meet her parents even though they had apparently been involved for a year. The dad didn't even know that she had a boyfriend. Why would he think that the naked kid was invited and welcome?

This is exactly what I thought. If I saw a guy I didn't know, naked, standing on dd's bed, he would end up a lot worse off that a metal pipe to the head. I cannot believe that they charged him!

Today dd said that when she grows up she wants to be president (and be in a band - hey, she's only 6yo). Anyway, I'm trying to find out if she would even qualify to run for president, really just to satisfy my own curiousity, because after all she is still only 6yo. So.... what exactly is the requrement, that the person is born on US soil or is born as a US citizen? Dd was born in the UK, but both dh and I are US citizens, so she has US citizenship, not British. Obviously the odds of her actually wanting to run for president when she's an adult are slim, but it's something that I've always wondered about since she was born, and when she mentioned it today, it made me want to find an answer. So, any idea what the law is or where I can find the answer? Thanks!

My 5th grader is using Typing Instructor Deluxe right now. I tried getting my older ds to learn to type, but met with resistance and decided that it wasn't a hill I wanted to die on, so to speak. Maybe I can entice him with the knowledge that it will speed him up on all those instant messaging things he loves so much!

__________________________________________________________________ This is a survey to see what images you have about geography. Please read each statement and then circle the number in the column that represents how you feel. The columns are abbreviated as : Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A), Neutral or Cannot Say (?), Disagree (D), and Strongly Disagree (SD). If you strongly agree with a statement, choose the number equal to SA. If you disagree with a statement, choose the number equal to D, and so on. (Please note that the order of the numbers changes from question to question.) Drawing maps is what geography is all about. SD = 1 Geography can be used to help solve problems that humans have created. SA = 5 Geography is nothing more than memorizing the countries and their capitals. SD = 5 Knowing about different regions is the most important part of geography. ? = 3 Geography is the study of humans adapting to the physical environment. A = 4 Geography does not teach anything useful. SD = 5 Geography is nothing more than learning a bunch of facts. SD = 5 Geography is a fun course. A = 4 Geography is all about people around the world. A = 4 Geography concentrates mostly on physical features. SD = 1 Geography is mostly about explaining the location of things. SD = 1 Geography is an easy subject. A = 4 Cities are of no concern to geographers. SD = 5 The study of humans and geography are the same thing. SD = 1 Geography should be given more emphasis in schools. SA = 5 Geography is an interesting subject. SA = 5

The BBC website has tons of history info for kids. You can browse for Scotland. I noticed one thing for Scotland in WWII. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/forkids/ Also, Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, takes place in Scotland, as well as Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff, if I remember correctly. Also recommending the Marshall book. I haven't read that one, but her other books are wonderful. Enjoy!

I voted that I know a family that has 8 kids (my aunt had 8), but I do know a few adults who come from very large families. I just don't remember exactly how many (10-12ish). And I know a family that has 7 kids, and another that's expecting their 7th any minute. We only have 4dc. Don't feel odd-ballish, though. When I was a kid, I always looked at my aunt's family and wished that we had a family as big. I only had one brother, and a big family looked like a lot of fun. We would have more kids except that after my 4th I've only had miscarriages. Hey, if you count the miscarriages, then I have 8! Okay, I know that doesn't really count. Blessings, Megan

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll check them out. :001_smile:

Ds did chemistry in 1st gr, physics/sound&light in 2nd gr, Apologia Astronomy and A Child's Geography in 3rd, Apologia Zoo 2 and most of Zoo 1 in 4th, and now in 5th he's finishing up Zoo 1 and will do Botany and maybe start on Zoo 3 if we get that far. For next year we'll finish up Zoo 3, but then I'd like to do some more chemistry/physics with him because it's been so long since we've covered that. Any suggestions for a good chem/physics course for a 6th grader? I'll most likely then move back to Apologia for their 7th grade text. Thanks.

We've kept ours and still watch them. I even occassionally buy VHS tapes, used from a charity shop or the library for a pound. They're too good a deal to pass up. We have no reception for our t.v. so videos and dvd's are the kids' only entertainment (well, only screen entertainment).