For one day... What would you do? What would be a treat, not to miss? A girlfriend is going to be in FL on business, and has always wanted to go to WDW, so she is planning to treat herself for one day. (I think that is really cool, btw!) So... For you Disney girls... What should my friend do? What would be fun on her own? Anything she absolutely shouldn't miss? :bigear:

:party::party: Isn't it great when you find what works for your kiddos? We love RSO, too. :)

We are local to DC, but our AC was out recently (not due to the derecho, actually, the weekend prior, we got lucky during the big power outages!), and we stayed in a hotel for a weekend, just waiting on our AC to be fixed. We found it on Hotels dot com, I think. It was on embassy row, right off Dupont Circle. Loved it. Clean, inexpensive, great pool on the roof. Convenient to metro. We'd stay there again. If you want the info, let me know and I'll find it for you.

We've run into the same issue, and I read a few posts here about it. I write the words I suspect DS may have trouble spelling on a white board, or on another piece of paper. I put them out of order, so he still has to hold the sentence in his head, but he can refer to the words he may not be able to spell. If I see that he is making a mistake, I gently stop him and direct him to the proper word on our list. He won't *ask* for the spelling, so this is how we are doing it. I read the idea here, so can't take credit for it. :)

We use SOTW, and discuss as appropriate. It's not perfect, and I've actually skipped a chapter here or there, but overall it's worked. We do the same with our UIELWH (did I get that right? The Usborne World History!), and DK Kingfisher. It's worked out thus far, but we are only in SOTW2. I'll be interested to see what else you find.

We love SOTW. Our entire family will listen to the Jim Weiss recordings - sometimes over and over. I think they are a wonderful add on. I wish I'd taken more pictures to put into his notebook. We do have a good notebook going, with narrations, coloring pages, map work, etc. But no pictures of the many, many projects that brought it all to life. Still haven't done a timeline. Now this thread is making me wonder if I'm going to regret that later?

You are doing the right thing in contacting the police. Stay strong, and know that it is the responsible thing to do. If your parents are ticked, well, they will get over it. Sending strength and positive thoughts to you, and praying.

We didn't use this, because I found out about it too late, but I've always thought Gnomes and Gnumbers would have been a great, fun intro to math. It would have appealed to my guy, anyway. Gnomes, art, gems, math... What's not to love? Plus, it's free.

Chronic illness here, lots of appts. DS (now 8) always comes with me. He has done this since he was 2, so he's a pro. We used to do busy bags, and a promise of playground time afterward. It's not ideal, but it works. DD (1) either comes along or stays with DH, if he can work it out. But I have a DH with a very flexible schedule, so that's a luxury. What about taking the older kids who can sit still, and asking a neighbor/friend to watch the littlest kiddo? That might seem less daunting to a neighbor.

When I had everything we needed, an aunt gave us personalized "lovies" for the babies. Not practical, not usable, not even educational... But loved dearly by both kiddos. I think she ordered them online somewhere, or had them made locally then shipped to us. Just sweet little stuffed animals with the kiddos' names. When our littlest was born last year, I found myself looking forward to my aunt's signature gift!

We use almost the same line up, with the exception of Singapore and the last three you listed. My kiddo, now in 3rd, used to say the same. I tried a lot of different approaches - some worked for a time, some didn't work at all. Staggering the start up, like a PP suggested, is a good one. Plus games. Games are always good. :) Just add them in, or get creative and replace some of the lessons with games. FLL is mostly oral, so DS did that while jumping on the trampoline in 1st. Get out the sidewalk chalk at math time and do it outside. For OPGTR, my kiddo hated reading out of the book. So I wrote it on index cards, paper folded accordion style, or (his favorite) the windows in window marker. Don't skip the activities in RSO or SOTW. My kiddo, even now, is happiest if we are doing at least one hands-on activity per day. Mondays and Tuesdays we do a science experiment; Wednesdays it's art; Thursdays and Fridays it's SOTW. Do the favorite subject first. Like eating dessert first. :D Scavenger hunt: Choose one letter or word from each lesson and highlight it or otherwise make it stand out. As kiddo does the lessons, have her collect the letters or phrases until she's finished. When she's finished, she unscrambles them to find a clue... which she can use to find a treasure hidden somewhere. This can be modified to take on a spy theme or whatever theme appeals. Field trips. RSO and Ancients have good field trip potential. Costume Day - I know, silly, but it worked for us. Ok... That's all I've got for now. Hope something helps.

:eek: Makes me want to go hug that baby.

This is me. I don't like to eat breakfast, and often end up with a stomach ache if I do eat it. We know why the stomach aches are happening and we're working on the solution, but in the mean time, I have to eat breakfast with my meds. Ugh. Smoothies work best for me. Sometimes I can handle gluten free toast, but not often. Once in a while, small bowl of oatmeal. Generally, I can handle fruit. What about non-breakfast foods? Maybe just some cheese and sliced meats? I don't care for those options but DH likes it.

Thanks! We like that one, too. :)

I'm looking for an art program that is fairly hands-off for me. We do a lot of art in our house, both DH and I are fairly artistic, but it's not enough for DS. I can't add in another teacher-intensive course this fall, so I'm hoping to find something DS can do on his own. He liked Mark Kistler last year. I liked that he could watch it online and do it on his own. What about Atelier? Is that one that he could watch and then do basically on his own? Any thoughts would be appreciated!

:bigear: I'm looking for the same info. What I have so far won't work for your littles - I wouldn't let them watch it - but your 10 & 12 year olds might like it. Horrible Histories. They *are* horrible, but funny, and we love British humor here. They work for DS, who is on the later end of 8 year old boy humor. We just bought season 1 on iTunes, and one of the first episodes featured Nero. Since we had just finished Ancients, Nero was fresh in DS's mind and seeing that episode definitely cemented in his mind Nero's persecution of Christians. There is some fake blood, etc. You might preview on youtube.

We love LOF. We started out with one book, Apples, in 2nd - because we wanted to start at the beginning. We've since ordered many more. :) It's simple. It's fun. And we learn something every time. It's a nice breath of fresh air on our Fridays! (We do LOF Fridays here.)

I'm going to second R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey from Pandia Press. You could do a "try before you buy" just to see if she likes it. I think they give you 6 weeks or so of lessons - enough to get a feel for it. Just print them off!

I use Scholaric.com. The best $1 I spend each month. :) This is our second year using it, and it's very simple to use. Plus, I like the look of it. DS likes to have his Daily Lessons printed out each day - so he can tick off the little boxes as he goes. I make a basic schedule, and then tweak it as we go. It's easy to bump lessons in Scholaric, and I much prefer to do it on the computer than with paper/pencil. Just a preference thing. I also like that I can add in "courses" for all of our little extras. For example, we just received our Magic Schoolbus DVD collection, and I quickly went through and figured out which episodes sync with our science lessons. I put in an extra course for that, to remind me to pull those DVDs out at the appropriate time. I have done the same thing with Bill Nye episodes. :) At one point, I was a "file crate system" person, too. I still cut the bindings off of workbooks! I file everything by subject, then just pull out from the front of the stack each week when I fill up DS's weekly binder. The weekly binder is our new system this year. We'll see how that goes. The idea is that DS can see what he has to do for the entire week, so he can work ahead if he chooses. (One can always dream, right?) As for the other stuff - house and life in general - I fly by the seat of my pants. I have the Motivated Moms app on the iPhone, but haven't used it in forever. I'm a flylady drop out from way back when. DH and I use Cozi to coordinate our shopping lists, and iCal to coordinate our calendars. That's about it.

Oh, I love Rosie's list. Will be checking those out soon! Not a game, but we love the Magic of Reality e-book app, the one by Richard Dawkins. You can see a short video about it on Amazon. We love the audiobook, and I thought we were missing out on a lot by not having the print version. The ebook is fabulous - interactive, and has some nice animated illustrations. I am app shopping this week with a gift card, so will be keeping an eye on this thread.

Oh my goodness! I just popped in to say that today was our first day, and DS loved the song! It was a hit. We are making the poster tomorrow. I would love to hear your ideas and songs... Would you pm them to me as well. That was the best time we've had with one of our virtue cards yet! Thank you so much!

:party: Congrats! Finished ours today too! It was fun! Here's to another great year. :cheers2:

Has this already been mentioned? CIS? Continuous Ink System. Best advice I ever received at a homeschooling conference! (Ok, well, maybe not the best, but a close second after WTM!) Sue Patrick (the workbox lady) recommended this and it's been a life saver for us. Google your printer type and CIS or Continous Ink System. Amazon sells them, and a few other places. It looks a little strange, and takes some set up time, but it's so much less expensive! Basically, it's a little ink system that sits beside your printer, with tubes to feed the ink into your printer. For about the cost of replacing your ink once on the printer, you get the entire system. And it lasts and lasts and lasts and... Seriously. We ordered ours in 2010 (summer), and I am just now ordering ink refills. I think I paid $50 originally. I print a LOT, so this has been a huge savings for us! Now I'm just trying to figure out how to order refills. The one drawback is that I think some printers state that using a CIS will void the warranty. They want you to buy their ink. ;) Oh, and keep the system out of reach of babies!

Thanks for sharing this! I have been wondering how best to incorporate the cards, and this is a big help!

At least you are not alone. We have tried a few solutions here. My favorite was Science Saturday with Dad. :D But that fell by the wayside. We use R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey, and I have found that ordering the supply kit is a big help for keeping the necessary supplies accessible when I need them. That helps a bit. We have tried watching the Discover and Do DVDs... With the idea of discovering without doing (love that expression!) DS likes to watch the DVDs... of course, it often leads him to the kitchen to do his own experimenting. I don't mind that, actually, and he does learn quite a bit. "Science Week" worked well also, and one summer (a-hem, the summer after the Science Saturdays fell so far behind!) we did "Summer of Science" - that was a huge hit for the kiddo, but not so much fun for me. I have not yet tried hiring a teen, but - wow, what a great idea! You can bet I'm going to be on the phone with some teen neighbors in the upcoming weeks. Now I'm off to check out the linked thread, to see if there are more ideas.