Another dd that is a cosmetologist...she uses a CHI...loves it. We had it at the house before she went to work and I miss, miss, miss it! We use two cheap Conair ones (alternate to keep them hot) that we have had for years...but they are nothing like the Chi. They work well for my dd that has naturally straight hair and take me a while longer to do mine. But...right now I'm not coming off the extra $$ for one. (Actually hoping my dd will get me one for Christmas:D) I noticed that Bed, Bath and Beyond has them for $99 with a 20% off coupon on the flyer.

We bought ours at Best Buy and got their replacement protection plan for it. The touch screen stopped working (never been dropped - she is really careful) and it also had a screen protector. They replaced it free - actually they sent us a gift card with the replacement $$ on it. We bought another and another replacement protection plan.

Well I don't color my hair myself, my dd does it at home (but she is a cosmetologist - I just can't afford to go where she works, LOL.) We use box color because that is the only one that isn't resistant to my gray. We use Revlon Colorsilk. We only color my roots - and then add highlights as needed - but we've been using this color for a long time, so we know it will not cause a line for me. I'm also at least 50% gray, if not more. I would do a test strip like the PP recommended - somewhere not very noticeable. Do you have a friend that can help you out - doing just the roots and the back of your head can be a bit tricky. One other thing we do when we are not going to add any highlights is to let the color sit on my roots for about 20 minutes and then the last 10-15 minutes she pulls little strips of the color down through hair to blend it into the rest - like backwards highlights. It really helps it to blend well. Also I have noticed with my hair that the darker color on my highlights does not last very long and after several washings the highlights start to show through - so if you did all over color your highlights may start to come through again. It also does this with my sister's hair. Another thing - if you are taking any medication you have to be careful. My sister takes medicine for seizures and this last time her hair turned DARK brown, almost black. It doesn't happen all the time. It actually looks pretty good...but something to keep in mind.

:iagree:

Interesting conversation :) One of the things my ds does when he gets stuck on an algebra problem is he asks me if he can teach me the problem. Once he starts to try and explain what he is doing things start to "click" and he figures out where he is making his mistake. What I had to do though was model to him first how to explain a problem - step by step. Once he could figure out the small steps in explaining something it was very easy for him to do. Now I rarely get a whole problem explained to me anymore :001_huh: ...usually only about half and then he exclaims "I know what I'm doing wrong" and goes back to his work. This has also stopped the careless mistakes.

What I'm finding with my children is that the older ones can actually progress much faster than my younger. It is a skill they are acquiring. I guess what I would compare it to is teaching math. You would not teach a child 14 + 3 = 17 when they cannot add 3 + 4 = 7. You would go back and make sure that they had the basics covered before moving on, but with an older child going back and covering the basics would not take as long as teaching a 1st grader the basics. Does that make sense? (I probably need more coffee :lol: ) So even though you are going back and covering these skills with him it probably won't take him as long to progress as someone in 3rd grade to do WWE3.

I believe the reason for dictation is not so they can memorize a passage but so they can hold a whole sentence(s) of thought in their mind at one time. I think the example that SWB gave on one of her audio lectures was when you are asking them to create a sentence and they do it orally. Then you tell them to write it and they don't remember what they said. This is my children in a nutshell....they can't remember what they said. It is improving by leaps and bounds with the use of dictation.

No problem, here is the link. And she is actually doing it with her 13yo ds. That is what made me realize that it might actually help my reluctant 14yo ds to write. He has made tremendous strides in just a few weeks and watching her do the dictation has helped us both not to frustrate each other. :lol:

We always go to my sister's home. So I am busy getting whatever I'm bringing together and getting us out the door. We want to get there as early as possible to help get it all together there....we always fry the turkeys so the guys do that. Some years there are over 50+ people. This year it is just our immediate families. So about 14 of us. I'm really looking forward to the smaller crowd. Oh...and this year I will also be putting together extra to take to the fire station. My dd boyfriend is working that day and I told them we would bring them lunch/supper...lots of food to feed them well. :D

We could spend the same but we have decided that we need to cut back. I don't like Christmas to be about what you are getting but I do love to give my children gifts. I read on the board about someone that does this: 1. Something you want 2. Something you need 3. Something to play with 4. and something to read So we're going with that this year and then we also have stockings (those are fun!) and we also have the tradition of home-made PJs to open on Christmas Eve.

Well my dd's have one of the best teachers for SL...a older "sibling"* who is is studying to be an interpreter for the deaf. She is now in her third year of college study. The reason I mention this is that if you have a college close by that has this type of program the students may be looking for students to teach. They did this last year for our home school group and it was free of charge for the home school students. They may offer something similar where you live? The college students needed this exposure and it gave them "hours" towards their classes. Here they need a certain amount per semester working with deaf and hearing. You may be able to customize a program for your family. *she is not exactly a sibling but she spends so much time in our home (lives here on the weekends especially) that she refers to us as her weekend family. :D

I seem to remember SWB saying in one of her audio lectures (I have them all - so can't remember which one, but probably one of the writing ones) that you did not want them to recite back all of the story to you. What you wanted them to learn to do was to find the most important thing in the reading. I'll try to figure out exactly what that was, but I'm pretty sure I remember her saying that many children have a hard time later on figuring out what is important and what is not.

I have both WWE3 and 4. I have my ds doing some of the WWE4 (he is older but was never taught to write like this) and my dd doing WWE 3. I started her off in 4, and although she could do it some of it was a struggle. So I split them up. We are doubling up the lessons also..so doing it in less than half the time. I decided for my 6th grader that I would rather her feel successful about writing instead of feeling overwhelmed at times with different dictations. She is doing really well and I see her writing improving all across the curriculum...which is very exciting for me! Her problems with WWE4 were more along the lines of spelling and retaining longer passages of information. Backing up to WWE3 helped with those two things tremendously and they have both improved. Also watching SWB do dictation with her 13yo ds really helped me see how to do dictation. You can find the video on YouTube under Peace Hill Press if you haven't watched it.

Well I know you by your avatar and username and was wondering why someone else had the same picture in some other posts, LOL. So I agree - you can change your user name but not the avatar for a good long time. I have a hard enough time trying to figure out everyone around here. :lol::D

Here is our Peanut Butter Muffin recipe. 1 1/2 c all purpose flour 3/4 c white sugar 2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. salt 1/2 - 3/4 c peanut butter (we use chunky but you could use smooth) 1/4 c butter 1 c milk 2 beaten eggs Mix dry ingredients together and cut in peanut butter and butter until crumbly. (how I do it: mix the dry, then add the butter/PB and nuke in the micro for about 15-30 sec to soften the butter and PB and then I take my hand mixer and mix it until it's crumbly - most of the time when I make these I'm half asleep and don't have the time or the energy to do it the difficult way, LOL) Add eggs and milk and stir until moistened. Fill greased muffin cups and sprinkle with a mixture of chopped peanuts and sugar if desired (I don't) Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes.

My experience: I thought it was terrible that my oldest dd wasn't able to start K when she was 5 - because of her birthday she had to wait another year. It was the best thing for her...and I had her at home a whole year longer!!!:D She is now 20 and out in the world making her way...so glad she had another year at home to become a more mature adult. So...I have learned not to rush them. Last year my then 6 yo dd had NO INTEREST in learning to read....I would have had better luck teaching the tree in my back yard. Seriously. Fast track to this year (she is 7)....she is bringing me books. "Look what I can read Mom!!" She WANTS to read. We are flying through the lessons and she says she LOVES school. Just what I want to hear, KWIM? She just wasn't ready.

Here it is.....it really helped me with teaching dictation.

I have an 11yo doing WWE3. She is doing very well with it but WWE4 was too hard - weeeeellll she could do it, but it was a struggle. I wanted her to feel success with her writing, not frustration, so we just backed up. She doesn't know what the levels stand for and I'm not about to tell her. Yesterday she wrote a summary from her science book that I know she could not have done just a few weeks ago. So I'm already seeing a drastic improvement in her sentence structure and also skills for finding the main points of a paragraph. I also have a 14yo that is quickly working through WWE4 as he has some gaps....he is flying through now that he "gets" it. He is also doing other writing, but this is definitely improving that writing. We are also working through outlining with him too. Just doing these few things has improved both of their writing skills in ways that I only dreamed about last year. Last year his idea of a complete sentence was "The dog ran." :banghead::banghead: To say I was frustrated would be a mild understatement. Now.....I'm thrilled with the progress I am seeing and it wasn't hard for them to do at all. That excites me.

together....FLL is more on the side of grammar (there is some copywork/narration in there) while WWE is writing. We don't do too many of the copywork assignments in FLL but do all the WWE. At least that is our experience so far...we are only using FLL1 and WWE1.

:iagree:Watching this (more than once :D) has really helped me understand HOW to do dictation without frustrating both myself and my children.

Yes, this....:iagree:

I'm using FFL for a 6th grader and a 9th grader. They LOVE it...one of their favorite classes this year. Here's some info from their website...

I think the do it over again one is the only one I don't have-but I have plans to get it soon. First I have to process everything floating around in my head. I know this is the solution to our writing problems. Everything she said made so much sense and with just the tiny little bit that we have done I can already see some progress!!! AND my children like it :)

I love them too...they have helped me so much....and likewise caused a lot more questions...but I really think I'm on the right track!!!! I would stop all creative writing exercises and concentrate on non-fiction writing. I also would wait to do the outlining (SWB says to start in 5th grade and go all year doing a 1 level outline if need be.) So I don't think it would hurt to start her doing the 1 level outlines and do them the last half of 5th grade. This is what I'm doing...and I'm backing up with a 6th and a 9th grader. I pick the copywork and the dictation. Listening to SWB tell how to do dictation and also watching her do it with her son on YouTube helped me tremendously. What I did this week was I had them write copywork (from either their history, science or literature) and then used it as dictation for them the next time. I told them that they needed to learn how to hold sentences in their heads (and they both agreed with me that it is difficult for them) before they could actually write those sentences on paper. They don't realize that what they are doing they should have learned how to do when they were younger...and if they do we blame mom's ignorance and the old curriculum. :D Then they don't feel horrible about it and try to excel. Well I wouldn't do it for each at the beginning of the week. I think that would be too much. You can also do oral narrations...don't even write them down, just go through the process..then chose one subject per day to write from. Then on another day pick one of her narrations and use it for dictation. For your own sanity??? EASE into it!!!! (I speak from experience as I'm still trying to wrap my head around this myself.) Also from experience, my 9th grader is getting this really fast...so I doubt it will take him that long to get to where he needs to be. The 6th grader also is improving and we've only been doing this for about 2 weeks. I can let you know Tuesday :D My order is scheduled to be delivered that day. I order WWE text, 1, 3 & 4 - I have a 1st/2nd grader that will use the level 1, then I wasn't sure where to put or what to use for the older two and since I plan to use the WWE with the younger I figured I would just go on and get it all and get free shipping :D I really think my youngest will do well with WWE as she LOVES, LOVES, LOVES, FLL. You and me both...but we'll get through it and be wiser for it in the end, right?

I was told that they usually turn by 2 or so but my oldest didn't turn until she was over 5. They went from a blue grey to a deep pretty green.