We have two chickens that have free reign of the yard. They were terribly bullied in the coop so now they are free to roam and roost in the barn. Every morning they are waiting on our back deck at the cat's dish for cat food. The other day she wouldn't leave when the cat hissed at her so the cat walked away sulking while this little banty chicken ate her food. I wouldn't be surprised if they start pecking on the door when "breakfast" is late.

I use kindle for mac all the time. I love the Amazon free downloads of so many of the classics.

Thanks all. I was all ready to do the Reception before I really looked at it and, I do think it would be repetitive.

My K'r (5 1/2 years old) is very bright and we do math everyday. At this rate we will be through RightStart Lev. A by the end of Dec. For my other three boys, I have always used Singapore 1A/B to supplement, but I would like to try MEP. For those who have used it, would I start with the Reception year or go right to Yr.1? I would like to actually switch between the two so Mom doesn't get bored. This is my 3rd time through Lev.A and it is my least favorite.

Ezra or Nathan

We are doing Investigation 4B today which calls for a relative humidity chart. Of course I cannot find it in any of the books so here is one I found. http://www.eduplace.com/science/hmxs/es/pdf/5rs_3_2-3.pdf Hope it works.

These are great. We ended up skipping those labs due to lack of innovation on my part. We will, hopefully, do Inv. 4A on Tuesday which is the salt vs fresh water experiment. I bought 2 identical clear Lock&Lock containers to do it. My only problem, which I am not going to worry about too much, is because the volume of water is different the amount of salt added to represent the ocean needs to be recalculated. My algebra is so rusty that I cannot figure it out from the salinity equation in the TM. I will probably have them calculate the new volume and we will adjust the salt to it. I don't have a digital scale to measure it out anyway. Keep the updates coming. It is inspiring.

We are. Our crick, which was bone dry last week, has now overflowed an entire field. My boys are playing Wii Sports Resort right now and and the sky looks so blue and the grass so green. I wish I could go there.

Wow, I really appreciate all the replies even though there is no real consensus. I am not good at replying to each post so I will make some general statements. First of all Ford anything will not be considered. Our other vehicle is a 98 F-150 and has way too many dumb quirks and we have dumped tons of money into it. Our T&C for $7000 was a special deal from great friends. I think if our relatives lowered the price of the Honda I would consider it, but it would have to be their offer. (I do add a big element of prayer when we car shop) I do really like the idea of having a guarantee on the newer vehicles mostly because they are no longer handyman friendly. DH was able to repair many things on our older van but with so many electronics it is getting harder (and we don't tend to replace things that are not necessary like air-conditioning). Also I never really considered myself car-vain, but I am kinda tired of having the biggest rust bucket in the parking lot. Our sliding doors don't even have exterior handles and our rear door has to be opened with a screwdriver. It's kinda embarrassing. Another thought, and I'm am not sure if this sways me to newer or older, is that NY is very hard on cars. They throw TONS of salt on the roads, and cars get eaten alive. Also we do not have a garage, so that salt just sits on them and ruins the body. Anyway, it is nice to know that I am not alone in going around in circles when car-shopping.

We have come to accept the fact that our 99 Town and Country Limited (we paid $7000 for it in 03) is quickly coming to its end. I have really enjoyed this van even though the motor has 156,000 miles on it. It runs fine, but the body and other important parts are all going bad. So we have been starting to look for something newer. Our relatives, who are older and have followed the maintenance book to a tee, are selling their 04 Honda Odyssey EX w/ DVD for $11,000, but it has 86,000 miles on it (They drove it from NY to Montana twice). I was really hoping for something a little newer w/ less milage. What's nice is that we could pay cash for this. (Bye-Bye emergency fund) DH and I also spent some time this evening at a major auto seller in our area and test drove an 08 Town and Country and a 2010 Kia Sedona. Both rode nice but I really don't like the floors in the Stow and Go and I'm just not sure about reliability in either. We would definitely have to borrow to buy something newer. What's hard is that we have been completely debt free for three years and I really don't want to go that way again, but I also don't want to dump everything we have into an older vehicle and have something major like the transmission go or start having all the motorized this and thats go. I know I am asking for you'all to be my glass ball, but I sure could use some wisdom in this.

He gets out of work at 4:30 and is home in 15 minutes. If it's snowing or freezing rain, I never know when he will be home. He works for the highway dept. He works 10 hour days so he is gone by 5:30 in the morning.

I got the History Channel one yesterday. I had forgotten all about it. The boys are bugging to watch it.

Thanks. I like the idea of working on the paper but continuing with the lessons. I am not sure how many of these formal papers I will make him do. I am trying to do writing a little more WTM style this year after doing IEW last year. I like the idea of taking him through the process step by step. I wish someone would have walked me through it in middle school so it isn't so daunting in high school.

Oldest ds (7th) grade is trying History Odyssey Lev.2 Middle Ages and has reached his first lesson that requires a researched biography. He is writing phobic but I have made great strides with him. I am just wondering how others have done with these assignments? I have a feeling I will be doing a tremendous amount of hand-holding. How much time should we take to do this? We are not on summer break anymore I just haven't had a chance to update our signature.

I don't care how old you are, Craylola pencils are awful. Two years ago I got a set of Staedtler pencils from Michaels using a coupon. They are a little cheaper than Prismacolor and hold up well with smaller children. This year, my oldest two are using the Artistic Pursuits book which requires Prismacolor or some other decent brand of both pencils and water-color pencils. I ended up buying them from ebay and actually got the water-color pencils, colored pencils, Scholar, and Verithan pencils all Prismacolor brand. Out of all those, I think the Prismacolor Scholar (36 colors) are the best set for smaller children. I really liked the Staedtler pencils because they came in a nice plastic case, are fairly strong, and have a vibrant color. Unfortunately I let the kids have free rein on them and now many are missing.

I just showed the kids Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. It wasn't an absolute fav. when I was younger but I thought they would get a kick out of it. The only rough spot was the brother calling the other a d**kweed. So eighties.

That's what I did. Many of the lessons line up nicely with studying ancient history and they are basically in the right order. I worked through the book in order but would jump ahead to lessons that correlated with our current history study.

I ended up googling it a few days ago to figure it out. I had to change a setting on my mp3 for my Mac to recognize it, but it worked. It seemed like I lost some of my MP3 control doing it that way. (some of the features didn't work).

Sounds a little like my 7yo yesterday. He threw himself for about a half hour. Today went much better. I made sure to praise him extensively when he came quickly and had a good attitude. I sat with him for everything. Most importantly, we have a large jar of peanut butter m&m's that are a reward for finishing work and good attitude. He is a very strong willed little guy and I have found that rewards (or withholding them) work with him much better than punishment. Hope tomorrow is a better day.

Same thing happened to me. I sent my IHIP's in last week and today I got all their forms. They even included the days for me to submit my quarterlies which they really cannot hold you to. I always put my own dates on my IHIPS. As far as hours, just divide the total needed by 4 and submit that number each quarter. I know I easily do the required hours if not more. I am planning on signing the forms they sent (correcting the submission dates) and sending them back with a note explaining I already sent the IHIPS. I also am going to straighten them out on my 5yo who went to preschool there last year. They sent me a form to report for him but since he will not be 6 till next year I am not required to. I don't ever use their forms for quarterly reports. It is much easier for me to type them and keep the records on my computer.

As far as watercolor paint for kids, I found the Prang to be best for the price. In fact today my 7yo was really upset because he wanted to paint with some cheap watercolors we were given and the color barely showed up on the paper. He is used to the vivid colors from Prang and we ended up throwing the cheap set out. I get a lot of art supplies from Michael's using their coupons. They usually put out some really good ones around Christmas time. I also just bought some Prismacolor pencils off ebay. I have been hesitant to get them because of people complaining of breakage but we are using ARTistic Pursuits 4-6 Book 2 this year and it is all about color.

We budget $40 a paycheck paid every other week. This is for 4 children and will cover the basics but not much extra. It seems like so much to me compared to when we started but I still could use more.

If I understand your question correctly, "I Wonder" starts when the LA is at 106:7.

I ordered the trial version and worked on it for several weeks before ordering the full version. There is a very steep learning curve. I was really wanting to have someone right there with me to walk me through it. I ended up using my Mac laptop to view the instruction manual and videos while I practiced with the program on my antique PC desktop. I also downloaded some of the pre-made lesson plans from the HST yahoo groups to really see how they are put together. I am still far from knowing all the ins and outs of it but I do know enough to get the year started. What also helped me relax is I decided to keep my younger two children using my original paper schedules and not use HST with them at all. I wish I had thought of making a practice database. I believe mine is a mess.

Here ....daily.