As a former dancer I am keeping my daughter in ballet and possibly tap until she has had her big growth spurt (14 or 15) Hip hop and other dance forms can do a lot of damage to joints that they will carry forever. Just something to think about. Ballet is smooth, it teaches you to dance up (not land harshly on the floor) It is not just technique, but it strengthens the muscles that are needed for all forms of dance. I am a little more strict about when she can branch into other dance forms than most, but I am an almost 40 year old woman with a lot of joint pain, most of it from my Jazz and Dance team days.

:iagree: It also might help if you watch some of Andrew Pudewa's talks. I think there are links on the site. Listening to him made me realize how scared i was of teaching writing. Once you try and don't succeed it is hard to jump back in. IEW is really set up for success.

We do a field trip week the week that the public schools go back. Children's museum, science museum, zoo, and the airplane museum. The schools haven't gotten organized enough to start field trips, so it is a really quiet week.

He shouldn't have mentioned it though. Just because a kids parents have tattoos, piercing, do that for a living etc... some people assume that the kids are more worldly than they are, and that is just wrong. Having tattoos, and being a professional body piercer does not mean that the children know about any below clothes piercings. He is either being creepy, or really biased.

ds plays drums well (Piano, not so well) We all sing. As long as it is a group with diversity and respect for that diversity I am all in. :D I would love a fun place where there were lots of people for the kids to learn from, and lots of different POV's for them to learn about. I am good with teenagers, especially when they are being unreasonable. I am also turning out to be pretty good at growing indoor plant life during winter months.

Gall Stones?

We have a few weeks where we double up. Sometimes the projects and extras just aren't ones we want to do, so those weeks we double up. We are focusing most of our in depth activities into Egypt, Rome, and Greece. We will just read the chapter, color the page and do the map for the majority of the rest. I think I will find one thing from the East to go into, real take of Mulan time.

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:grouphug:

:iagree: All the Sumpter stuff was great. My kids loved the train and the gold dredge. Walking around the interpretive center you can walk in the ruts the wagons left. It is pretty cool. My kids loved the center. Check in when you get there, they have a junior ranger program. It gives them a worksheet (free) and then at the end they can get sworn in as a wagon leader. The Eastern Oregon Museum in Haines is one of my favorite ever museums. $5 for the whole family http://www.oregonmuseums.org/sectionindex.asp?sectionid=87 It is in an old gymnasium, they use risers for a lot of the stuff. Some things are behind glass, but a lot of it isn't. They have set part up as an old school room, you can pick up the books and flip through them. Very hands on. There is a scavenger hunt the kids can do. They have 2 out buildings, one with carriages (that you can climb into) The other is the old railway station.

Here is my review http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/showthread.php?t=397302

The Caribbean is nice, but very large. When my mom and Aunt came with us we stayed at the French Quarter. It is one of the smaller resorts, but it is very closely linked to a larger resort. The bus service was great. The rooms were large and it had been updated much more recently that the Caribbean. We had adjoining rooms. The pool was also less crowded but still nice at the french quarter. We liked it, as we were at the parks all day which was all kid orientated, it was nice to come back to a quieter "adult" resort.

I am not quoting in case people want to delete later, but, yes for the most part we are vanilla! Way to go Panda! I do think it is worth 1000 points. Swell, you are behaving?:auto:

I just went to look at the bookshelf (It is only 9:40 here) and he has filled 2 shelves already! The top 2! I think my dh might be a bigger opponent that I originally thought. I might have to go buy a new b00kshelf after all....

I had to find a way to get it assembled and moved up stairs. He also had to move a couple of big pieces of furniture to get it some room.:tongue_smilie: You would think with the PhD and be a math/science person that he would be better at math then his wife with only a BA in English Lit who barely passed Math. I will try this next when he makes me capitulate to giving his 3 shelves. :lol::rofl: I love it! I also like that only 3 of 34 people thought that meant 3 shelves for him. I will show him the poll tonight when he gets home, and the one shelf in the middle of the bookcase that is still empty. I think I have enough to fill all 5 other shelves today:D

You are boring in the same way as a giraffe walking down main street. Good to know. :lol::lol: Now that you know it's there, you might. I never noticed it, and now I always see it.

:lol::lol::lol: LOVE the clown car!

:lol::lol: :auto: :D So far they are young enough that they are not mortified and sing with me. It might not change in my family:001_smile: My mom, sister, and I all will sing as we are walking down the sidewalk, even when we were teens we sang with her. We have the attitude that it doesn't matter how you sound, singing it joyful, do it often! My mom never sang Love Shack loudly around my friends though, she was more a Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel singer.

I stopped buying Nike after the resigned Michael Vick. and I LOVE Nike's product.

yes yes tokens love it! I have been trying multiple ways of keeping screen time under control. I got what we are now using from our overlord SWB at a conference AND I LOVE IT.(tweaked a little) I give out tokens on Sunday Night. Each token represents 15 min of screen time. (SWB does 30 min tokens, 15 just works best for us) I start at a base of 4 hours a week worth of tokens. Starting at age 7 you get 1 extra token each Birthday. Tokens reset Sunday Morning. The only screen time in our house on Sunday is after rooms are clean, baths are taken, and everything is set in place for Monday, then we have family movie night. Only if everything is done by 5. I have been doing this since May and yes we tweaked a few things, but arguments are gone. A few other things. Any reasonable time that they want to use their screen time they are allowed. The tokens represent their time, and some choice they have over their time. If both are watching together, they both pay tokens, they don't split.

:grouphug:jean :grouphug: I hope you feel better soon

:lol::lol:

Do you remember the Twisted Sister We're not Going to take it video? That was one of my favs.

I homeschool my children because most the time it is fun. (and academics, etc...) But mostly fun, I like hanging out with the little squirts everyday, why should someone else get the joy of spending the day with my kids!

I have to say my dh is going to say I don't have a leg to stand on with only 11 votes.:D