Mine get to keep 10 pieces, and they know it. My son switches after the first couple of house to trick or treating for unicef (which is getting more popular here) We have a big party and make Halloween more about that. They have gotten to the point they love walking around and showing off their costumes, the candy is just kinda a side part.

First off, I am not asking for advice, I know that I did the right thing for our family. I just need to vent. We got to gymnastics today, she loves gymnastics. We had a great morning. She is getting over a cold, (and I know that is why this happened) The music came on and she burst into tears. I sat with her, calmed her down, blew her nose, by this time the warm up is over. I ask her if she wants to do class and she does. We walk over to the class, she sits down and bursts into tears again. I walk her back to the side, at this point I can not really disrupt the rest of the class anymore. So I calm her down and tell her she has a choice. Gymnastics class followed by lunch at Applebees with my sister and her cousin, or home for a nap. She wants gymnastics. I make it very clear that there is no more crying and she has to do what the class is doing or we will be going home. She is good for about 90 seconds, and then the tears come again. So I said "right, we are going home and you are taking a nap" Tears the whole way home. Arghhhhhh!!!!!!!! I know it was right. a. I had to keep my word or I would have a bigger issue next time b. If she was doing all that she probably really needs the nap. But... I was really looking forward to my lunch at Applebee's ! Thanks for reading my vent. Cheers, Nicole

I second the WTM adventures in Atoms and Molecules. It used to be hard to find level 2, but Rainbow Resources has picked it up. We do 2 experiments per week.

The only one I have any experience in is the Singapore Math Home Instructors guide. I am not a math person, I majored in English Lit. So far math is one of our best subjects, I am surprised that he is learning Math from me. We jumped in at grade 3, We did great for the first 2 units and then we got to number bonds. My husband (who is good at Math) got it, just from the instructor guide. I was still a little hazy, so I bought the 1A instructor guide, now I understand it. It is not scripted, it starts each chapter telling you the parent about the concept. If it is building upon something already done, it tells you when and gives you a review. If it is new, it explains why, how and all that. Then for the sub parts it gives you ideas of how to teach the concept with the manipulatives, games and the answers. I hope that helps

DS loved beginning Geography, so we now do daily geography for 3rd grade. We also do daily math as he will need to take standardized tests this year in Oregon. He likes it and it doesn't take much time. We also have some history pockets.

Looks good, very warm and peaceful

We found that life helped with death. I don't know if you have ashes or anything. We lost a little kitten to FIP, just really sudden and way before it's time. We buried the ashes and planted a rose bush on top. It was nice seeing the flowers this spring, and it assures me that even though Tango's life was too short, we have a nice reminder of him and or the beauty around. Nicole :grouphug:

I played around with laundry soap for awhile. I wanted scent free, and enviromentally friendly, but that would also get our clothes clean and soft. What works here and no one has reactions too is. Charlies powder ( I buy it from Little jumping beans) It only takes a tablespoon and lasts forever. So the price is okay. I combine with the shake lee scent free dryer sheets (the recyclable ones)

Thanks Denise. I breezed through the first 4 pages. I never would have thought of shopping carts as so controversial and I will make sure to veer away from any such thread. (see how I am carefully not mentioning which side of the cart debate I believe in as to not further any conversation on it):bigear:

stainless steel plates and bowls in different sizes. I use these all the time for cooking prep. Different snack and little dessert items. Always fun to try new flavors. They make some wonderful things with ground cashew.

Okay, I did a search, but I can not find exactly what the whole shopping cart thing is, please explain. Have I mentioned that I am technologically challenged? It would be another situation if I were not morally superior as I would allow my dc to do the searching for me, but I do not allow any type of computer activity unless they are working on computer programing as they are just child geniuses. Especially the 3 year old. She started algebra as a fetus, none of that silly listening to music stuff:lol::lol::lol::lol:

I am always up for an England field trip! We are lucky, my husband is from England, so we go back there every other year.

What our "plan" is. We just started this year in third grade. We like the Story of the world and want to keep that as our guide with US history. Time line wise so that the kids understand just how young our country is (if that makes sense) SOTW 3 along with The story of the USA. We have started on volume 1 chapter 8, and will move on to volume 2 SOTW 4 continue through The Story of the USA SOTW 1 State history year SOTW 2 History project and in depth on a part of history that they are interested in (ie the titanic, French revolution etc... ) First 7 chapters of The story of the USA

Bribery. We count it as school, but he only gets to read them if he finishes his other work in a timely manner. He loves them. We are doing Horrible USA right now, but I think the bloody Romans was his favorite so far. If you ever have a friend traveling through Heathrow, ask them to go to the magazine shop at the airport. They have Horrible history magazines.

3 of my favorites that always let me know Christmas has arrived. O Holy Night O Come O Come Emanuel I can never hear them enough, the move me. Then Joy to the World It just makes me smile.

Wow, I never knew there were trolls out there, let alone so many. Thanks for filling me in on Trolls and IRL. Also, about the posting to older threads. It kinda goes with the whole searching thing before posting a question again. Is it better to post and bring up an old thread if you have read it and still have a question, or to start a new thread? Just to stir a little:lol: Oh, am I being a troll if I stir a little, or just letting you all get to know me better. I can be a bit of a brat (in a very nice way I hope):bigear: ETA Sorry lion we posted at the same time. Great minds think alike?

Okay, I have only gotten through page 8, but I will read the rest. I am one of those horrible newbies:lol: 2 questions 1. what are trolls? 2. what is IRL? I have looked on both abbreviation stickies and it is not on them. Thanks Nicole

We first came across this at my son's private school. There was a girl in his class that was 2 grade levels ahead i Math and she did really bad on the Math portion. Then the mom realized that they were testing her on information she had learnt 2 years ago and she was rusty on it. What I am doing. Evan Moor daily Math, Geography and Science. We are doing these at his grade level and he does them as his independent work. It takes maybe a half an hour. It just keeps the skills that he will be tested on up to date. They are pretty easy and all correlated to State standards. I buy them from Evan Moor as PDF, so I print as I need, and will do so again with my DD. I am only planning on doing this during testing years, of which 3rd grade is one for us. Hope that helps (also really good for vacations or days where you have appointments and need to take something with you)

We just started Home School this year. My son is in 3rd grade. After the first 3 weeks I was really frustrated. I was lucky that 2 veteran Home School moms sat down and talked with me while I was waiting for my son to get out of Drama class. They told me that not only is my son learning how to be Home Schooled, I am learning how to Home school. To just relax and keep plugging away at it. However they also reminded me about one of the joys of homeschooling. Just because something is laid out to be finished in 36 weeks, does not mean that I can't take 45 weeks to finish. Also incentives. I had never thought of this, but Mad libs is great Grammar practice, and my ds loves them. So, if he does his best focused work for 20 min, we do a mad lib. Seems to be working. We also have a sticker chart. Everyday he does the work we need to do with a positive attitude he gets a sticker. When he gets 30 he gets a prize, and a sticker on the "big treat" sheet. Same thing with books. Every time he reads a mom approved book he gets a sticker. 30 and a treat and a big prize sticker. He knows that he is working toward an overnight mystery trip. But at the rate I set out he should only get to that once a year, twice some years. Hope some of that helps. Also what the other mom said, AS long as he is on track by 5th grade I am relaxing about how we get there.

Yes AAS is rule intensive, but it has review built in which we find really helpful. I have an 8 year old son, we started AAS 4 weeks ago. We are flying through it, but we have already found gaps that are being filled in. We love it. The other nice thing about starting at the beginning is that DS finds it easy. Spelling has gone from his least favorite subject to one of his favorite. He starts spelling class now with the mindset that he will succeed and that has made a lot of difference.

There is a biography channel bio of Christopher Columbus available through netflix (streaming through the Wi if you have one) I thought it was age appropriate for third grade. I did learn things about Columbus from it. The one thing I was worried about was if there were mentions of rape of the native people, but they phrased it as the natives gave the explorers gold and women. So not too detailed. There were painting of nudity, but we just talked about that and how that was part of what was so different. I would watch it first as it is borderline, but my son and I found it very interesting. I got a new repect for Columbus from is which was nice.

I don't have a lot of advice, as this is only our 4th week home schooling. I understand, I want to make sure that I am doing everything right. I talked to a couple of veteran home schoolers on Friday at an activity. They made me feel better. The said take a deep breath and don't worry about this year. One of the mom's is also following the classical curriculum. She told me that I am making a good decision for my kids, but that it requires a lot from mom. Give it time, chill out and know that by the end of your first year going into your second it will be easier. Good luck.

I can just say that we are using FLL 3 and we like it. If he has something memorized we don't repeat three times, just 1 as the review is good. It has a work book, but one thing I like is the different strategies. We just did common and proper nouns. The book gives a list of nouns and you tell your child to stand during the proper nouns and sit for the common nouns. My son loves this, and I like that not everything is taught the same way, there is variety. Hope that helps some.

We are loving AAS here. My son is 8 and an average speller. I was skeptical about starting at level 1, but we have found some things that he did not know. It is a new way of looking at spelling. We are flying through book 1 and will probably start level 2 by the end of October. There is the expense of starting at the beginning, but I am finding that it is worth it. The good thing about it being easy, is that spelling is now one of my son's favorite subjects. He looks forward to it and goes into each lesson with the confidence that he will learn it.

thanks for posting. Always good to see reassurance that I have picked something good.