I have five boys. Yes I see this kind of thing all the time. It drives us crazy. We've given up on buying anything new beacause its a waste of money. ;) Someone once exclaimed when she heard I had five boys, "and your house is still standing?!" They are a bit more rough on things.

How does one stop being a Christian? Is it when they stop attending church? Or stop believing in God? I went through a rough patch around 15-16 yrs old. I even got pregnant (with my oldest DS). But I always still believed in God, however I wasn't attending church and I wasn't doing very "Christian-like" behavior. When I got married a few years later and started having more kids, we went back to church. We tried a few churches before joining the Mormon church three years ago.

Yikes! I have a few friends who are public school teachers or substitute PS teachers. I'm always worried they'll say something to me about it. However, they have always been nice thankfully, even commending me. One even said she'd consider homeschooling her kids. Sorry you had to deal with such an obnoxious person!

Oh yes. I get that all the time too. Usually the comments follow a pattern. If we're out without the kids and somehow it comes up in conversation with someone (a common stranger on the street, a waiter in a restaurant, etc lol) that we have five kids then we first get the "oh wow!" comments, but as soon as they ask boys/girls and we tell them all boys...the comments really escalate. Often their eyes bug out of their head. Its worse if we have all the boys out with us. People have counted them out loudly before, asked if they were all mine (huh?), still not believing what they were seeing asking us if we really do have five boys. Then we get the "poor you!" comments or "you really need a girl!" or "how do you do it?" or "you must be a saint!" or "how is your house still standing" and so on.... lol Just wait until I have six boys. ;) (not betting on a girl this time at all LOL)

I'm glad you asked that because I swear the rules were different when I took my driving test 12 years ago. lol I thought I learned that its always 20 mph in school zones. Now I see these flashing signs that say "20 MPH when lights are flashing/children are present". On the signs with lights ,they seem to only flash during morning and afternoon when kids are coming and going. So....does that mean the regular city speed limit is in effect when the lights are not flashing? I have been confused by it, so I'm glad you asked this question. haha

I think over five is large. But that is because I have five and it doesn't seem large. ;) Number six is on the way, and that seems large. haha However, I bet after a year or so it will become my new norm and I will think seven and over is a large family. ;) I think the whole "are you Catholic/Mormon" question related to having lots of kids is funny. I DO fall into the Mormon category. But it has nothing to do with how many kids I have. However I'm sure it doesn't seem that way....good luck trying to get people to understand when they see me with my six kids. lol I joined the church three years ago, when pregnant with our fifth. So we already had five kids, pretty much, when we joined the church. Our decision to have a sixth was purely just because we wanted another baby. In our ward (like our congregation based on our area where we live...our town is divided into three wards) there is probably only a couple large families. Some of the older ladies with children grown and gone have six, but out of the young families still having kids we will have the largest family when we have our sixth. :) The majority of the families here have two or three kids. Of course they are still young and having babies, but many of them are not planning a large family. The majority of our older ladies done having children have around 3-4 kids on average. I've heard of LDS families have lots of kids, but I'm not quite sure why that's so. We're taught that birth control is between husband, wife, and God. Its not like we're taught to have as many kids as we can. In fact the church's "stance" on family size is, again, between husband and wife, and God. Families, however, are very important and special. There is a lot of emphasis on the family and being together in Heaven. I still am confused why LDS have more large families on average, or why the connotation is there. I've only known of a couple families over six kids...but we don't know many LDS people yet other then in our own little ward. lol

I love the website Confessions of a Homeschooler. She's made curricula for a US history/geography "road trip" and a world geography passport type "expedition". Here is the U.S. history/geography road trip: http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/2011/03/road-trip-usa-geography-and-history.html And the world geography curriculum: http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/2010/08/expedition-earth-journey-through-gods.html

Uggh I can relate! lol At our church, everyone attends the main "service" together. Babies and all. ;) The Sunday school and kids' classes are usually afterwards (although right now because of the schedule we're on this year, our Sunday school classes are first). I have a 24 mo old right now. Its so hard to get him to sit through an hour of being quiet. He's a shrieker. lol He doesn't whisper. Often I am taking him quickly out into the hall after he's bonked his head on the pew and started crying loudly. But the good thing is that I'm not the only one. Often there are four or five other moms out there with their kicking, screaming toddlers also. It helps knowing that they all understand. I used to really panic at the thought of my kids being loud, but I've had so many other mothers, young and old, come up to me and tell me to really really not worry about it...its to be expected. Several of the older ladies without young children at home anymore even say that they like to hear the babies talk and laugh. :) Lately what I've found working is bringing a variety of picture books that change each Sunday. My little one especially loves the pop up books or ones with flaps to open. He'll look at one book for a good 15 min before moving on to the next....four books later and before you know it the service is over. lol HTH!

I think that talking respectfully to eachother is very important - for both ends. I try very hard to speak respectfully to him and I expect him to do the same. Just as with any other person, its not nice to hurt people's feelings and be rude. Now getting angry with eachother, of course it happens. I get cranky all the time, as does my DH. However, I try very hard to never say something that I don't really mean or doesn't really need to be said at that moment. Nothing ever good comes from saying something in the heat of the moment. I've found its best to cool down before saying something that could have the potential to be hurtful.

:iagree::iagree::iagree: uggh :(

Thanks! I'll check that out. :)

Except that its not just $13/week for CC. Maybe it depends on area, but here there is another $50 f/ registration and $50 f/art and supplies. Then you add in the books, cards, guide, CD and divide that by 30 weeks - the total I came up with for everything is about $24.50/week for one child in Foundations, double that if they are in Essentials too. For the Challenge program (A) it figures out to just about $50/week. I still think CC is a good program from what I saw on open house day and from what I've read and researched. I love the accountability and organization. I love the presentations the kids have to give. I love that all the kids learn the same material so that we can go over it at home all together. It may be totally over my 4 yr old's head, but he would have loved singing the songs. Then eventually as he got older, it would have stuck with him until he understood it. I just think its too expensive as one part to your curriculum. Besides all that, there is other curriculum you still have to buy (math, language arts-unless they are in Essentials or Challenge, and any other subjects you want to cover more then CC covers) as well as other activities. For example, music lessons since CC doesn't have that comprehensive of a music element. Gym/ballet/karate, etc. lessons (although I know not everyone does that), and so on. There is another co-op in this area, for example, that the parents have to stay there and help out in a class. Its pretty organized and has some good classes to offer. The fee is $25 per family to register, for each quarter I assume? They run classes in sessions like spring, fall, and winter. They charge for most of the classes to pay the time of the teacher/tutor and for any supplies. It's one day a week also, 8am to 12:10pm. Even for a family of my size though, and doing all the sessions, assuming its around 30 weeks (it runs about the same schedule as CC), the total is just around $17/week for all of the kids. That's much more do-able then over $120/week for all the kids (once you figure in the books and materials, and not including one in Essentials too). I just wish the CC program was more affordable, because then I think my DH would be more agreeable to doing it. As I said, I still think its a great program!

Or is that like apples to oranges again? Mostly I'm wondering about the teaching method (spiral, mastery?) and how intensive they are. I've read a lot of threads about TT being under grade level, but I've read a lot about it being just great too. I really think this could be great for my 12 yr old who's great at math and great at working independently. I'm not so great at math. It'd be nice to have a program that taught to him. ;) I was going to do Saxon math for him, primarily because we were going to do Classical Conversations. However, since those plans have changed...I'm not sure we want to do Saxon. We've been doing it half of this year, and its just. Blah. ? And I don't have the time to really spend teaching it to him like the program is kind of meant to be. Anyway, just trying to think of better options! Thanks :)

$13/wk doesn't seem like much, but $102/week is a lot. Yikes! I think its just not cost effective for large families like ours. :( Its a bummer because I still think the CC program is great, and I'd do it - and could probably convince my DH to go for it, if it was a lot less money. He wouldn't be so hesitant and doubting the program if we didn't have to spend as much money.

:iagree:

We had decided to go ahead and do CC. We submitted our registration and were waiting to hear if we got into the program (there was concern that there wouldn't be enough space, so they were reviewing applications). When my DH and I really sat down and talked about it, again, and he brought some concerns he had to light. Part of it was that he just didn't know what the CC program was all about. I went to an open house and I've been reading about it on these boards for awhile now, so I walked him through what our day was like at the open house, the teaching method of CC, and the classical method of learning. After that he was sure he didn't want to do it. While CC is a good program, in his opinion it wasn't worth the money for a family like ours with five kids (and one on the way!) The final cost breakdown for four of our kids to be in Foundations (and one in Essentials) and one in Challenge A (the junior high level program and above), AND with the cost of books and required materials - it was going to be well over $3000. So what was that cost going towards? Part program fees, part CC fees, part paying the tutors. The tutors are parents like us who go to training seminars. Of course all of us parents are more then capable of teaching our children, that's why we homeschool! It wasn't about that, but partly it was about the cost seeming pretty steep for the tutors just being other parents like us who went to a couple seminars. Also, it was just for one day a week. The final straw to my DH was that the material they teach didn't sound very thorough to him, at least not worth over $3000. It's very memorization based and I guess he was under the impression that they were actually going to be covering topics in detail rather then just having them memorize the facts. I went to their open house, and I thought it looked great. I think the method they use definitely works. However, its just hard for us to justify over $3000...plus other costs for non CC curriculum, like math, music lessons, and so on. HTH!

And maybe that widely varies on various factors, I don't know. I've felt like our history/social studies/literature has really suffered this year. I'm thinking of doing just Sonlight Core with CLE LA and CLE Math for all my boys (and IEW for writing maybe?). I'm wondering though how much time the Sonlight Core's take? Both for me to present/teach the info and for the child to work through the work? Thanks!!

Sorry no advice... But I'm :bigear: for the answers!

If its possible, could I get the chart via email also? It sounds awesome! :)

Here in WA I believe that kindergarten cut-offs are 5 by August, or somewhere around there. But it seems schooling isn't required until age 8 - at that point a child has to be enrolled in a school or declared homeschooled...apparantly before that they don't really care. lol

They work! And they are great for not wanting to waste money if you're not sure you are PG or not. However they should be followed up with another PG test non-Dollar store. ;) I've used a lot of them, and while reports say that they are as sensitive as the other early pregnancy tests...I've found that my lines are SUPER faint on a dollar store test, when I'll test with another brand the next day and it will be much darker. I have example pictures with this pregnancy. Dollar store: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/bethanbabes/30911_04.jpg Safeway brand similar to First Reponse Early (later that day): http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/bethanbabes/31111_01.jpg (check out babyhopes.com and peeonastick.com for PG test sensitivity levels)

Yes I had my DH pick me up some bedding for the rat cage one time and he didn't know, so he ended up bringing home pine chip bedding. I thought it would be okay just for a short while until I could go get the paper bedding. The next day one of our rats started bleeding from his eyes and nose and was very lethargic. I thought one of the kids squeezed him too hard or something. He was not barely moving at all. Finally I thought to change his pine bedding just in case...the next day he was back to normal. That fast! wow

The first thing I'd do is take away all texting. Texting is just scary these days for kids - the things they can see/read on texts...you just never know unless you are always watching their texts. Then I'd be taking away some other privileges like being allowed to go hang out with friends unsupervised, until he can prove to you that he's being responsible. With my DS 12, he's not allowed a cell phone at all (but I know that every family has their own rules!). But with any sort of disobedient behavior, if he abuses a privilege then he loses it. Or if he disobeys, he loses a privilege. :grouphug:

I know the WTM has a list...but curriculum is always changing and being added. Also, I wonder how extensive the list is in the book, does it just include a few suggestions or did they look over all the curriculum available at that time and choose the ones best for the classical method? I'm trying to come up with a plan B if we don't get into Classical Conversations, and I am finding myself back to the literal drawing board. I think I'm pretty set still on CLE math and CLE language arts for my 7 and 9 yr old. I'm just not sure about my 12 yr old...I really want to make sure he's getting a really thorough education because he'll be in high school in a couple years and I want to make sure he'll be ready for college and not be too behind. I don't even know what to do about science, social studies...etc. They get art, music, and P.E. from their homeschool program. There are science classes too, but they aren't really tailored to cover all a child should learn in that grade, rather they are focused on certain aspects (like this year my 9 yr old is taking Zoology and my 12 yr old is taking a rocket science/robotics class). So I guess I'm looking for some links with info on Classical-based curriculum? THANKS!

I am a planner. I like to plan things probably way before anything needs to be planned. So, naturally, I've been planning our curriculum and plans for the fall already (for quite awhile now actually!). After all the indecision and asking for advice here on the forums, we thought we had our curriculum and plans for the Fall all nailed down. We decided to do Classical Conversations along with CLE at home, and some other extra add-in's. I submitted our CC registration yesterday. Registration has been open three weeks now and I JUST got ours in. I've been in contact with the director since day one, went to the info meeting and the open house. But the first week I couldn't find a day to bring by our registration. The second week I had planned to bring it by one day, and then my DH hurt his knee and had to go to the ER...$100 copay later we decided to wait until the following week when he got paid again. By then, everyone was on spring break and I couldn't get a hold of anyone. So that brings us to this week...the third week. I heard they got a lot of new registrations from my SIL who's good friends with the director. When I asked what our chances were for getting into the program though, they wouldn't say - just that they'd let me know in 2 weeks. Apparently its first come/first serve, but it also sounds like they are going to look over the applications and pick which families would be the best fit? So we'll see. Uggh. I think I'll spend the next two weeks working on a plan B incase we don't get to do CC. I just got so excited about it and was really sold on it! I guess the big positive if we don't get in is that we can save a heck of a lot of $$. haha