I think that young children should spend most of their play time with other children who bring out the best of both until they are mature enough to be with others yet not be influenced by them in undesirable ways. I am not saying these children cannot have time together, just that perhaps it should be limited.

And I thought I was the only one! :001_smile:

True and I am so glad you brought that up as I rarely use them personally so I did not think of it! My daughter is a random thinker that can zone out with too much math particularly on paper and, since I used to tutor math, I feel comfortable using my own style of teaching it. I have found that my daughter does well with the Math is Fun site for learning new concepts.

I have been wanting to do a giveaway and the opportunity has now presented itself. Of course, it just had to be a book, an exciting Christian fictional book based on the end times, no less. Click here to enter.

I use Math Mammoth and have the complete program. For the most part, I stopped using the grade levels with math and decided to go by subjects, which is the Green Series. That way I could teach as far in depth as it was challenging, but not overwhelming for my child. If you use the Green Series, you could be teaching the same subject to your children but use sheets that are individually challenging for each child.

I just talked this over with someone recently who explained that the concepts of subtraction and division are more difficult for children to understand at younger ages. I noticed that when I tabled subtraction for a year, my daughter just suddenly got it much faster. She was introduced to long division with a single number into a three-digit number with remainders at the fourth grade level age, but she got it much better at the five grade level.

:001_huh: The comparison is perplexing. The difference is that a corporation makes a profit/income and homeschooling does not produce an income. In fact, it would probably qualify only as a hobby, something you put more money into than you give out of it but you do it because you love it. Choosing to homeschool is really not that different than choosing at which store you are going to shop, what you will buy, and how much you will spend. You really would not want the government giving tax breaks for shopping at preferred stores or products at the consumer level and then having to prove your purchases by keeping the receipts and hiring an accountant because of the complexity of the tax codes, would you? Then there is the flip side: what if your state decided that it would tax you more for not putting your children in public school?

I would consider it safe, although I would not eat it because I just don't eat pork in any form.

My husband has taken to making a gingerbread house from a kit with our daughter the last couple of years. We also make one special thing: a blooming onion or soft pretzels or something like that. I am making soft pretzels today.

I have a Maytag stacked set and I have to say that I LOVE washing my quilts without them being torn up. The washer does have a design flaw so the seal gets mildew, so it needs cleaned often, but I am still happier with it than any washer I have had in the past.

My daughter started Latin's Not So Tough at that age and we are still using it.

One help is a humidifier for your home, but that did not do it all for me. The best cure of all, I have found, is simply handmade soap. When I stopped using commercial soaps, which are really detergents and not soap, that made a huge difference. After decades of using lotions, I have not had to use any for the last three or four years since I began using handmade soaps. Handmade soaps leave a thin layer of natural glycerin that acts as a humectant, which not only retains moisture but also attracts it, I think. Commercial soaps are detergents that strip away all your natural oils and dry out the skin and then you have to add glycerin, usually in a lotion, to try to get the moisture back. Using homemade soaps cleans and leaves glycerin on the skin in just one step, and is actually more cost effective too. You may even decide to start making your own. BTW, there is no greasy feel at all--just soft, smooth skin!

Craigslist is free and you usually don't have to deal with shipping as most buyers would be local and pick up or meet you. As to setting a price...you might get your ideas on that from eBay. I might be interested in some of them if you find a place to list them with photographs.

An Orthodox Jewish Israeli would be my first pick (my husband has been to Israel a few times), but in my heart I crave simplicity in life so the traditional lives of the Amish, Shakers, Native Americans, Japanese, even American Pioneers, and others greatly appeal to me.

I started with the first level of Latin's Not So Tough, which is the classical pronunciation, when my daughter was six years old, as she also has a thing for languages. If I was starting with a 3rd grader, I would skip Level 1 as it is repeated in Level 2. Much of Level 2 is also reviewed in Level 3, except for the phonics that was in Level 1. So, if you purchase the single CD for Levels 1 through 3, I think a 3rd grader would have the Level 1 phonics down without purchasing the books, and just start with Level 2. (Really, Level 1 would be like busy work or writing practice and I would assume a 3rd grader is writing well.) We are currently on Level 3 and just begun some plural, dative, and genitive noun cases and verb conjugations.