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.

My daughter was the opposite. The thing about her was to get her to stop "narrating" and she would draw what she got out of it without my asking. She started journaling before I was ready! Does you child like to draw? If so, you might try giving her some time after the reading to draw the story and then ask her to tell you about it. It is the long way around perhaps, but if it gets her to the point of enjoying narration, it is worth it, right?

These were the benefits that appealed to me: First of all, Latin phonics alone was a big help when my daughter was learning to read. I would just tell her something like use the Latin long "a" when she needed it to sound out a word. Just the vowel "a" makes several sounds, but the most common are: short a as in cat long a as in cake Latin long as in wall or art Latin short a as in idea or along Second, I see the benefit of brain training and preparing my daughter to learn other languages. Third, it is very beneficial for understanding the meanings of English words that one might come across while reading without a dictionary handy. Latin is particularly useful in medical and science fields of study as well. Fourth, I would never have known that my daughter has a thing for languages if I had only taught her modern French, with which we started. She is now learning Koine Greek as well with Spanish on the back burner. Fifth, you get to sound really wise and learn to talk backwards, kind of like Yoda! ;) I just had to throw that in....

Good question! I really don't pay attention to grade levels as I am more into a living books/classical/journaling approach and just challenging her where she is currently. I know that my daughter reads AR Level 6 books regularly. Her grammar use and comprehension excel other children her age. Spelling, again, is something I don't do by grade levels. I created my own curriculum based on spelling/phonics rules that works best for now. In math, she is just finishing 2B in Singapore, but they say it is more advanced than the average math program...? However, I would say that math is her weakest subject. She is far more advanced in the arts from piano to drawing, which is not really something that seems to count academically. I do have to do testing sometime this school year, probably in the spring, so I guess I will know more then.

Well, I don't have this problem about sheltering concern with my family, thankfully. My only child's God-parents were concerned (they had not seen her since she was a baby until last year at 7yo) but they did not say anything to me until they complimented me on how well she interacted with everyone of every age, although one mentioned that my daughter seemed lonely and needed to be around more people. I found that rather funny really. I mean, we were staying with them out in the country surrounded by corn fields with no other children around so I, personally, considered that to be normal under the circumstances. As with them when others have some reservations, I just point my daughter in their direction and she usually has them thinking differently within the first five minutes but some are more stubborn and take half a day before they say--although I am not asking--how great she is. In regards to the Santa Claus--taking a deep breath here--I have a problem with the entire thing. First people think everyone should tell all children to believe in something that is not real but fun and magical, or else they are robbed of a childhood in some way, so we create this whole Santa Claus thing and then these same people get upset when the children continue to believe it beyond some age they have preset in their own minds because....what? That make-believe part of the childhood should be over? I think I would tell them to watch "The Santa Claus" movie and maybe it is not too late for them to finally get that weenie whistle or Mystery Date game for which they were hoping.

There is a trigger point between the spine and the "wing"--actually, almost under the wing that another person can massage with pressure in small circles: clockwise on the right side. It most likely will be quite uncomfortable if the person finds exactly the right spot. It will feel tight and even swollen to the touch to the one doing the massage and rather tender to the touch for you but it will hurt less as the muscle releases the tension. While massaging with firm pressure for 2 -5 minutes, the person should feel the muscular tightness release gradually, then you should be able to turn your head with less restriction and pain. You probably will not be completely pain free, but if this is done right you feel a significant difference immediately afterward. After working with others' injuries from weightlifting, years of back problems, and working for a chiropractor, I learned a few tricks.

I like my bottom freezer very much and I do not like side-by-sides at all. When we first got ours, I was having back pain. It was much easier to get something out of the refrigerator and the freezer is used much less. My daughter uses a stool and can reach everything she needs. The only thing I would like to be different is for it to be a double door for the refrigerator and a drawer/pull out bottom, but what I have is quite sufficient with single doors. :001_smile:

Another thought... Maybe they also NEED bad bus drivers, or bad doctors, or bad dentists, or bad parents.....

This is way too much of an opening to let pass! I would be hard pressed to decide between these two responses. I need to look around for the sign that reads: Wanted for Hire Bad Teachers because all children need some. - OR - Need bad teachers? :huh::blink::ohmy: I mean I doubt that schools purposely hire bad teachers so that public school children can have that experience.... and I am pretty sure, after listening to some public school parents, that they don't see this advantage when their own children are placed with the "opportunity" of having a bad teacher. :001_unsure:

One "material" boundary we have in our home is our bedroom. My daughter is not allowed to enter, even if the door is open and she can see us, without being given permission. I got that from living with my aunt's family and I saw that it was a very good rule, when my aunt needed time to herself. I think it is good that children see that adults, even parents, are not perfect people with perfect lives, because I think they learn more about how to understand and interact with people by understanding and interacting with their parents. Now if you need a break, then you could either have a set time each day that is like a quiet/nap time for everyone in the family or when you just need a break, there is your bedroom that is off-limits to all the children. I often tell my daughter I need 20-30 minutes to rest or do something. When I can, I set it up that she has something to occupy herself, because she is an only child, but the times I don't she is usually pretty good at finding something herself.

Or who could use some sensitivity training. My aunt once put it this way for people who just did not seem to understand. If your child fell off of a swing set and it was obvious that he was in terrible pain with a broken arm, you would not say: "Oh, just shake it off." You, hopefully, would not let it heal without some help to get it to heal right. However, the bruises and cuts will heal so that it is not so obvious, but underneath, the bone would have healed better if it had been set correctly or the breaks may not heal at all. For many who have been abused, it is like that. Some have not yet healed internally, and some have healed the best they could with the opportunities they had, and, sadly, some never do heal. For them, life is really a constant struggle and that is why this is a very sensitive and very personal subject for so many. You are talking in statistics, but these are not numbers, they are real people.