Thank you!

So I joke named our homeschool Sceleratus Classical Academy. I got the word "sceleratus" from How to Insult, Abuse, and Insinuate in Classical Latin. They said it meant "ruffian" which I thought went perfect for my rough-and-tumble boys with hearts of gold a la Tangled. It' the name of my blog, and I'm keeping it on that. But we have to file for the first time this week and I forgot to come up with a real name! Friends of mine have looked "sceleratus" up online and they were getting other definitions, none of which sound good. But I don't want to be just Warde Classical Academy (and I don't want people just hearing it thinking of a prison ward.) Should I keep it and just explain it when people ask? I don't think it'd look good on a diploma or job interview. :tongue_smilie: (Keeping the "Classical Academy" part is mandatory.)

You know, I saved your reminder from last year, I was telling dh this weekend that it was time, and then completely forgot. Thank you! This is our first year filing! ETA: Uh oh. I put it off and never actually looked closely at that thing. May I pm you with any questions, please?

Oh, in case you haven't haven't heard/haven't seen it: do NOT watch the Ella Enchanted movie. :ack2:

The Once Upon a Time collection is rated for 12 and up. They are by different authors, and you might want to pre-read some of them (Crimson Moon I would rate as a bit older) but they are all novelizations of fairy tales that are told a bit differently. I also LOVE Beauty by Robin McKinley, and it's rated at 8 and up. Princess Academy is rated 9 and up. Dealing with Dragons is rated 10 and up, but it's been years since I read it. Zel (retelling of Rapunzel) is rated 8 and up but it deals with some more mature issues, so I would definitely pre-read) Spinners (same author as Zel) is rated 12 and up but I would consider it less intense than Zel. Tamora Peirce is very popular. Her books are rated 12 and up, but I would consider waiting a bit longer because there is (not very descriptive) violence and pre-marital sex (again, non descriptive.) It's not where the stories start, but I would start my kid on the Kel/Protector of the Small series first. Her Circle of magic books deal with younger characters, and while rated 12 and up, I think are better for younger people than the other series. In case you can't tell, I'm a big fairy-tale re-telling fan. :D I read most of these books in high school, as I didn't have access to books like these before then.

I'm planning on telling my children that we belong in the animal classification because we have the same basic cell structure as animals. Ours is not like plants or any of the other organisms's cell structure.

I'm confused. Does everyone have to pay this tax? Or is it just church goes? Is this to support the old church buildings/historical sites in use or is it for all churches?

Ds 3.5 threw a tantrum because he wanted the magnet writer that his brother had, not the other, identical, one. :banghead: Then five minutes after he became quiet he comes to me and says "Look, I wrote [his name]!" It was spelled correctly, and pretty close, especially for having no writing instruction.

Awesome! I love Chuck Norris jokes, and I hadn't seen all of these. :lol:

Aww, Bill, do you need a hug ? :grouphug: Did you try to fight Chuck Norris, too?

I think your "Chuck Norris survivor " thing is funny. But if you were fighting Chuck Norris, wouldn't that make you the bad guy? :D

Knock-knock Who's there? Cows Cows who? No, cows 'moo!'

Another vote here for Starfall.com. Also the LeapFrog videos if you haven't seen them yet. Their Word Builder toy is AWESOME. Blending really is a developmental thing. Until it "clicks," there doesn't seem to be much use frustrating yourself and your child. Turn letters and words into play instead. Let him play around with the letters. Also try to figure out your child's learning style so you can teach him in a way that he understands. I had a lot of frustrations with ds5.5 until I figured out that he is a kinetic learner. I bought some inexpensive word tiles and POOF: understanding.

Are you teaching to his learning style?

I am 26 (I was 25 when I took it,) is that young enough to be helpful? I was told to do a 2 week course because I had HORRIBLE stomach pain and vomiting and I couldn't sleep. The Prilosec helped (or at least taking it coincided with my problem going away) but I was stuck taking it for over 6 weeks because every time I tried to get off it I was back to horrible pain and vomiting. We looked it up and apparently you have to slowly decrease the dose over a week or it's awful, just like I was. I'm not entirely sure it was worth it. I'm not sure what I'd do if I had to do it again. Thankfully we figured out it was probably the iron supplements I was taking that was causing the original problem, so hopefully I'll never have to consider taking it again.

FLL1 we make a bit longer by making the lessons hands-on. Ds5.5 is a kinetic learner, and wasn't doing very well doing it just verbally. We have hand motions for the poems, I made a proper noun/common noun index card game, we extended the part about identifying people by their name vs. job title by studying six different jobs and printed out and colored paper dolls for each. For the nouns-places we've drawn blue-prints for a house, and a map for a town and a map for a country. We have a lot of fun, even though it takes longer than 10 minutes sometimes. Reading is most fun here if we're doing it on the white board or using letter tiles. Ds5.5 loves getting to write the vowels for the words I'm putting on the white board. I also type out some of the stories from our OPGTR lesson and have him draw a picture for the story. He loves making "books" (paper folded like a card.) We're doing Right Start for math and he loves it, so I don't need to add stuff. SOTW is my favorite subject, and we've been doing a lot of the activities. Science we're doing the Evan-Moor Learning about Animals to supplement the WTM animal study plan. We've done different "reports" as part of the animal studies. On crocodiles he made his own "book" and camels we made a paper diorama and he dictated a few facts that he read to dh. ETA: Those links are for the corresponding posts on my blog.

Honestly, I was thinking "that's what you get when you agree to cheer-leading" and then I saw the ages are 4 & 8! :blink: Absolutely girls that young should not be dancing like that, and if the attitude doesn't stop and it keeps going I would pull them completely. Otherwise you'll have the peer pressure from the other girls and they'll make your kids feel like freaks. Talk to the head coach, talk to the other coach, and if they don't change, leave. Quickly.

W bought a clock kit at Walmart (though I think you can get the hands&battery part separately cheaper) that my kids painted and then put the number stickers on. My FIL loved it, and my sis-in-law requested one so we'll be doing that as her Christmas gift. It cost about $10, but it came with the working clock part, the wood base, paint, and number stickers.

She might enjoy the about all the different periods. My ds3 and ds5 LOVE the songs and have the Kings and Queens of England song memorized.

Yes. (Raised in California and Alaska.) Though I have a few times been complemented on my accent :confused:

This is the letter that she described as 'awful, just awful' ? So she wanted to take the apology back? :confused:

Oh, AWESOME! Thank you!

I'm going to have ds3.5 make bookmarks and I will laminate them with contact paper. I'm having ds5.5 make bookmarks with those plastic grid things that you "embroider" with yarn. I thought I'd let ds3 try it, too. (I just won't expect it to be all filled in.) Ds5.5 really likes lacing cards, so I think he will enjoy making them.

My kids are too young, so I had no idea stuff like this existed!

Have you seen ? It's AWESOME! It's a powered Lego contraption that moves balls around, but in a really complicates, how-it's-made factory looking way. I know we have a lot of Lego fans on here so I had to share. :D