I don't think there are any requirements. If there are, I don't know about them. I just jumped in because it looked like fun and haven't been kicked out. :D Please join in; the more the merrier!

Here's mine. It was interrupted with a doctor's appointment, a temporarily handicapped Pigby and cranky toddlers. Still feeling pretty good about myself anyway and trying not to beat myself up for making mistakes. This year is all about finding what does and does not work for us.

Hello, my name is Megan and I'm a spiral binding addict. The desire started before we bought OPGTR. We spent a year borrowing it from the library and every single time I thought to myself, "Self, you need to buy this gosh darn thing so you can chop the end off and have it spiral bound." AAARRRGGGHHH!!! Do you have any idea how annoying it is to try and use that big honkin' thing with only one hand so you can point with the other? Then I got BFSU, Galloping the Globe, two books for our religious curriculum, WWE, AAS. I probably would have done MUS, but that sucker is hard cover and just too pretty to cut up. I wasn't tremendously worried about resale value. I'm pretty sure having it done increases the value of books ;) The ad would look something like: "This book is already spiral bound for you. Trust me, this is a plus. If you ignore this warning and buy one that isn't spiral bound, you will be smacking yourself for being such a turd." Oooo, I so totally want a label maker now. I've been tempted ever since reading all the organizing threads on the general board.

I once got one of those texts at three in the morning! :glare: If you're going to try and scam me, don't do it in the middle of the night:smash:

:party:Woohoo! (I'm mostly just posting here so I can go back and find that page later. I'm not on the computer that has my Pinterest toolbar :tongue_smilie:)

No, I don't think it will mess him up. It's my opinion that geography lays a good foundation upon which to start history. I kept trying to start history only to realize I thought it would be more helpful to know where all these countries were. I know SOTW talks about the globe and where the civilizations were, but I thought it would be helpful to compare the ancient world to what it is like today. If you feel like adding some in, I don't think it would be too hard either. You could do something like check out a bunch of books on a certain place and era and just let them look through as they wish. Or the summer before you start the history cycle, you could quickly read through all four volumes of SOTW as a read aloud. That would give them a quick and fairly thorough account. After reading WTM, I thought the chronological order of history made so much sense and would have saved me a lot of confusion in school. But I think that two cycles of it will be plenty good for it to make sense to your kids.

Well you asked what we liked about it :tongue_smilie: I like that the lessons are relatively short. Watching the DVD usually takes less than 5 minutes. I like that it goes all the way through high school. So long as it keeps working for us, I plan on using it. I had contacted Marie from MM to see if she planned on doing secondary levels; she said no, she recommends using textbooks for the higher grades. That automatically disqualified MM for me. I can't understand a darn thing in math textbooks, I wouldn't expect Pigby to without a teacher who could explain things to him. I like the way MUS teaches place value. I think it's easy enough to understand. I love the use of the blocks. I think it helps Pigby understand things more. Things I dislike: The gosh dang dong darn #10 blocks. Pigby seems to think they are toys :glare: and was constantly filching them. I finally had to keep them out of reach, which is a big pain to get them out and put them away all the time. :lol: I know, so hard. We are only in Alpha lesson 6 and on EACH PAGE!!! Pigby was supposed to fill in the numbers 0-100. Not only does he get bored around 23, but he thinks his hand is going to fall off. I finally just let him start counting while I laid the blocks out as we went. So there you go, an honest opinion from a seasoned veteran :tongue_smilie:

Oh curses! Why didn't I think of you and your purple ways?!?! I've totally noticed that! And I think you're funny. You had me literally LOL last night when you kept posting during American Idol. I think I've done the same thing on FB when Castle is on. Ok well I wasn't going to point you out, but since you brought it up....you're totally one of the people who confuse me when you change avatars!!!!!! :lol: You and WendyK

oh :tongue_smilie:. lots of us ramble :D

I notice that I use a lot of parentheses in my posts because my ADD brain has about a million random side thoughts at the same moment (and I assume all y'all are dying to know what they are).

I just can't think of anything *sob sob sob* and am worried that if something I say was taken the wrong way someone would be offended......

YES!!!!!!! THAT'S IT!!!! Jean and Laura plus Denise and Mariann. And all the Melissas (to put an apostrophe or to not put an apostrophe. It doesn't look right without one, but I'd hate to kill a kitten). That's it :lol:

I confuse a lot of the Melissa names. There's just so many!!!:willy_nilly: I also confuse Jean in Newcastle with.......I can't remember who, but if I saw their avatar it would help me remember. I also confuse WendyK and DawnM :svengo:I'm pretty sure I only pay attention to the shape of the avatar and the picture. Oh heck, if someone changes a picture on me it takes me FOREVER to realize it is the same person as "so and so with the one picture."

Oh my heck! I also confuse Mariann and Denise and I have no idea why:confused:

I bet instead of the tree of life, the placenta had a map on it. ETA: Oh and a happy dance for your girl. I am pretty sure I couldn't name any of the provinces anymore.

What do we do with old electronics and computers? Take them apart and investigate how they work. This is more DH's area of expertise.

You must encourage this! Think of all the possibilities. It would be a shame to try and curtail those artistic capabilities!!!!! I am going off the assumption that you are not a troll; just a little over-eager. So here's my honest reply: There are a billion and twelve things that parents ought to be doing. And if they did all those things, we wouldn't have so much reliance on government schtuffs. (I'm not saying 'no government schtuffs' just less of it). For example, if parents provided wholesome, nutritious meals then we wouldn't have as big of a federal lunch program. I mean, heck, if parents stopped abusing and neglecting their kids we could do away with 90% of CPS!!!!!!! (I'm assuming some would still be needed for orphans and others as a result of tragedy). Sure if all parents worked with their kids, I bet there would be more kids reading by the age of 5 (I still think that 16 months is a parlor trick though). But there is no way of actually FORCING them to get it done. No parent can fulfill all of a child's potential 100% of the time. There is just not enough hours in the day, especially with pesky things like eating and sleeping.

Oh this is so interesting. I wonder if that's why I reverted back to print when it was no longer required in school. My handwriting is a mixture of print and cursive. Most letters I just print, but if I can connect them I do. Cursive to me is so much slower. Heck, when trying to teach Pigby, I really struggle remembering the correct way to form letters. I can definitely see this being true. Pigby is much more focused and I think it's doing his hand/eye coordination a LOT of good. For a kid who a year ago was behind in fine motor development, I think he's doing really well. To answer the original question: I'm teaching him because he asked. He wanted to be able to read adults' handwriting. He's always been a bit obsessed with letters; he started demanding to know what they were when he was two. Now he sees samples of cursive writing and is demanding to know what they are. I think being unable to read something is more than he can bear :lol:. I've heard lots of success stories about people teaching cursive to young children so I figured I might as well go for it. Plus, we began struggling with HWOT. He knew how to form all the letters correctly, but fitting the capitals into the gray square was extremely frustrating for him (and me). Right now he's only tracing cursive letters, not doing any freehand. But he's doing really, really well. Much better than I ever thought he would.

I am a huge fan of early learning. Kids that age learn a lot. To me, reading at 16 months is more akin to a parlor trick that any other 16 month old could do. A very advanced parlor trick. Right now my baby girl likes to bounce on command. It's very cute. I do think that all babies are geniuses! I mean, they go from laying there to looking at their hand to grabbing things with their hand to putting those things in their mouth to using a pincer grasp etc. It's a lot to learn in a short amount of time. However, you're assuming that all children will be geniuses in the same way. On this board, I have heard of an 18 month old who managed to get from the floor to the top of a refrigerator without help from a chair. That right there is a feat of physical genius. So yes, your daughter may be a genius at reading, but every other child is a genius at their own thing. Even if it's genius at being "normal." That's pretty impressive too.

:iagree: It's easiest if you're signed in. Not all new items qualify and some used do. Only the ones fulfilled by Amazon do. The Prime logo will be visible. If you search and it says, "Qualifies for free shipping" it will automatically put the Amazon one in your cart. If you click on the Used or New options, you can then sort by ones that have the Prime free shipping

Homemade hot pockets-cooked chicken, chopped broccoli, cheese, cream of chicken soup (or the real version), mixed up and put in bread dough (I buy the Rhodes rolls dough and use two rolls for 1 hot pocket. Cook at 350 for 20-25 minutes, then wrap in plastic wrap when cool and freeze Breakfast burritos-I chop red peppers and bacon and mix with eggs and spinach. When they are scrambled and cooked, place in tortilla, sprinkle on some season salt. Roll up and freeze. Heat in microwave for 2-2 1/2 minutes before eating. Mini pizzas. Make a 6ish inch pizza crust. Top with sauce, cheese, vegetables and cook in the oven. Wrap in plastic wrap and freeze. Egg McBagel-Fry an egg + egg white. Put on toasted, buttered bagel (with optional cheese or bacon or sausage) and freeze. Heat in the microwave (not sure on the time as DH is the only one who ever ate them) Soup in a thermos. You can make a batch of soup and then freeze it in individual servings in mason jars. Before work, heat the soup and then pour in a thermos. Spaghetti and meatballs.

I hate the switching. Pick one and stick with it for pity's sake! And please, pick the spring forward one. I like it lighter later.

You, madam, are a genius :thumbup:

The other day Pigby wet his pants. I told him to go before it reached the super-urgent-can't-make-it stage. He was crying and I told him not to worry about it; one time when I was a little girl I wet my pants. He wanted to know why. I said I was talking to Obachan (my grandma) on the phone and didn't stop to go the the bathroom. He wanted to know why I just didn't take the phone with me. I told him it was because it was plugged into the wall. He wanted to know why I didn't just unplug it and go (He thought it was charging). I tried explaining that it wasn't a cell phone, it was a landline and had to stay plugged into the wall to work and that cell phones didn't exist back then. Poor kid was so confused. Although we had to have a talk about him not taking my cell phone to the bathroom if he ever need to go while talking :glare:

I dislike Spring Forward. I like Fall Back. But it inevitably messes up the kids schedules. For example, our church starts at 9, but now the kids are going to be sleeping in til 8 instead of 7. So if I wake them early, they're going to be Cranky McCrankpants all day long.