At my house the lower the rate of nutrition in a meal the closer it is to shopping day LOL My kids are terribly picky eaters ...one is just picky with a will of iron and one has actual medical issues. After 8 years of battles...if my kids eat anything I call it healthy lol. We eat a lot of hotdogs... i don't think you can get nitrate free in Australia..I just ignore that. chicken nuggets...with nothing else. Plain rice...cause they hate sauce. DD eats Ramen every day for lunch and I celebrate because that is a step up in cuisine for her. DS2 eats peanut butter toast for breakfast, PB sandwiches for lunch and PB crackers for snack MOST DAYS...wont eat anything else. PB is good right? I let my kids eat candy for dinner one night ( it was a kids birthday and they weren't real hungry for dinner) .which caused a storm of vomiting ...won't do that again LOL. DD has a sensitive stomach and DS has blood sugar issues ...so now I try not to let sugar be a main feature in our meals. LOL Whenever I give my kids a garbage meal I always justify it by thinking..."well this is better then what the starving kids in Africa eat". I know..terrible.

Can I just say that for the first two years of homeschooling I used Australian math programs that they use in the schools. My kids zipped through them and got everything right. They retained nothing and in the middle of this year I switched to CLE to remediate and my kids are doing the first level because a lot of it they didn't know. Australian math programs are useless.

Won't let me vote. We are K-2 right now and do about 4 hours a day. This will be our max till high school though.

Well I'm not going to say other then I still sometimes check my 8 yos chest to see if its rising....old habits die hard lol. Truthfully though.. I check for unsafe sleeping situations. A few times I've come across my kids with blankets wrapped tight around their heads or with the belts of dressing gowns wrapped around their bodies. I check whenever I'm awake ...but I wake naturally a few times a night. I never have troubles falling right back to sleep so it doesn't bother me. My boys started sleeping through 8-9 hours at 3 and 5 weeks. I couldn't quite believe it after my non- sleeping DD so I checked on them regularly. My kids have never woken up when I checked though...once they are sleeping..they are out. I will not elaborate on my irrational fear of fires and stranger abduction lol.

LOL....this sounds like God's attempt at making things even cause men don't have to go through pregnancy.

About 4 hours....after that I rip it off and stomp on it lol. We don't go past 4 hours otherwise It,s just too long for everybody and everyone stops listening to me anyway. I don't let my days lag...if the kids are dawdling we put away unfinished work and move onto the next thing...they can finish it in their time. DD sat at the table an extra hour yesterday after school was officially done as she was protesting. I went about doing my own thing. She finally figured out it was only affecting her and finished up.

Yes it does take that long. I used to cut out two at a time for two kids and it would take ages. Sometimes I would laminate things to make them last longer. My kids liked them but in the end I decided they were just busywork. The kids really only looked at them a few times. I tried again when they were older but DS hated all the cutting. DD loved it because she is crafty but I found after all the work they didn't really retain any of the information.... so now we rarely do them. DD sometimes makes them on her own. I give her blank templates and she writes whatever she wants on them....the information is retained better that way then if it's preprinted. They are cute...but I find mostly busywork..unless the kids are making them up on their own with their own ideas.

Love our trampoline. The only downside is having to mow under it lol

Oh you are so lucky. I tried giving all my stuff away so it would happen to me too...but of course it didn't. Congrats.

DD.. Mum, can we learn how to blow stuff up in science this year Me...Sure...that sounds like fun.

When myx was first introduced in the 1950's the disease killed 99% of rabbits it infected. Within the two years following.. Australia's meat and wool production increased by 68 million dollars. So yes they do have a high environmental impact. Landowners have a legal responsibility to control rabbits on their land because they are classed as pests. I don't think Australian snakes are big enough to eat rabbits regularly. We are talking rabbits the size of cats here not tiny little pet bunnies. Plus I imagine a rabbit would be hard for a snake to catch unless the rabbit accidently sat on it LOL. If there were enough snakes in Australia to control the rabbit population I would be high tailing it to another country with the rest of the population LOL. Times I've seen a wild rabbit in Australia..hundreds Times I've seen a snake (any type and I live in the country) ...zero

Not a farmer so I may not have accurate information here but I think the rabbit virus was a one time thing. The two main viruses being myxamatosis and RHD ( bunny ebola ). The first was introduced in the 1950's and was very effective however over the years the rabbits started becoming immune and in 1995 the second was introduced. It is a rabbit specific virus so isn't passed to other animals...so no...our pets are not vaccinated against it. In fact, in the 1950's the general public were worried about it passing to humans and two scientists actually injected themselves with it and had no ill effects. Rabbits were an introduced animal from Europe..not native to Australia. Thus when they became feral they had no natural predators or diseases to control their population and they became a plague. Basically...one of the answers to the problem was to reintroduce their natural population controls...including diseases. I am aware they used this method but it isn't given much thought here except as an environmental subject in school..you aren't going to find it in the news etc. Try this site www.rabbitfreeaustralia.org.au

Actually most of the teachers I know skip breakfast because they are so busy in the morning. My DH never eats breakfast before going to school and if something like that turned up he could eat half of what you are bringing on his own ( although he wouldn't cause he's polite lol) I'd bring more but something different for the people who don't like eggs.

Yes I got that email a few days ago. I'm excited for it and since my kids are young and it starts in middle school they will be able to use it. I wish there was a little more info in the email though....I'm wanting to know more and there were zero details.

I just tell kiddos that its the American pronunciation when we come across something and then tell them the Australian version. So far we haven't come across anything that was a real issue. My kids understand about different accents cause their Dad is Canadian so they have never been confused.

I know quite a few Lila's...it's popular in Australia but if you love it..use it. Lila Brooke is very pretty...Brooke is kind of 80's to me. Two of my kids have super common names .... who cares really. Lila is classic so it won't be dated like a Mckayla or Jayden. To me that is more important then popularity.

Unparenting = not helping your kids attain the skills they need to become a functioning adult..... doesn't matter the educational path you choose. Letting the kids make all the decisions even if you as an adult know it will cause them grief in their adult life. Not recognising that a child needs guidance and providing that guidance because they mistakenly believe a child's brain is mature enough to make adult decisions about their own well being. His quote (paraphrased)...if a child was able to think like an adult they wouldn't need parents but could go out and support themselves adequately in the world. Since they can't it's an adults responsibility to help them be able to do this. Just like you don't let a 5 yo choose whether or not to eat unhealthy food or not brush their teeth because they don't understand the consequences....you don't let a 15 yo make decisions that will badly effect their adult life. As a parent you have the responsibility to deliver a child to their adult self as whole as you can under circumstances you live.. eg. cavity free, healthy and literate. The world pays/values you for what you know or can do and if you can't do anything well but make coffee then you won't get far. It's ok for a child to follow their " interests" but there is a difference between a person who is interested in skiing and takes a few lessons and someone who becomes an olympic skiier through years of pain and persistence and pushing through the challenges.

Oh I just wanted to add...the DD wasn't always unschooled. She was in PS till 7th grade when her parents pulled her out and basically said....Ok now you are free to do what you want". I imagine it was very difficult for that child to come from having every minute of the day structured for her to having complete control over her own education. Of course she was going to play video games all day... it probably seemed to her she was just having a big vacation. The parents really needed to start with de schooling...and then provide lots of guidance on setting goals, finding information for herself, independent learning. Really, her parents were just setting her up for failure from the start.

My favourite quote " if you don't expect anything from your child, he won't expect anything from himself ". He also makes the distinction between unschooling and unparenting. I also liked how he said every parent has the responsibility to deliver a child to their adult self with an adult personality and skills to survive in this world. ( whichever method of schooling they use). I didn't really feel he was down on unschooling...he was more focused on why it wasn't working in this specific case. Basically Dad wanted DD to suddenly become intrinsically motivated and DD wanted more structure coming from Dad. When Dad started to worry she needed more skills then she had to open up college doors for her he put her in school....which was a failure because she was many years behind her classmates.. The guy gave advice on how he could help his DD succeed whether at school or unschooled. I like the guys reality approach...if your DD hasn't been motivated to do anything but play video games for the past 3 years then she isn't suddenly going to become motivated tomorrow or next year. I think this is where a lot of un/homeschoolers fall into a trap. Not implementing different approaches because they think their child may " magically" change their personality or get an interest in something and take off. I know it does happen in some cases...but using those cases to apply to your individual child can be risky.

Having worked in a nursing home I think the 15 are all in great health for their ages. Most men at 90 are not as active as these men are or working as hard. For a 90 yo being able to get out of bed IS good health lol. Poor prophets...it seems like every GC people always make a comment about when they think he will pass away lol. My DH always says...."looks like he won't be here next GC" and he always usually is ;)

I've only used up to 6-8 but there is no math added after that level from what I've heard. MBTP does include a lot of writing whatever the unit but someone who has used it will have to tell you how integrated they are in the upper levels. I do know that 6-8 and below are all super integrated and then the upper levels are separated a lot more. MBTP is overloaded with activities. It will not hurt to skip one or two if it is not relevant to your child. We skipped most of the math in 6-8 as we use a separate math program already and my kids were more advanced then the math activities they provided.

We use 3 of those currently. Moving Beyond The Page, Essentials In Writing, CLE LA. MBTP is more like unit studies. We have only used the younger levels so the writing hasn't been huge so far. Apparently they do teach everything you need BUT so far I haven't found it specific enough. For example...they will list a task such as write a paragraph about x but don't specifically teach how to write a paragraph. It might be more specific in older levels...I haven't got there yet. My kids needed more detailed instruction hence we started.... EIW. Very easy to use. Pop in the DVD and do the worksheet after. Covers all grammar but does not diagram sentences etc. Very bare bones but covers all the skills...which is what I wanted ...no fluff. Bonus...My kids love Mr. Stephens and get exposed to another teaching style beside mine. CLE LA...again very easy to use and content filled. Fills in the gaps of the above two programs. Includes spelling, copywork, writing. Very spiral...which my kids need. We love this and I think we will never leave it. My kids are very much bare bones skill learners ...if there is a lot of fluff they get confused...especially my DD. They need programs that break the skills down into tiny steps that build on each other which is what EIW and CLE do. MBTP I like not so much for their LA but for their integrated learning and hands on projects as well as their emphasis of thinking outside the box. Also love their literature approach. I can't say enough good things about their 4-5 level but you won't be needing that for a 3rd grader lol. i feel we have everything covered properly using these 3.

Thank you. I am enjoying listening to it.

I had an epi with my DD...it was a terrible botch up with complications and I swore I'd never do it again. Both my DS's were born naturally ...I never experienced the ring of fire so I can't comment on that....maybe cause my babies were all under 7.5 pounds. DS1 was a complete pain free delivery except for the actual contractions. I birthed him standing up. He was itty bitty though...3 weeks early and 6 pounds. DS2 was more painful and more tiring to birth which I just put down to being older... he wasn't much bigger then DS1. If I had another baby...I would still try natural first but be open to an epi. Basically just because I'm 40 and tired LOL.

Your title made me laugh. Come to my house and my 5 yo will tell you all about what a Transformer is. He would actually probably get a big kick out of knowing there was a real thing such as a Transformer...he loves electricity.