Conversation today with my dd11's podiatrist at dd's post-op visit: Dr.: How are you doing at school? Any problems with your crutches? Grace: I'm homeschooled. Dr.: (looks at me in astonishment) You homeschool all three of them?!? How does that work?!? Me: Well, you just do it. Dr.: Wow. I thought it was kind of funny. People usually greet the fact that we homeschool with amazement and then look at me with compassion like I'm locked up all day with my kids and never get out. I know I'm an odd duck. I can fake being normal for a while when necessary, but normal is not fun. My kids are odd. My dh and I are odd. We have a strange sense of humor. The biggest homeschooling compliment I ever received was from a teenager in our youth group who told me that she was jealous that my kids weren't afraid to be who they are and that she wished she could have been like that. I love that I'm raising kids who are comfortable in their own skin. It took me into my 20's to figure that one out.

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith

Coming back to update.... We've been through two chapters of BJU Grade 5 math as of this point in our year. I can honestly say that the drama during our school day surrounding math is over thanks to BJU. I'm now kicking myself that I didn't switch her sooner. She loves the manipulative pack. Apparently hands on is still really important/necessary to Grace so having the manipulative is a huge help. Things that she has struggled with in the past are now making perfect sense to her due to the presentation in the TM using manipulatives and the very light spiral to keep things she's learned in previous chapters fresh. And the icing on the cake is that for the first time ever, she said, "Math's really not that bad, Mom." :huh: :svengo: Any updates from other folks in this thread trying BJU math for the first time?

I am not a cat person. at all. ever. I'll share my experience. Two summers ago our dog died and my oldest (HUGE animal lover) was distraught. On a spur of the moment decision, dh stopped by the shelter and adopted two cats. I was NOT happy. We had tried having a cat before and wound up giving him away because he was not a good cat to be around kids. Not to mention the litter box. Blech. The two cats slept in dd's room and their litter box was stored in there as well. It was her job to clean it out every day. The cats clawed up the side and back of my brand new couch. They were constantly getting on the table which grossed me out. They were always climbing up on things and knocking things off, breaking them. The cats gave all three of my kids cat scratch fever which required doctor visits and antibiotics. We never could completely get rid of the fleas on them (they had fleas when dh brought them home). We wound up giving the cats to two good families who love cats. I still do not love cats. I still do not want a cat in my house ever. I told dd that when she has her own house, she can do what she wants, but there will not be felines in my house again. On the other hand we love our mini-Aussie who is in the house all the time. The mini-Aussie came to us last fall. I am a dog person and always have been.

That was beautiful, mommaduck, and really sums up my thoughts on the subject as well. Despite not being Orthodox, I find myself agreeing with most of the beliefs. ***Sorry the above comments make no sense now. Mommaduck had posted a video explaining what salvation and being saved means to her. I'm leaving my comments in case she puts the video back up.*** As for the OP, I am not trying to win the opinion of others on whether I'm really a follower of Christ. There's only one man's opinion that matters to me, and it's the man who I'm trying to follow. Shouldn't it be Jesus who decides who his followers are? Not humans or random 25 page essays?

That's how I pronounced it too so don't be sad. :) It made more sense to me to pronounce it that way considering the way it was written.

My kids find it fun because of the games and hands-on activities in the student text book. The day before they have a test, as a review, we go back and play all the games and hands on activities in the chapter. They love it!

My oldest writes her own narrations about what we studied that day. Your comment about awesome spelling made me laugh because my oldest has horrible spelling. She writes out her narration on a scratch piece of paper, then I fix any grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors. She copies the corrected one in her notebook and illustrates it. Dd8 orally narrates hers while I write it down, then she copies it into her notebook and illustrates it. We do mix subjects together in the notebook. I use a hardback composition notebook for each girl. They are required to add a page to the book three times a week about our current content subject that we are studying. We study history for 10 weeks, then switch to science for 10 weeks, then back to history, and do another 10 weeks of cultural geography at the end. We're just going until the book fills up and then we'll get new ones. I wanted their books to be kind of like the Waldorf meeting books where it is a collection of everything they've learned through the year, so it's not separated by subject. I can already tell that they are going to be lovely keepsakes for the girls. They already go back and look through them even though we've only filled them up 1/3 of the way. To be honest, I started doing this in the spring because I got tired of purchasing/trying to find pre-done notebooking pages and lapbook pieces. I wanted simple, easy, and cheap, and this is what I started doing. I also have girls who enjoy writing and drawing so they were totally on board with it as well.

Here's some examples of our learning journals/notebooks from the end of last year. We were studying ancient Egypt. My oldest: https://www.facebook.com/ThePlantedTrees/photos/pb.351834678235200.-2207520000.1440657035./818461018239228/?type=3&theater My middle: https://www.facebook.com/ThePlantedTrees/photos/pb.351834678235200.-2207520000.1440657035./818460991572564/?type=3&theater They aren't as fancy as the ones linked above (love the painting the background idea and the laminating) since we just use composition books and colored pencils, but they are really turning out nicely. We've recently added some science pages to them before we cycle back to history again.

To the bolded: No idea. We have a Boy's and Girl's Club, but my kids aren't members. I'll call the hospital and ask for an alternate to a photo ID. Honestly, I'm not even sure if I have her government issued birth certificate in our safety deposit box. I'm horrible about getting stuff like that for my kids. I just ordered my son's birth certificate because he needed it to play soccer and he's five. :blushing:

Nope. She's in 6th grade so in our area she'd be out of elementary and in middle school. I don't know if they have IDs at that age or not. The nurse seemed to act like this was not an issue for an 11 year old to have a photo ID. :confused1:

Quick question this evening because my brain is not functioning on all cylinders right now.... My dd11 is having an outpatient surgery on her foot this Friday. As I was talking to the hospital this morning about what we needed to know and do pre-op, the nurse mentioned that when we come to check in dd needed to have a photo ID of herself. The nurse mentioned that a school ID would be fine. Things were chaotic this morning (kid puking, ringing phone) so I totally blanked and didn't inform the nurse we homeschool so no ID. Have any of you been in this situation and what did you do? TIA

My son was like your son. I worried about him too, but the pediatrician assured me that he was in the range of normal for his speech. I was just comparing him to his two older sisters who could speak in complete sentences with advanced vocabularies by 16 months. He still sounded like a cave man at the age of 2, but he's definitely caught up over the past three years and speaks well now. My cousin who is a doctor said that kids with the most delayed speech (within the realm of normal) are boys with an older sister. It proved true here!

My 6th grader is doing about 4 to 4 and a half hours this year. Last year for 5th she did about the same.

I'll have to make it a point to go here the next time my travels take me through the Netherlands. I've always gone east of Amsterdam toward Germany. It's time for me to go west.

In the U.S.: Seattle (probably the most beautiful modern city I've ever seen), San Antonio (the culture and food are both awesome), and New York City (so much to see and do that I didn't even get close to having my fill) Outside the U.S.: Buenos Aires (I dream of going back here. It was a beautiful city, with a fun street culture), Florence (a gorgeous place full of history and great food), and Amsterdam (love the canals, which are much nicer than Venice's because it doesn't smell like mold, and the friendliest people I've met overseas)

:hurray: Looks like miracles happen at your house too! Stick to your guns, Mama!

I started out with the intentions of using Standards, but when it came in the mail, I didn't understand how to teach it all even with the HIG. I stumbled upon MIF thanks to this forum and have been using it ever since until moving my oldest to BJU this year. I really love the program and plan on using it with dd8 through 8th grade. To specifically answer your questions: Yes, I feel it is as rigorous. The scope and sequence is almost exactly the same. In fact I use CWP and IP from Singapore math as supplements and they follow along perfectly. I found MIF MUCH easier to teach because it breaks things down into smaller steps that my non-mathy, plug and chug math brain can follow. I did a review of MIF on my blog if you want more details.

I use CWP a year behind. So I started it whenever we finish our first grade math and start second grade math.

I have two kids that are like this. One of them does it to get out of school; one to get out of chores. I nipped it in the bud early on though because I knew this was their personality. 1. I used the same rules for my kids to take off from school that my mom used with me. You have to either be throwing up or running a fever to get out of school. If she is having allergies, I give her a Benadryl and we press on. Have a headache? Here's an Advil. Now get busy. 2. If number 1 doesn't work, then I inform the child that if they are too sick for school, then they are too sick to watch TV, read books, play on their tablet, etc. They just need to lay in bed and sleep. Also, it's recommended to not let your sick child be around anyone else until 24 hours of being symptom free so for the next 24 hours, no friends or out of the house activities. Usually this is enough for "miraculous" healing around my house! Since I've been this strict about things from the beginning, they don't try to pull this stuff with me anymore. Instead we've traded it for drama and complaining. Some days I think fake illness would be better. :001_rolleyes:

My middle child almost defaced a Jackson Pollock painting at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. She was about four and when we entered the museum the attendant gave my oldest and my middle child pencils and paper to sketch or draw in case they were inspired by anything. As we were in one of the rooms which housed the Pollack painting among others, my dd dropped the paper and started walking toward the Pollock with her arm out stretched and pencil in hand. I knew what she was about to do, but I was too far away to reach her in time. Everything slowed down to one of those slow motion scenes in a movie. I was yelling, "Nooooooooo!" just as one of the guards starts rushing toward her yelling, "Noooooooo!" The guard reached her before I did and grabbed the pencil. He very politely, through his heavy breathing from sprinting about 20 feet, informed her that we don't write on the paintings. It was probably the most excitement he'd had in a while! We still talk about the time Sophia almost wrote on a million dollar painting!

It deals with the weird, strange, gross, odd things from history, but my kids (and me too!) have learned lots of history watching the show. We watch it for fun around here. I'd at least give it a shot.

Horrible Histories! The one with real people. It's streaming on Hulu right now. My kids LOVE Horrible Histories!

Four Layer Delight Better Than Sex Cake around here is the chocolate cake with holes poked in it, sweetened condensed milk poured over it, whipped cream on top of that after it cools off, and a chopped up Heath bar on top of the whipped cream.

Bacon and cheese crustless quiche along with fruit is my go to meal. Mainly because I always have the ingredients for it on hand.