As you can see, I've a whole house full of boys. I've never had much trouble with this issue with my oldest but my second son has had trouble with this for a few years. What I've found works, is that I give him a schedule of what is expected to be done but I try to remember to refer to the author of the curriculum as giving the schedule of what should be done. For instance, we use MUS, so we always refer to Mr. Demme as the math teacher and I verbally refer to Mr. Demme when talking about math. Another thing that has helped that if a bad attitude crops up during the day, a general rule is always followed. If you don't want to do your schoolwork, go to your bed and stay there either until you're ready to work or until Daddy arrives home (the minimum time spent in their bed is an hour) - then you can finish the work scheduled for the day. Granted, my kids basically have no entertainment factors in their rooms - so there is no TV, or computer and when this discipline is in effect they are not even allowed to have a book with them. My husband is very good about checking on how the day went and following up with the boys if there was a problem. I've never used a written report but I can see how a quick checklist could be valuable if there is a problem with attitude. Maybe just a list with checkmarks that is done at the end of the day and one of the boxes could include that there was a problem but child repented and improved attitude. That way you and your husband would give him a chance to make a mistake, repent and go on with the day without having it hanging over his head the whole time. The checkmarks wouldn't take much time out of the day. This is getting long and I don't know how old your son(s) is but I just remembered that when my kids were probably less than 10, they used to earn pennies for each subject they completed without a fuss. Then once a month, we would go to Chucky Cheese and for every five pennies they had - they got a token for a game. It really worked well for a period of time, gave them motivation. Your kids may be too old for that but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Just so you have a choice :) Here's my family's favorite rolls, often requested for church and family gatherings. Butter Crescents: The recipe has small, medium and large sizes - I'll just give you the large but if you need the smaller increments, let me know. This is from the Bread Machine III Cookbook. 1 cup milk 8 tbs. butter 2 eggs 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 tsp. salt 4 cups all-purpose flour (sometimes I do substitute my ground whole wheat for about half of the flour) 2 tsp. yeast Filling: 2 TBS. melted Butter Put all the ingredients (except filling) in the bread machine on the dough cycle. When the dough cycle is done, divide the dough into two sections. Roll each section into a circle. Brush with melted butter and cut the circles into 8 "pie-piece" shaped wedges. Roll each piece, starting from the thick end, into the center, forming a crescent shape. Brush top with any remaining butter. Placed on greased baking sheet, cover and let rise for about 30 minutes. Bake in 325 degree oven for about twenty minutes or until golden brown. I hope your rolls turn out great!

I've used http://www.annualcreditreport.com before. I know I didn't have to sign up for anything at that site.

Thank you Kimm!

Kimm - Could you post the information on the book you used for geometry proof? I've been looking for something like this to supplement MUS Geometry. Thanks

It might be missing the flavor but I "think" all that will happen is it won't be that creamy caramel color - it'll probably be darker. . . . it seems like I've done this before without disaster.

:iagree:

We had something really good the other day - try searching on cooks.com for Chicken Stroganoff. You put six chicken breasts in the crock pot with a package of dry italian seasoning. When they are done you add a can of cream of chicken soup and cream cheese. It was really good served over rice.

Thanks for posting your routine Angela - I'm printing it out - I hope you don't mind. One question: How many words do you put on the list for the week? Thanks

Another vote for Growing With Grammar - my sixth grader who always hated grammar loves this program.

I don't know if this will help or not but here it what I'm doing this year with my second grader. I started out the year with him using Spelling Power but the word lists in Spelling Power got too complicated, too quickly for him. The lists in Spelling Plus move much slower so I've developed the following method: I do a list in Spelling Plus using Spelling Power methods. I dictate the word, he spells it, we check it and if he misspells it, it goes on his study list. I never let him get more than 3 words to study per day and we never do more than six a day even if he gets them all right. The misspelled words get studied using Spelling Power's ten-step process. We continue each day, reviewing old words and adding new words until we make it through all the words on the list. (I also add a twist in that each word that he misspells gets tested one week after he correctly spells it for me so that I can make sure it's in long term memory). After we complete a list, I go to the dictation resource book and we start doing four sentences a day from that list's sentences. This, once again, reinforces the spelling from the current list and also reviews previous words. He is really doing well with this (we're on list 7 right now) and I can see great improvement in his spelling confidence.' HTH

This doesn't fit in at all with the other suggestions - but my 16 yods (and the rest of us) have spent the past couple of weeks watching The Cosby Show on DVD and my ds just laughs and laughs at the situations the teens get into. I'd forgotten how much "teenage" stuff was in that show and how squeaky clean it really is.

I probably won't be much help - but do you have assignments associated with that subject - that may be why it's asking you to reclassify so those assignments or lesson plans don't go poof! If that's it, then you either need to change the subject they are associated with or delete those assignments then you should be able to delete the subject. If that's not it, I'd go to the forums at HSTracker and ask there. In my experience, they are very helpful and prompt. I've also just emailed them with questions and they've always replied almost immediately (even on the weekends).

(1) Going to the library with a few hours to spare and no kidlets along for the ride. (2) An empty house, even if I'm doing chores,. . . an empty, silent house. . . ahh. . .

Thanks for all the ideas - I'm almost afraid to suggest the hunting ones - I have a bunch of boys that run around the house "shooting" at anything and everything with anything that remotely looks like a gun - - but they would probably enjoy it. No reviews on Wii Music? Hmmm. . . I wondered if it was actually as fun as the commercials make it seem or if it gets boring quickly.

Last Christmas we did the family gift of the Wii for Christmas so for this year we've decided to purchase several games. We have Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii Carnival right now. (Oh, and my son has Wii 2008 MLB). We're thinking of purchasing Wii Music and maybe Mario Cart? Any reviews or other suggestions? You can see from my sig line that we have a wide range of ages to please. Thanks

We have Hyper Dash and my kids love it. Our handset broke shortly after having it and I have to give a plug for the company's great customer service because they replaced it, no questions asked! (of course, in the mean time, our orange little cup disappeared, but we're still holding out hope for it's reappearance!)

With our newspaper we go through a little game every fall. I renew for a year at a time, so in the fall they send me a bill with a price of over $200 for everyday delivery for a year. I then let the subscription expire because I refuse to pay that much for the newspaper. A few days after the subscription runs out, they call me offering me the paper for 1/2 price for 13 weeks. I tell them that if they can offer it to me at that price for the whole year I'll do it - never fails - I get the newspaper seven days a week for half price for a whole year. The next year we play the game again - I've been doing this for 10 years or so. I got the new bill for this year a few weeks ago and they decided to finally quit playing the game - the bill came for one year at half price. I was almost disappointed!

I don't know how old your son is and this may sound stupid, but have you changed the kind of pencil he is using. My 7 yods and 11 yods both had fairly decent handwriting last year and this year it disappeared. I finally connected it to the kind of pencils they were using. Last year I had purchased them each a mechanical pencil that was a slim design and this year at Walmart I purchased mechanical pencils that were chunkier, with a rubber holder. When we switched back to the old pencils, their handwriting improved immediately.

You might want to check out the "Come Look With Me" series. I'm not sure how many books there are but they have pictures grouped around a theme and questions on the opposite page, I really like them just haven't been very effective in incorporated them into my routine. I'll try to link to the Amazon page but if it doesn't work just search on "Come Look with Me". http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Come+Look+with+me

So, when you get a checkout worker at the grocery store that comments on your purchases do you react positively or negatively. Today at Meijers I received comments on all kinds of things in my shopping cart from the young man (probably early college age). Two Bags of Frozen Chicken Breasts that were on sale: "Boy, that's a lot of chicken". I reply, "Yes, we use a lot of it". Four gallons of milk: "Wow, I hope you can use all this milk before Nov. 22. That expiration date is coming right up". I reply, "Yes, that won't be problem, I have seven children so we go through it pretty fast". He answers, "Holy cr**! That's a lot of kids". :) I didn't really respond to that. A bag of Huggies: "You must have a little one". Mind you, said 1 yods is sitting in the grocery cart. I just smiled and pointed. I was glad I wasn't purchasing anything, ahem, more personal, today!:D

What changes at the federal level are you referring to? Do you mean the new administration, or is there something else changing that I've missed? As far as I know, there aren't going to be any changes in the Ohio homeschool law. It was recently reviewed and I think that process is continuing but as I understand it there was some change to some old language that really doesn't affect the law.

My kids are loving Trisms. We are doing DAW this year and I was concerned that it was a lot of work on them. Lots of writing, lots of research.... so I've been very vocal in asking them how they feel about it and they both love it (this is my 16 and 14 yos). Just wanted to let you know that it does work for some kids - now my sixth grader started HM this year and absolutely hated it so we had to move on to something else. We are doing very little grammar - just a 10 minute review-type exercise and my daughter is doing Biology in Your Home and my son is doing Apologia Chemistry. We are also doing the science questionnaires from Trisms and it's all going very well.

One neat thing my bird-watching relatives have gotten my son are CD's with bird songs on them. I'm not sure where they found them but each CD has certain birds and we've gotten so we can identify some birds by just their call. HTH

I think I have a budding missionary on my hands and one thing (besides the suggestions of missions biographies) that we are doing is really concentrating on foreign languages. My daughter is currently doing Latin (long-term) and Japanese. I'd really like to squeeze in some Greek (for bible knowledge) and another Romance language (probably some Frensh or Spanish). My SIL is a missionary who grew up in Japan but is now in Bangladesh and it has been relatively easy for her to pick up the new language based upon her knowledge of Japanese. You've probably already considered this, but I would also try to set up some short-term missions trips throughout highschool. We're currently experiencing this as my daughter left yesterday for a 2.5 month trip around Asia (fortunately she's able to travel with my inlaws who are retired missionaries so it was easy for us). There's nothing quite like the experience of being in a foreign country.