Marie Antoinette: Princess of Versailles, Austria-France, 1769 (The Royal Diaries) is what my ds is reading now for the French Revolution.

If you do get an e-reader see if your local library has an e-lending book library. They may let you keep your cards just to check out e-books. My library had an overwhelming response to e-book lending and now they have a large selection. I don't have an e-reader but sometimes I will get a book and read it on the computer. We have limited screen time in our house, but I don't see the basic e-reader the same way I see screen time.

I have an old version of Animals and went to order a few things for my youngest. I noticed that they have a new version. I am wondering is the new version is worth the money or should I just stick with what I have?

One my ds liked but isn't listed is Dinosaur Cove. He will still pick up and read any Stilton series books.

I don't have a pdf on the computer I am on now. My schedule is preplanned for me but not for them. I have a list of books I want my ds to read for the year. I don't give him the list or he would loose it. When he is done with one book I will hand him another and tell him to read this for xx amount of time. When he gets to history I tell him that he needs to read Chapter ____ section ___. When he is done with that then I will tell him write narration and do map. Then do the previous chapter test as review. I guess you could say he is semi-independent. He doesn't do well with a list of tasks. It seems daunting to him. So instead I tell him what to do one thing at a time. My dd is different. I can give her a set of tasks for the day and she will whip through them one after another without another word from me.

I have 2 loops and a non loop. Things we do together loop (1hr) Bible Geography Art Music Science Things done daily (1.5hrs) non looped Latin Math Reading Individual loop schedules depending on the child (1.5hrs) I have found it takes 3 days to get through the top loop. Art seems to take up at least 2hrs when we do it. On art day I usually only have 1/2 hr for the individual loop. We stay pretty consistant with the time on the daily activities. If someone is done early then they just start on their individual loop earlier.

Loop schedules can work for independent work. For workbooks my kids just do the next thing in the book. We have 3 schedules per day. Things we do together (loop) Required things (not looped) Their individual schedule (loop) So this week my schedule for typing (in 15 min increments) would be: Start new lesson Complete lesson _____. If lesson is already complete do a previous lesson as review. (he tells me what lesson he completed) Start new lesson I plan out the whole typing program with review but without a start and end date. I note where he is so I can remind him for next time. I mark it off my paper as he goes along. Some of the things I work on time others I work by lesson plans or 1/2 lesson plans. It depends on what the subject is and how much I think they can do at a time. For example reading is always 30 min long. The book varies on what he needs to read. Right now he is reading his book club book. I always pick out the books for reading time. Sometimes he has to read aloud and sometimes it is indepently. History is STOW. I have him move on after a reivew of previous chapters, read or listened to 1 section of a chapter, and either narration or map is complete. Depending on how long the section is we can have this done in 20min or it can last an hour. I have history listed on my loop enough times that we will complete a chapter by the time the loop starts over. My kids don't really work well on a pre written schedule. I post the loop schedule and tell them what they will be doing when they get to it. We may not get to all of our loop in a week. It just depends on what we have going on. Last Thursday it was 20 degrees higher than normal so we paused our loop schedule and went to the park. We picked up where we left off the next day. We are a weird family that likes variety in our structure. :tongue_smilie: Staying on a time schedule while varying what we do daily works well for us!

My DS is like this. He is a perfectionist and I know that part of it is always wanting to be right. He also doesn't like to do things unless he know why he is doing them. Depending on the day and my attitude what I do varies. I make sure my attitude is always good in the morning. If I am cranky he gets cranky and we all have a bad day. I will correct him with I don't like your attitude and you could have said it like this. Then talk to him about his attitude. I ignore all of the eye rolling and such. I make him laugh and then tell him how much I love him. I also "annoy" him with statements like you are so adorable when you roll your eyes. Then I will kiss him all over his face. If I can't take the tude any longer I will assign chores for everytime he makes me mad. I did that yesterday. He played around and didn't do them. So this morning when he got up he got a talk from his dad about why it is important to help out. Then he had to do his chores before he got breakfast. If we need a break from each other I will send him to his room or I will go to my room.

I was really burned out with school. We took a break for a couple of months. I told the kids I would do school with them if they asked. They didn't ask. :tongue_smilie: Then at the end of December I said ok it is time to start up school again. Everyone agreed it was time (very unusual)! One of the reasons I was getting stressed is b/c we could never finish a day or my ds would drag it out until almost bedtime. I was sick of the battle. So this week I started a loop schedule and a start and end time. That has made a huge difference in attitude for all of us. I am happy b/c I don't feel like we spent all day on school and it doesn't get dragged out forever. My ds is happy b/c he knows if he works hard for a little while he can end his school day with lots of free time. I have written the stuff we got done in a day so far this week. I am really happy with the amount of stuff we have gotten done. For the first time this school year we did music and for the 2nd time this school year art.

The ebook packet is if you already own the books and have used the consumables. You would only have to purchase the ebook packet not the entire book again.

The creative process that they will be doing for the month of Jan is good for them. Memorizing lines, blocking scenes, and taking queues all have valuable skills. History will be there in a month! Teach her accoring to your plan but make room for the things she is passionate about. It will make her a happy healther person. You never know where it will lead. Here is an article about a homeschooler that just won an international competition. I have seen some of his plays and they are excellent! Here is video made by homeschoolers in college. Five of the six people that worked on this video were homeschooled full or part time. The video was accepted and shown at the International Children's Film Festival in Chicago.

I started a couple of years ago. I give the kids one toy and they give each other one toy. The rest of the presents are things that are needed. Last year they got bunk beds. This year they are getting clothes. I know it is not as fun as a tree full of presents, but between the grandparents, aunts,uncles and Santa they get plenty of toys. Another new tradition I started when the kids were really little is opening a present on Christmas Eve. I pick the present which is always fancy plush pajamas.

What we were doing isn't working for us at all this year. I plan on spending all next week changing and tweaking lots of things. I hope to have everything ready by the first school day in Jan.

I had that same thought this year. I am steaming from their behavior today! My kids have been pretty good all year except this past week! We usually let them open 1 present today if they have been good. Even that didn't stop the crazy! I am going to take a deep breath and hope it is the fact they are too excited to sleep last night so they are extra tired and cranky. I am going to find myself a nice glass of wine and try to get in the spirit to finish wrapping presents and filling stockings. I know they will be too busy playing with new stuff to fight tomorrow and I can breath a sigh of relief!

Sikh men and women can cover their hair depending on the sect. Married Indian women in a Sari can also cover their head with part of their sari.