I think it depends. Sometimes I will admit to doing something that is busy work, mainly because it makes my portfolio easy; it's worth it to me to have the kids take 5 or 10 minutes to do a worksheet or two to prove that we covered fire safety yet again. (I usually do tell them that I know it's busy work and just for the portfolio, we roll our eyes, and they do it.) Sometimes, like with WWE or math, the writing is practicing a skill. I try to limit those to things that are actually truly useful, and sometimes the skill isn't just the math but the practice of lining up problems, learning to follow through the entire problem, etc., which will serve them well for the rest of their lives. I saw tremendous improvement in one child's organizational skills this past year, brought on by consistently practicing math problems, and that is at least as important to me as whether that child learned the math operations themselves. Sometimes writing is for *my* benefit, because sometimes I just don't have time to do everything orally with them. Latin, we do orally, at this point, only occasional written things for a change of pace and to put as a keepsake in our portfolio, even though it's not a required subject; it's my DD's favorite subject, so years from now, I want her to have that as a keepsake. But I don't always have time to do math orally. Sometimes (and my son seems to be this way) writing helps cement the proper spelling and information; it's one more way to reinforce it in their brains. But every child is different, too. I do think it's worth asking ourselves what the purpose of a particular assignment is. Sometimes it's okay to say that it's busy work because it meets a portfolio need or because it makes it easier on us as teachers. But I know I am making some changes this year to how we approach grammar and spelling; we've done workbooky stuff for that in the past couple of years, but I questioned whether they were truly useful or if they were too busy workish. I think it's good that we ask ourselves these questions.

I'm in PA too, and I only record on the log books that we specifically use for schoolwork somehow (so, picture books that we use for science/history/art/music) or chapter books as the kids finish them. (Oh, and any sort of curriculum book.) I don't bother to record random picture books or graphic novels or books they started but didn't finish. Don't stress about it too much.

I don't think potluck would be rude at all. In fact, if you're inviting neighbors, maybe they'll ask what they can bring, or if you know them well, you could say something like, "Mom always likes your chocolate chip cookies; would you mind bringing some of those?" Maybe one of them will even volunteer to bring a cake! I vote for pictures of your mom and a congratulatory banner as decorations -- you could even have the kids make the banner. I love the shredded pork in the crockpot idea.

Congratulations!!

Amazon! They're not available for many cartridges, though, and the deals do vary. Here's a similar deal, for instance: http://www.amazon.com/PGI-225-CLI-226-compatible-cartridges-printers/dp/B004W5NHV8/ref=sr_1_2?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1372031855&sr=1-2&keywords=canon+compatible+printer+ink I've had no problems with the three or four sets I've ordered.

My printer is a Canon Pixma MP350, IIRC; it does fax, scan, copy, and print. It is about eight years old and missing a few pieces (namely, the output tray, so we put something under it), but it still works beautifully, even with small people messing with it (why do they like to put Legos in the output area??). About a year or so ago, I got tired of buying expensive refills and decided that since it was seven or so years old, there wasn't a warranty on it, so if super cheap ink screwed up the printer, well, I'd gotten more than my money's worth from it already. So I tried the super cheap (I'm talking 15 cartridges for $12 cheap) cartridges in it -- and they've been great. No problems at all, and they last for a reasonably long time -- maybe not quite as long as the expensive Canon ones, but not discernibly shorter in length either. I tend to print sporadically, like a page or two here and there and then a ton all at once; I printed a lot of stuff (lots of it in color) recently to prepare for schoolwork next year, a few hundred pages, I'd say, and it didn't use even a full cartridge for each color. It does double-sided printing and is fairly fast, too. All in all, I'd say thumbs up to Canon. If/when this one dies, I will probably look for another Canon, although I'd want a wireless option, which this doesn't have.

Notability for working math problems, writing on PDF worksheets, and generally making lists/notes for myself. QuickOffice HD for word processing/spreadsheets. Homeschool Helper for planning and record-keeping.

DD, age 11, has inquired about Sherlock Holmes. I'm very conservative about topics (especially romance/s*x); DH says there is nothing inappropriate in Sherlock Holmes. Tolkien came to mind here. If they've seen the movies, I don't think that's necessarily a problem; in fact, that's one place where I think it could be a benefit. DD got interested in The Fellowship of The Ring at about eight and plowed through it. I think what made it accessible was that she knew the basic plot and characters already, from the movie, so that removed one element of complexity that might have put it over her head completely. I suppose that's akin to reading Tales From Shakespeare or Bruce Coville's Shakespeare books, and then reading Shakespeare. I agree with having them read older books, even those not necessarily suggested for adults, for the complex sentence structure and rich vocabulary.

If you don't mind a Christian slant, you might look at the Keepers and Home/Contenders for the Faith materials; they have concrete steps to take to achieve a skill (similar, I suppose, to Scouting patches), so the work is done for you.

During the week, there is no screen time that is not directly educational, except on very special occasions. A specific school-related video, or typing program, yes, and DH will show them the occasional cool clip or trailer, but as a general rule, no. I found that it was so much easier and better for us if I just vetoed all regular screen time during the week. So if they've completed their weekly chores and schoolwork, they will have it for the weekend. As for what else to do, my kids read, write stories, play board/card games, play outside, craft/draw, play with SnapCircuits, build things with Legos, wrestle (the boys), ride bikes, come up with pretend scenarios/games to play. If they complain about being bored, I offer chores to do for me; they either take me up on that (and earn themselves more screen time for the weekend) or they find something productive to do.

Seeing a police officer just out and about is fairly rare here; I definitely wouldn't rely on that. I tell my kids to look for a mom with other kids (a dad with kids would be a second choice, because it's also rarer) or someone who is working. The latter can be trickier to identify, because lots of people have uniforms or the like, but we point out cashiers, customer service desk, stuff like that. But the reality is that MOST people would be safe; it's going to be very rare that a child gets separated from a parent accidentally and picks a predator to ask for help. I'm so sorry for that mom/family.

Exercise helps, but seriously low-carbing (no bread, cereal, oatmeal, pasta, rice, potatoes, and very limited sweet potatoes and legumes) gets results around here. So we eat mainly eggs for breakfast, something without a lot of carbs for lunch, and for dinner, it's a meat, a green veggie, and either more veggies or a salad. Lots of beneficial fats (butter, coconut oil, olive oil salad dressings).

This is what works for me/us: -One workspace per kid. The only things that are in each kid's workspace (with the exception of the 4yo; he has a few more activities at his space) are a clipboard and a pencil box, which holds pens, pencils, scissors, colored pencils or crayons, gluestick, and an eraser. They can easily take their stuff to co-op or in the car or to a different spot in the house if they need quiet. -One workbox per kid per subject; each of my older two has 5 workboxes -- one each for math, reading, writing, random rotating skills (copywork, logic, Bible study, stuff to fill state-required subjects like fire safety, etc.). I fill those every night. (Rulers and graph paper stay in the math workboxes because they don't fit in the pencil boxes, and all other supplies are on/in my desk.) For things that require electronics (like days that they do Mango language via iPad), I'll put a card or something in the workbox. Each kid gets a stack of workboxes. As they complete the work in the box, anything that got written on (and therefore needs me to check it) goes in a separate box on my desk, labeled "Inbox." Anything that didn't get get written on goes back in the workbox, and the workbox goes back in the stack for me to refill for the next day. They know that if the workboxes aren't put back, they don't get credit for finishing that subject, and failing to finish subjects means no screen time. We also have workboxes for group subjects like science and history; those stay on my desk. Having the workboxes last year helped me tremendously, as well as the kids, because everyone could see what still needed to be done. -Everything's on my Homeschool Helper app, including things like typing and music practice, which don't get workboxes. So as they finish subjects, I'll check them off in the app.

When we were recently at the beach, we had four adults watching four children (11, 8, 4, and 1), and only the 11yo was allowed waist deep without an adult right next to her (and even then, we did call her back when she went out too far, because of the strong under currents). No way do you want to mess with water safety. I'd have said something or gone back to keep an eye on the kids.

Penny and Peter was a big hit with my 4 and 8yo boys recently! Also, she has books about a boy named Eddie. Other Beverly Cleary books (besides Ramona) -- Henry Huggins/Ribsy, Ralph S. Mouse series, Otis Spofford, etc. My 8yo is flying through Matt Christopher's Soccer Cats series and also loves Laurie Calkhoven's Boys of Wartime series (I think I mention those books a couple of times a week here, LOL). Eleanor Estes has some that might appeal to boys -- Ginger Pye, the Moffats series. . . Jon Scieszka's Time Warp Trio books too.

Very easy to use and very handy. Don't know about secure. I haven't tried putting anything confidential on it, just documents that I want to use on multiple machines and the occasional kid photo that I want to share with DH so he can put it on his screen saver at work.

He's beautiful! Congratulations, and I hope all of you are doing well!

I would suggest biking, as well as some weight-training. I would also suggest setting up a standing desk for him if possible; I have heard that that is very good for health and weight.

Thanks, everyone! I thought that was the case (and it's with all sorts of books -- old and new) but wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything. So far, the Kindle is a HUGE hit for DD. She can set the font size to the right size for her, so that it's not too many words on a page, and she's happily reading a ton. :)

I haven't, but my mom used to make ones for us, to encourage my brothers (who didn't like to read) to read and to encourage me (a bookworm) to get out of my comfort zone and try different genres. One year she had a roadmap sort of thing (like a CandyLand board, IIRC), and at specific points along the way, we earned small prizes, leading to a larger one later. Another year, she made a BINGO type board with different types of books on it, and as we got 5 in a row, we earned a small prize, again working up to a larger one. So in order to get BINGO, I had to find things like a sports book to read; I had zero interest in sports and balked at that, but I ended up finding a good gymnastics book and liked it, so it was a Good Thing that Mom did to make me try something new. Elizabeth Foss has a bunch of fun narration ideas in this post (scroll down to the bottom); my daughter likes writing amazon-style reviews of books. http://www.elizabethfoss.com/reallearning/2012/02/could-it-be-a-storybook-year.html

I believe you do need the WWS student AND teacher manuals; that's what everyone told me, so I did get them both. The student manual seems to be written to the student, so the info written to the parent is not in that book. For WWE4, we started with that last year for DD (5th grade). I think it would have been better if we'd started in one of the earlier WWE levels, but it was okay. (I started my son in WWE2 last year, second grade, and he thrived with it; I'm not sure if that was just a difference in kids or what, though.) You do not need the small teacher instruction book for WWE at all; that's only if you want to find your own passages. The WWE workbooks are written to the parent, telling him/her what to say and what to look for, so all you need for WWE is this (the workbook, either in paper form or as a PDF download): http://peacehillpress.com/the-complete-writer-writing-with-ease-workbook-4.html (The "student pages" option, $11.95 or $9.50 if you choose download, are duplicates of the pages that are in the back of the full workbook, so you can use them for multiple students.)

I don't think it matters what you study. That being said, we're doing with a more formal program this year for science, because it is my least favorite subject and the hardest one for me to make sure I get done. There's a lot of informal science here, but I felt like we needed a little more this year. I also found that our history program will naturally be a bit lighter, so I feel good about bumping up our science a bit.

Our schedule looks like this: M-F, regular schoolwork, taking off all birthdays/our anniversary/DH's few holidays, plus times when the grandparents come to visit (and especially with a baby, there will be times when schoolwork just doesn't happen). One day a week is for errands, including library, and for young kids, I'd do Friday as a light day. (That's also co-op day sometimes for our family.) Other than that, we start around July 1. This year's plan: -take off about three weeks in August for our new baby's arrival -take off a full week the week of Thanksgiving -take off the two weeks before Christmas and the week after Christmas. (We'll probably have some special readings/projects/activities during the weeks before Christmas, and they'll count as school days but won't count as far as advancing our math or science curricula, if that makes sense. For my older kids, it'll be a nice break, and for my preschoolers, it'll be plenty of learning.) -take off the full week before Easter and the full week after Easter (hopefully similarly to Christmas, with Easter activities) -finish by Memorial Day and have from then until July 1 off completely. (I'm LOVING this so much this year. It's been a gentle, slow spring, so it's not too hot yet, and the kids are outside a lot during the day. It was really great to go away for a mini-vacation at Memorial Day and know that we were done for the year and had completed our state's requirements.

Powhatan is very nice, especially the pool. We've stayed in the apartments a couple of times and were really comfortable. I don't have contact information for them, though.

Can you pay or reward your oldest child (and the 8yo too, if he is up to it) to help with cleaning? I'm 32 weeks pregnant with #5 and starting to feel pretty achy and not sleeping that all well anymore, so it's really difficult to have a lot of energy and/or to pick up stuff off of the floor. My 11, 8, and 4yo's are pretty good about picking up their stuff, but I just can't really get up and down a lot to help the almost 2yo pick up his toys. So I will award extra screen time (which is a big thing in this house) to kids who are willing to do extra when I ask -- wash some dishes, vacuum (the 8yo likes doing those things; he and the 4yo will both jump if I ask if someone wants to vacuum), fold laundry, pick up toddler toys (yesterday, the 11yo earned herself some extra screen time by doing those two things for me). They do have normal household chores that they have to do, but the peace I get from having stuff picked up is well worth it to me to reward them for doing extra. :)