Is there a huge downside (ie you see even worse behavior later) if you let them have electronics? With a deadline for an inspection, I'd probably just go for the electronics so that you can get the cleaning done.

I'm sorry. I know you must be physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. I wish there was something I could do to help. For the vitamin D, these are the ones we take; they're inexpensive and chewable and have a decent flavor. Wish I could do more, but that is at least one suggestion I can offer that might take even a small amount off of your mind. http://www.amazon.com/Now-Foods-Vitamin-Chewables-180-Count/dp/B003OS9P4C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364221866&sr=8-1&keywords=now+vitamin+d3+chewable

I prefer what our group does for science and history fairs. There is no voting or judging. Everyone gets a certificate that states that they participated (and may include the name of their project); this gives the kids a memento, and it goes in the portfolio, which is important in our state. They also have, several times, put a sheet next to each child's display upon which people can write positive comments about the display -- "I like how you used your photographs in your display," "your display is so neat and tidy," etc. My children loved seeing what other people liked about their projects, and while I don't like the "everyone's a winner just for trying, yay!" trend, I think it's reasonable that you can say *something* positive about every child's project.

Yeah, for better patterns, look for Ottobre or KwikSew. I've heard Burda ones are good too. McCall's, Simplicity, and Butterick -- hit or miss. (But cheap! I trace my nice Ottobre and KwikSew patterns, but not the Simplicity, etc. ones; I have bought the same pattern three times because DD outgrew the first size, and at a dollar each, it wasn't worth my time to trace them.)

My husband doesn't care for stevia at all, and he's given it a good, fair shake. He doesn't like the licorice-y aftertaste, but he also hates licorice (and anise as well). I like them and don't mind stevia.

I just use regular vanilla extract (or peppermint, but there are other flavors too). I get the liquid stevia (SteviaClear brand, I think) from amazon; they have flavored stevia, but I found that the flavor is so subtle that I have to use a lot of it. Liquid stevia is kind of expensive, but you only need a few drops, so it lasts for a long time.

I think offering fulltime care (or consistent part-time care, like for a mom who worked M-F 8-1 or something) would be easier on you. But offering occasional care for homeschoolers could be helpful to them; I just don't think you could count on it for ongoing income. What about offering preschool or toddler care for moms who have several children and would like to have someone care for their 1-5yo's so they can do school with their older kids? Since you have a 5yo, you could add 4-5yo's along with your 5yo -- that could be a double blessing for a mom with several kids, in that you could provide both quiet time for her to work with her older kids AND schooling for the 4-5yo's.

I'd stick with the real stuff and use less of it over time. But actually, I'd opt for using cream/whole milk, vanilla flavoring, and liquid stevia (which is what I do).

Wow, that is cool! My 8yo DS is into origami, but only recently, and his skills aren't up to that yet -- he'll be impressed when I show it to him!

Yes to both of the above posters!

I think it's great that you even asked! She could have said, "no, we can't do that." I've had really good bread in restaurants before and wish I could take some home with my leftovers!

I've got most of my stuff for next year. We have Saxon, Singapore, WWS, WWE, HWOT, the Prairie Primer (probably), Art of Argument, Latin's Not So Tough, Getting Started With Latin, Mr. Q's Chemistry, and some other stuff.

1) Why don't you like Saxon Math I'm using Saxon with an upper elementary student, so my experience might be a bit different from the elementary. What do I not like? It's a lot of problems. She rarely needs to do all 30 problems, and it's a pain for me to have to pick out the ones I do want her to do. I can't just say "do the odd problems today, and tomorrow, we'll do the evens for the next lesson," because the new material from that lesson might be all in the even problems that day. I wish it was set up in a way that made it easier to assign just half of the problems. I think it would bore my other kid to tears. Sometimes Singapore has too many practice problems for him. :) 2) Anything you do appreciate abt Saxon There's a lot I do like about it. -It's not flashy or cutesy. My 11yo dislikes anything cutesy. She doesn't appreciate books that try to be funny. She appreciates Saxon's subtle humor, as it often has references to works of literature (like "Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy had blah blah blah"); she likes when she gets the references. Also, no pictures to be distracting, no attempts to "make it fun." -The explanations are actually ones that DD can follow herself; I do usually go over the lesson with her and do practice problems if necessary, but occasionally, I'll hand her the book and have her see if she understands it, and she usually can. I think it would be good for a parent who is not terribly comfortable in math, because things are so well spelled out. I like that it taught her the formulas for figuring out, say, area of a triangle, but it also showed her *why* the formula works. -We like the spiral and incremental approach. Little bits to chew on at a time -- this works well for DD. With new concepts, it's nice that she can do a couple of problems related to the new ideas, and then she can see them again in the next several days. Plus, if she hates a concept, at least we won't be doing several weeks in a row related to that concept; there will be something new, and probably more interesting, in the next day or so. Keeps it from being boring. :) -Lots of explanation of following steps, which helps this child, who tends to need some organizational help. Not as much emphasis on mental math (like Singapore, which works well for another of my children). -Great confidence booster -- in every problem set, there are guaranteed to be ones she can do very easily. -Frequent tests, so if she truly doesn't get a concept, it will show up quickly. -I like that it tells you what lesson each problem is from, so if DD doesn't remember how to do a problem, she can try looking up the original lesson before she asks me. I don't necessarily want her to be completely independent from me, but I do appreciate when she can solve things on her own, without always having to ask me. 3) What are you currently using and how is your current math curriculum better? We've been through 5/4 and 6/5 with our fifth grader and are currently almost finished with 7/6, and her understanding of things seems to be very solid. We are planning to move on to Algebra 1/2 next year (spreading it over more than one year and supplementing with other practice worksheets and word problems).

I like this idea! Other options: baked pasta dish, salad (green and/or fruit), cookies (or brownies; I would think any sort of homemade baked dessert would go over well). Crockpot meatballs? Quiche and fruit salad? Chicken salad, with bread/wraps/greens? I think anything that you've cooked or baked, especially if you can put it together ahead of time, would work well. You don't want to have to cook with company there, but pulling a hot dish out of the oven, or having a chicken salad chilling (which you've obviously prepared ahead of time) would send the message, IMO, of "see, we've got it together; homeschooling is not a problem."

My 4yo wanted a donut cake for his last birthday. I don't know how he got the idea, because we don't donuts very often at all, but he really wanted one. So I used my bundt cake pan and frosted it with pale orange frosting (he's my October baby, our little pumpkin) and added sprinkles. He was so delighted (and it really did look like a large donut)!

This reminds me of the time I was sitting on the couch in our hallway, pregnant and knitting because I couldn't sleep. We have a Tigger-in-the-box (like a Jack-in-the-box but Tigger), and it was in the attic above me. I don't know if a mouse triggered it or what, but I heard noises and realized it was Pooh's voice saying, "Peekaboo, I see you!," which is what he says when Tigger pops up. Freaky! (Of course, another time, I was also sitting on the couch late at night and heard our cats making SO much noise that I thought surely someone was in our basement. So I woke DH up and made him go look. Just the cats. I think the moral of this is that I should just avoid sitting on the couch in the hallway while pregnant, because my imagination goes wild. But still, I understand -- it's so creepy when toys make random noises!!

My 4 and 8 yo boys would have to go to bed no later than 7:30 to get up at 6:30, maybe even 6:30, and that is just not going to happen around here. We aim to have them in bed by 8ish, and they will usually fall asleep easily by 8:30, to get up around 7:30. My 11yo is a night owl like I am, and she goes to her room around 8-8:30 but will. It fall asleep until at least 9.

We can have raw milk here too. :) PA's a mixed bag -- we really like some of the laws, but others are annoying, and potentially very dangerous. Generally, I really love living here, though (enough that we pay a hefty commuting cost for DH so that we can live here instead of across the line, closer to his office; of course, we'd pay more for a house if we lived closer to the office too, so it's probably a toss-up). There are some really aggravating things that I dislike about living here, though, but I suppose nowhere is going to be perfect for us for all things. (I'd like the money that CA charter schools give to homeschoolers, but there are a lot of things I really wouldn't like about living there too.)

That sheet makes 100 Easy Lessons (which I did use for my second child, and it worked fine for him; I'm not sure I love it, but free was free) look bad.

I don't care if it's a single sink or a double sink (if it's a single, I'll just put a basin on the counter if need be), but I absolutely want one sink to be deep enough for a large pot, and wide enough for a large cast iron skillet or a 9x13 pan. My MIL has two standard-sized sinks, and that would drive me nuts -- I can't fit pans large enough for my family in her small sinks.

Also, for supper, unless I knew in advance that he wouldn't be home, for sure, I'd plan meals as if he'd be there. If it turned out that he wasn't there, I'd have leftovers for lunch the next day (or he'd eat them later or take them for lunch).

I'm glad you've been able to come here and blow off some steam, and I'm sorry your closing didn't happen today. This is probably what I'd do with your unpredictable schedule (and it's fairly close to what I actually do, since my days are unpredictable with small kids/pregnancy). It sounds like in your case, including your husband in formal schooling really isn't going to work very well, so I'd leave his role in homeschooling to be for enrichment: trips, spontaneous games and read alouds, projects of *his* interest. But nothing core or required. I'd choose curricula that didn't require a ton of advanced prep from me, OR I'd spend a big chunk of time well in advance (not a few weeks, but several months) planning things, printing whatever's necessary, making lists of library books to look for, even gathering and storing project materials (which I know is tough in limited space). That way, when you actually were ready to do the unit, it would be open-and-go. I'd decide how many days each subject should take, but beyond that, I wouldn't plan "do lessons 5-9 this week." I'd get workboxes, one for each subject for each child (or one for each subject that you do as a family). Say, Sunday night, I'd load the workboxes -- the math book in one, the history book in another, the writing assignment in the third, and so on. Monday morning, I'd see what the day brought. If DH was home and wanted to do something with everyone, we'd skip the workboxes completely. But they'd keep for Tuesday, if he went into work that day. Or Tuesday, if he went to run a couple of errands but would be home the rest of the day, I'd do just a few subjects, whatever fit into the time he was gone or unavailable. Maybe that would be one subject, and then it would be playtime with Daddy, or maybe he'd come in and see a groove going and more would get done. I'd decide on the most important subject to cover each day and do that first -- maybe that means you want to cover as much math as you can, so any day that you do any school, you do math. Or maybe it means that you think "well, it's been a while since we did a writing assignment, so we'll do that today but no math." But if you didn't do math, it would be in the workbox, all ready to go the next time you were ready to do math. Yeah, you might need more than 180 days to get through the curricula, but that's okay! I would feel stressed at not having accomplished a lot of bookwork (in my own opinion) each day, but I'd be able to take a breath and remind myself that I had it all under control, we'd get to it soon, etc. Planning to do less, but accomplishing what I did plan, would make things a lot easier for me. I wouldn't be thinking, "I've neglected history;" I'd be thinking, "I have planned to do history another day." For me, the mindset would make the difference. And I love the idea of "new home, new routines" too!

Yes! Little prop kits -- menus and pizza toppings for a pizza shop, tickets and passports to play airport, medical equipment and lab coat to play doctor or vet, etc. would probably be fun. Kids are good at improvising, but sometimes having a paper to write on, or a passport that you can put stickers on, or the like, can add to the play value.

Legos and Duplos. Those get played with more than anything else around here (by the girl as well as by the boys). Blocks, too; we keep ours in a big bin with the wooden train pieces. Little People playsets have been big hits with most of our kids as well. If they don't have them, playsilks or large cloths might be nice. I remember DD getting a lot of use out of them in the preschool years.

We used This Country of Ours, plus lots of supplemental picture books, to do US history for multiple grades. Yes, I had to stop and explain things to the younger ones sometimes, but it wasn't a big deal.