I really did think I needed a mat either. In the pictures it looks like they are on a hard floor so there I can see the need for a mat. I have been putting a beach towel on the rug as our carpet is not super thick. It has been working fine. I am already noticing some great results and I am thrilled.

We have an outstanding prep school in our area. Our son has been accepted and the success of the school is outstanding. We can afford it if I went back to work. We decided to continue homeschooling. Homeschooling has worked for use for years and our ds is thriving, so why change.

It has great vocabulary and is a wonderful classic.

I have the book and am trying to decide what do do about the mat. I can't really afford the $90 one from Dick's sports. At the moment I am just using 2 beach towels on our carpeting. It seems to work ok.

We happen to be doing this one along with our ecology studies at the moment. On Monday ds will be staking out a square inthe back yard. He is hoping our resident mole will travel through it. I am hoping to eliminate the mole from our backyard.

I have found homeschooling to be very easy in Maryland. A delightful lady from the board of Education comes to my house twice a year. I now consider her a friend and she fully supports our homeschooling. She is very complilentary of what we do.

If you child shows a strong desire to participate and or a talent and an interest in participating then try to do it if you can. If not I would not think twice about not attending. We recently stopped going to a homeschool sports program because I thought it had run its course with my son i.e. he wasn't really interested and he wasn't gaining anything. He has lots of neighborhood friends and has plenty of social time with them. They play outside a lot and think up games that require imagination. I think this is better for his development. I see so many kids that are very scheduled that don't know how to play or use their imaginations.

As I was recently going through our books to see what I should sell, I just could not part with Pioneer Sampler. For Vivaldi I would consider the Classical Kids CD on him, it is very good.

Although I agree about their site being a nightmare, their books are wonderful. I will have a couple on my ebay list that starts in two weeks. We used all 16 Science Explorer books (at least I think it is 16) I bought 4 new after I figured out the stupid site, One of bought on ebay(it had 5 titles in it all the Life Science books) and the others we borrowed from the library. Ds really devoured these.

From my post last week you all know how much I enjoy changing the clocks.:(

to our Christmas list. 3 bookstores in our area closed in the last year. All of these were discount stores too. Now I get all books via paperbackswap, bookmooch or Amazon. All homeschooling materials come via Rainbow Resources if they carry it.

I get almost all of my personal reading material via bookmooch and paperbackswap. I even plan to list my copy of Sarah Plain and tall there tomorrow. On paperbackswap you can even print the postage via the site so you don't have to go to the post office to mail things. Using these sites has saved me a lot of money.

My biggest problem with the movie is the amount of freedom the children in it are given, especially in regard to strangers. I probably would not be wild about 6 and 7 year olds seeing it.

They look like fun. I am all for anything that keeps my mind from going to mush.

As in I will have about 500 auctions starting on ebay in 2 weeks. I have an only child and if he decides to homeschool. I am doing this partly because we need th efunds to buy next years materials and partly because I decided to seriously downsize what we have.

His snoring had gotten so bad I was considering sleeping in the guest room. We watched a health program with Dr. Oz and he talked about the Neti - Pot so dh asked his Dr about it and dh has been using it for about 2 weeks now. I noticed a difference right away.

My dh got it for me for Valentines Day, and he even watched it with me. We both enjoyed it. I bought the book last weekend and hope to get to start it sone, and then I will want to watch the movie again. Enjoy the flick. Ds and I are going to watch Across the Universe tonight.

Of course we both have cell phones, and I am usually only 1-3 miles from home. I try not to be gone more than an hour. After my father died(I was almost 10) my mother often left me alone. Sometimes overnight, she was usually out with friends or a boyfriend. It was terrible and I was very scared at times. I always said I would never leave my child alone long periods of time like that and I never have.

Sounds like a great reason for a Mike's. I like it over crushed ice myself. Thanks for sharing the great news with us.

this would really appeal to the target age group.

at certain times of the day I can run errands and leave him at home to work. This is usually when he is writing a paper or doing a reading assignment. We live very close to shopping, library etc. Doctor appointment are a big snag, but we make up the work during the summer. We do math, science and reading during the summer. Amazingly ds does not complain about this. He hates to be boared so interesting school work is better than being board.

A bit of background is needed. I am in the process of getting about 500 auctions ready to start on ebay in a few weeks(like I don't have anything else to do) I have seriously been going through our shelves for months pulling out anything I don't think we will need as ds will be in 9th grade next year. Ds will still be homeschooled it is just time to find new homes for many of our materials. Our home office looks like an explosion of books. Now dh says he was looking around the house last night, since in the evening he is usually only looking at the inside of his eyelids I was immediately intrigued. Then he said that none of the bookcases look any less full so.....the house must be growing books. :confused: Nothing like having your hard work appreciated. In reality, the cases are just not double packed now, and I can see the difference, but I understand why he can't. Plesae do not take a red pencil to that last sentence, and we thought only kds say funny things. Of course he is the biggest kid in the house.

This way whe can get what she needs when she needs it.

Our family knows we just delete them without reading them and they still forward them to us. Amazing.

I do feel sorry for your situation. Also we had a dog break a door glass once and didn't think anything about it. Then the dog jumped up on the glass several hours later and her paw went through it and she was very badly injured. I don't know if this could happen with your dog , but I wanted to give you a heads up.