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PIE!

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Everything posted by PIE!

  1. I love that show, but we don't have tv. Netflix only has the first season. Is it somewhere else online (legally of course)?
  2. Ditto for the Charlotte Mason method. It's amazing how much we all memorized AND RETAINED this last year using it. We also only numbered 1-20, so we didn't have to remember to recite anything on weekends.
  3. What would it take for ME to feel poor? My answer has changed over the years. I used to think I was poor since my clothes were all third and fourth hand, we didn't have cable, the cars were always breaking down, both my parents worked, and ordering pizza was a rare luxury. Then, like so many that have posted already, I moved out of America. With our living conditions there (wearing worn out clothes, no car, only having 3-4 outfits each, losing weight because we didn't have enough money for food) my family thought we were in the depths of poverty. But I felt so rich. We had a place to live, and we did have food, just not as much as we used to. My kids were happy with the toys we made for them out of cardboard. And many of the people there that we thought were poor, didn't feel so themselves. I remember talking to a lady at church, who during regular conversation would have to explain a few things to us Americans so her stories would make sense - like how they had to go to bed early because they didn't have electricity, or how all five of them shared a bed, or how she hand sewed her kids' clothes, or how she never saw a doctor during pregnancy. She wasn't complaining, just giving a side note so we could laugh at the joke she was telling us. She didn't feel poor. I've met even poorer people who slept on the floor of a mud hut infested with centipedes, who ate mud because it's all they had. They were hungry for sure, and were always happy to get something to eat, but they did not have the attitude of being poor. So I guess feeling poor is entirely a matter of attitude. I don't feel poor like I did when I was younger. Even when we were back in America and had food stamps and medicaid for a little while I didn't feel poor. I don't quite know what it would take for me to feel poor at this point - probably extreme hunger and no shelter. Or maybe seeing my children waste away. There is always help in America, so unless we move out of the country again, I don't think I'll ever really know what my feeling poor threshold is.
  4. Just to be annoying I thought I'd play devil's advocate. I just remembered a case where one could argue that soda is a necessity. I had a friend with a four year old severely autistic son. He would only drink a certain brand of ginger ale. For a while he would not drink anything else, even if dying of thirst. Yes I know (and they knew) it's not good to drink only soda for many many reasons, but at that point in time it's all they had to work with. A few months later they got him to start drinking mango juice too, and now, a few years later, he drinks other things. But for a little while when he was four he needed ginger ale, or he would have had no liquid in his diet. They weren't on food stamps or anything. And I know that this situation would be pretty rare. And I'm still okay with the government taking soda off the food stamps list. But when the government starts making rules about what is good for everybody, I get concerned. People are different, and have all sorts of different health issues to deal with. The purpose of food stamps is to help people be healthy. Massive health regulations would deprive a lot of unique people of the very thing food stamps is made for.
  5. My oldest will be starting second grade, and we've settled into most of our curricula. But I'm still waffling about spelling. We started with Spelling Workout, which both of us hated and wasn't improving her spelling one bit. Then we switched over to Sequential Spelling which I love and she hates. Her spelling has drastically improved with it. I'm amazed at how well she can spell words she's never heard before. But getting her to do it is much worse than a trip to the dentist (after all, the dentist gives her a toy and a new tooth brush). Could we find something that we both like that will work? It seems AAS is very popular here, though I don't really know how it works. Would it be both fun and make her think things through? Or, since I know Sequential Spelling gives us good results despite her attitude, should we stick with it? Or is there another great option?
  6. Food stamps were very helpful to us before a few years ago. But I was AMAZED at all the junk we were allowed to buy and how much money was allotted to us each month. We tried to be responsible with it, and had quite a bit of surplus left over when we got off. We did buy some junk food though - especially for our kids' birthdays or other special holidays. The purpose of food stamps is to help people who couldn't otherwise afford it have the nutrition they need. It seems like tax dollars are wasted when they're going toward stuff that's not nutritious. However, once the government starts regulating they never seem to want to stop. What the government decides is healthy might not meet the needs of many individuals. So basically, I'm rambling. I'm fine with no more food stamps for soda. If people don't live near a good water supply, they can use their food stamps to buy bottled water. The government is providing a good service and it's up to them what to do with it. But I do cringe whenever the regulations start piling up.
  7. Depends on the pregnancy. #1 was large pieces of meat - esp steak (which I HATED before). #2 was vinegar and tomatoes. #3 was spicy mustard. #4 is currently onions. Of course with all of them I couldn't get enough chocolate and peanut butter, but I think that had more to do with me indulging myself, rather than actual baby related cravings.
  8. I know all three of you who viewed this are on the edges of your seats, but I found an answer so I feel I must post. It's not a satisfactory answer, but it's still an answer. I'm open for a better one. From "Uncovering the Logic of English" (A book I own. Go figure I'd find the answer at home and not on the internet). "In a few words there is no visible explanation for the silent E. The silent E holds a story that has been lost over time. Perhaps it is a remnant of an older pronunciation that is no longer in use, or a tradition that began in some other way. Whatever the original reason, however, there are only a few words that fall into this category. done giraffe come where some were" So there we have it. An "unseen reason." At least there are only 6 of those words.
  9. It sure does love to! ps Love is a word that used to bug me too! But I found out that English words aren't supposed to end in "V" so the e in "love" is to keep the "v" from ending the word. I think it's a silly rule, but it does explain a lot of interesting spelling. But "come" still eludes me...
  10. Why does the word "come" have a silent "e"? Google helps with most of my daughter's technical spelling questions, but I couldn't find anything about this. Please help us! :001_smile:
  11. FREEDOM! We don't like being told what to do :001_smile:. We like to be able to pack up and go on vacation whenever we choose for however long we want. We like our kids to study at their own level, not that of the average kid in class. We like including things that our kids are actually interested in. We like not having any taboo topics like they have to have in public school (eg. religion). Basically, we like to be our own bosses. The fact that our kids are getting a superior education and don't have to deal with nearly so much peer pressure doesn't hurt either.
  12. I never thought homeschool was a good idea. The homeschooled kids I knew were too weird. Then when my oldest was three I met some awesome homeschoolers. I saw their interaction and schooling while we were all in the communal laundry room. It looked so incredible. I grilled that mom with every question I had for a week or two. She had me convinced. Then in passing I mentioned to dh "Do you think we should ever try homeschooling?" He got a big smile. Apparently he'd been all for it for quite a while, but didn't want to bring it up because he knew I'd have to do most of the work. DH loves bragging about our homeschooled kids. He set up our science curriculum and teaches it whenever he doesn't have to work late. On random days off he'll jump right in teaching and reading whatever needs to be done.
  13. right now we don't pay taxes, and actually get thousands of dollars in credit. we don't earn much, so I'm glad we don't have to pay, but all those credits seem a bit too much. but... in a few years when dh finishes his residency we'll be paying tons of taxes, while trying to pay back enormous student loans, paying huge malpractice insurance fees, hoping to get reimbursed from whatever the government has ruled about health care, and dealing with the costs of either starting a new practice or joining in and helping out a small one. Then I'll be wishing for much lower taxes. Hmm - maybe we'll save the thousands of bonus dollars we get now to pay the taxes we'll have to deal with in the future...
  14. there are a lot of options. first drain the liquid. usually one of the eyes is soft so poke it with a knife skewer or corkscrew or something and drain. if you can poke out two eyes it'll drain faster. my favorite thing to do next is stick it in the oven at around 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. it'll usually crack itself. otherwise i hit it with a hammer or something else hard and heavy like a really big can of something. I think pre-cut is harder because then you think you have to follow their lines.
  15. I am here because I don't want to do the laundry. I don't really want to tidy the house either. :tongue_smilie: The toddler is sleeping. The others (who are too little still to do laundry) have finished their work and are quietly watching a movie. I took care of everything important I had to do on the computer, so now I am dawdling. Why are you here right now?
  16. We use daily life to really study health. However, our state requires heath every year, and to avoid writing a page explaining our "family health curriculum" in my yearly paperwork, we also use Rod and Staff. It's just a short lesson once a week. I like that it includes manners too.
  17. :iagree: We found these kits at the Cincinnati convention last year and fell in love. They are awesome! They are very well thought out hands on experiments. Everything you need is included (except water). You can do most of the experiments several times. I think we got a discount at the convention though, because we were a bit shocked when ordering some online this year that they are nearly $100 each. We bought some anyway because my kids love them so much, but they are expensive. I don't know if they would work well with your specific curriculum since I've never seen it.
  18. Thanks for all those great ideas! Quite a few that I never thought of. Now I've got a lot of research to do on who those people were and what they did with their lives. Thanks again!
  19. Hi, We're having a baby girl in August, and can't come up with a good name. We've got one girl and two boys so far. We like to give each of our children a namesake of someone we would like them to emulate. The boys were easy - there are plenty of men in history, so finding a couple of good ones wasn't a problem. We named our first girl Esther after the great Queen in the Bible. The bible is full of great women, but we hesitate to give too many bible names (we're not theme namers). We're also looking into our own family history for ideas. I just don't know if we'll find one there. So who, in history, sets an example you would like your daughters to follow? (And if possible, has a nice sounding name too. ;))
  20. Hmm – I’ve never really thought about this before. I’m not Catholic or Protestant, so the only history I’ve learned about Martin Luther, the Crusades, Galileo, etc. was what I was taught in public high school. At the time I assumed it was unbiased and hadn’t really given it a second thought. Now I realize that it was really only one-sided. It never occurred to me that the Catholics would have a different point of view. So my question is to you Catholics who use other materials for those chapters, what materials do you use? I won’t skip those chapters when we get there with my kids, but I’d like to also show them the other side of the story. I’ve got no idea what resources are available for that.
  21. I didn't even look at cost before - very good point. I think, including all the extras we'd buy to go along, ES would be cheaper. But not by a whole lot. hmm - still considering.
  22. There have seen a lot of threads lately about science curriculum. This is great, since our science curriculum didn’t work out so well this year, and we need a change for next year (2nd grade). I’ve looked up just about everything I’ve seen posted lately, and I’ve narrowed it down to: Real Science Odyssey or Elemental Science But I love things about BOTH and I can’t decide. Since I can only rely on what’s available on their websites, it’s hard to completely compare them. They both seem to have a lot in common. Weekly experiments would be great around here. What I love about ES: Use of great books for spines Seems a bit more flexible Inclusion of crafts (e.g. Making a model earth) Inclusion of history Learning to identify many constellations (I could be wrong, but it seems RSO doesn’t go into this as much) Ongoing experiments Includes page numbers for supplemental books (we read a lot of supplemental books, and it’s nice knowing right where to go). What I love most about RSO is the format. It seems to have more in just one place. I like having an intro page, followed by the experiment pages. We would definitely be reading the Usborne and Kingfisher type books along with it. My family loves science and one little intro page wouldn’t keep us satisfied. But some days digging from book to book to book can be cumbersome. Also – it’s hard to compare their experiments, since they show different topics for their online sample pages. I don’t know which would be a better fit. I’ve seen a lot of posts saying the love ES, many others saying they love RSO, and even some more saying they love both. I guess either way we’ll have a great science year. But I could use some help deciding.
  23. Thanks for the responses. I'm not up on all the curriculum abbreviations; what is WWE?
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