I am a procrastinator and a planner both. I've found that if I plan far enough in advance, I can avert disaster inspired by my procrastination. DD will be in Kindergarten in the fall. I've got her curriculum all planned out, and some idea of how our days will go. My goals for her K year are: 1. Learning to read 2. Prep for first grade math 3. Beginning handwriting 4. Getting used to doing seatwork on a regular basis DD's stated educational goals include: 1. Learn to sew 2. Learn to play the recorder 3. Ballet lessons I plan on enrolling her in Eagleridge, a 1 day/week enrichment program through the Mesa schools. A friend's children do it and they've really enjoyed it and gotten a lot out of it. So, that will be Monday's schooltime. Ballet lessons and library trip will constitute one day a week, and an outing such as the zoo, science center, an SCA event, etc. will be a third day's planned activity. One day will be "take a break day" each week, preferably on DH's day off if we can swing it. That will leave three "Homeschool Days" when we will do lessons. We may well do some or all of the read-alouds every day, though. We will be using the following curriculae: For phonics: Tanglewood School's free program and Starfall.com, phonics games For Literature: Nursery rhymes and tales, the complete works of Winnie the Pooh, and the works of Beatrix Potter. For Classical Studies: Aesop's Fables For Heathen Studies: Norse Myths For Music: Recorder Fun Book 1 For Art/Crafts: My First Sewing Book and Kit For Math: Funtastic Frogs Math, workbooks we already have, pattern block activities, time and money games For Geography: Me on the Map, Geography Songs Kit, Kingfisher First Picture Atlas For Modern Studies: Wee Sing America For Science: Museum trips, backyard nature study For P.E.: Ballet classes through the city For Latin: Song School Latin Sounds a bit daunting, but really it's not. Here's how our schedule should go: Daily (at least 3 days/week): Phonics, a math activity, part of her Latin lesson, short copywork exercises to practice handwriting and reinforce phonics or geography or Latin (Ex: The first week she will probably have to copy her name), and read-aloud time including the week's patriotic song or reading, fable, myth, nursery tale, and modern children's lit, plus any books DD wants on top of that. Also a nursery rhyme will be subject to memorization, and we'll stick with one until it's down. Weekly: Sewing lesson, Recorder lesson, Geography activity Seatwork shouldn't take more than twenty minutes to a half hour, read aloud time maybe half an hour, and the rest is playing games. I hope to get us into a regular ritual/rhythm to our days. There's a chance I may be babysitting during after-school time, which would give her a chance most days to play with at least one other kid. Especially if I'm still working at Wal-Mart (likely I'll cut back my hours if I can get that after school gig), keeping us on a regular schedule might just save our sanity! Now I just need to put in a curriculum order and come up with a good excuse to start some of it next week instead of next fall...

Alternately, you can give your child something to do that lets them occupy their hands and/or wiggles while opening their ears. They can listen to you read while coloring, eating, painting, or building with blocks...as long as they can refrain from interrupting/speaking while you read. Certainly a lot of computer time won't help, A lot of time to move around, wiggle, in between five minute pauses to sit down and do a page is perfectly acceptable at this age, especially since it's not like you have a whole classroom full of children to keep in line. Lots and lots of patience and clear boundaries can help, even without corporal punishment.

Around here (Phoenix area) and in my hometown back in TX, you can find Mexican coke, usually at the Mexican mom n pop grocery places and Food City. And the cane Dr. Pepper was available at Wal-Mart in my TX hometown (not sure about here, haven't looked). Year round, no need to wait for Passover. Mexican coca-cola is made with cane sugar, not HFCS. Cane sugar is cheaper than corn syrup south of the border, where cane grows and corn isn't insanely subsidized.

I think it would depend. If he's bent on joining the Marines and has that sort of attitude...yeah. If he's doing it for the training, chance to see the world, job security, G.I. bill, wants to serve etc., I'd go with him to talk to Navy and Air Force recruiters and make sure he didn't do something foolish like sign a contract w/o guaranteed schooling. If he wanted to join the Army, I'd take him to the Navy and Air Force recruiters and get them to help me talk him out of it, unless, maybe, there was some specialization he was interested in (like linguistic intelligence) for which the Army would take him but the other branches wouldn't or couldn't. By and large, though, I'd rather see my kid go into the Navy (like I and my DH and my sisters and his grandfather and my grandfathers) or the Air Force (like my dad). Navy offers a lot more travel opportunities and less chance of getting any vital parts shot off, while Air Force has higher quality of life for servicepeople and their families. I'd also encourage him to wait until after the election. If Clinton gets elected, it might not be such a good idea. Both Obama and McCain have more convincing pledges to take care of the troops regardless of the state of the war.

It's a very common requirement when you're going to be working with groups of children. It's pretty straightforward. I had to have it done when I was staying with my mom for more than a month last summer, because she's a foster parent. I just had it done at a pharmacy, cost ten dollars I think.

Take a book the child likes and choose individual sentences from it. Or get a book of quotes, or proverbs, etc. We're starting copywork formally in the fall, and I'll probably start with things like names, lines from Winnie-the-Pooh and The Hobbit, etc.

We used a dry pail and sprinkled baking soda when it got stinky. bothered my childless in-laws who lived with us a lot more than me, lol. But it didn't really smell bad until DD was older (over a year and eating lots of solids), and I was doing dipes less frequently (every 3-4 days instead of every day or two). Once she was well into toddlerhood, I just washed pee dipes with the rest of the whites laundry and gave any poo ones an extra hot rinse beforehand, and dispensed with the bucket. But by then it was just occasional accidents in cloth training pants and a pee dipe at night. If you're somewhere you can't do laundry frequently, drying out the pee dipes before containing them (and thoroughly rinsing then encasing in plastic poo dipes) can dispense with need for a pail, too. says the die-hard CD'er who took her baby camping in CD's...

If you want to branch out into something more literary, check out Dinotopia.

Not allowed to give you your teeth? That's a load of...aherm. My dentist gave me my bottom wisdom teeth when they were pulled. I was in the Navy, and they came out in pieces, but they were still mine! I also took home my placenta when DD was born, but that's another story. I need to get my uppers out some time in the not-too-distant future because they sprouted through when I was 24-26 yo. They'd better give them to me when they pull them. I won't send them home to mommy, though!

Ours is Yggdrasil Academy. We're Heathens, and it suits.