Is he already using chanting? If just chanting isn't working can he put the endings to a familiar song--Twinkle, or Frere Jacques, or something? Music is a big help for me. If he is visual he can try some of the more visual techniques, like visualizing each ending with an object that helps him remember it.

I can only see two reasonable options: 1) teach only that elements of nature/life show evidence of intentional intelligent design, and leave the question of the characteristics of the designer(s) wide open or 2) teach from the viewpoint of a particular religion or worldview from a public school stand point, only 1 seems to be acceptable. ETA I suppose a third option would be to teach the basics of several different viewpoints without favoring one over the other, but that seems more appropriate to a philosophy class than a science class.

Thanks for the laugh :)

As a concept, ID allows for either a young earth or old earth. As for whether it is one concept or many, I think there is a core concept that is shared: that nature shows evidence of design by an intelligent agent. Beyond that, I think there are multiple opinions on what those evidences are, how old the Earth is, which elements of evolutionary theory are accepted, etc. I'm not sure the standard set of teachable concepts you are looking for really exist, which does make me wonder how teachers who are required to give equal time go about it. Perhaps they choose or are assigned a specific flavor of ID to teach, following one of the popular books for example?

Theistic evolution is probably closest to the way I personally conceptualize things, I would like to read that book some time. I suppose Intelligent Design is really quite a broad umbrella and could encompass a number of different viewpoints. I keep hoping some more knowledgeable people will contribute to this thread, but I suspect the majority of people on the board who might identify with the concept of intelligent design are more like me--people who believe theologically that God created the earth, believe that to some extent or another natural processes (such as evolution) did or might have played a part in that (as opposed to strict creationism which does not seem to require the involvement of natural processes), but are not concerned with finding supporting evidence of a scientific nature for theological beliefs. I am personally content to let faith be the basis of theology and science be the basis of my understanding of the natural world, without seeking a specific reconciliation of the two at this time. All of which goes to say that I have tried to contribute my own thoughts to this discussion because I find it interesting and because at least I am helping to keep the conversation going, not because I am an expert.

Lewelma, I think it is Creationism that does not allow for speciation. I had understood that the intelligent design model does not necessarily reject this process.

Unfortunately I don't know enough about ID to answer your questions. Perhaps someone else can? Going back to your original plan for teaching evolution Day 1: Natural selection Day 2: population genetics Day 3: genetic drifton Day 4: Founder effect, population bottlenecks Day 5: the species concept, repoductive isolation Day 6: Homologous structurs Day 7: convergent evolution Day 8: Coevolution Day 9: Sexual selection I think the concepts covered in days 2-5 at least would not conflict with ID concepts so would not need to be taught separately. I'm not sure about the others.

My understanding of the underlying theory of ID is that life on the earth as we now find it, in all its complexity, did not originate and develop entirely through natural un-guided processes but that it shows evidence of intentional design by an intelligent agent of some sort. Would the above be a more accurate representation?

No it isn't. We are not discussing the merits/lack of merits of ID. Do you have a response that is relevant to the OP's question?

I too am in the boat of having too many children. Obviously I have a surplus that should be donated...

Bill, I don't think the OP wanted this to turn into an argument of the pros and cons of different theories.

My understanding of the underlying theory of ID is that life on the earth as we now find it, in all its complexity, did not originate and develop entirely through random processes but that it shows evidence of intentional design by an intelligent agent of some sort.

ID does not require constancy over time. ID does not require a young earth. Those are things that Creationists would likely agree on. ID is more flexible. ETA: Actually, I should say those are things that Young Earth Creationists would agree on :)

I don't know specifically, but if ID is supposed to be based on scientific investigation they must have evidenc to present. I know the last time I read a book about the ultimate origins of life from a scientific point of view (nothing to do with creationism or ID, just outlining various scientific theories as to how the very first proteins, RNA/DNA, cells and organisms could have come about) there were still rather large gaps between what is known/replicable/evidenced and what would actually need to happen for life to derive from non-life. ID would likely hold up the leaping of that gap given what still appears to be improbable odds as evidence for non-randomness. Perhaps another would be increasing complexity of life? Assuming life began with simple organism such as bacteria, and since similar organisms are still around, why have more and more complex organisms developed? Does natural selection really explain why life has become more complex when simple, adaptable organisms have survived and continued to reproduce quite well? Are the more complex organisms really "fitter" than the less complex? (There are many more bacteria than humans on the earth...) Again, not an expert, just brainstorming for ideas :)

Ikea has a toy kitchen, don't know how much it costs but it is cute and not pink.

Here's a quote from an intelligent design site: "It depends on what one means by the word "evolution." If one simply means "change over time," or even that living things are related by common ancestry, then there is no inherent conflict between evolutionary theory and intelligent design theory. However, the dominant theory of evolution today is neo-Darwinism, which contends that evolution is driven by natural selection acting on random mutations, an unpredictable and purposeless process that "has no discernable direction or goal, including survival of a species." (NABT Statement on Teaching Evolution). It is this specific claim made by neo-Darwinism that intelligent design theory directly challenges." So the discussion would really be just about whether these processes were random and unpredictable or whether there are signs of intelligent design/control in the processes.

Here's my thinking: Intelligent Design theory is not supposed to be incompatible with the theory of evolution, so you would not need to count all evolutionary topics as time that needs to be matched by teaching Intelligent Design. I think (not an expert here, I've never studied ID) that you could limit the "equal time" to a discussion of origins and processes--i.e., theories of how life began, whether mutations are entirely random, what evidence mainstream science sees for randomness, what evidence ID experts see for non-randomness, etc.. If I had to do this I would spend one day on these types of discussions and present both sides, then move on and teach the rest of the evolutionary material as is. I really don't see how it could be done otherwise.

I found a Wikipedia article that outlines some basic arguments for Intelligent Design. They mention a textbook called "Of Pandas and People", I suppose you could use that. (I don't know how well it would stand up to scientific investigation though). Good luck with your hypothetical class :) Now, I personally believe God designed and created the world, but I don't know exactly how he did it. I teach my children the account in Genesis, but I also explain that Genesis doesn't give us specifics on the process of creation (including in my opinion the timeline). In other words, I don't think that when the Bible mentions days it necessarily means 24 hours, nor do I personally feel a necessity to believe that the process of creating life on the earth couldn't have involved creatures evolving. I imagine that God uses natural processes in his work. At a high school level I would teach evolution as it is understood in science, and discuss the shortcomings of both science and religion and the limited ability of each to inform a study of the other. Studying evolution myself as a student (I minored in microbiology) never shook my faith in God and I don't expect it to shake my children's' faith. ETA: Woops, forgot to include the link to the article. Fixed that above.

I've had babies who were noisy breathers--I wouldn't call it snoring, but, well, definitely noisy moisty sounding breathing. It wasn't a problem. None of my kids snores now, though they do sometimes talk in their sleep :)

The attitude of fun is a choice, to take the sting out of the mistake--because yes, mistakes are painful, embarrassing, uncomfortable, confidence shaking...but freezing, hiding, lying, covering up, beating ourselves up--these things do nothing to lessen either the impact or the sting of the mistake. When I say I make mistakes fun, I am talking about small errors; using a wrong name, calling a wrong number, making a calculation error in a math problem, leaving an ingredient out of a recipe, forgetting an appointment, turning the wrong way when driving, misspelling a word; things that demonstrate that the human mind does not work with the precision of a computer. Usually these things don't have a huge impact in life, though they can inconvenience us or others. If the mistake has hurt someone, we should rightly apologize (as in the case of a missed appointment) and work to avoid that error in the future. If the mistake involved a lack of knowledge or conceptual understanding (as might happen with spelling or math) we can work to improve our knowledge or understanding--awesome, we found out something we need to learn! If the mistake was just a brain glitch--which can also happen with misspelling or math or driving, we can just laugh it off and move on. Maybe laugh it off while feeding those cookies with the sugar left out to the ducks. I laugh and make a joke out of mistakes as an acknowledgment of my own human imperfection--and to make the point that yes, as humans we are imperfect. We do make mistakes, every one of us, and most of the time they are just not a big deal. At their best, they represent a great learning opportunity. At their worst, they represent a chance to humbly acknowledge our human frailty and sincerely apologize and try to remedy harm done. I've made some of those mistakes too. Last spring my children were excited for their spring choir performance, and I was equally excited to watch them perform. Trouble was I didn't double check the location, I thought I knew where we were supposed to go--and I drove to the wrong place. By the time we got things sorted out and got to the actual performance venue it was too late, their group was already up on stage in the middle of the show. I felt awful, the kids felt awful. It was a big mistake, and it was my fault. What could I do? Obviously trying to hide the mistake, put the blame on someone else, or spend the next decade berating myself wasn't going to actually remedy the problem. I apologized profusely, and together we decided on something fun to do for the evening to lessen the sting of disappointment--we went to an ice cream parlor and bought the biggest sundae they made and enjoyed sharing it together. It wasn't ideal, it couldn't make up for the missed performance, but it was a way to turn something entirely miserable into something partly good. I want my kids to learn that when mistakes happen and things go wrong the world does not come to an end, rather, they have an opportunity to move forward in the most positive direction available. Sometimes that means figuring out what aspect of a math problem you need to understand better. Sometimes it means making a joke about how "mom NEVER makes mistakes!", sometimes it means ice cream. Oh, and sometimes it also means learning to double check an address before getting in the car! There is definitely value in trying not to make the same mistake twice.

Exactly! We have a running joke in our family about how "Mom NEVER makes mistakes!" --it's a joke because I, of course, make mistakes of one kind or another all the time (starting with calling my children by the wrong names half the time!) and I always ham it up when I do. Mistakes are normal, they can even be fun :)

With my 10 year old DD, we make a big deal out of celebrating mistakes. If you never make a mistake it means you aren't doing anything you can't already do well, which means you aren't learning and growing very much. Learning requires attempting things you don't already know how to do, and that means making mistakes. I've even resorted to rewarding mistakes--one way we broke through her paralysis over math (she might make a mistake!) was by awarding candy for each mistake on a page. Perfectionism, anxiety, and OCD are tough, they require an entirely different approach to teaching. A couple of weeks ago I started requiring dd10 to leave wrinkles when she made her bed, because bed-making was taking 45 minutes every morning and she had to be sure everything was perfectly smooth. The next day she made her bed in two minutes and proudly came to tell me there were wrinkles :)

I have done both. When what I want is available locally I tend to prefer local for the reasons listed above--I know the plants will flourish in my climate, and potted plants tend to establish faster than bare root; but I have also had good luck with mail order plants. Also, be aware that trees sold locally were not necessarily grown locally. One of our local nurseries grows all their own stock, but another nursery in the area gets their trees from out of state. If you are buying bare root expect the tree to take an extra year or so to establish a strong root system.

Y'all are making me really hungry and that roast is smelling really good... Thanks for the ideas!

I just put a 4.5 lb roast and 2.5 lbs of chicken breasts in the oven to bake. I would like to get 4-5 meals out of these. We will probably have part of the roast with vegetables for dinner tonight, but I'd like to come up with some new ways of using the rest of the meat. Ideas?