A very entertaining break from standardized testing. Wow!

Apparently his education didn't include how to do proper research or statistics! :)

Wow! Thanks!

BTDT! I understand your frustration. You can use more than one... but you really shouldn't. If she is not meeting your needs and showing you every house on the market in your price range - find a different realtor. A realtor's time is their money and it can be very frustrating and disrespectful to take up someone's time and effort by having them show you houses and then sign with a different realtor. (just as it is frustrating and disrespectful to not do a thourough job of showing you homes!) It's their job and if they aren't doing it well - search out a realtor that you love and trust and have them spend their time earning a paycheck. When we used our current realtor, within an hour of speaking to him, he had sent me a list of every. single. home in our range and area. Almost too many to look at! Within the week he had shown us all the ones we were interested in. The differencce between a good realtor and bad one is astouding! Also, a realtor that doens't do a good job showing you houses, probably won't be very good at selling yours when the time comes!

My husband reads a book to the kids 2-3 times a week at bedtime. Right now it's Caddie Woodlawn. We also do pancake Saturdays. During the summer, we have a campfire in the backyard and make smores about once every-other weekend. We are talking of starting a game night, but life just seems to suck up all the free time...

I agree with the other poster - don't rush into permanent bc. Wait a few years and make reeeeealy sure. I have many, many friends who have regretted permanent bc - men and women. I had my tubes tied due to a uterine rupture delivery, so I had little choice in the matter. We've since adopted 2 so it all worked out. (Just a side note: my tubal really messed up my hormones and gave me migraines for two weeks out of every month for years until I found a preventative med. Just a PSA for anyone considering it - google lots!) We are Christianss (and obviously pray about things) but the process we go through when deciding to have another child is pretty universal. We talk. And talk. And talk. And wait until we are in agreement. With this last child, I brought it up - hubby said he was done. I mentioned it on rare occasion and then accepted we were done bc he really felt it. Then, he brought it up and was all gung-ho about it - but I had changed! I felt done! It took about 1-2 years for us to both finally be in the same place and jump into the adoption process. This had given us bigger spaces between children than we would have planned, but if it hadn't been that timing, it wouldn't have been the kids we have! I feel agreement is necissary for a peaceful home - jmho. If there is disagreement, someone eventually has to humble themselves and accept the other person's heart desire. I hope you find peace and agreement with one another. ((huggs))

Thanks for all the suggestions! We had discussed opening out kitchen up to the living room, but were unsure if the expense was worth it - now we are leaning toward doing it. Our kids are 13, 11, 9, 5, and 1. As they all get bigger, the rooms seem smaller! Right now we have an eat-in kitchen and a seperate living room - opening up the kitchen would mean losing the living room altogether and make it a big kitchen/dining area with a little place for a couple chairs or loveseat. That would leave us the family room as our only "couch" area. Better setup for just our family - not so good when we have groups over. Thanks for all the game suggestions! My kids will love many of those activities!

So, we have a full house - a very full house! As we have been looking at upsizing our home, we know deep down that we just can't afford it. Soooo, instead of getting a bigger home, we've decided to make this one as great as possible! I'm looking for ideas of the best places to spend our money in order to encourage family time. For example, we got a firepit and chairs for the backyard, and we had a blast making smores the other night. I also just ordered curtains for our back deck to block the sun enough to have dinner out there. Help me out: What has been the best project/purchase that has blessed your time together as a family at home?

My friend always gets an overnight or two at a hotel right before mother's day. She then meets them at church on Mom's day (dad gets them ready and brings them) and spends that day with them - after her couple days of rest. Everyone wins! That way they get to "give" mom a day or two of pampering, and she gets to come home and say, "I'm so excited to spend mom's day with you!"

Funny, I've experienced the exact opposite. I've been excluded or silently looked down on because I haven't joined a public school program or co-op! It all depends on your circle, I guess! :)

When I first began hsing, I picked what I was told was "the best" for each subject. All of it was totally teacher intensive. Sooooo not me! I wish I loved to read aloud - I love to read - just not aloud! So all those curr were a bust for me. Now I use curr that is all very non teacher intensive and we use books on cd to listen to together! I am so much more relaxed and happy, and so are the kids. If one of my kids struggles with a choice, I'm totally open to switch and find what works best for her. (for example, I love history and love the projects and videos and fun stuff - my 3rd dd told me she just wants a textbook next year. totally her style) I think that matches my home pretty good. It's orderly, but not rigid. I've set things up to be the least amount of work possible. But I will rearrange everything (even switch entire rooms) to accomidate the changing needs of the family. Also, my house is bright with lots of windows and lots and lots of color - probably too much! (Blue walls, red chair, yellow pillows) And I find myself wishing constatly that I could add in more FUN... more LIFE into my homeschooling and not fall into the trap of just "do the next thing and get it done." Time to think about how to add more joy into my schooling for next year. Any great ideas?

I have five children and we spend about 1000 dollars a year. That includes curriculum and supplies. We buy a lot of books for reading instead of using the library as well. I figure each book will get used by 5 kids so it's worth it! And we buy a ton of books on Kindle too. As an earlier poster said, a lot gets reused. So each year I only buy one math curr for my oldest - and just the student books for everyone else. Once you have all four years of SOTW, you just repeat them and history for elementary only has craft costs. When my oldest hits 9th, the cost will go up due to more expensive curriculums and the possibility of online classes. The hardest part with homeschooling over many years with many kids, though, is actually using what you already have and not getting all excited about the "new and shiny" curriculum! The more you switch, the more expensive it gets! :) ETA - I have friends who homeschool for much less than me. They use the library, buy their curriculum used, pick cheaper curriculums than I do, and don't buy craft kits and such. For example, we did a year of little house and I bought all kinds of pre-fab kits for crafts, wheras my friends would do the same stuff with supplies from around the house. I tend to pay for things in order to take planning and chaos and time-consuming stress off my plate.

I am feeling too weak and lazy to walk across the house to get my water and he immediately got up and got it for me. :) Isn't it so true - true love is shown in the tiny daily acts of service!

Love Love Love MUS! It saved our homeschooling. Math was making the day miserable, the girls felt defeated and cried Switched to MUS and it was like the sun came out again. They are all doing very very very well in math now. My girls all love it (and they have very different learning styles) and have begged me to never change our math curriculum. It's good for both my math whiz, who is way ahead of grade level - and my math struggler, who is now on track. It just speaks her language. I already had base ten blocks as well, but have never regretted buying the mus blocks. Totally worth it!

I'll add to this: True love is when your husband says, "No big deal, I think they were about to break anyways," right after you tell him you accidently put rocks down the disposal and tried to use the vaccuum to suck them back up - breaking both the disposal and vaccum in one ridiculously stupid move.

IMHO, Mixed reviews are mostly because everyone approaches writing from their personality slant. Some write from creativity, others from structure. Yes, you need both, but we are all stronger in one than the other. I have one daughter that hates writing strands, she finds it too loosey goosey and free. She is the kind of kid who makes an outline before she starts any writing project - DD1 needs the outline! Otherwise she stares at the blank paper and cries! She loves Writing with skill because it's the same skills practiced over and over - she knows what to expect. It does a lot of outlining. It's a "bones first" kind of curriculum and then you flesh it out. She would much rather outline someone else's writing than write an essay herself. I have another daughter that hates WWS because it is rigid and structured. She doesn't want to outline a boring history essay, she wants to write! Blank paper is her friend! She's the kind of kid who just sits and writes and then moves things around to fit the outline she came up with during the process. She is a "flesh first" kind of writer - and then goes back to make sure the bones are solid She loooooooves writing strands because it's different every week, funny, and more creative. less formula like. She flies in the freedom and has learned to love writing. She has completed level 3 and 4 this year and begs to do more. Next year we will do book 5 (in 6th grade). It doesn't do outlining really, just different ways to get your thoughts down on paper in better and better ways. It has lessons on adding details, varying sentence structures, point of view, tone, foreshadowing, description. The lower levels focus more on writing what is interesting, accurate descriptions, and fiction. The upper levels (haven't done them yet) are for jr high and high school and seem to focus on more analytical writing and research papers and outlines and such. (Just FYI, I remember we thought the early lessons in level 3 a bit tedious - add one word at a time to make a sentance more interesting - and I thought, this is pointless... but we kept going and I'm so glad we did!) Find what makes your child love to write. They need both freedom and structure, but while they are young, give them what makes them feel confident and accomplished. :)

Listening...

My oldest dd wan't trained until age 5. We started whe she was 2. It was a looooong 3 years - but we got there eventually! She had #2 mastered way before #1. I tried every angle in the book We didn't realize she had sensory issues at the time and I pushed and pushed. I just KNEW she could do it! She would try so hard and I would get so frustrated. Finally, I looked at her and realized. She acutally CAN'T do it. All her little sensory issues lined up in my brain (hair brushing hurting, hates jeans, not a cuddler, no balance, food all over face, etc.) and I realized this wasn't just her now wanting to, or being lazy, or being defiant. She couldn't tell when she needed to go. So we bought a boatload of pull-ups, and just waited until she could succeed - after I appologized repeatedly for pushing her. A little after 5.5, she could do it! This actually helped me calm down for the rest of the kids (and not worry about what the grandmas think) and just let them potty train when they really showed interest and ability. All the others were about age 3, give or take a few months.

When I did my student teaching they placed me in a 6th grade classroom with a teacher who didn't believe in rules. The class was run by majority vote. Kids made all the rules: pop popcorn in the micro whenever they want - middle of the lesson. These kids ran the place! It was total chaos - and the kids were so cruel to each other. For a while they switched me with the other 6th grade teacher. She spent every monday morning telling the kids her drinking, dating, and "tea-time with strangers" stories. She wore the most innappropriate clothing and had given every kid a nasty nick-name. Fatty, Stupid, Frizzy, Ugly, etc. Broke my heart. The third 6th grade teacher was exccentric and had a million snakes in his room - one at the middle of each grouping of three desks. His rooom stunk from all the reptiles and kids regularlly cried in his room. You could hear him yell at the kids throughout the hallways. I had a teacher who would put random craft supplies in the center of groups of tables and do/say nothing to us. We were supposed to be self-guided and figure out what the lesson was about. Onoe table would be making alien sculptures, another a house of cards, another just sits and talks, another just leaves. We all got A's for this science class.

I haven't, but I had a friend who did a brief lesson on geneologies and had her kids make a famiilyy tree for all the characters.

My first section was because her head was stuck, stuck, stuck. 3 hours of pushing insured that! I feel that with this c section, if I had had a midwife it would have gone better and I may have been able to deliver. The nurses were useless. My second section was planned, but I never made it - the day before, my uterus burst. I didn't feel a thing, just a lot of blood, and it was many hours before a doctor or nurse would take me seriously. My dd and I are both fine, but it's God's hand alone that kept us alive. My third section was done early, with little weight gain, due to the previous rupture.

Me too! Love the diarrhea comment! Hilariously gracious to the guy who cut you off...

When we joined our church, at age 28, there were only a handful of families. Over the next five years, the church exploded and everyone was my age or younger. Now we only see growth in the college age group and very young families. I am 38 years old and we are referred to as the "old married" group. The new moms are always asking for parenting advice, but only from other first time moms. Doesn't matter that in our group, we've not only done this four-six times already but we are all still adding to our families. I may look "old" to you, but I'm still in the baby stage of motherhood! A good friend of mine at church is only about 8 years younger than me, but she told me the other day how nice it is to have an "old" friend who can give her a longer life perspective! I was viewing us as equals - she was viewing me as an elder! :)

sorry - dp

So glad i saw this thread. My daughter came downstairs today and said, "wws told me to eat a cookie and read a story." Guess I better sit up and watch closely how she responds to this lesson on lit!