and LOTR and Harry Potter weren't a problem! I had no problems buying the old ones from ebay a year or two ago. I have an older workbook, but he didn't really like fill in the blanks anyway, so we just used the hardcover.

I always buy the "family-size" packs of ground beef and brown it in the skillet before freezing "meal-size" amounts in baggies. It takes a little while but I always do it while making dinner, so I'm in the kitchen anyway. In fact, the last of it usual becomes dinner.

That's why I pick and choose our curriculum. Using one publisher would feel even more limiting than getting a boxed curriculum. I haven't even found too many authors I use for more than one textbook. The grass is always greener, I guess.

seeing as they are from when I was a kid. :001_smile: My dc get very distracted looking through them and learn tons more than they would if they typed in "Hawaii" instead of browsing through the H book. Some stuff just doesn't change (Hawaii is STILL several islands) and we just the data that's more likely to change (ie. population) on-line. We also got the Yearbooks, but I don't remember EVER looking in them! I wouldn't part with them. I also wouldn't "invest" in another printed set. Recognizing what information may need to be current and what doesn't really change is a useful skill too.

makes a huge difference. My dd(13) is in Switzerland. She rides her bike to school, swimming, Scouts, the store, etc. She can get on a train a couple of blocks away and go across the country or to the airport and go across the world. Her host mom said she does not let her children travel across Switzerland by themselves (dd 17, ds15). Back home dd cannot ride her bike anywhere useful. School is a twenty minute drive (interstate), as is swimming. The nearest real grocery store is 15. To ride her bike to "town" (no grocery store, traffic light, etc), she would have to go on a state hightway, 50 mph, no shoulders. That would never happen in Europe. It is not that Americans "baby" their children anymore than anyone else. The difference is that Europe is populated much more densely and they have designed their transportation "systems" to accomodate bicycles and pedestrians.

that is programmed instruction. This means you do one fill-in-the blank, then turn the page and do another, repeat ad nauseaum. There are cassettes that go with it. I really dislike this form of instruction. It was fairly popular in the Army and I disliked it there too. The main problem, as I see it, is that you're expected to retain everything from each page, forever, and it's really difficult to go back and look it up. I greatly prefer a more organized presentation. I've heard that the computer version is similar but have never seen it. I bought this one off ebay a few years ago for about $20 for my daughter. She wanted to learn Latin for fun and is not taking it in school. I haven't seen her do much with it either.

time zones. There are lots of fun things to do with time zones. I remember playing the "What time is it in____________?" game when I was a kid. Daylight Savings Time makes it more challenging because you have to know what countries/states do DST and when they start. Another interesting thing is that they were originally developed because of the railroad http://tf.nist.gov/general/history.htm and are regulated by the Dept of Transportation.

She got me back out of bed one night to recopy math homework (already done) because it was too sloppy!

Do you have another pie crust recipe that you know works that you could use instead?

because I'm usually in a hurry. Bread dough is another story. Sometimes it does take longer, especially if the kitchen isn't warm. Another yeast inhibiter is salt. Make sure you add the salt toward the end of mixing, if you add it at all. Unlike baking soda, you can't use up the "rise" with yeast. It will continue to grow through two or three "risings," then become sourdough starter.:) A very good reference on yeasts, bread and doughs of all kinds is the King Arthur Cookbook.

if they've made it to Book 4. My ds managed to spend 4 years (3-6 grades) doing book ONE! My dd (11) inherited his dislike for Suzuki, but actually could listen to music and play it (something I could never do), and even remember the songs so she didn't read music til this year. I didn't want her to quit so I looked around for different music that might excite her more. She switched into fiddle music at the end of Suzuki Book 1 with occasional bits of String Builder mixed in and has made progress in spite of herself. To the point of her teacher bringing up Wolfhart at her last lesson. He explained the need for scales as training the muscle memory in the fingers to be able to play the more common progressions of notes. I hope this makes sense. He basically related it to muscles and sports, and tried to convince her that if she could read the music (also new this year) and worked on the muscle memory in he fingers, she would be able to play anything. In the end, she has made quite a bit of progress in her "rut" and is just starting to realize it.

Was Physics 6th ed. by Giancoli the text she used in high school or the text she used as a freshman in college? Was the college text just a later edition, that is so much better? or did I misunderstand entirely?

I hadn't heard of this before so I went to ebay and saw three different Giancoli books: Physics, Physics for Scientist and Engineers, and The Ideas of Physics. Which is the book you are talking about? We are unenthused with the Apologia series, so i would like to try something different for physics.

is very comprehensive but ds found it hard to follow sometimes. (I didn't, but then I had a lot of math.) Unfortunately, he doesn't like to sit down with me for explanations. What we did was to get Life of Fred to go along with it. The explanations are much clearer and at a easier reading level. I didn't feel there was enough practice in the books, so we do continue with Foerster, just using Fred when he doesn't understand something. Fred does have a homeschool companion with more solutions, the rest of the answers and extra problems to practice but I haven't seen this yet. Sometimes I regret not getting the companion materials and just doing Fred. Ds might have actually enjoyed math instead of just trying to get it over with. The author also answers emails personally. I compared the topics covered in Foerster with Fred, and Fred had it all. My ancient Foerster also has trig in it (the new ones don't), so I would need Fred's trig book too. The drawback to Fred is that the child doesn't learn how to read a traditional math textbook, which he may need in college. (If he goes through calculus in high school though, he may never have anothr math class, in which case, he wouldn't need to be able to read them in college.) I also picked up the Teaching Company tapes for Alg I and II and calculus at a second-hand store ($5 each :) ), but they are not a real course. He watched a tape on whatever he was doing at the moment but hasn't pulled out any others, so I'm assuming he's not finding them very interesting/motivating either.

even consider it. I'm with Laura K "My children weren't/aren't welcome at either end of the natural baby-making process"

by law. Assessments don't change in between unless you do some construction or it burns down. After the whole town is reassessed, you have x number of days to contest the assessment in writing, then you get to go discuss it with them.

I wanted to go into aeronautic engineering and looked mostly at engineering schools. Fortunately, I went to a school that believes in "well-rounded" individuals because I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in General Engineering with a major in German and Russian. I'm doing the "well-rounded" thing with my dc too.

you will get the "young plant" look. Make sure the roots are still an inch or two in diameter.

I have stainless and children. They do get dirty but then so did the white fridge we had before. I wash tehm with a sponge and dishliquid. They do sell special stuff, which I use occasionally but it doesn't work better.

Really though, when your perenials get too big or start to turn brown in the middle, it's time to divide. Use a sharp shovel, dig it up, and cut the root ball (with the shovel). Replant the babies or give them away.

for my dc. Ds (16) started Henle I last year for 9th grade. He hates it, it's like pulling teeth and he retains little to none. After two years, he's at the end of Lesson 10, which about half of MODG 9th year plan. We have started doing Latin almost entirely orally, because then I know he's at least paying attention. He's not interested in Romans and Gauls. I suspect he would like whole-to-parts better, but that's only because he's smart enough to get by (at least Latin to English, or Latin to Latin) without ever learning the parts. I have Lingua Latina, Wheelock's, Our Latin Heritage, Jenney's and Latina Viva. I've started looking at Latin Prep. I'm not interested in just doing a roots program. He has 2 younger sisters too [14 (no Latin) and 11 (1/2 of LCI - pulling teeth again)]. Could they all do Latin Prep together? Does Latin Prep cover enough to bother at the high school stage? Will he find it babyish? Is there enough "British humor" to interest at 16? Any other ideas? I'm looking for anything that will motivate him to dedicate a few brain cells to Latin.

but not as old as Burgess, is the Famous Five series by Enid Blyton. I've never seen one in a book store, but the library had a few. My kids loved them when they were 10-11. They are mysteries that a group of English children solve. She also wrote a younger series about the Secret Seven, that are between Encyclopedia Brown and the Hardy boys in reading level.

by Whirlpool. It's so quiet I have to feel the front to see if it's on. Another consideration is the location of the controls. Mine are on top of the door, so you have a nice smooth stainless front. Looks very snazzy, but I can never tell where in the cycle it is. The old one had a nice knob that rotated around so I always knew exactly how much longer.

but Abe is usually less than Amazon. I know Foerster is $1! I used an older version, which was just fine.

gymnastics? When we lived in New Jersey there was a gym that had boys' gymnastics (not just girls with sparkles on) up through college. Most people think of gymnastics as a girl thing, but guys gymnastics, which peaks later, is a really good sport too. The downside is that gymnastics costs even more than swimming.