in plain sight only to let them appear hours or days later. Glad you had fun. We start Monday.

and he had no Shurley experience, or even grammar experience since high school. :) He was awesome, so it can be done.

he will provide for her family. If God gives her the position then he will also take care of her. I don't think we can judge by our own circumstances what she should be doing. I think that people who stand up for what they believe often suffer persecution and the goal in life isn't avoiding persecution. I'd rather do something big in life myself.

I too await the magic dawdling cure. We need Mrs. Piggle Wiggle I think. One thing I'm investigating at the moment is the great amount of sleep teens are supposed to need. I think that may be one key, but I'm still in the research and experiment phase. My son was sent out to weed, a few weeks back, and he put on a great show of "not weeding" until we all sat down at the dinner table, ignoring him completely and began dinner. It wasn't more than 5 minutes later and he was in-mission accomplished. I've seen that if he gets an audience, especially an anxious one it tends to create a much better atmosphere for the SLOW motion thing. Between diffusing battles and not giving attention to Mr. Slow Mo's drama it is exhausting, but there are those wonderful moments when the real child shows through and I know it is mainly an act.

We also bought a fabulous Trebuchet kit from Rainbow Resource that was a lot of fun to build. Salt maps, stained glass...I really cannot think of projects that we made and tossed. Even the paper dolls we kept in envelopes. On the Maori chapter we did the pop bottle canoe that we sent back and forth and we destroyed them- but that was an activity, not meant to save. The Gold, Salt trade game with Ghana- we kept our gold and salt from the first round and used it again this cycle. The gameboards we laminate and use over. Maybe we have just picked different projects.

and I'm really excited. I'm so hoping we can buy the season tickets and get 4 or 5 dates out this school year. That is my idea of a fabulous date. As for activities, we talk a lot together, but right now our kids are around in most activities. We will watch an occasional movie at home, and we teach together which is a real learning experience.

home from work and completely suprised ds who is so excited he's more like a 3 year old than a 13 year old and it is quite the family party. He worked many hours to earn this Wii. Now he insists I will be the first to play with him, but it is taking a long time for him to set it up because he is so silly. I called lots of BlockBuster Movie places to find this wii.

if kids aren't listening etc. Have you thought of pulling out and creating your own smaller co-op? Unless your philosophy of discipline etc. fits with the co-op I'd get out of there, it sounds like a lot of work to try to change it. I'm a bit too much of a control freak myself.

even with the work it is to keep up- it is worth it. It is the best thing we ever bought for our kids.

Forty and mom of a 13 year old. Life starts today.... Now if only the poor boy could find a Wii in the stores. He has diligently saved for it and wants to buy it today. DH says he has to save 1/2 of all he spends and he worked his bottom off all summer mowing lawns and hauling gravel for neighbors etc. He is a really good saver too. Anyway, my little boy who I started WTM on when he was 5 is 13 today. There is no way we'd do school today. We're eating junk food and watching a movie. What a day.

Homeschool moms have to be flexible.

how to run a 3 and 4 ring circus at home and juggle mom duties and still be a wife. It won't look the same with the youngest as it was when your oldest was young. Slow and steady wins the race. A little work daily for the youngest kids will take you so far. It gets better every year. I always remember the first month or so is no indicator for the year, and give yourself at least until January to begin to feel like you are integrating another child in. You'll really enjoy it some day but don't expect too much in September.

subjects on the whiteboard under their names and as I sat with them we'd erase the subject we completed. That way I didn't have to think about what I'd done or not done and I didn't have to have a legalistic sequential order either. We had fun. As they grew older I found the need to give them their own checklists by third grade. I just use and Excel sheet and put little boxes they check off under each subject. I do one sheet a week. These things weren't huge burdens on me but helped me keep my sanity. With my jr. high kids they write their own assignments out in a Franklin Covey Agenda and then they check them off. If you feel like you have to have the whole year planned out, you really don't but it is amazing how much ground you can lose if you don't have a way to make sure the little things get done daily- like spelling or history etc. Someone else taught me to always do first whatever you didn't get to the day before. That tip has always kept a single subject from getting lost in the shuffle. Another thing I rely on is having my kids go through a morning routine by a certain time each morning, an afternoon routine of house chores and a dinner time routine. My house still explodes, but routines really seem to help keep me from having to use my brain on simple daily necessities. (I have 4 kids ages 7-13 and I run a two day co-op with my husband for Classical Homeschool families.)

she is so amazing, but didn't want to be amazing just for mom. Her work is a million times more beautiful now that she gets to share it with buddies in class. I know that isn't always an option, but I never realized the difference it would make for her. It is worth every minute of planning and correcting to have her with other students for writing and history.

here is a link, but I didn't check it out fully. They did a while ago when some of the books were still out of print.http://www.thorntonburgess.org/Book%20Mail%20Order.htm

classroom experience who is used to managing larger groups? That would make a big difference to me. Are there assistants in the class? If it is a class of 20+ with a homeschool mom who doesn't have classroom management skills that sounds like a disaster. Smaller classes are always nicer, but not always economically feasible. Perhaps there is a salary issue here? We need a few more details on the structure and fees and teachers to really give you ammo for small classes.

Level 7 has a lot more to it than level 6. It would be a bit easier for the Mom to do level 6 and then 7 just to learn the whole Shurley thing, but you could do it. It takes a while to understand the whole Shurley way, but it is worth it.

and give a little on both fronts. There is a plus side to your kids being little- they don't need more than a couple hours a day of school. Perhaps you need to do school well first thing and then work on your education afterwards. I found this to be helpful myself. As to the kids getting older, I'm finding that at least through 8th grade it hasn't gotten any calmer- there are more things to run kids too and watch over etc. I'm not saying you shouldn't quit. You really need to do what you think is right. If you decide to keep on though, you need to find ways to really get quiet time alone.

and it has been great for us. We'll use the kitchen floor if we have a really messy thing to do.

we have different areas for kids to work who need silence, the days of all kids at the kitchen table are long gone here. The 8th grader needs to concentrate and the 6th grader will go off to her room to work. It is only the 2nd and 4th at a kitchen table now. That said, the best thing I've done about singing is putting my girl in choir.

when things come up like this. They get sent out to their own quiet patch in the driveway etc. and have to weed it. By the time they get back they are pretty calm and over it. Now, we have the bickering but not the yelling. The yelling thing would put me over the top. The neighbor girl screams and yells at her brother and her parents and I just cringe when I'm on the phone with her mom. I think you really need to find some way to get them out of that habit. Love and Logic for the teenager is a great book.

for a few scary days I thought I had lost all my planning for this year and all the worksheets I created etc. It was looking bleak. Then our dear friend came over and helped us out. He's a Microsoft guy and he saved the day. Now I'm backing it all up. Just a reminder these computers are not always faithful. Thank God for allowing me to get it back. Now we just have one more computer with a really bad virus to get off.

a peaceful night.

Just joking! Caught ya all! That is a taste of my silly side. Oh, no now you'll all ignore me.....:001_huh: