whenever I can. :) Run. Watch movies that only I enjoy after everyone is in bed. Tune out the world with my iPod every now and then! Going out to dinner with a friend tomorrow night...

http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/egypt.htm http://www.teach-nology.com/themes/social/eygpt/ http://www.touregypt.net/kids/activities.htm hieroglyphs chart: http://www.learning-connections.co.uk/curric/cur_pri/egypt/handson/hands_3.html http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/ancient_egypt.htm Lots of good activities here. http://www.nga.gov/kids/kidquest.pdf Great color brochure of info on treasures of ancient Egypt. If you register (pretty sure it's free!), you can use some of these nice worksheets! http://worksheetcentral.com/printables/History/Ancient_Egypt_Worksheets/ Ancient Egypt clip art: http://www.kingtutone.com/clipart/ More clip art: http://classroomclipart.com/cgi-bin/kids/imageFolio.cgi?direct=history/Ancient_Civilizations/Ancient_Egypt

I'm curious if those who bought a subscription through the homeschool buyer's co-op get a lot of use from United Streaming or not. I have a friend who knows someone with "the codes" to gain access to US but that seems wrong to me...so I don't know if it's worth paying for. LOL! Is this something that you schedule into your day or mainly use as a supplement when you feel you need it?

I love that! :)

the candidate that I believe will be the better commander-in-chief, who isn't afraid to cross party lines to get things done and who refuses to bring activist judges onto the Supreme Court. I've been disappointed in who we have to choose from, though, so saying this person is my first choice isn't saying much. LOL

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books. ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning A house without books is like a room without windows. ~Heinrich Mann Books to the ceiling, Books to the sky, My pile of books is a mile high. How I love them! How I need them! I'll have a long beard by the time I read them. ~Arnold Lobel I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library. ~Jane Austen Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. ~G.K. Chesterton A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. ~ Chinese proverb ~ There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island. ~ Walt Disney ~ It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own. ~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ~ In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern boxes. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~ Read in order to live. ~ Gustave Flaubert ~ The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes ~ I have good reason to be content, for thank God I can read and perhaps understand Shakespeare to his depths. ~ John Keats ~ Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind. ~ James Russell Lowell ~ Outside a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read. ~Groucho Marx The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go. ~ Dr. Seuss ~ We read to know we are not alone. ~C.S. Lewis To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark. ~Victor Hugo ***Sorry this is so long...I collect quotes on books/reading!

Our oldest two are 11 months apart and they do all of their studies except math together. Our next two, ages 10 and 8, do their schoolwork together as well, but that's mainly because my 10y is average/sometimes struggles and the 8yo is slightly advanced. So it works out well that I can combine for these 2 sets of kids!! The 6yo does some science and history with the 8 and 10yo, too. :)

if you are medically depressed (chemical imbalance, SAD), then *life* is what is too hard. I know because I suffer from depression as well and, while homeschooling may seem like the cause, it is the day to day living that becomes just too difficult to manage...changing how you spend your day--working, homeschooling, only managing the home, whatever--will only be a temporary change to lift your spirits and then you will slide back down because you cannot help it. Antidepressants or whatever you find to manage your depression will not take away the challenges that are inherent in homeschooling or working or just being a mom, but it will help your approach to dealing with them. You'll have to learn some coping tools that work for you, too. Practical things that might just come naturally to those who do not suffer depression: lots of short breaks, doing more things that refresh your spirit, spending time alone--or with friends--when you need it, and for a time lowering your expectations and asking for help when you must! And you must! So, I recommend what others here have said! Attend to your mental health FIRST and then ease back into the life you want to have, a little at a time. You can do it!

Because when I get bored I can spin all of my pretty, organized office supplies and sigh with delight. Do I need another reason? :p Seriously, though, it's just a cool thing to have even though I don't think it's the most space-efficient organizer! It fits all of MY stuff just right. I don't share.

Would you share what sort of demands they made? Was this a co-op where the moms taught? I'm curious because I'd like to start a once a week co-op for middle school and high school aged kids but wonder what is too much or too little to expect. Thanks! :D

Sometimes "new" for us has to involve trying a new activity to share! Nothing major, just another way to connect without feeling like we have to BE new and exciting or come up with something meaningful to say--hey, not much is gonna change at this point. LOL It does take a little work and creativity sometimes, though. I say this as a wife whose dh has been home for the past 2 years looking for work and working from home. He's ALWAYS HERE. LOL (He recently got a PT job, though, so this is changing.) My dh is especially good at finding things to do that we both enjoy. We both like to read so we will read a book together--fun fiction stuff, not parenting or marriage books! lol He recently bought this very cool Sherlock Holmes mystery type book that has clues in it and you read/solve as you go through. Some of my favorite memories are from when we played the Myst computer games together! I'm *not* a gaming person at all, but together it was a blast! Sometimes we just have fun ripping on politicians and other people in the news! LOL (Tell me we're not the only ones who do this!) We also like Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and the Riff Trax that go along with movies on DVD--very funny stuff. We have taken our horoscopes and tried to make them "come true" for that day. I dunno, stupid stuff like that. :p We write each other notes. ;) I sometimes feel that we don't have much more to say that's new or mind-blowing, but now that we've been married 15 years it's the shared experiences that keep things new and interesting! And we still learn a little bit more about one another that way. Besides, there is something very comforting, romantic and even exciting about knowing each other so well that we can predict what the other will say or do or how they will "play." LOL I'm not really the romantic, gushy type, but the steady sharing of our lives and finding new ways to laugh together really gets me going. hehe

Painless Grammar. We love all the "Painless" titles from Barron's. :)

is more important to me than having time segments blocked out too rigidly. But when I decide in the middle of the afternoon to run out to the store or run another errand when I *should* have done it first thing in the a.m. (I know a.m. is better from experience) then I really pay for it later and we all seem to get off track. Anyhow, on a very good day, things go like this: I get up around 7:30. (This is adjusted, obviously, if I've been up reading late, which I do quite often, and wake up closer to 9. LOL) The 2 oldest are up already and working on the 1 or 2 chores they usually do. I will often start a load of laundry or get something prepped for lunch and/or dinner so I'm not rushing to do it later. I bring up our Pageflakes page on the kids' computers so that their schedules are right there. The oldest ones begin sometime between 8:30 and 9 after having breakfast. The younger ones are usually up or getting up by now. If I need to run to the store for anything, NOW, before 9, is the time to do it! Older ones are almost 14 and 13 so they can watch the kids for an hour or so. I've had the news on and my Dr. Pepper to get me up and running so by 10 the 3 younger kiddos are ready to start school. We continue on until 12 or 12:30 and break for lunch. Little guy goes down for a nap right after lunch which is perfect! We do our Math, Geography, and English/vocabulary in the morning...more if we can fit it in. After lunch, maybe 1 p.m. or so, we do science, history, writing assignments and the other stuff. School is over around 3:30. Everyone gets a much needed break for an hour! Starting at 4:30 to 5 we do a quick clean up and maybe some assigned chores like feeding pets, etc. if needed. Dh is home by 5:30 and I start dinner. I'm trying to fit in exercise at the Y again but it's really hard! We have activities on Sun., Mon., Tues. nights and Saturday mornings right now and as summer approaches, more sports.

Hear, hear!!! I'd love to do a paper on him. lol

to *continuously* give our kids more independence from the age of about 2 or 3 until they graduate. Obviously that looks different at every age and for each child. I have to be very purposeful about it because I tend to be a very protective mom and also one who would sometimes rather just do it myself! lol At the pre-teen level it's very difficult because a LOT of their friends are allowed to have MySpace accounts even though they aren't supposed to until age 14 and many are left alone for good portions of the day, so the "rules" are just automatically different for them. Independence and responsibility at our house includes things like being responsible for their own time management in many more areas like school work and even the time allowed for video/computer games. They are being trained to be trustworthy with the privileges that I've overseen until now. Also, one thing that has been very helpful for my ds is allowing him to start projects of his own with little or no supervision, including building things, changing his room around, starting a little side "business", choosing and buying his own wardrobe (with our money! LOL) and other things like that which help him to feel independent as a person but which don't run into the "Well, my friends get to do this and this..." scenario. So even though our preteens aren't roaming around the neighborhood a whole lot more (although they get to ride in the street and cross it without asking now) or being dropped off at the mall, they are allowed to DO a lot of things that require them to BE more independent in order to succeed. Does that make sense? We teach our kids much more in the way of internet safety and computer skills, html, etc. and yet don't give them a ton more freedom to do those things on their own quite yet. That comes in the teen years. We give them more of their own time to manage and things like that. :)

Trillium, I love your name! When I was growing up, our neighborhood was mostly woods before all of the building was completed and we spent our springs and summers picking Trillium and Mayapple and Jack-in-the-Pulpits. Such good memories! Sorry to get off the topic here, everyone. LOL

Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie, Streetcar Named Desire and others. Arthur Miller Death of a Salesman, The Crucible... Ray Bradbury and also Flannery O'Connor

like the Nancy Drew mystery games on CD-rom? My almost 13yo dd just loves these. They are fun, not too difficult and have lots of interesting puzzles. She could just pick up where she left off if she doesn't have the time/desire to continually keep up with the Sims type games. :)

Why so abrasive and, quite honestly, contradicting? This emotional posting leads to a major lack of clarity. You're *telling someone* that their opinion on the situation isn't true, "don't do this" because it's inaccurate and then you confirm that yes, you are dripping with anger. OK. No one HERE is kicking you repeatedly, are they? Bummer. I really want to hear why those who no longer embrace Christianity (or any religion) have chosen not to, but all the angry flustering and back and forth leaves those of us who do care wondering whether you've really even thought it through intellectually or if you are only reacting. What in your life is going to give you peace about being offended or hurt, if your faith can't? I think that the idea of intolerance comes in when someone has reached the point that they feel people "make" them choose how to live out their faith--or NOT live out faith at all--when it's not a power someone can truly have over them. Creating victimizers where there are none, through unfair generalizations, is pretty intolerant, isn't it?

Correction can be a very positive parenting tool. :) For younger ones, maybe 4 and under, a productive way to correct is through consistent "do overs." At our house, it's the infamous "Rewind!" when someone has made a poor choice in how to act or react. So I model or explain the right thing to do and they get to try it again. And again and again, if necessary, to understand and obey. Sometimes, even mom and dad have to do a rewind. LOL That's a good example, too. And, in our Christian home, it is an example of grace. All correction is not always pleasant and some of it may cause tears, but that doesn't make it harmful or a negative approach for your dear little ones. It saves so much heartache and frustration later!

Every day our kids take turns shooting a nerf dart gun at our laminated world map on the wall. We read the information from our DK geography book for whichever country the dart lands on and then they fill out a sheet I found online. They draw and color in the country's map, sometimes draw and color pictures of the major exports/natural resources. Capital, population, type of government, interesting facts and other stuff go on the sheet and then they put it in their binder. We discuss landforms and map skills as we go. Works for the 6yo up to the 13yo and they all have fun doing it. Quick and easy!

I felt that Never Let Me Go dealt with sex in a very cold manner--appropriate for the subject matter because of what the young people were living for, but still not a Christian viewpoint at all in that respect.

The only science that I can think of similar to CGC might be Great Science Adventures by Dinah Zike. Each volume covers a different topic and there are bunches of "mini-books" that you copy, cut and put together. I think it would be best to get the binding cut off of these books so that you can easily make the copies. The titles are: Discovering Earth's Landforms and Features Discovering the Human Body and Senses Discovering the Ocean World of Insects and Arachnids World of Light and Sound World of Plants World of Space World of Tools and Technology We are getting ready to use CGC and I'm really excited. GSA was a little much for me when I tried to use it a few years ago; if you can get a copy to look through first you'll get a good idea if it's the right fit. :)

the iPoint pencil sharpener and it has worked well for us. The hole is in the top. :) I got it at OfficeMax. We also like our regular Panasonic electric sharpener which has the hole in the front. My kids like the iPoint better, though.

We have always found out. I like it that way because we put a lot of thought into our children's names, pray over them, etc. and knowing if our baby is a boy or girl helps us feel like we "know" him or her already...and birth is when we finally get to meet! Plus, it's been very helpful for those of us who like to plan. LOL ;)