Ours is wrapped on heavy duty plastic, and some of it is untreated. But lumber is expensive. We got all of ours for free.

Thank you! It actually sounds useful now. Everyone just said "it is so fun, will be addicted!" Did not sound like something I needed! ;) Now, I may look into it.

We had a moment of silence at church, partially for the 10th anniversary, but also for the victims of an attack in Afghanistan over night. Many service men and women from our area were injured. We don't do anything special, it is a day that we get to spend as a family. I have family overseas, I remembered the attacks daily for the two 12-18 month deployments my cousin went on. We are reminded of it everyday. It is like only honoring your spouse on Valentine's Day or you mother only on Mother's Day. The events 10 years ago have forever changed the way I view the world. I cannot live in fear and I cannot live in the past or I would not live at all. I think memorials and services are fine, and they help provide closure for those veru closely effected by the loss of a loved one. The OKC memorial has helped many people deal woth what happened here. I have young children, I do not want to show them video of the twin towers, I am not ready to explain it to my children. They do not need that burden. When they are a few years older, we will do things differently, but for now, I will hold amd love my children.

I was getting ready for work. We had GMA on, they cut to video of the first tower and were talking about how it must have been a pilot error and how It had happened before....then the second plane hit. I sat on the bed and watched until I had to leave for work. We listened to the radio all day. DH came to get my car and fill the tank because people started talking about price gouging at gas stations. I taught dance in the evenings, we cancelled classes for several days, we were a few miles from an AFB and many students came from their, they were all saying goodbye to parents who left within a day or two.

At six months ds started rolling to the side of the crib and hugging the bumper over his face with hos thumb in his mouth. I would move him and he would go right back, we removed the bumper amd he could not sleep! The thumb in the mouth pushed everything away from hos nose, I checked on him constantly. At 10 months he just stopped, stopped sucking hos thumb and hugging the bumper. I did forget to tell a new babysitter about his habit one time....she is a good friend and still laughs about calling her mom and moving him every 5 minutes until he woke up :001_smile:. At that age she can definitely move if she needs air. Kids sleep in weird positions!

A dolphin gets run over by a jet ski everytime you spell weird: wierd.

I quiz my kids in front of my dad so he won't quiz them about things they don't know yet. He is not so sure about this homeschooling thing ;). It helps when my son can spout off facts about the Fertile Crescent, Egypt, and King Narmer....thank you SOTW! I plan to have him recite his CC history timeline at Christmas. He likes to show off some. But, if a stranger started quizzing my kids, I would be angry. (unless they happened to ask my 5 year old what he knows about Ancient Egypt :tongue_smilie:).

I love the dictation, too! It lets me know that he really gets the spelling, and that he is understanding sentence structure as we learn it in Grammar. I do use the extended lists in the back of Spelling Plus. We were working on the double "s" rule and I used the extended list to go over more words with that spelling.

Don't you just love the feeling of a clean house :)! I am glad you are feeling better about your situation and talked to someone who could help you out some.

Week 1 - Monday - Introduce the list for the week go over any missed words and the corresponding rules. Tuesday - Thursday - Practice the words as needed. One week we practiced 5 a day. For the next few weeks we are accelerating through the first grade lists because he knows most of them. We do a list Mon, Wed, and Fri. He only missed two words on Friday so we spent 20 minutes doing a spelling lesson, including the homophones in the lesson. (I did not buy the homophone list, I am comfortable teaching them without extra help.) Friday - Test for the week. We will get back to this when we find the place in the book we should really be. Week 2 - Monday - Friday - Dictation for the corresponding list. 2-4 sentences a day. This is very easy for us to complete in 5-10 minutes a day unless we hit a word for which he does not know the spelling rule. If we need to do an actual lesson, we spend 20 minutes that day. *DS has always been a good speller. If he struggled, we would do more practice during the week. Practicing what he already knows makes him hate school. And that is one reason we homeschool, so he won't hate school.:D I love Spelling Plus because it is SO flexible. If a child struggles, you can do the tracing, writing, and oral practice everyday as well as rule review daily, take an extra week on a lesson, do more dictation for a tough list. Or pull back and do less when they get it. ETA: Plus, it has no spelling worksheets! My son hated spelling worksheets. Phonics and math he does for hours, spelling, he just hates and so do I.

What exactly is Pinterest? I see lots of people talking about it on Facebook. I really have no desire to join another social networking system...I am just curious. No one who loves it can give a good explanation of why it is so great. Between Facebook, this site, my blog, and the studio owner forum I frequent; I just don't have time to get in to anything else...just want to know why it is so great other than..."It just is. You have to try it." My understanding is that it is a place to post pictures...that is all I have managed to get out of anyone.:confused: I don't need another place to post pictures.

We do spelling a variety of ways - on paper, with magnets on the fridge, on the dry erase board, and orally. Exposure and practice with different methods helps cement the spelling in long term memory.

:iagree: My son loved it. We did not do any of the writing and skipped all of the scripted parts (I can't stand scripted curriculum!) and just learned the sounds and words. When it got to the sentences and short stories he really got into it. I would hide the picture while he read the story, then we would study the picture. We did not read every story three times either. If he did not get it, we reread it the next day. I think we would have hated it if we would have done it their way ;); but my way, it worked. I liked the way the letters were written. It helped my son keep everything straight at first. Not impressed with this one either. We bought it late (DD is 3) and she is so far ahead of what it is saying to do, I don't know where to start. I paid for the trial version, it was just a few dollars, but I hated it!! Shurley English - again, I hate the scripted stuff. I skipped the first 4 chapters of Level 1 (4 chapters of sorting pictures at the begining of a grammar book!!! It was too much!!) We did day one....then I saw the story of the sentence kingdom and that we would read it for 3 days in a row!!! I knew it was not for me!

We used to go to the school playground in our neighborhood. We never got kicked out.

I don't know what ages they take or if they take people from another state. But there is a Christian one in Kansas, OK it is called Cookson Hills. I have some fhttp:// http://www.cooksonhills.org/riends that work there.

Even worse when they are an emergency and you are thrown into the OR. Delivery of DS was very scary! I am glad that the babies are doing well. A friend had her son at about 28 weeks. He is now a happy healthy 2 year old. When it is time to leave the hospital, have someone get you the biggest wedge pillow they can find, 2 if needed. I could not lay flat for a week. I did not realize how spoiled I was for three nights in the hospital bed. I wanted to go back the first night home! I slept in the recliner, baby in the bassinet next to me, and DH on the couch so he could bring the baby to me. The next night I had a wedge and slept in my bed. You and your precious babies will be in my prayers.

We are doing well with Singapore, but do the placement tests. We started first grade in 2a. The text book has colorful illustrations and demonstrations of concepts, the workbook is black and white, which leaves little distraction for working alone.

Daily. I teach theatre and I watch kids struggle reading new things out loud. They can read Harry Potter silently, but they can't read a 3rd grade level script out loud. We always read out loud in English, through high school. DS reads his grammar lesson out loud. He also earns extra chapters of night time reading by reading the first few paragraphs. ;)

My son does read at a 3rd-4th grade level and has been reading well for over a year, if that makes a difference to anyone. We did not do grammar before we were reading consistently.

I did not have a solid grammar education until 6th grade. I wish my teachers had done more in the early years. I do remember the few grammar lessons I did have in elementary school. Always oral, sitting around the teacher on the floor with a mini cardboard. We are starting now, In first grade and my son really likes it. It is not hard, but were are learning the terminology of English grammar. We are using R&S 2.

I am sitting in hour 5 of Willy Wonka auditions.....my brain is numb....

My almost 6 year old does competitive dance, theatre, and maybe piano and gymnastics.

Thishttp:// http://runofthemillfamily.blogspot.com/2010/04/story-of-world-lapbook-for-volume-one.html blog has an amazing lap book. We are doing this. My son loves it. I read the book, we discuss, at the end of the week we do the tests as a worksheets. We discuss the questions and look up the answers. My almost 6 year old actually gets most of the MC questions on his own. He doea need help on some of the fill in the blanks. It is good reinforcement. His recall of history is amazing! He loves SOTW!

I like Singapore. My some hates manipulatives. He is doing well with Singapore. Sometimes the pictures in Singapore are too much for him, then I just teach it on the board. I find that the text and workbook have too much repetition for us. I skip about half the problems in each lesson. I do add in some IP for a challenge. We are in level 2a. I loved that we could do placement tests to find the right level.

I love how they had to throw in the Li.e at the end about public schools playing an important part in socialization of children! :001_huh: Maybe they should do some more research. Otherwise, good article for structured homeschoolers. I don't think unschoolers would be pleased with what it says.