I love my toploader. But people visit and comment on my old machine.....Still its well over 10 years old, I think over 15 years old and it does at least a wash a day and it is still going, so I think that might say something about them! It seems to wash fine.

My dd was PASSIONATE about ballet, it was her life. She wanted to be a ballet professional. She failed. You NEED a back up plan. Do not expect your dd to agree with this idea. Willow.

I only have one dc still at home, a ds 13. In NZ we don't have High School credits, we have exams instead. At age16 you take NCEA level 1, age 17, Ncea level 2 and age 18 NECA level 3. You need 80 credits to pass a level. DS left school aged 8, unable to read or do simple maths. His teacher said "Well, what can you expect with learning difficulties like his? I don't know what you expect me to do!" This week ds has just been awarded 9 level 2 credits. He (and me as he is under age) has been attending classes at the local Polytecnic. So this boy, who was unteachable in school is now achieving at a level 4 years above his age. In the test he missed 1 question (didn't see it!) and misread one and therefore answered incorrectly. And this was his first test EVER. Can you see the proud mummy beaming over here? :D :D :D . He has now started another class and hopes to gain another 4 credits shortly. Willow.

Thanks for the tips Kanga.

No its not. We have multiple food allergies amongst the kids, and I am grain/sugar/bean/potato free. Our food bill is appalling, we simply choose to have no holidays, buy secondhand clothes, we even downsized to a 200 sq foot house with only 4 rooms to free up money to pay for food. (there are 4 of us still at home) A good vegi garden helps some.

Thankfully we have only experienced 3 anaphylatic reactions, and none were like the ones you described. We had swelling of mouth and throat, hives, and collapse. All were short lived once we started treatment, but one nearly cost her life (2 epi-pens, 4 drs trying to get a line in, her viens had collapsed, anti hystermine, hyrdocortizone (sp?) and 2 full tanks of oxygen......) Even this one was over within 2 hours, although we had to stay in hospital overnight for obs. Could he have had a tummy bug? On the other hand with anaphylaxis, if in doubt.... inject. If in doubt, go in. It is so much better to feel a bit of an idiot in the emergency room than take a risk with your childs life. Willow.

Is her IgG relating to wheat or gluten? I would suggest you actually go gluten free rather than wheat free. Gluten is in wheat, barley, rye and maybe oats. For the first week or so it is worth buying g-f stuff( there is heaps out there) later you will get the hang of it, and can start baking. I cannot make pizza bases, but I can now do everything else. It takes time to learn, get a g-f recipe book from the library. do not expect success overnight. Freeze you failures for breadcrumbs/biscuit base etc. G-f stuff is too expensive to waste. Willow, mum to 2 coeliacs and an anaphylatic.

No. I feel grades stifle a child's creativity. If a child follows the grading plan they will work hard to show you what they know. But they will not take risks, or venture a new insight on a topic. To get good marks consistently you need to study what those before you have studied and present it back in a coherent, grammatical and logical fashion.One gets credits for telling what other people have thought about a topic. They will not take risks. Risks result a whole new way of thinking about a topic, or they result in a glorious failure. Any bright child, knowing themselves to be graded will go the safe route. Even if they prove their new idea, there is no way of knowing if the reader will understand or accept it. Scientists often have a hard time getting their peers to accept new evidence if it goes against the current stream of thinking. Think for a moment about taking up a new hobby, say quilting. If you knew every step would result in a grade, you would take the work slowly and carefully, you would stay with tried and trusted patterns, use the accepted way of putting colours together. Your quilts might be technically perfect, but they would lack originality. I want my children to be leaders, innovators.They cannot do this by following carefully what has gone before, they have to learn to take risks, to accept that glorious failure, and learn from it, build on it, to take it and turn the embryo idea into a working model. The only argument for grades is that college is a closed minded place. If you NEED a college education to get where you are going (rather than desire one for the kudos) them you need to know how to regurgitate what the lecturer wants to see. This however can be taught to an average child in rather less than a year. They then have to decide if they want to do what they want to do enough to accept college with all its limitations. It is not until Phd level that colleges begin to accept original thinking. I apologize to those who know of open minded colleges. Apparently they do exist. I simply have no personal experience of them. Willow.

Yes we needed them. My dh understood fractions for the very first time (he could 'do' them, but did not understand) when he used the overlays! Ds is a wizz at fractions, I credit the overlays. We are on pre-alg now, and fractions have come up in the review. "great, fractions!" he said. (he doesn't need the overlays now of course!!!)

I am in NZ, south island. My youngest is a 13 year old boy, no use for you, but pm me if you want me to find a pen friend for you. I'll take the request along to the next HS event, and I have a few likely young ladies in mind.

Amongst the 5 of us, we have 3 coeliacs, 1 anaphylactic to nuts, 1 anapylactic to milk, other 'normal' allergies to food include: Kiwi fruit, melon, prawns, egg, another one allergic (IgE) to milk but not anaphylatic, also milder allergies to peanut (not the nut one, shes peanut free already!), peas, and other legumes. In addition 2 girls have decared themselves vegetarian.... I have never made the same meal for all of us, I don't think it is possible. I have told my children if they eat the wrong food by accident. SPIT IT OUT. I don't care where they are or who they are with, just spit it out and rinse like mad. Then inject if you are one of the anaphylactics. I send food with them to other peoples houses. I do not expect them to eat what is put in front of them. If someone says "I'm not sure if this agrees with me" they don't eat it. Period. Yes, they take advantage, but so what. There are SO MANY food rules in our house what is the point of making more?

My older ones love Morte D'Arthur, by Thomas Malory. The language is archaic, but most copies have a translation section at the back. I think its the language they enjoy, one of them loves English medieval poetry as well. I was just looking over the bookshelves to find my copy so i could copy out a bit to give you the idea of the language, but it is missing. DD18 says shes not got it, but dd20 did a book raid last week, she doesn't live at home but she still loves our home library! I would say age 15 or over unless your dc have a taste for medieval literature. This is the book most other stories are based upon. Incidentally, a bit of info. Near Ravenstonedale, near Kirkby Stephen in Cumbria, is Pendragon Castle, the now collapsed home of an obscure Westmoreland King, called Uther Pendragon. Its not on the tourist trail, and is just in a field. It doesn't cost to go see it either. The current castle is Norman of course, Uthers castle is underneath (or so the locals say!) They also say under that is a Roman fort http://www.visitcumbria.com/pen/pendragon.htm I know about it because I am from Ravenstonedale, although I now live in NZ. We used to climb all over it! Willow.

From 1066- present day. Willie, Willie, Harry, Steve, Harry, Dick, John, Harry three, Edward one, two, three, Dick two, Henry four, five, six. Then who? Edward four, five, Dick the bad. Harrys twain and Ned the lad. Mary Bessie, James ye ken, Charlie, Charlie, James again. William and Mary, Anne of Gloria, Georges (four) Will four, Victoria. Edward seven, Georgie five. Edward, George and Liz alive. Copied all this out and THEN read post above! That'll teach me! Willow.

My dd 18 chose all her courses, and ran them past me. We worked out a timetable together. ds 13 wants me to choose, but he has a year to go and may change his mind. DD chose 3 languages, Japanese, French and Italian, Video-text maths, Apologia science, ballet, music, creative writing (she was published...short story...at 14) a reading course, she chose what she wanted to read, and ended up doing mostly English classics, all Shakespeare, Dickens, Orwel, some other books as well. some vocab, and Latin/Greek roots. She also did some bits of history, and a major study on Japan, history, geog. (to go with the language course) BUT where I live we don't need to worry about credits. I might not have been so relaxed if we had to do that. She is at college now.

I'm not an American and I also do not live in the country of my birth (or even the same hemisphere!) This means I am culturally from one country, living in a second one and buying curriculum from a third. ;) In maths and things it hardly matters, we just carry on with the next lesson, the next book etc, but for some things I need to know if we are High School yet. As for graduation, I guess we'll stop when we get there...around 18 years or so.

Thank you, it helps so much when buying curriculum from the US. :D

I'm almost sure I know the answer to this, but just checking. A boy who was 13 last week, would be about to go into grade 8, and would not start High School until the next academic year? so grade 8 2009/10 High school year 1 (of 4) 2010/11 High School year 2 (of 4) 2011/12 etc. Am I correct? Thank you willow.

Praying for Stellan

Money (and supermarkets) are tricky for 6 year olds. After all, mum walks up to a machine in the wall, presses a few buttons and gets money, and then gets what she wants. Supermarkets are even more weird. Mum fills a trolley of stuff, goes to the checkout. The lady there scans the stuff, mum chats for a few moments and then you leave with all the stuff. When did money change hands? Even if you do pay cash, you got it from that machine, maybe you pay by cheque, just write a little note and off you go! Kids often really do think money, whilst not growing on trees, does arrive freely from a hole in a wall. Easy come, easy go. What on earth is all the fuss about? Jelly beans, now that is different! He KNOWS they belong to his sister! But i would not punish the whole crew. He would simply do extra chores to earn the cash (helps make that work/cash connection) go shopping with me to buy her some more.

Another thread on this point. Sorry, but I have to brag. :) Eldest dd was here the other day and needed to calculate something (percentages). She was wandering around the house moaning that there wasn't a working calculator in the place. I should point out here that eldest is in her 20's and wasn't homeschooled (didn't know about it then). She was identified as Gifted at school, and passed university entrance maths. She is, in my opinion, funtionally innumerate without her calculator. Ds (13) identified as LD at school, taken out at 8 with no reading or maths skills to mention, asks to see what she is trying to work out. Sees it is within his skills, and offers to do it for her. And does. Correctly! I know my son is 'behind' in many areas, but I bet he is 'ahead' of where he would be in school, and I bet he will catch up by the age of 18. And if he was in school, people would be saying (OK MIL would be saying) 'never mind, he tries his best' and because he is at home she says 'you need to put him in school so he catches up!' ;) Willow

I am so glad for you and Katya. How exciting! Firstly I would remember that traveling is in itself an education. Don't make school so important you loose sight of this. next i would rely on read alouds a lot. Several kids and all their associated pens, worksheets, answer sheets etc is going to take some packing and re-packing if the train comes early/the social worker wants you all in another room/insert anything here. If you just have to tuck a book into your bag then that is so much easier. I would also take the opportunity to work on mental arithmetic. Memorization (take Living Memory with you) Binders are great for days stuck at the hotel. let the big ones fly alone. There are so many people to help at airports and its hard to get lost on an airplane. Can they fly as unaccompanied minors? They get totally looked after then. I hated the first (13 and 15 years) time mine flew alone, but they were fine, and they 'grew' immeasurably. Don't worry about school, katya is so much more important than 6 weeks of schooling!

If he stops screaming when you pick him up, then pop him in a hip sling and carry him. This does seem a bit simplistic though, so maybe I'm missing something here. I carried all mine. No 1 was an appalling screamer from birth (so it wasn't behavior. ;)) She yelled and yelled, Dh was stopped by the police, as he was pushing her pram down a deserted sea front at 2am. She sometimes stopped screaming if she was on the move, so we pushed her or carried her constantly. She was still screaming at 9 months. All the time. My lowest ebb was at about 3 months when I put her safely in her pram, strapped her in, tucked her in warmly and pushed her out to the shed.:blush: I came back in and had a cup of tea. When I got her 15 mins later she was, of course, still screaming, but I had a blessed break. Friends and neighbours helped. Dh helped. Eventually the screaming died away as she weaned between 12 and 15 months. At 3 years we discovered she was anaphylatic to all nuts, which I had been eating. (She is in her 20's now, and we did not know about anaphylaxis in those days) She must have had the most appalling tummy pains. :( Having been through all that it was second nature to carry all mine as little ones. I had a hip sling and in they went. I knew where they were, they had the confort of being with me and we were all very happy. I miss those days of a baby on my hip. Those of you with littles are very blessed. Make the most of it. Willow.

I am impressed, schedules and checklists for next year! Well done! (I am also green with envy.....)

Put away shopping (more than 5 things ;)) Put away microscope, out from HS group here this am Put 2 library books in basket to return Retrieved driving glasses and car keys from bathroom floor (don't ask!) and put in basket. Evicted cat from rabbit hutch. Don't worry, rabbit is safe in her outside run.

If your kids are used to living in a house, you need to teach them....no asking 'when will we get there' there is no 'there' to get to! We just stopped when we wanted. We had a great time and all of us want to go back to that way of life, and maybe we will. Washing can be hard particularly if you don't stay on camping grounds, in NZ it is not necessary. We used to roll in to a ground every so often to wash clothes and clean the kids. Streams and the sea, and bucket washes and solar showers are great...but a real shower is a treat. On a boat there will be water issues. Books are an issue. Libraries are hard to use if you keep moving on. We used cheap book exchanges as libraries. Each kid could have 12 'keepers' and another 12 from book exchanges. This was HARD. School was much simpler in those day...the kids were much younger of course...but I could not indulge my curriculum junkie habits. We used what we had! We have no regrets about that time, except my youngest. he barely remembers it, and is jealous of his older siblings. I'd love to give him another chance on the road.