Are you going Vol 1? We are, and there are several threads here on reading lists for ancient history. If you do an advanced search for "ancient history" in titles on the K-8 board, you'll come up with some lists in the last 3 months that I've used. I also used the Sonlight catalog, 6th grade is World History, the first half. I believe there were also threads for specific civilizations, such as ancient Greece, Egypt, and Rome.

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I have been having a problem for a couple of months. I am waking up in the early morning hours feeling like my heart is pounding, more hard than really fast. I even got up and check my heart rate one night and is was around 90, so not above normal range (60-100 is what I read). I went to our walk-in clinic because of some ear pain and ended up letting them go ahead and do my pap smear because I was overdue. I told the doctor, he listened a while and said my heart sounded great with nothing irregular. He did blood work for cholesterol, thyroid, sugar, anemia, etc. He really didn't seemed concerned, but I realized after I left that he never told me what he thought it was. All my blood work was great, except slightly low "good" cholesterol, but total was only 147. Is this possibly a pre-menopause thing or hormonal thing? I am 41, still having a period every month, but they are starting to become irregular in number of days (some shorter, some longer), and are heavier than they used to be. I don't really have cramping, though. Sometimes I realize I'm having a little pms, but not really bad. I also sometimes have slight pressure feeling not pain, but I do have reflux and take zantac at bed. Maybe I just need something stronger for that. The pressure does improve sometimes with moving around, that's why I think it's not heart related.

Does anyone know of a blank door knob hanger template I could print free? I've had a hard time searching for one. Thanks!

Does anyone know of a website for book reviews, specifically for content? My dd loves to read and can finish books quickly. We are Christians, and want good material without questionable stuff. I would never have the time to read every book beforehand. I also can't afford to buy every book in the Christian bookstore!!! Thanks for the help!

Okay...I am a "fuddy, duddy" also. I believe modesty is important. I am amazed how quickly our society has become immodest. The magazine covers are crazy and don't get me started on the huge window photos in the malls. My 11 yo dd announced to me in the grocery store aisle that half of the magazine covers had something about sex on them. She asked me, "what are sex tricks". AAAAGGGGHHHH!!!! An 11 year old shouldn't be asking THAT!!!! We have all ready taught her about sex, but I really don't want to go into those kind of details yet. We are Christians, and I feel that knowing men are aroused by sight, that I have a responsibility to not tempt them. My dh said it was very difficult being a Christian teen boy. He said the more skin he saw the worse it was for him. We have consistently had our dd dress modestly, even when she was little. I'm not saying "I'm all that", but I do have a good amount of cleavage that would be "out there" if I didn't choose clothing accordingly. I want to dress attractively for dh, but some things should be left for the bedroom, IMHO. He's the only one I really care about being attracted to me anyway. One problem that I'm having is the amount of cleavage and short skirts at our church. There are a few women in their 30's wearing mini-skirts and showing lots of cleavage. To me, isn't that just a distraction from the purpose of being there? I could see you going out to dinner with your husband like that, but at church? I guess I am old-fashioned...and I'm all right with that. I never have been one to follow the crowd.

We are done and dh took care of it 4 years ago. I went through about 6 months a year ago wishing we had another. I still think of it often, sadly. We had some trouble getting pregnant with dd, then I had to take some stomach medicine that was a category C which put off our trying for another. When we finally got the okay, he took a while also. We felt like we wanted to be done with kids before 40, so they wouldn't be so young if something happened to us. We really didn't want 6 years apart, but I think it has had some great advantages. We are both 41. Who knows...maybe God will send someone for us to adopt?!?! It would have to be Him, because we don't have the money, so I know he'd provide it.

My nephew has worn glasses for far-sightedness since he was a little boy. He is starting to outgrow it, and he's 14. He does have epilepsy and is on a lot of medication. I don't know if that would change it or not, but the eye dr. did tell my sister that a lot of children out grow far but not near.

I have had 2 children who were doing well early, but we didn't start K early. My dh has been in private education for 16 years and public for 3. He saw a lot of parents want to skip grades, and in the end it was not usually good for the child later. I am doing some 1st grade work with ds and some 7th and beyond with dd, but they are "in" K and 6th. I had people try to influence me to skip ahead with dd (she was in private school through 2nd), but I didn't want to socially. I didn't want her to be a year younger than her peers or graduate early. Where would she placed in church classes and things like that? By homeschooling, you can enhance what would be a normal K education in so many ways that when you do officially start, your dc won't be bored. So, I guess my advice is don't start it yet, but to wait until the right age. Thankfully, true learning happens over an entire lifetime, not just the prescribed time of K-12.

I am using BJU Math, and I'm a math major. My only other experiences are with Abeka and Saxon (I taught some of each for middle and high school in co-op classes). As far as higher level, I have looked at the BJU Pre-Calculus book and liked it. I'm doing 7th grade book with dd now (she's 6th grade). We did the 6th grade book last year for my first experience with BJU. I don't think she'll be going beyond pre-calculus because she is not the math lover and probably won't be in any technical careers. We'll do Algebra 1 in 8th grade and see how she does. We'll repeat in 9th if needed, but would do a different publisher. She does well in math (scored 11th grade equivalent on her 5th ITBS) so I don't anticipate needing to do that. With my ds, I'm actually trying 2 this year. This semester I'm doing 2 lessons a day of Horizons K, then going to do 2 a day next semester of BJU 1. He is a MATH lover, and I want to see what fits him best. I will want to use the updated versions for him. I didn't like the higher level of Saxon at all (taught Algebra 2 and Advanced Math). He gave students permission to leave certain things in answers that are usually a big no-no like negative exponents. He usually presented problems in round about ways, not like other current textbooks teach. It seemed like he was trying to teach them to do higher level problems with only lower level skills which could be a good thing, but if they aren't exposed to the higher processes, how are they going to recognize them in college? When I taught the classes in the co-op, I would always first demonstrate "saxon way" of doing a problem, then I would demonstrate the way I learned it or other current publishers present it, and 9 times out of 10, they understood the latter better. Just my thoughts.

This is really for your younger kids, but Stuart Murphy has a series of books called Math Start. They are easy reader fiction picture books that actually use stories to teach math concepts. They are wonderful!!! When we lived in Knoxville, our library had the whole set (Levels 1, 2, & 3) which went into levels as high as multiplication, division, etc. I read one book with dd that was to teach odd/even concepts. She totally understood it after that. Here's a link with more about them. http://www.stuartjmurphy.com/

My dh teaches public school, so we take his breaks. He works 190 days and we have to do 180. He started July 28 and had yesterday off, and will have the week of October 6th off. Because I start when he does, I get to take all his breaks (6 full weeks), plus 10 more days. I save those for unexpected situations. Our breaks this year will be the weeks of: Oct 6 Nov 24 Dec 22 Dec 29 MLK Day Feb 16 Apr 20 We enjoy that much time off during the year!

Nothing beats warm cookies right out of the oven with a glass of cold milk! I have always loved milk. One of my favorite things is to crumble cornbread and have it in a bowl with milk. My mom would cook white rice for breakfast and put sugar and milk on it. It's yummy! I have not done this for my kids because they are not lovers of rice, but it's probably because I buy whole grain. How I miss the days of not knowing so much is bad for you!

I checked every night because it's more than just a few. I cook usually 6 nights a week. I don't cook at all on Sundays. It's my "work" day, so I need some rest from something! We are part-time staff at church as CE Pastors. I'm our Sunday School Director, then I teach the 4-6 year olds during worship. We eat cereal and stuff for breakfast, eat out lunch, and snack the rest of the day. Dh does grill sometimes, but I do the stuff inside. Dd helps with supper some as well.

It does sound like a tough situation. Is Christmas the only time you see this family? Do grandparents live there? I would think it is important for your kids to see them at least once a year. We see both families during Christmas, but dh is a public school teacher and has 2 weeks off. My parents are 4 hours away, and his are 11 hours away. We also see them quite a bit other times during the year as well, both us going and them coming. I see these kids around here who practically live with their grandparents and wish mine could see them more. My mom goes to a surgeon tomorrow about possible breast cancer. I guess I just realize we don't know how long we have with any of our family, so we should make the most of what we do have. Whatever you decide, I would consider the kids feelings and make sure you and dh are in complete agreement over it. That will matter the most in the long run.

I use the free version as well. I've not looked at the upgrade to see if it's necessary for me. As said before, you can print just that day's assignments or the whole week. I like that I assign a point value to everything, give the points earned, and it automatically figures a grade for me for the whole quarter. I like the section to record field trips and details about them. It also has a calendar for tracking attendance/school days. I do not use the time spent feature. I really don't want to have to track all of that, so I just leave it blank. One thing I don't like, or at least haven't figured out yet, is I can't make a reading log without doing a special entry for each and every book, adding it as a resource. I would prefer just a place to enter it simply. Maybe someone could help me with that one. I usually enter the whole week's assignments on Sunday night, then I try to go in and check off each assignment completed each night. If you have any other questions, please feel free to pm me. I've used it about a year now, and love it!

I am doing MOH Vol 1 this year with my 6th dd and K ds. Why not just do MOH with both? We've really enjoyed some of the activities we've done together. I chose this program for the purpose of trying to bring them together. Six years is too much of a gap for just about any other subject, but it seems to be working for history. I don't think it would be too time consuming for you. I've not experienced SOTW at all, so I'm afraid I'm not much help there. For MOH, here's our weekly schedule: Mon-PreTest (dd mainly, but give ds a chance without any pressure) Lesson 1 (I read these aloud to both at same time) Tues-Lesson 2 (choose 1 activity from L1 or L2) Wed-Lesson 3 (choose 1 activity from any of 3) Thurs-Mapwork (only having dd do, I do show the maps to him, though) Review the 3 lessons (we aren't doing a timeline or memory cards suggested, but we are keeping the continent notebook that is) Fri-Quiz (again, dd for a grade, but discuss with ds also) Sometimes we do an activity together, sometimes dd does a middle or older assignment while I do activity with ds. Dd is also doing additional reading in several fiction books and BJU 6th Ancient Civilization textbook.

Something we are doing during MOH Vol 1 is watching Joseph, King of Dreams and Prince of Egypt. I have a good friend who's doing it this year also, and we're getting together for the movies and will for other projects this year. We went to an iron works plant when we studied Tubal-Cain. I have History Pockets for Ancient Civilizations Grades 1-3 that I'm pulling from as well. You could try to build a pyramid with sugar cubes or legos, make hieroglyphics, wrap up a stuffed animal like a mummy or each other (toilet paper is cheap). We're not doing a big day on Ancient Egypt for 3 more weeks, so we'll be planning closer to time.

I think I would be interested in both projects and history. I might could have 1 day a month for each.

Thanks so much for all the advice and ideas. Today I did offer to help her if she would help me with some of mine and she agreed. It went fairly well. I helped her get it straight, not cleaned out. She picked up the living room, taking things to rooms they belonged in, gathered laundry and did a load of towels for me. If I had been here I would have asked the friends to help clean up. Saturday was a big football day, so I don't think dh had his mind on it. I don't want to give him a hard time, though. He works hard at a job he isn't exactly loving, so the least he deserves is to do something he enjoys. We do need to really clean the room out and that would help. One thing is that her room becomes the guest room for family, which are here on a somewhat regular basis because my sisters and parents are 2-4 hours away. I don't get the privilege of just "leaving" it as is. She has a queen bed, while ds has a full bed. I get a little stressed about it if it's my younger sister and nephew coming. My nephew has severe epilepsy and has some trouble getting around in tight or crowded spaces, and tends to pick things up and throw them or hide them. I have tried in the past to give her ways to "tackle" the job (i.e. clean one section at a time, clean up one kind of thing at a time like all the clothes, then shoes, then papers, etc.). She is not much of a problem solver, and I'm not sure how to help her become one. I thought it's because she's a child until ds came along and he's been more of a problem solver all along. I guess she's what they call a "global thinker". She does have some really great things to store her stuff in, but she really doesn't want to let go of things easily. I can more so than her, and don't want her force her to be like me in that area. I guess I kind of expected her to start caring more about how her room looks for friends by now. Of course, I also expected her to be more concerned than she is about hair and clothes. Believe me...I'm thankful for those being so easy right now, so maybe I shouldn't complain about the room at all! LOL!

Would anyone be willing to share what they do for art study during Ancient History? We're doing MOH Vol 1. I don't want a curriculum, just something I could do perhaps one or a few days a month. Thanks!

Does anyone else have dc like this? My dd does not get a bad attitude about chores in any other room, except hers. In fact, I think she'd be willing to do more chores elsewhere if I'd clean her room for her. I had to be out today and she had friends over to play. Her room looks like a tornado hit it. Dh didn't make the friends help, and she didn't think to ask. She really got a bad attitude about cleaning it tonight, and did almost nothing while she was in there. I am very busy this weekend because of some special responsibilities at church tomorrow and couldn't keep close check on her. I told her no friends are going to be allowed in tomorrow after church, and that she'll be in there cleaning it up. This isn't a new thing. Cleaning her room has always been her worst attitude toward chores. Any advice?

We are using Horizons K this year from Alpha Omega. My son learned all his short vowel and reading those kinds of works with A Beka K4 last year. I didn't stay with A Beka because I don't like it later. I don't think it has enough comprehension and critical thinking. Horizons covers A LOT in their K program. You could look at their scope and sequence online. It covers all the vowel sounds, a lot of consonant blends, double vowels, silent letters, blends beginning and ending, several vowel digraphs and dipthongs, etc. The program includes a lot of handwriting, even copywork. The company must not have a separate program. Handwriting is a little bit of a struggle for my ds, so I'm not having him do it all. You really need the teacher's books with it because their are some pictures I don't think I could have figured out. I believe the company has phonics through 2nd grade. The lessons are 2 or 3 pages front and back. There are 160 for the year. It moves fast, which is fine so far. I figure if it gets too fast, we'll just slow down and do it at his pace.

I love BJU English if a traditional textbook is what is needed. We did 5th last year and wish we had done it all along. We are doing 6th this year and will continue for 7th. We will probably continue it on past that. You can purchase it cheaper through Christian Liberty Press. They have permission to print a teacher's manual for just a few dollars. It's basically an answer key, with some instruction on the writing chapters. There were 16 chapters 8 grammar, 8 writing projects. They alternated so you had variety. It included writing projects like compare/contrast essay, a play, research report, poetry, business letter, etc.

My dd went to private, Christian school for K-2nd. My husband was principal. After I had my ds, I realized that they are gone so much. I knew 18 years isn't enough. My original plan was to homeschool 1 year to have more time with her before her pre-teen years. My husband lost his job during that year and ended up teaching public school. We lost the free tuition, weren't crazy about any other private schools here (that one closed), didn't want me to go to work and put ds in daycare, so we continued. We still are for other reasons, too. Eduction at schools here will not be a good one, private or public. We have no family here, and we like the flexibility of homeschooling. I would say the number one reason is for our family. I believe that God wants our children to be with us more time each day than they are with their peers. It is a joy to have them here with me.