I'm curious how parents combine classical education with meeting high school credit requirements, especially history and social studies. We are in GA, and at my husband's high school the students do 1/2 semester of Geography, 1/2 semester of Government, 1 full year of World History, US History, and Economics. I've just started learning about classical education and my dd will be in 7th next year. We did MOH (Ancient History) this year, but I was considering going to BJU World and American History for 7th and 8th to cover the rest of history before she hits high school. If I do that, I will use BJU as our foundation, but develop it beyond just the curriculum with things like lots of good historical fiction, etc. Thanks for any thoughts!

I use a 12 month accordian expandable file. I covered the names of the months with food categories. I do have a separate 2 pocket folder for small cards and things that will get lost at the bottom. My plan is to copy those on to a full sheet of paper to store away, but that's one of those "projects" I don't seem to get around to doing. I found some of these folders on clearance for $2 each, and I LOVE them. I use one for our bills and receipts. I just throw them in and don't have to organize them. I use another for items I don't want to forget come a certain time of year. I had some Thanksgiving and Christmas stickers and stuff I would always forget to use. I throw them in the monthly folder and check it each month. If somethings to big to fit, I just put a note in there as to where it is. They've brought a little sanity to a somewhat crazy life!!!

Our homeschool group is having a game day at a gym on Monday. Could anyone help me remember fun games we did in PE back in the "good old days"? I thinking of things like Red Rover that won't require much equipment. I know there are some basketballs there, but I don't know what else. This will be mostly elementary kids with some siblings older and younger. Thanks so much!

I went to the doctor last week. He drew blood and did testing on my hormones, thyroid, etc. That has all come back great. He did an EKG in the office that was just fine. He sent me to a cardiologist who did an echo-cardiagram and that was "beautiful" according to the doctor. He put a 24 hour monitor on me and I did have palpitations this morning about 7:00 while I was still in the bed so I wrote down the time. I hope this is just stress or something that I can learn to deal with. I'm glad that nothing has shown up so far, but I do want to know. I need to lose about 20-25 pounds at least, exercise more, and eat better. I'm going to try and focus on those and see if I can have any improvement. My blood pressure has been slightly higher when I've been in the offices (yesterday is was 132 over 84), but I don't think those are numbers to get super alarmed over. Maybe I'm worried that something is wrong and that's causing more symptoms. Thanks for the advice and encouraging me to go on and see about it.:)

Thanks for all your help! Here's the final results. Ear lobes free (dominant) 36 Ear lobes fused (recessive) 17 Dimples (dominant) 21 No dimples (recessive) 35 Crease in chin (dominant) 4 No crease in chin (recessive) 49 Ability to fold tip of tongue back (dominant) 36 Lack of ability to fold tip (recessive) 19 Ability to roll tongue into a roll (dominant) 39 Lack of ability to roll tongue (recessive) 16 Her conclusion is that just because science tells us certain genes are dominant, that doesn't mean they will always be dominant. Real life doesn't always go as science predicts. :001_smile:

I will be praying.

My dd needs to survey people who are not related to each other. She is studying molecular genetics. Would you be willing to answer these questions? Thanks so much! 1. Are your ear lobes free or fused?:bigear: 2. Do you have dimples or not? 3. Do you have a crease in your chin or not? 4. Can you fold the tip of your tongue backward?:tongue_smilie: 5. Can you roll your tongue from the sides into a roll?

My dc have assigned reading and reading they choose on their own. I use reading comprehension curriculum. I like that it covers a wide variety of genres in short manageable lengths. I also like that it teaches facets of literature that I might not think of without help (i.e. personification, mood, foreshadowing, etc.). I use BJU for 2nd and up. I'm not using them in the lower grades because my ds was all ready reading and I felt that he needed something more challenging for K and 1st. I also assign novel reading for my 6th grade dd. She just finished "A Wrinkle In Time" last week and will be reading "Elijah of Buxton" later this week. She has read several historical fiction books for the time periods in ancient history we are studying. For those books, I've had her do some assignments, but not for all. She's done book reports (I have a book with 100 ideas). I've also found discussion and study guides online for some of the books as well. We always get "on their own" reading at the library. My dd is an avid reader and would do it all day long, so enough reading is never a question. I don't ever make her do any assignment with the things she chooses to read on her own.

My dc have assigned reading and reading they choose on their own. I use reading comprehension curriculum. I like that it covers a wide variety of genres in short manageable lengths. I also like that it teaches facets of literature that I might not think of without help (i.e. personification, mood, foreshadowing, etc.). I use BJU for 2nd and up. I'm not using them in the lower grades because my ds was all ready reading and I felt that he needed something more challenging for K and 1st. I also assign novel reading for my 6th grade dd. She just finished "A Wrinkle In Time" last week and will be reading "Elijah of Buxton" later this week. She has read several historical fiction books for the time periods in ancient history we are studying. For those books, I've had her do some assignments, but not for all. She's done book reports (I have a book with 100 ideas). I've also found discussion and study guides online for some of the books as well. We always get "on their own" reading at the library. My dd is an avid reader and would do it all day long, so enough reading is never a question. I don't ever make her do any assignment with the things she chooses to read on her own.

Well, it's our 100th day. I ended up having a doctor appointment this afternoon, so we're not able to do as much as I wanted. It's also the coldest day we've had, so we didn't do outdoor things. 100 Number Board Game--printed off 100 boards, we rolled dice and colored in that number of squares to see who would get to 100 first 100 pieces of candy--we counted 100 junior mints and ate SOME, but not all. 100 Bounces--My ds just started a Christian basketball program, so we all took turns seeing if we could bounce 100 times without stopping, then with switching hands, etc. 100 Things About Star Wars--we are big Star Wars fans, so we make a list of 100 people, places, and things about Star Wars 100 Countries--the kids got a new globe for Christmas from Leap Frog called the Odyssey III. We found and listed 100 countries and played music from each Books read: One Hundred Hungry Ants (Elinor J. Pinczes) Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the 100th Day of Kindergarten (Joseph Slate) 100th Day Worries (Margery Cuyler) The Wolf's Chicken Stew (Keiko Kasza) Snack-100 Calorie Little Debbies Thanks for the inspiration. I wanted to do more, but I have to go to this appointment.

We have a playstation. My dd has a Nintendo and ds has a Leapster 2. They can't play any of them until school work and chores are done (with a good attitude also). I don't watch a clock, just keep track in my mind what they've done and when I know it's been long enough. The kids got an eye toy for the playstation this Christmas. It puts video of them on the TV screen and they move to play the games. Because this is really physical activity, they can play that a long time. For example, they box a cartoon boxer. My dd got Brain Age 2 for her ds, but has some other less learning games. Right now, it's her favorite. She does all kinds of mental puzzles, so I feel that it's really good for her. The Leapster 2 is also learning games (math, puzzles, spelling, etc.). She's an avid reader and has neighborhood kids that come play a lot in the afternoons, so she is well-rounded. My ds is the one we have to watch the most, but if that was all he would do, we'd probably cut it out until he found some other interests that he would do before playing video games during the day.

My dd just recently started Jump In, and she is loving it. Writing is something that she does fine in, but she really struggled when she had to pick the topic, and I felt that is was never as good as it could be. She did the assignments, but at the bare minimum. We aren't very far in, so we'll see, but so far, so good! I really appreciate the teacher's manual because it is really going to help me with the grading. There is much writing that goes ungraded, which I think takes the pressure off. The writing we were doing in BJU always culminated in a big grade.

I second the A Beka approach. I used their K4 phonics with my ds last year and he was reading by mid year. Here's a link to a book from them that my son really liked. https://www.abeka.com/ABekaOnline/BookDescription.aspx?sbn=40495&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 This is a smaller version of their blend ladder charts for classrooms. The program teaches all the short vowels first, then starts introducing the consonants. As soon as they learn one consonant, they begin blending them such as la, le, li, lo, lu. They go through all the consonants, blending them that way. The ladders on the pages also mix up the order of the vowels. Then they start introducing the ending sounds. I used the 2, 3, and 4 year old program of A Beka with my dd before she started private school in Kindergarten. She was the only one out of about 60 children that could all ready read. I don't use it for anything else, but their early reading is very good IMHO. Have you thought about trying to spell words out by the sounds? Why not use cards with letters on them to try and have him figure out how to spell words like cat and dog? The Horizons program I'm using this year has quite a bit of having the child spell words or finish spelling words. This program moves FAST, but because of the solid teaching he had last year, he's doing fine.

Switched on Schoolhouse is a computer program. There is a teacher management part for grading discussion questions and written reports, but the rest is self-taught. You'll have to help get supplies together for the experiments. There is text to read, but also audio and text clips with teaching as well. The student quizzes and tests on the computer.

After my ds had all ready been counting for quite a while, I wanted to teach him place value and used a place value chart like this one. If you did this from the beginning, your child would all ready understand place value while learning to count those numbers. http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Resources-LER2416-Counting-pocket/dp/B000FA3Y9E We would put straws in the right pocket and count then put the number up above. When we got to 10, well, both numbers don't fit in the pocket. I put a rubber band around them, moved them to the 10's place and said groups of ten must live in the ten's pocket. There were 0 straws in the one's pocket so it made put the 1 and 0 make sense. He got it right away and moved on to understanding hundred's place value that day.

My dh used T-Mobile as well. I bought it for him for Christmas a year ago. I purchased it online. I got a flip phone, including $25 minutes and free overnight shipping, for $40. When those minutes were used up (last spring??), we bought the $100 card for 1000 minutes and that is good for 1 year. He's still using those.

Thanks for asking this! I would have been in a month.

As you can see from my sig line, history is the only thing we do together. I have tried to make his science units somewhat match hers, but I can't for the whole year. She is very independent in her work so that has helped me tremendously. I start off the day with her while I let him play. She goes to do independent stuff while I do his school work with him. I read history to them while they eat lunch and do activities after. He's done then, so I finish up with her after that.

I look at other used sources (ebay, homeschool classifieds, here, etc.) and figure an average. I try to not overprice it. Most of the time, I'd rather sell it than make a large part of my money back. I am a used shopper and want to find good deals, so I want to show others that courtesy. If you want to make more, I think prices are higher in late Spring and Summer. People are doing more shopping then. For example, last fall I bought Bob Jones 2nd Grade Reading program (except the consumable workbook) for $24 including shipping. The program goes for about $150. I would have never paid that little a different time of year. I didn't even need to books yet, but I couldn't pass up that deal since I knew I would use it eventually.

There are things I have liked about MOH, and things that I haven't. My problem with beefing it up is that I have a K ds that listened in and participated some this year. I'm not sure what to do with him. I'd like to expose him to the highlights of what she'll be doing the next 2 years, and include some regular social studies. When she starts 9th, he'll be starting 3rd. The age difference is why I chose MOH since it had activities for both, but my dd has been pretty bored with the older student suggestions. I've got a little time to think and pray about it, anyway!

I got this free for signing up with Knowledge Quest. It was free. I don't know if they still have it for free, but here's a link. http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/globalmania.htm I hope you can get it!

I'm not positive, but here's the plan right now. I'm not sure what to do about history. We did MOH this year which only goes to about 70 AD. I'm thinking about having my dh (History teacher in public school) cover some this summer after that, then pick up BJU World History in 7th, American in 8th so we can cover all of history before high school. MOH only has 3 volumes out, so I don't think I'll continue since it's going to be 5. Bible: Positive Action for Christ (specific study not picked out yet) History: BJU World Studies??, with lots of recommended reading from several sources Geography: Globalmania Vocabulary: Roots and Fruits(study of Greek and Latin roots, prefixes, etc.) Writing: Jump In (just began and it's a 2 year program) Grammar: Not sure yet, but maybe BJU Math: BJU Pre-Algebra (8th grade level, she's doing 7th now) Science: Apologia General Science, but open to change Literature: Not sure yet, but will read several good books next year in addition to historical reading

When I know I need quick or easy, I rely on canned items or prepackaged items. I used to feel guilty, but I realize I am a working mom, too, and it's got to be better for you than eating out every night. Here's some of our favorites. Cheese quesadillas with pico de gallo, quacamole, etc. Fiesta Soup: mix salsa (we use Pace Picante), black beans, corn, cilantro, and ground cumin to taste Chicken Tacos:buy a rotisserie chicken, take off meat, add taco seasoning, black beans, corn, then serve as usual for tacos Chicken Pot Pie: refrigerated pie crust, canned chicken breast, cream of chicken soup, frozen mixed veggies Bistro Chicken Pizza: Store bought pizza crust,olive oil brushed on crust, pizza sauce, grilled chicken breast cut in bite size pieces, roma tomatoes thinly sliced, mozzarella cheese, feta cheese with tomato and basil flavor, chopped basil on top

My cholesterol was 147 in August, which he said was good. I don't eat a lot of meat high in cholesterol, but I do like cheese. I LOVE peanut butter and nuts (especially walnuts and pecans), so that is a lot of fat, but I thought those were better for you fats. I just researched a little about reflux and heart rate since someone said that it can make you more aware it. I found several places saying the vegus nerve controls heart rate and is connected to digestion and that it can be irritated by reflux. I've only been taking zantac, as needed, and honestly I should probably take it more than I do. My family doctor had mentioned trying OTC Prilosec if it got worse, so I think I'm going to try that for a week or two and see if it improves. If not, I'll go to the doctor. I really want to improve my physical activity as well. I'm not sure how easy that's going to be going to work doing taxes, but I'll only get lots of hours through mid to late February and less afterwards.

I am a little stressed about it, so maybe I am making it worse. My mother was in her early 40's when she started having heart rhythm problems. She has high blood pressure and was about 100+ pounds overweight at the time. She still takes medication for her heart rhythm, too. I had read that heart palpitations/racing can be a common complaint of perimenopause. I didn't have my pap at a gynecologist's office (just at a family practice) last year, so they couldn't test any hormones. Thanks for all the responses so far. It's nice to know I have somewhere to come and ask for the advice of others.