We are smack in the middle of this. My younger (by only 21 months) ds is a big guy and will obviously end up well over 6 foot like my dad and brother. Older ds is shaped like his dad and probably won't quite reach 6 foot. They are competitive in EVERYTHING and oldest is not the most confident kid on the block, so this causes some problems. I have noticed lately that when someone comments on the closeness in height, youngest is bound to get whaled on in the next hour or so. Oldest is almost 13 and the whole family is waiting with bated breath for a growth spurt. If he could just be the obvious tallest for a while, I think things would ease up a bit! Growing up I had the same situation with my sister - she was taller and bigger than me from about 10 and 12 yo and up. Of course, being girls, it didn't bother me, but it was not fun for her. No girl wants to be big!

I'm in - I did Day 4 for the second time today. I started a month ago and got 8 days in but then I came down with a nasty sinus infection and all that bouncing around was out. So I'm starting from scratch again. The good news is that while I hurt this time, it's not as bad. Last month, by day 4, I cried when forced to sit or rise from the toilet. This time I'm just a little stiff. I need to lose some weight but more importantly I want to be strong and in shape to weather all the stress from our move to TX. :D

This is just too good to be true!!!! My kids are all huge Horrible Histories fans and for the last few weeks as we've been studying Rome, the boys have done nothing but play and read and talk about gladiators. Oh, I hope this is released quickly in the US. Oh please!!

I wish we could just ignore the whole thing altogether. Even though I do pretty well the rest of the year, Mother's Day brings home for me that I'm missing some of my children and that my best friend's children are missing their mother. Unfortunately, my mom and MIL don't understand this so I drag myself around to buy them a gift. On the day itself, I just smile and appreciate whatever the kids do and tolerate all the nonsense at church. Blech - this is absolutely my least favorite "holiday".

We did a huge, out of control, unit on the Civil War last summer. I second Rifles for Watie - great book! I would be cautious about Andersonville. I re-read it last summer and found I forgot how much s8x there was in it. I guess I didn't notice so much till I was evaluating it as a parent! I probably won't be comfortable with my dc reading this till late high school.

Bubblewrap was a big hit here.

I am a mommy that likes to teach science! But I don't have time with 4 dc from 7th grade to K. Oldest is using Rainbow Science COMPLETELY independently this year. I think the science explanations are complete and understandable and the style of the writing is amusing and engaging. It is great for my just-get-it-done-and-over-so-real-life-can-commence 7th grader. I particularly like that everything is included to do all of the experiments. Formal science is much more likely to get done if all of the supplies are sitting on the shelf rather than running around trying to find a medium marble, a funnel, and a 3inch square of tissue paper. (or whatever odd combo it is this week!) Both ds and I would recommend it fully, and we don't agree on much right now.

I learned to knit socks with 2 circulars. That's my vote, because I can try them on at any time. (I'm gauge impaired) :tongue_smilie:

Well, if it does stunt your growth - THANK GOODNESS! We kids all drank plenty of coffee growing up and heard all the "stunt your growth" comments. I am the shortest kid in my family at 5'10". My sister is an even 6 foot and my baby brother is pushing 6'5". Imagine what freaks we would be if we hadn't consumed all that nasty coffee! :lol:

I'm with the others on this one - detest those monkey tails. The boys learned it in school and it just makes their printing even messier. I've spent the last 2 years trying to get rid of the nasty little things!

I like Rainbow science, very complete science with good, concise explanations. I also like that everything for the labs is in the box - then they get done! But most important of all, ds likes Rainbow Science. Since this kid tries very hard not to like anything related to school, that's huge!

The way I use it for my 5th grader, TOG is nearly open and go - once I've spent about 2 or 3 hours per unit (give or take, I'm doing prep for all 3) printing out notebooks and ordering books. We're blessed to be able to buy all the books, so they're just sitting there on the shelf waiting for me. I put a weekly schedule, the UG student activity pages, and any blank maps he might need for each week in the Unit notebook at the beginning of each unit. Then at the beginning of each week I spend probably 15 minutes with each UG kid going over what did and (did not) get accomplished from the last week and entering this week's assignments into the schedule. During the week, both UG's are pretty much on their own to do their TOG work, other than projects, which I only manage to get to every few weeks. :tongue_smilie: Not sure where I read this, but I'm pretty sure that the UG level is meant to be pretty self-sufficient so that mom can spend her time with the little non-readers and discussing things with the older kids. That's pretty much how it works in this house!

:iagree:

We use this on 3 different levels and I love it.

We are really loving this book and this book from the Sonlight P3/4 program. The first has classic versions of the some of the Disney princess stories. My girls were shocked to find that the stories were around far before Disney made movies from them. We've since had fun tracking down other versions of those stories. The second one is the classic Hans Christian Anderson stories but with fabulous illustrations. My absolute favorite is The Emperor's New Clothes. I never would have dreamed that the high point of that story could be illustrated in a children's book, but they did it and it's so funny that my 4yo dd was carrying the book around for weeks showing every one she knows! Makes me smile every time we read it! :lol: Don't worry, there's no anatomy lesson involved.

I haven't used R&S math, but both boys have used (or are using) TT7. It was a hit with one, a miss with the other. Older ds liked it but just wasn't getting it. I think the problem was that he needs to read the explanation, not hear it, and he never bothered to use the book. Younger ds is thriving on the same program - everything being explained out loud really works for him and his brain. I LOVE this program - all the explaining and grading and everything is part of the program. I just do a little hand holding over the rough parts and keep an eye on the grades to make sure he's keeping up.

We read Whatever Happened to Penny Candy last year as part of Sonlight's Core 5. I thought it was a fantastic book that explained economics in a way that I could understand. I think the kids even grasped some of it. ;) Ever since, I've been nagging dh to read it and since the upset in the economy I've been recommending it to everyone I talk to. I hadn't realized that there were other books in the series - I'm off to check them out!

Please solve this family conflict for us! We are at the end of unit 1, year 1 of TOG which means we're done with ancient Egypt and still wandering in the desert with the Israelites. I have 2 read alouds saved and only time to read 1. Older ds and I will definitely read the other on our own time. It's time to start a new book (we just finished The Hobbit), I can't decide which one to choose and the kids are evenly split. So, you choose. Kids are 12, 10, 8, and 4 and very good listeners. This is our first year with TOG coming from Sonlight where we really liked the read aloud selections. Thanks for your help and may the best book win!

If you're failing, then I am too! My 7th grader is also doing all the readings but we have yet to have any sit down discussions. We have been listening to the Pop Quizzes in the car and talking some here and there. I hope that now that football season is done (last practice tonight and last game tomorrow) that we will be able to get to the discussions. I know that he's getting more than he would in ps, so I just do as much as I can and try to keep improving. My 5th grade ds and 3rd grade dd should be getting more hands on also, but we're still working on that! :tongue_smilie:

I'm using 2 different levels (sometimes 3 depending on the day!) but even if I wasn't, I would still want all the levels. I really like being able to switch up and down in levels depending on the child, subject, topic and even time of year. The flexibility of having 4 levels all in the same book was the biggest draw to make me switch from Sonlight to TOG.

We did too, which is funny since we're Yankees from New York and all. We started our study with some pretty strong black/white opinions. But the more we study, the more we realize that there wasn't one clear "right" side. That's pretty much all you hear up here - slavery was wrong, the north was fighting against slavery, the south was fighting to keep slavery, therefore the right side won. We were all pretty astonished to find it wasn't quite that simple!

My Civil War buff boys were stopped in their tracks by this question - too much good stuff to choose from! After thorough discussion, we recommend Rifles for Watie. Close runners-up were Across Five Aprils (shorter and my favorite) and With Lee in Virginia (definite southern slant). If you need any more recommendations, let me know!

:iagree:They're both hits for us too! My 7th grade ds wanted to know if it was okay if he went ahead and did another weeks worth of Rainbow science (sure, if the rest of your work is caught up :glare:) He is normally not one to add anything extra schoolwise. I love the humor and concise explanations in Rainbow Science. Since we're just starting TOG and we're trying to get used to the workload of reading - he just doesn't have a lot of time for long winded science readings. I'm a sciencey kind of person but some other texts really turn us off by using a chapter to explain a pages worth of concept. Plus, it's totally independent - here's the book, here's the box, go to it! Gotta love that!

Oh! but Jo and Laurie don't belong together! Please, please, please keep reading. That is my all time favorite book and everything works out just the way it should. On the other hand, I'm not sure that your boys would really appreciate the second part, since it is much more romance based than the first. But definitely read it for yourself! :D

I have ordered the Noble Knights stuff, but it seems to be a pretty small company and kind of slow, so I haven't gotten all my stuff yet. I'll post back here when I get a chance to look it over. I thought that my fantasy-loving, constantly-dressing-up younger 3 would really like the approach to basic math. We'll see!