The ONLY time I forgot to buckle DD in I was rear-ended. I have never told ANYONE this, but I'm telling you now. I was at a stop sign, and the woman behind me bumped into me. It was a very tiny bump: I was stopped and she was going very slow. I exchanged info with the woman just in case, all the while thinking "thank goodness for infant car seats!" I got back into the car and drove to my destination, and when I got there and went to get DD... she wasn't buckled in. I had forgotten to re-buckle her in when I put her back in the car after our last stop (I had the stroller base that you can put the carseat in, and sometimes when she was in the stroller I'd unbuckle her so I could fit the blanket around her better). I have NEVER been so freaked out in my life. I'm still upset thinking about it.

I think by the "NO!!!" phase :glare: "Would you like some chocolate cake!" "NO!!!" (while stuffing the cake in her mouth)

No, but we're trying starting this month :) Don't hold your breath though... last time it took 3 years!

I do, because I like to cross things off. I have a FlyLady system, with lists to do daily, weekly, and monthly. All in plastic page-protectors so I can cross them off with a dry-erase marker and then reuse them the next day. On the "daily" sheet I also write with the dry erase marker anything that needs to get done. I write it all out right before I go to bed, and add things as the day goes on. My house is NOT spotless, but I find that I feel so much more relaxed and organized when I keep this list.

I second the Trader Joe's, if there's one near you. None of their stuff has HFCS in it.

I usually read the worst reviews of an edition to see if there's a good reason not to buy the book. The best reviews won't tell you anything, but the 1-star ones will often say "great book, don't buy this edition because the footnotes are too intrusive" or something like that.

I think one of the major perks of homeschooling is moving at the child's pace. In public school, kids skip a grade because the teacher needs all the children to be at roughly the same level in order to do her job. At home, that doesn't really make sense. I would start her out in 1st grade, and just move as fast as she wants. You can skip over drills that you know she has down, but it doesn't hurt to go through the lessons to make sure that she really understands. She may end up starting 2nd grade work by Christmas, or she may not.

I used it a few years ago with a very reluctant speller that I was tutoring. He was in the 4th grade. We started at the beginning to get his self esteem up (at least, that was what I told him... but he was a really, really bad speller so I wanted to start at the beginning anyway!) I found the lists to be too long for a single week. At the beginning, I'd just pick and chose 10 from the first few lists, and we'd do them for the week. Monday he had to copy down each word 3 times, Tuesday was a word search or other game where he could see the word, Wednesday was a "quiz" and he had to copy down any words he got wrong 3 times again, Thursday was a crossword puzzle or another game where he could NOT see the word before he entered it in, and Friday was the test. As the lessons got harder and I didn't want to skip words, I would just have each lesson go for 2 weeks or however long until all the words were done. I used software from Schoolhouse Technologies to make the worksheets, but there's no reason you can't make your own using excel or graph paper or something. I don't know how other people use it, but this is how we did. This child LOVED history so we were pretending to do a historic spelling curriculum, to get him interested.

I prefer non-fiction. I feel like fiction is either really trashy, and not really worth my time, or really "deep" and therefore either not fun to wade through, or dealing with topics too depressing for me to think about at the moment. I know that there are plenty of books that don't fall into this category, and that there's nothing wrong with the occasional trashy chick lit, and that I'd be a better person if I finished Madame Bovary (which I'm halfway through, and have been for 4 months)... but at the same time it just seems easier to skip the whole thing and read a book about history.

I second this. I have to admit I was curious to see what you had done that was so awful, and I certainly couldn't see anything in your thread history that seemed offensive or like really bad advice!

It depends on the child, but I would allow it for most 13 year olds.

There are some very good podcasts out there, though they are usually for an adult audience so they might be a bit dry for younger children. If you go to the iTunes store, look at what the BBC has to offer in particular: I listen to "In Our Time" every week and I learn SO MUCH. There are also many podcasts which are updated daily, or a few times a week, for people learning foreign languages.

I think of age 5 as kindergarten, but of course it is different for every child. If you turn 5 the day before kindergarten starts it's not as though you're so much more mature and ready than if you turn 5 two days later (so are 4 when you start kindergarten). That's why states usually give some wiggle room in when you have to officially start school. But in general, so long as it's not too academic a program (I'm not big on academic kindergartens), I think 5 is a good age.

You have to hit the little "quote" button to get it. I just use it when there's something specific that I want to answer, or to make clear if I'm answering a specific person. Thank you so much for what you posted... those look look like good resources, and that's very good input. My daughter is still young, so I'm trying to plan out as much as I can now so I'm not stressed when we get there in a few years. It's so interesting to hear what other people use and do!

I normally don't like video games (except for The Sims... I like that!) but I LOVE my Wii! I got really into Paper Mario :) I also love that you can buy some of the classic games that I remember from when I was young (Super Mario Brothers 3! Yay!) and they're only a few dollars. We got ours at Costco. I can't remember how much it cost, but I think it was worth it. I'm thinking of getting one of the exercise programs, too.

To your home, and it's VERY quick: 2 or 3 days.

For future reference, Lands End and Sears have a partnership where many of their stores sell Lands End clothes, and you can order from kiosks in the store. Anything you order from the store comes with free shipping.

Thanks for your input... this is exactly what my father was talking about, actually! (his theory is that it's "The Sound of Music"'s fault for making music all about do re mi ;)). We talked again last night, and now he's really excited about it. I think my mother talked him into it, because he's taken up stamp collecting and every month buys lots of stamps and blows their budget. :glare: I don't know if anything will come of it, but I hope it does. He's really the perfect person to help me with this! I really want my daughter to have an appreciation for music, and the theory behind it, and I'm just not finding anything that I approve of. (In searching around for a good music curriculum, it seems other people have that problem too, so I'll make him sell what he writes, to support his stamp habit!) I'll take a look at that workbook, too. Thanks for the link. Thanks for your imput.

I agree that tracking down the music would be the hard part, but I'm tenacious :001_smile: I am a secular homeschooler with progressive values, so to be totally blunt BJU, which supports efforts that are diametrically opposed to my values, will not be seeing a cent of my hard-earned money. I've found a few other curricula and sources, and it seems like the ones I have fewer moral qualms about are the ones that are the most "fluffy." It seems that this is true in a lot of subjects! I really hope that the growing population of homeschoolers means that there will be a wider range of options. Until then, though, I think I'm just going to have to make up my own curriculum! (Or, at least, delegate responsibility to friends and family. My sister's a Classicist who works at an art museum and as a book critic... I'm going to have to put her to work, too ;))

Absolutely not. The push for pre-K came from studies that showed that wealthier children from homes with educated parents were more prepared for school, because they grew up in environments rich with language, art, music, and personal attention, while poorer children, who were often in substandard childcare arrangements while their parents worked, were not as prepared. So Head Start was supposed to level the playing field by giving the poorer children a more positive environment, educationally, that was supposed to mimic what the wealthy children were already getting at home. Then, of course, everything sort of ballooned as the wealthy people (who were ALREADY giving the kids what they needed) freaked out and decided that it was essential that their kids get the perfect preschool education or else they'd be doomed to educational failure. And it all went downhill from there. But a fancy preschool curriculum isn't the least bit important, so long as someone is talking to and playing with the child, doing little craft projects now and then, singing a few songs, reading books to them. And it's not even like you have to do this 24/7: they need plenty of alone time to play and exercise their imaginations, too!

Then you should do it! :) I'm hoping to start my daughter on piano when she's 4 or 5... it really depends on when we can afford to buy a piano! :001_smile: Do you have any recommendations for things that are in the "right order"? Do you mean right order for the classical trivium ideal, or for the order in which music theory should be taught?

I've never heard of a babysitter being paid any way but under the table, and I don't think I'd be comfortable handing out her SS#. But I think I'm more careful about that than most people.

What do you use to teach music appreciation/theory/history? How do you like it? What would your ideal music curricula look like? How would it fit into the WTM cycle... Medieval, EM, and Modern are easy enough, but there's not much Ancient music floating around. For all grades I guess. This is a research question, obviously... and I guess I owe you an explanation if you're going to answer my question! My father is a music lover and we were talking about different music education programs (or lack thereof)... long story very short we decided at the end that he is just going to have to write his own k-12 curriculum. I think he was joking, but I'm going to have to take him up on it! So I wanted to know what you all are doing, and if anyone would like to see another option out there for teaching about music.

No, I agree entierly! I'm happy that the age slowly seems to be rising in many places, if not directly than at least by all the special rules states are making about younger drivers. I think it's just not a good idea to arm 16 year olds with several tons of metal. And, in my town at least, the parents seem to buy the kids the biggest SUV they can find... "to keep the kids safe!" Well, what about EVERYONE ELSE on the road?

Here is a very interesting article about biofuels, and it talks a great deal about the environmental impact on Brazil. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html