I think curriculum available to homeschoolers is far better than what is in the public schools. My own public school teacher sister actually bought things from the homeschool store for this fall because everything they give her at the school is so bad. We are not in a poor district at all and our district spends over 10K per child. I spend way way less, maybe $100 per child, and have far better things.

BTW..the part I would be spanking for is the "mom can't make me" part and mom can't do anything about it.

I do want to add that none of my children have a 9pm bedtime. It is just turning dark then. Perhaps you could offer up..he can have a later bedtime, maybe 9:30, but only if he goes to bed willingly and properly. If he does not, he will return to 9pm the next night. The best part of this is that the brother will not have to go to bed until 9:30 but the boy, if he cannot be quiet, will have to go to bed at 9pm so hopefully, he will be asleep by the time the brother needs to go.

Sorry..but I would have spanked him by now..and I rarely spank. Also..the brother should be told to remain totally quiet and ignore the brother. The boy will stop bothering eventually if he never gets any reaction.

I am guessing he is a Christian counselor/doctor or just plain sexist. Regardless, I never allow what someone else says to overrule what is common sense to me. If your child were in public school, your child would be gone all day with likely, female teachers. This doctor is going off the idea that women are and need to be weaker than men. If you have been having behavioral problems with your son, then your DH likely needs to take a stronger role, but you should not back off as his parent just because you are a woman. A child needs both parents to be strong and capable parents. The child also needs to respect both parents. It should never ever become a "wait until your father gets home" kind of discipline.

I would be mad. That is usually a part of an OT eval I thought. I did not even ask for any sort of sensory eval and they just did it with my sons.

With the older children I used Singapore Math. With my 6, almost 7 yr old (will be 2nd grade this fall) I am using BJU. The other curriculum I really liked was MUS.

Thanks everyone!! I feel much better! I will do swimming with them in the fall.

I also seem to recall less radical surgeries available that involve lasers or something. You really need to get in with a new doctor who will listen to you and maybe has experience with these things.

I would say to definitely get in with a different doctor. If you are 41 and know the consequences and still want a hyterectomy..then by all means, you should have one. Maybe you can get the partial one where your ovaries are left there to decrease the hormonal issues that come with this.

I already enrolled DD in Shakespeare as she was interested in that. She is 12. I also have 6 and 4 yr old sons. I cannot afford for each child to take tons of classes. My 12 yr old did not take a bunch of classes when she was this age. So..at the homeschool store, they offer classes and one is Apologia General Science. DD says she is not interested at all. But she still have to do the curriculum, it is just from home, I will have to try to do all the activities and such with her. Not the end of the world or anything. For the younger children, there is an art class that is for ages 3-7 so both children can be in it together. There is also...for just my 6 yr old, a "World-History-O-Fun" class where they do things like mummify a stuffed animal and volcanos and such. It is for grades 1-3. There is also an Apologia Astronomy class, that is for grades 1-6. DDs Shakesspeare class is only 1 semester. Maybe I could afford 1 class per child. What would you pick?

The Bitty Baby one is more sturdy and fits the dolls perfectly. But if money is tight, I would likely just get one from Target, but my sister says the Bitty Baby one is very very sturdy and really holds up.

That is wonderful!!!

Most of what you said would not bother me..until she worded it in such a way as if you are a mean mom for wanting to pick your own daughter up!! That would floor me!! I would pick her up, make excuse of something she has to get to right away, thank them for her visit and then leave. Don't send her back..be forever busy.

I would depend on your relo package. If they pay for a move within a year or more, you have time. Do they pay for temporary housing? Then to save money, I would stretch out moving for a long as possible. I have found an empty house screams bargain to buyers. In otherwords, a buyer sees an empty house and they think they can really low ball you because you will be desparate. Our last relo package paid to move twice..once to the temp storage facility and once to the new place you will live in. You want to do this move in time to get all those benefits. Realize, if they are paying realtor fees, then you really want to get your house sold during that time frame. I know..easier said than done. (should I take this time to say again how I wish builders would stop building houses when the ones that are out there are not selling, they are destroying the housing market). Then I would use the temp housing to the limit and put most of your stuff in storage so that you can have enough time to get to know the area before you buy.

make the first number from the blocks. Put it on a large peice of paper with columns. it should be basically with 3 by 3 large boxes. so the 574 is in the first row. Put the blocks..built to be what they are to be..in those boxes. Then in the next row...write in 298. Make the line below that thick. To get the answer...your child will need to physically take 8 from the box above it. But she can't..can she? So...solution! She can take a ten from the tens house and let them move back in (converted back to ones of course) and now you can put an 8 in the 8 box. Do the proper markings to show that she borrowed or carried or whatever you wish to call it...extorted for all I care..LOL (trying to remark on how they keep changing the terminology). Now she will have a 6 in the upper middle box with a 9 below it. Again..she will need too borrow. Have her go through the notions of taking a hundred from the hudreds house and converting it down to 10 tens for the tens house..as we all dress like we must for where we are. Now she can take the9 out of the upper middle box and place it in the middle middle box with the 9. Make sure, as you go, when you complete a column on the right...move the left over blocks from the far right box to the bottom right box and write that number. So on the first right column...that number will be 6 along with 6 units. The box to the left of that..in the tens column....you will now have the number 7..move 7 blocks from the top down there and write the number seven. Of course..complete until done. Do this several times until she can teach back at you. Act thrilled and then have her show dad when dad gets home. This might take a few days, but once it comes around, she will really really get it. Also..I label the columns ones, tens, hundreds, and so on. I hope I have explained it well. It is so hard to do it well in a post.

Peekaboo....nice to see you again. Did I mention DD wants to be a pilot? I thought I would throw that in as your DH is the only pilot I know who might do lessons. Anyway, hope to see you sometime. You have not seen our new house yet but our number is the same in case you wish to call.

Thing about it is...not only does my son seriously dislike this class....the elective..but I do not like the teacher. The teacher does not teach the class..literally. It is called multimedia..and she leaves the students to have access to the cameras and computers and such..including unlimited unwatched access to the internet..and does her own things during that class. Plus...this friend is my son's only friend..but he admits he has not even tried to say hi to another child. My son has gotten in to trouble when with this child including a detention. I have caught him lying to me at home with regards to things with this child. As a result, we had to tell our son not to bother inviting this friend home anymore. However, we realize that we do not want our son going to his house. Regardless, our son has dropped all his interests in the name of following this child around. In high school, they will not even be in any classes together at all..that is pretty much guaranteed. (our son is on the gifted track and this child takes no college prep or accelerated classes at all). Our son plans to go to college. We had repeated discipline problems with DS last year, which may just be the age and have nothing to do with the friend. It was mostly stuff like not turning in his school work and refusing to do his work in class. The teachers do not communicate really so what I do know is the bare minimum. I do know he backed talked a few times to his teachers too. One time..he picked a physical fight something he had not done before this past year, and it was a situation that involved this friend. Again, I do not know that my son was innocent, he may very well be the leader in the bad behavior. But when DH and I were growing up, we never picked our electives or courses or colleges or careers or anything else based on a friend. BTW, I need to add, my son clearly cannot be that close of a friend as he has not bothered to call the kid and the kid has not called him. When the friend was visiting, he back talked both me and DH and lied to us about something which is what led us to say no more.

We loved Easy Grammar and plan to use it again with my younger children when they are that age. (my older children used it). We have also used BJU English and that was good. I will say though that I had my 3rd grader start with 2nd grade level as she had come out of public school and they had not even taught what a noun was. But once she got going with it, she caught up quickly and then I ended with the 5th grade book. I was going to go straight in to the 7th grade book after that, but then she tried Easy Grammar and loved it and wishes everything could be like EG.

Depending on the program, it is likely a part of the spelling. If you do SWO, it is a part of it, but if you do Spelling Power, it is not.

Dry erase board is the most essential thing here. It does not take up any floor space either as it hangs on the wall. Target and Walmart have the best prices.

I agree that it can just be too hard and unsafe to alter that...the $10 a month that basic cable would have cost is not worth having to risk himself and his health and so on to climb the pole. I would leave it alone and enjoy the basic cable. It used to be, before cable corporation lobbied against it, you could use rabbit ears to get all this. Basic cable is not much, really...but it is a little. But, I would let it go.

I loved "Get Smart." When I saw it, I only took my 12 and 13 yr olds. Today, I am hoping to have the time to go back and take my 4 and 6 yr olds as well as my own sister and her 2 children who are 8 and 11.

Jacob's Algebra seems like a fine program, I was just wondering if anyone did not like it?

It is less work than following someone else's schedule. I would just get books from that time period as you feel you want them and read them. How many would depend greatly on the child. What I have would be great for my older, but we will be lucky if dd, who is 12 now, will ever read them. I am hoping a few key books get read though.