higginszoo
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Posts posted by higginszoo
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I have a Kindle Fire. My kids already had iTouches when I got my Fire. I think that a 13 year old would probably enjoy it and still be at a point to care for it (some family members gave their 3 year old an iPad and were shocked when it was shattered in weeks).
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My dd did Singapore at home through second grade. Did Everyday Math for third and fourth in school. Came home and tested further back in math than she had before she went to school. Our experience is that it's completely ineffective. If you have time, I'd make afterschooling math a priority if that's what you're stuck with.
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There are specific areas in all of those areas that aren't safe (my grandmother lived near the corner of Transcontinental and Veterans for years, and did end up having bars put on her windows), but most of those areas are very safe. There are even nice pockets inside of not so safe areas. (I lived in one at Causeway and Jefferson Highway, so further into town than you're looking -- not generally nice/safe, but there was an area of several blocks that was fine.) My home of record for most of my childhood was near West Esplanade and Power, and is a very safe, yet affordable, neighborhood.
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If they come with an officer and a warrant, that makes it easy. I've let an officer in before when the neighbors' alarm company gave him the wrong address (the neighbor's 3 year old had pressed the panic button on the silent alarm, so no indication for sure that it was the wrong address). He had to come in and check things out like a 911 hangup, no problem.
Without an officer and/or a warrant, I'd be a bit suspicious and I'd talk to them at the door, but have them make an appointment to come back later when I could have an attorney and/or my own witnesses present before having them come in. I have a couple of homeschooling neighbors, one of whom knows my children pretty well, so I could have her come over and witness probably.
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I found that what fit best varied from child to child -- and sometimes at different times, different brands would fit better/worse. At one time, I had three children in the same size of diaper, and had to have two brands stocked, because one brand leaked on one child and another brand leaked on another (the other, it didn't make a difference). Then the kind that fit one baby best (Pampers) started causing awful rashes on her. This isn't something that you can predict at a shower -- I'd probably just encourage people to attach gift receipts, so that if they find that a certain brand doesn't work for the particular baby, they can return/exchange as needed.
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In Utah, a couple of the families in my homeschool group attended the local UU congregation. The one thing that I remember the high school aged kids doing in RE was kind of a comparative religions course where they studied/visited/had guest speakers from a variety of traditions/beliefs, and then were challenged to reflect on what aspects of the ideas they were exposed to resonated with them and then write their own profession of faith. It was a multi-year program, IIRC.
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Yes. We run into a lot of people around here who also parent by keeping their dc completely helpless, doing everything for them, expecting nothing. I'm curious to see what happens to those dc when they hit chronological adulthood.
A typical church service will have my oldest working the sound board (or as an usher or acolyte, depending on the need that week), dh and our second ushering, the third child loves to serve as an acolyte, I will be helping with communion distribution ... only the little one is limited by age restrictions, though sometimes she'll help her daddy usher.
For VBS, the teens had staff positions, my tween put in some service hours during setup, in addition to what the middle schoolers did for service projects.
My 13 year old is now in charge of cleaning the fish tank in the Sunday School/preschool office. The 14 year old helps set up sound equipment for the Saturday evening service.
All of the dc help with food preparation for our ministry to feed the homeless. 14 year old helps on the food truck when the teens do distribution runs.
They do other things through scouts, Civil Air Patrol, and occasionally martial arts. they are somewhat limited by places who don't want them volunteering until they're 14 for liability purposes, but my 13 year old just landed a volunteer job at a local riding stable helping with a homeschool riding class for younger children. She'll just have to have the same liability waiver as the riders, which is IMO a reasonable request.
I see it as a two way street -- yes, they're providing the church with something that the church needs, but they're also gaining life skills and work experience.
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Sick policies for both you and them -- under what circumstances would you prefer they stay home and not spread their bug to the other girls -- how will makeups be handled? What happens if you get sick?
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My reasoning:
I know 2 girls named Emerson.
Dexter is a killer.
I liked Cooper too but my older kids pointed out the obvious rhyming/teasing possibilities. So Benjamin wins.
:iagree: Emerson has definitely moved into the realm of more common for girls than boys. Dexter will have some negative connotations due to the TV show. My friend's 7 year old Cooper has been introduced to the 'joy' of rhyming nicknames on the playground. Benjamin is common, but is one of those names that is always high on the top names list, so falls into the category of classic rather than trendy.
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We've done the camisole thing, too. She has a couple of sport bras for when the cami is just too much (we live in a hot climate).
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Not there yet, but yes, I will require for them to keep me updated on their Facebook passwords while they are minors ... there's a good chance that i won't check it as much as they get older (my dc with FB accounts are only 13 and 14 now -- I check the 13 year old's more frequently than the 14 year old's account). I haven't had any problems so far with either of them and anything inappropriate, but they understand why it's a good practice for a number of reasons.
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I'm an engineer. I love the math and science. Dh is a mathematician, but considered a physics major. So those are our strong points. We like history here, too. Writing is probably our downfall. Both dh and I are pretty good at it, but teaching it is a different story. I still end up doing 95% of the teaching, with dh only helping occasionally. Still, on things like Geometry (with proofs), he's doing better than I would have -- I can do them, but not teach it, had outsourced to a tutor, who got a full-time job and had to leave us (he is a friend, who graduated two years ago with a degree to teach high school math, so we're happy for him that he finally got a job).
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I have a goddaughter that goes by Margo (her full first and middle are actually Margaret Gordon -- Gordon is a family name), her last name also begins with M, and it does flow nicely.
I think it also goes nicely with your other children's names.
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I think it's just the sort of thing you do when they're ready. FWIW, their friend, who wears LOTS of makeup, has rules made for her about that--eyeliner, but no shadow????--and still looks way overdone, IMO. Rules aren't everything. Good taste is worth a lot. :001_smile:
Very true. I went to a junior high with a no makeup policy. It was a small, private school. Some girls would always go all out with the makeup, especially the eyeliner, mascara, etc. The principal used to take them down to the girls' bathroom and wash their faces. A couple of us wore very light makeup -- natural colors, pretty undetectable. The principal never said a word to us. This was the lesson I think that she was trying to convey. One of those girls went to high school with me, and never did get it when we were in school.
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My older dd was almost 13 before she started shaving. She's blonde and not too terribly hairy, though with puberty, it has gotten slightly darker and coarser, thus she started.
Younger dd is hairier, with dark hair. I'm guessing that she might be closer to 10 when she gets self-conscious about it. She has also always been in a hurry to grow up.
I wouldn't mind if my 13 year old wanted to wear light makeup -- even I don't wear a lot. But she's not at all interested (I've even asked), so I'm not going to push it. Little one will need to wait until she's around 13 or so (it's not a hard and fast thing -- I tend to go with my gut a lot). So, much to her chagrin, she has about 6 more years. It's tough to be the baby. :tongue_smilie:
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Not nearly as much as many people around here. I know of a few groups and families that have park days/field trips pretty much every day. Some of these families have younger children, where that probably works better. I prefer to leave the days fairly unscheduled because our evenings and weekends are pretty full of extracurriculars, and even unschooling at my three older children's ages requires some time at home to be able to explore what they need to. (Only one of those three actually unschools -- the others use a more traditional model, which definitely requires time at home sometime to complete.)
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It holds the hair in place -- if you don't, anchor it, then it gets out and ends up in your face. Hairspray, etc. would wash out, and swim caps always made my head feel buoyant or something. I could work with them for regular swim team (but didn't like them), but when you're supposed to be upside down, it's really difficult to have your head wanting to float up.
It probably protects the hair, too. I just tried it for a short time in high school -- I was moving around a LOT anyway -- but my hair was still a mess, even at the beginner level, never mind 10 hours a day in the pool like Olympic level competitors put in.
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In your case, I think you should just start doing it. You only need to explain when/if people ask. This is something between you and God, and while it sounds like you're willing to talk about it, I don't think that you really owe any explanations.
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I don't know if technology has changed, but back in the '80s, we used to use Knox gelatin.
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My dh shows interest and supports me, but has had a mostly hands-off approach over the 10 years we've homeschooled. This year, our Geometry tutor had to quit halfway through, so he has picked up math for the older two to finish out the course. I'll take them back for Algebra II and SAT Math review. Back when we first started and were only homeschooling one (with two toddlers around) he did try to do the boxed curriculum we had with our oldest (he was unemployed, I was working full-time, but he just couldn't keep up with the multitasking, so I often ended up doing school after work. He was little and way ahead, so it really didn't matter that much if school got done or not anyway.
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About 15 years.
I got a new bed when I was 7 and used the same mattresses until after I was married at 22.
We had those for about 15 years before we replaced them. So only 3 years on the newest set so far, but they're wearing out a lot faster than the other sets did, so might be in the 5-10 year range.
The previous set goes on the guest bed, so I had my first mattresses for a total of 30 years.
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I don't get it, either. I'm fine with law-abiding people owning guns. My brother (a Marine) has a whole arsenal. But I choose to live in a safe area, and in the suburbs, and neither dh nor I are big on game meat. Given the liability of having guns and extremely smart, curious children in the same house, we haven't wanted to take on the risk (said children do learn about gun safety, including how to handle guns ... my 11 year old is an excellent shot with a rifle). Yet people have accosted us for being anti-American, because we, personally, choose not to own firearms. We're not making a judgement on them or their gun ownership or their lifestyle (because we truly don't care), yet on two separate occasions, we've been basically vilified for our choice to not assert our second amendment rights. :confused:
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2 years. Well, technically 729 days. Definitely too long, but it was the most practical decision we could have made ... we were still in school, and moving out on our own would have prolonged that, possibly indefinitely. Sharing a bedroom in my parents' house (in the room next to theirs) was our only alternative (and only an option after the 18 month mark), and that would have been stressful all around.
Kindle Fire for son ???
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
There's not a lot of middle ground. You can lock a child completely off the internet, meaning that no apps that need the internet can be used (my dc like to have a weather app that wouldn't work with no internet), or it's wide open. there's no net nanny kind of thing on the internet/purchasing, so parents would have to make a decision of all or nothing.