Once again, I find myself thanking you, Jackie! :)

Tammy Duby (of Tobin's Lab) said for the older children, shrink the graphics. Makes them more grown up. (I'm thinking science here.) Her son made a great lapbook on the battles of the Civil War. So, yes, lapbooks can be for older kids!

We're using the Foundations memory work at home and it works beautifully. Are my two children getting the full benefits of being in the community? No, but this works for us right now, and they're better off for it. True some materials are only for community members, but I'm so glad they sell as much as they do to non-members! Ditto on practica. They're free (for parents, and not pricey for kids IMO) and not just for CC community members. Nice!

Our own Beth in SW WA uses hymns in her homeschool. Check out her blog (in her signature.) HTH.

Add my name to the list of audio books (in addition to reading aloud to him, way past the time he's fluent in reading too, btw!) and I also say comic books (you approve of, of course) help and this post by Milovany

Remember the offer on MM at Homeschool Buyers' Co-Op ends soon! Membership is free. MM @ HBC It's free to join. I've ordered from them twice w/o any problems and with GOOD customer service. In the interest of full disclosure, if you use the link below to sign up (join, but it's FREE) I could earn Smart Points. But you can just to go their home page and sign up there. A link to join I'm in VA and from what I recall, the testing for 1st grade math was pretty mild. (We don't test now, well, at least, not to share w/ school officials. We claimed RE.)

Jerry Maguire taught me that fact. Congrats! I'd love to lose the equivalent of a human head, since I'm pretty sure I love my own head long ago, but the scales never showed it!

ROFLOL! *High-fiving Dana* I like number lines and love Joan Cotter's number line.

Goodness YES!!! :)

We love Revolutionary City! :)

Guilty Pleasures aka TV Shows (I started watching both series late in their history): The Office - preserved my sanity while we built a house. The stapler in Jello? Oh, my! (US version, have never seen the original UK version) Agreeing w/ the others, older shows are better. Jim and Dwight? They kill me! Big Bang Theory - just got into this in the last month, have much to catch up on Old Sit-Coms: Dharma & Greg (someone else mentioned this. I'm not alone!) This obscure sit-com (if you see it on dvd, please let me know. I think I was the only person who watched it.): Almost Perfect about a TV producer and her DA boyfriend Favorite episode: when he has a case w/ a woman who killed her DH w/a shovel. Comedians: Agreeing w/ all references to Brian Regan (had to tell ds NOT to do the little league routine at little league this year) and Tim Hawkins (that guy would be in an insane assylum if not for his career as a stand-up comic!) Also, Bill Engvall w/ Dorkfish. This was *before* the Blue Comedy stuff. I loved him back then. Movies: Well, I'm making a list from this thread. :) Variety show skits: SNL's debate b/t Bush and Gore when the term "lock box" was used repeatedly, roflol SNL: Eddie Murphy talking about George Washington Carver Now? That Pips skit! My dc thought I was choking and dying I was laughing so hard. They came running in to see what was wrong.

Count me in! The good Lord willing... and I believe He is!

Ya know, I used to think (still do, actually) that when People Magazine wanted to sell copies, they'd stick Princess Di on the cover. I didn't buy it, but I always picked it up and read it when I saw her. Any thread w/ the title "school room pix" does the same thing to me! Thanks for sharing! I love the wall color. The neutral shows off the colors of maps, pix, etc, yet it's richer than just a beige (which is what I have in our small home office.) :)

See? To *me*, Hugh Laurie is the guy on Friends who told off Rachel, while she was flying to London to go to Ross & Emily's wedding!

Oh, no! Did I ruin it for you? At least you found out after the series ended. Sorry! Really!

DH watches it. I haven't joined in yet, though.

*Cough, cough* iPad *Cough!* JK. I don't have any of the ones mentioned, but I'm totally seduced by an iPad, and I've never even touched one!

I say it "WASH." See? There's no "r" in that word. [There is also no "s" in Revelation, as in the last book of the Bilbe. Just sayin'. ;)]

I spoil it for everyone by saying, "Man! Where do I know that guy from?" (Pardon the bad grammar, but that's how it goes, before the Shhhh's start.) (((Soul sister))) Ralph Fiennes will always be that Nazi from Schindler's List, b/c that's the movie I first saw him in. And as a Monk fan, I can't get past the fact that Capt. Stottlemeyer was the killer in Silence of the Lambs!

Mine loved them too. Ds (11) still picks them up and thumbs through them sometimes. I remember when I got them, I'd just bought all these colorful DK books. Both dc read those too, but they *loved* Pathway Readers more! Black & white pix, no people shown. Go figure. :)

Yep. IMDB has saved me from many a sleepless night. (I wish I were kidding. I'm not.)

We played games, did real life math stuff, sang along to skip counting tapes and drilled math facts the summers our dc turned 10. That was it till they got a book, after turning 10. Here's a link to an article by the Bluedorns that quotes the Benezet article Ellie linked. http://www.triviumpursuit.com/articles/research_on_teaching_math.php

That really depends on my mood. My favorite answer: They don't. We do joke about saying an exclusive private school that's VERY hard to get into. ;) Oh, and I'll share this here. At the gym a while back a boy kept commenting how tall my dd is. (She's tall, but not freakishly so, just taller than this boy who's her same age.) She said, "You think I'm tall? I'm the shortest person in my class at school!" ROFLOL. I love that girl! :)

The right way: y'all. It's a contraction of you + all = y'all. I'm from the South, so I know, but I do have a poor, dear, misguided friend from further south (Missippi, to be exact, and that's no typo, that's how she says it) who spells it wrong: ya'll. Like fingernails down the chalkboard to see it that way! That is all! ;)

Get a weekly Metro pass to go where you want and be able to jump off wherever you want w/o worrying about paying more. (Expect delays on Metro, and be prepared to do a lot of walking even w/ Metro!) Trick for the National Zoo if you have a stroller (don't think you will, though) is to get off at the station PAST the zoo and walk down hill to the zoo. Then when you leave, walk down to the station below it. All down hill, which helps w/ walking so much at the zoo. We haven't been there in YEARS. We just went to the Newseum yesterday and really enjoyed it. There are some depressing things in there (9/11, Katrina, OK City bombing, DC Sniper exhibits, etc. but we really should NOT have taken our ds into the Pulitzer photography exhibit at all. We got him out of there pretty quick. There were some great conversations last night sparked from what we saw there.) It's not all sad, though, and there is a neat hall full of newspapers' front pages and a station for playing games and you can have your dc do a "live report" and get a picture or a dvd for $5. Fun. It's right across the street from the National Gallery of Art too. 'Nuff said? Read Chasing Vermeer? A Lady Writing is there with 3 other Vermeers (total: 3 + 1 attributed to him.) And Rembrandts and some by Murillo and Velazquez, and then there's the National Portrait Gallery, and well, all the Smithsonians....we needed more time yesterday, but packed in a lot of stuff as it was. More on this later. Enjoy! Let me know when you'll be there. We're always looking for an excuse to go there and even if we just met you (and Chris and others nearby!) b/t exhibits, it'd be fun! :)