I think there was a post on here before about this, but can't find it now. What do you do with all your children's completed papers? Do you keep binders for each subject, file only certain ones, throw them all out? How do you decide what to keep and what to pitch? Right now I keep and file their weekly assignment charts so I know what we've done when. But the rest of their papers are in stacks everywhere. Help!

DD - We are hiring a tutor for her in January to help focus on her math and English skills. That person will help me set more specific goals once they evaluate her, etc. DS10 - Concentrate more on his vocab for IEW, spend more time on Latin. DS8 - Pick up handwriting again. Push him more in Math - he is not challenged enough. Overall - more read alouds. They love them. I love them. But it is the easiest thing to drop for some reason! A mini project each week in one of our subjects. All three working on DD's native language. She has forgotten way more of it than I want her to, and the boys want to learn more. Hopefully found a curriculum that will help and we can hook up with some native speakers online.

Hi gang. I've been on the boards here for over a year. We started home schooling our three kiddos last year (because of the adoption laws of her home country, our DD was not allowed to be enrolled in public school for a period of time, and after that we opted to continue home schooling). The Cliff Notes version is that we adopted our DD in 2011 and have been home schooling since. She came to us with good conversational English, but not so great academic English, and was behind her peers in her home country from sporadic school attendance there until age 10. She comes from a background of neglect and abuse. She also flat out hates school work (or work of any kind). She was evaluated in April by our district and we got a pseudo-ballpark idea of where she is at academically and some significant but very general challenge areas. We went to our pediatrician recently and are waiting for appointments with a psychiatrist and behavioral-(something else) psychologist at a great hospital nearby. I am no expert, but my guess is we have some FAE, PTSD, memory issues, processing issues, and a heap of emotional issues to top it all off. We are at the very beginning of a long road, but we're moving towards...something. In the meanwhile, any generic ideas I should be trying here? I have been doing lots and lots of research, working with our district on curricula that may help, etc., but I gotta tell you...today especially I am ready to pull my hair out. I feel like I am just treading water right now because I know we have some very specific challenges here, but I don't have any tools or resources yet to help her (me) cope with them. And then I feel bad for being so. darn. frustrated.

Reading the thread about how much time we spend out of the house got me thinking. How do you evaluate what is a good use of time spent out of the house? What criteria make something worth the driving/scheduling/etc? What about field trips - what makes a field trip worth your while? What have been some of the most beneficial "field trips" you've done? I struggle to find a balance of fun and still semi-rigorous (for lack of a better word). Some of that is because I am still new to this whole homeschooling thing, and some of it (I think) is because I have a child who is academically very far behind and I feel this "pressure" to get her caught up (which is a whole other ball of wax). Ye who have done this awhile - I would love your thoughts/insight...

OK, I had to add up our hours out of the house after reading this thread! :laugh: We are gone an average of 14 hours a week, although it feels like a lot more since we goto some activity or another every evening but Mondays. I am just in my second year of homeschooling, so I am still figuring out what works for us (and once I figure it out, not doubt our needs will immediately change!). When we first started, we spent time with a group of homeschoolers who were very into "going" to all sorts of things most every day. I thought that was what I was "supposed" to be doing, so we went along. With this group though, it was mostly a social event for the moms - which don't get me wrong, I'm not against! - but it took up so much of my time, and I find with my kids home now ALL day long, I need a lot less social time. (A lot.) Our daughter struggles with going to large group events or chaotic activities. She is not comfortable with unstructured social time. It is stressful for her and where she is at right now, she would rather stay at home all day, every day. (We're working on that.) That's been a convenient way/excuse (yes, I felt I needed an excuse!) to settle into a more "at home" homeschooling day that works better for us. (For now.) When I envisioned homeschooling I pictured all kinds of educational and fun "field trips" together, so our days don't look quite like I thought they would. But we are also learning a whole lot more than I thought we would. I worry that I am not fun enough. :crying: I don't quite know how to find that balance...perhaps that is another thread topic waiting to happen...

I am only in my second year of homeschooling, so I would love some ideas/tips from some more experienced hs parents! We are starting back with schooling after taking five days off for Thanksgiving/weekend and having grandparents in town. My children (especially dd) really struggle getting back into the groove of school after an extra long break (and after the joy of grandparent time!). Any tips/ideas for helping everyone transition back into "school work" mode at times like this? We seem to struggle with this any time we get our of our five day a week groove. Would love to know if anyone else deals with this and what might make it a little easier.

Praying for you all... :grouphug:

I would be uncomfortable in that situation as well.

After a year and a half of homeschooling, I am still trying to figure out what my own expectations are of myself. Some days I feel like I need to have more fun, other days I feel like we need to be more academically rigorous. My DH has expectations of me as a homeschooling mom that are based on utopia. He doesn't really participate at all in selecting the curriculum, teaching the lessons, planning, etc. (He is asked to, but chooses to defer to me), but then he wants to know why they are doing thus-and-so or thus-and-so. We adopted internationally (an older child) and many people feel like she should be caught up academically after a year of homeschooling. She was several years behind her peers in her home country in her own language, and while we are tackling the academic mountain, there are plenty of other mountains we are tackling simultaneously. But I have been asked on several occasions if I've gotten her "caught up" yet. I find people think I am free during the day too. My sisters call all day long, and while I love chatting with them, I need to stay focused on the kids and their work.

We are getting family portraits done for Christmas gifts this year. We do this most every year to give to the grandparents. We usually do outdoor, casual, not terribly posed pictures. (If that makes sense...) I am debating what to do this year. We have an almost 15 yo DD, 10 yo DS, and 8 1/2 yo DS. Should we just stick with the dressed up look, go casual, or really deck everyone out in semi-formal wear? Also, we usually do red, black, gray for colors. What might be a different look color wise? Opinions, please. :001_smile:

1. How many Christmas trees do you put up in your house? 2. Artificial or real? 3. Do you decorate yours with a color scheme, theme, or is it a miscellaneous mix of family decorations? 4. White or colored lights? 5. Icicles or garland? 6. Have any ideas for a cute theme for a kids' Christmas tree? Thanks! :)

We agreed on girls' names both times I was pregnant, but boys' names were a whole other ball game. (We never found out whether we were having a boy or girl ahead of time.) We didn't even have one boys' name we agreed on until I was 9 months pregnant and held him hostage until we found a name in a baby name book we agreed on. (Our oldest son's name is Jude.) For our second son I loved the name Gannon. DH liked Calvin. Once our son was born we went with his pick (but I chose the middle names). Our daughter was adopted at age 13, but many children from her country request a new "American" name when they are adopted. Problem was, we could not come up with one name we liked better than her given name. (Alina) Fortunately, she really, really wanted to keep her name - we were so happy! If we ever have another boy, I have decreed that we will name him Wheeler or Tobin. Both are family names.

This was my thought. One week together is probably not an ideal transition in that you probably won't learn as much about her and how she will interact honestly with your family in that time frame to make it permanent shortly afterward. I don't know if you live near enough that you could take a little longer to get to know her and her to get to know you all? Is there perhaps a social worker or an adoption counselor who could help you all come up with a plan for transition that would be most beneficial to everyone? As far as would I? Yes, I probably would, but like others have said there are A LOT of factors to consider. Of course, we adopted a 13 year old girl from another country, so we are a bit crazy like that. :lol:

I used to give a little decoration for each holiday for their new home - one for Valentines Day, Easter, July 4th, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. They weren't anything super huge each, but together was a fun gift. I loved having little decorations to set out on a table when we were in our first apartment. :001_smile: I would usually pick up some decorations on clearance after each holiday so I had an inexpensive selection to choose from. If you are crafty, you could probably make them all yourself!

Oh...this is so me. I am turning 40 soon too and out of nowhere I have been feeling the same way you are! Nothing is as it once was. We are done having babies (barring a surprise which would thrill me and cause my DH to faint...). I have a sag under my chin. The wrinkles I always found so distinguished on my Gram are not looking good on me. I am two weeks overdue for a color, and even my children are shocked at how much gray there is at the roots. I always swore I'd never do anything "fake" and just age gracefully. Dude. :001_huh: But you know what? I like the inside me SO much better than the 20 something me who had perky books and wore a size 4 on my bloated days. I took up martial arts at age 36 and although it looks NOTHING like it would had I started in my childhood, I still feel great doing something new and challenging myself. All this to say...I hear you. Thank you for writing this thread. I really get it.

A dear friend and I are having an election party for our kids ranging in ages from 1 y.o. -17 y.o. There will be 13 kids. :) We are going to watch the election results & color in maps as the states are called. I have thought about having our own election to pick the dessert we eat. Maybe pin the tail on the donkey/pin the trunk on the elephant. We'll be eating dinner together - any ideas for food that might be "election themed"? Games or other activities that might be good? We have lots of red, white, and blue decorations left over from the Olympics, so we should be good there. ;) Would love any other ideas y'all might have!

Yes. DS 10 has had trouble with anemia off and on for almost two years. We did iron supplements and recently have gone to making him smoothies with lots of spinach in them. :) The symptoms sound very much like what we dealt with. It was baffling. He was hyper then exhausted and as I said to the doctor, he was a bit of a space cadet. No concentration. He seemed better within the month and his levels were better within 6 weeks or so.

Congratulations!!! How wonderful!

We did the same subjects, but I let the kids do school in their costumes. We'll ToT tonight. I had my DH tell the kids I wasn't feeling well and he'd found a substitute for them...and I came in the school room dressed like this: I made the kids address me as "Mr. Finklestein". Good times.

My DS 10 has been mentioning/complaining off and on for about two weeks about his abdomen hurting. It is lower than his belly button across the whole area, but mostly on the left side. It is not a constant thing. He mentions it at different times during the day/evening and has woken up once and come to us to say it hurts (not sure if it was his abdomen that woke him up or not). It does not hurt when he pees and he is regular with the other business as well. ;) He is a little more tired lately, but nothing terribly alarming and we've been a little busier, so it makes sense. He does martial arts, so my first thought is a pulled muscle. He has had some really "off" blood counts in the past, but after seeing a pediatric hematologist, we were assured it was nothing abnormal to worry about. All that to say - WWYD?

I have a friend whose DS is named Baruch. I LOVE it. She also has a Benjamin, but that is fairly popular. Judah? Israel?

Hello! We live a little NE of the city - we LOVE it here! :001_smile: We have found this area to be a WEALTH of home schooling resources and groups! I know of several hs groups in our area I'd be happy to PM you info about! Welcome to our neck of the woods! :hurray:

I really struggle with this myself. We have not done flu shots for the kids...ever. Mostly because we just didn't get around to it either! In 2010 both my boys got Flu Strain B. It wasn't pretty - they felt awful and it was a long week or so until they perked back up. After that, my youngest DS got Flu strain A. It was TERRIFYING. He was as sick as I had ever seen him, and as we waited at the hospital for him to get a chest X-ray I honestly feared he would stop breathing. Or dr called every few hours to see how he was and to decide whether to send us to the hospital with him. (We ended up being able to keep him at home while he recovered.) You would think that this experience would make me CERTAIN to get flu shots for the kids, but... I still struggle with the decision. To be honest, they don't cover every strain of flu (I'm not even sure if the shots that year addressed Flu strains A & B) so you never know if it will cover a strain that is going around. Now that we home school I feel a little better about skipping it as we aren't out and about in the general population as often. Also, I feel like I am now so super sensitive to just the thought of my kids having the flu that at the first sign of anything, I would get them to the dr and started on some anti-viral stuff right away. I don't know. I know the dr's office made a point to tell me (repeatedly) that I better do flu shots since we had it that year...but I just don't. I'm not exactly anti-vaccine...I just can't quite feel perfectly OK with getting the flu shots for them. :confused:

OK, that nuzzling makes me want to cry! I can't believe we get to watch this! :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub::001_wub::001_wub::001_wub

AHHHH!