It's similar ro what gets done in my house, but I delegate a lot of it to the kids.

I might agree with you if we were talking about 5 year olds, but middle school aged kids need to hear this and be fully informed. They're not too young.

Thanks for the additional information and enoucragement to those of us struggling to understand. I think I get it a bit more now. Looking forward to seeing what opportunities are out there for my kids.

I don't see a review for very many lessons. Did you make your own or just use the ones where provided in the lessons?

That's what I'm doing tonight. I don't know if I can squeeze in 3 days though. I'll have to see what we can get done in 2. Thanks!

I'm going through Ellen McHenry's Mapping the World With Art and trying to figure out how to schedule it. There are 30 lessons so I'm assuming one lesson a week, but how many days a week is best? Is it something you can get through in one day (I have an 11 &12 yr old) or is better to break into smaller parts over more than one day? Also, did you read the history pages(s), then do the map drawing, and then an activity? Is that the way it's supposed to be laid out? I don't see any directions but am guessing since those are the main components. Thanks for any help!

I used to be like you in not liking the icing very much, and then I discovered . The only thing i do differently than the gal in the video is that I add all the (room temperature) butter at once and mix it for 15 minutes on low. When it's done it is the most amazingly smooth and velvety consistency you can imagine. It's not sickeningly sweet like regular American buttercream. I'll never eat American buttercream again.

The thing that sticks in my mind about her is how she had a newborn baby on that trip with her. Boggles the mind! :001_huh:

I was at our county fair the other day and had this exact conversation with the lady in the 4-H building. She could not give me a straight answer about it, which astounded me. When I asked her give me 4-H in a nutshell, she couldn't. I left as confused as when I went in.

I LOVE it! I want to come to your house on Fridays.

We did the chicken last year and wished we'd done the apple instead. It was kind of cool at first but got nastier each time we changed it. In the end I wanted to throw up!

Yes, they only changed the format of the books, not the content.

I'd listen to this and see if it clears the water for you at all.

It may just be your son's personality. I tutor for a family with two middle/high school boys. The older boy comes home every day from school and immediately puts on his pajamas and heads to the basement to play video games and do homework. He never leaves the house unless forced to.

Off to google molecular model kits. Thanks!

That's never happened to me. :tongue_smilie: I completely get it. It's been a weakness of mine in the past to not be as prepared as I could/should be so I'm really trying to think everything through and plan better this year. Seems like every year I get a little better.

Wow, what a wealth of great information!!! Thank you! :thumbup:

That was great! I'm definitely putting that on my list of things to learn. Thanks! :D

That looks fun too. Can you explain why you didn't get very far with Elements?

I usually wake mine at 8 because they need to eat, brush teeth/wash face, and do chores before we start school at 9.

DH took DS and a friend to a midnight movie twice this year, and I had no problem with it. Sometimes we stay at the drive-in for the late movie (gets out atbout 1am) and we also went out as a family last year for Black Friday and had a great time.

Well I guess the part about her coming out made me think she was leaving him for her new found "lifestyle", not because he's an abusive jerk, but I could be wrong.

I hope this part is a joke and that no one actually supported someone doing this. Please tell me this was tongue in cheek. :confused:

:iagree:That's what I did. I bought Mapping the World by Heart and never could get it off the ground. I just couldn't figure out where to start. I read somewhere that Ellen McHenry created her program in frustration from trying to teach the other course in a co-op.

I've purchased vanilla beans from here for the last several years. Before I started ordering from them I'd been ordering from Penzeys. Penzeys was more expensive and the beans were dried out. The ones from JRs were less expensive and better quality.