I like Hot in Cleveland with Betty White. Makes me laugh and they are half hour shows. They are on Amazon prime not sure about Netflics. Concentration was hard for me too. Short and funny might be good. :grouphug:

Since I normally try to find books that don't hurt my hands to hold I am having huge problems thinking of titles! Lol Sorry for the weird spacing -- it doesn't seem to want to post a list. I think good science textbooks are vital in this case so...not sure which ones but they need to be chunky! 1) Biology -- maybe Campbells 2) Chemistry 3) Physics Literature Anthologies -- partly for entertainment 4) World 5) British 6) Bible -- either the ESV study Bible or a good chronological one Math 7) Lials College Math sounds good 8) Lials Calculus with applications ( touches on many topics) History -- once again this needs to have a bit of entertainment value 9) Churchill's History of English Speaking People -- ours has 4 volumes but....... 10) Modern History to explain why -- this is what we are doing now for history and I haven't found one I love, Oxford has an OK one Those are my 10 books by topic. Now I need titles!

First grade was quite a long time ago for us. One thing we did because I had two close in age was set up activities that coordinated with schoolwork around my living room, someone called them stations, for when one was done and the other not. I remember making flash cards for everything involved in math facts. For addition and subtraction I would make a stack of 1+2, 1+3, .....in one color marker, and another of answers 3,4,5 etc. Set out ten cards on the floor and have them match the answers. Walk by and check and shuffle for the next child. Other stations would be jigsaw puzzles, tangram puzzles, flashcards of words they knew to make a sentence. Time telling, skip counting, whatever I could think of. I made my cards out of scrap paper frequently. Generally I used them for several days but not right in a row. They loved these activities and it was pretty easy to set up. I wouldn't give up quite this early. I would keep doing the speed drills just make the time a bit longer until she gets her facts down. I normally had more then one math book for each child at that age and would switch one out if they got stuck. Normally we could start again in a couple of weeks and they never knew they had been stuck. I hope this all makes some sense.

I have three of them on my request list including A Tale for the Time Being. Looking forward to trying them. I finished "The Winter Garden Mystery" by Carola Dunn which was the second Daisy Dalrymble mystery. Good quick read, better than the first imo. Also finished "The Dark Shore" by Susan Howatch. It was compared to Rebecca by DeMaurier(personal favorite) in a review I read. I didn't think the comparison went beyond the superficial big estate/England/second wife and mysterious death of first wife. It was good and I did not get the "who done it" until the reveal. Thank you for recommending Howatch's gothics.

My kids socialize with people of all ages. Some of Dds favorite friends are in their eighties and belong to her patchwork group. She is also a magnet for the under five set.....she will definately run Sunday School at church in the future! Same for ds, his friends span the decades age wise. For same age friends we do meet them through activities via home ed groups and church. I generally organize their meetings but distance is a big factor there. Many groups have regular meets for the younger set and we have started including the bigs more.

Kareni- I think it is a tattoo too. ;) Sounds like an interesting read. I will add it to the list.

If you are going in order because all series are much better in order(that one it is really true for!) You have made great progress! It seems like you just started them reallt recently. Glad you are enjoying them. On a side note: A librarian just told Dd with a straight face that order does not matter--she disagreed politely.

I found a copy of a really old version. Looking forward to it!

I thought both books were quite accurate when I read them. It has been at least two years so my memory is a bit dim on exact comparisons. I thought Stoker's church yard was particularly accurate. I have to admit the steps made me wonder, I can't imagine them in the dark. We did them in the rain once, I felt really lucky that no one got hurt! I think adding Whitby to the list would be great. I could be the tour guide and make everyone try mushy peas (which aren't peas but a special bean sort of a cross between edamame sp? and lima which I love) at the fish and chip! :) I will do a better search for the "In search of Dracula" book and see if I can locate your version. Vlad has always fascinated me.

As Starr said it can be done. :) The main thing I concentrated on was a statistic someone gave me, I think it was approximately one day of successfully completed bedrest meant 2 or 3 less days in NICU for ds. That made it easy to keep my mind on the end goal, no NICU. Which we did accomplish. Please don't take that comment as anything other then honest. I spent months on bedrest and that was what kept me there. It was boring and really hard to miss things with dd. Talking was the easiest activity. I spent a great deal of time on the phone. Cross Stitch was the easiest craft for me to do laying on my side. Some people do crochet easily. At that point I had never even considered home ed but now I would spend days pouring over catalogs and books doing some long range school planning. :grouphug:

I like to do it first thing in the morning over coffe. That way I know exactly where I want lessons to be directed that day.

I am glad people are enjoying the videos. I had never wanted to read the "original" Dracula until I saw Whitby. I had seen the movie. I really like the book. I can't decide if I should reread that and "The Historian" which is really good in October or not. I can't find a copy of the In search of Dracula that you linked. My library has a book with a similar title different author. I might try it. No,we haven't been to the Dracula Store. None of us even remember seeing it and the date on the video is after our first trips there. We will be going the next time we go. :lol: We go to the fossil store shown in that video every single time. There is a bakery nearby with fabulus cake slices. :) We normally stop at Whitby for fish and chips(The Magpie is supposedly one of the best in England -- definately good ones) after fossil hunting at Robin's Hood Bay or Runswick Bay. Eat on th pier from the video. We always go up those steps for the view. Actually worth it and they are loooong. Whitby is the perfect seaside village. Hugely popular vacation spot for people in our part of England -- people who live two hours away go for a week. We do day trips. :lol:

Thank you for the link. Dd has done Henle and a few chapters of Wheelocks. Going to try these exams soon.

Michelle and Storm Bay -- I am pretty sure they will work now. Sorry!

Here is a different one. The walk up to the church is steep! Never have been figure out how in a trance she could do it. Posted this one for the bells in background. Dc's are on our villages bell ringing team. Both churches have eight bells so sound similar. I hope this one works. I am trying to fix the other one and it keeps looking the same from my side -- pretty much like this one. Waiting for dh to help me. Lol Edit: dh helped. They should both work now. Really sorry!

Two of my friends have gotten some extremely helpful advice from the local senior center when they were facing similar situations. Obviously not legal advice but they did tell them of elder services in their area and the legal requirements typical to their state. Might be a good place to gather some info if there is one to call in your grandparent's area.

I did finish "Blameless" by Gail Carriger. I ended up really enjoying it. This series is a great blend of a light intensity vampire/werewolf book blended with steampunk. Waiting for the next book...... I downloaded several romance novels by favorite author's earlier this week. I needed something lighter. Just finished Marie Ferrarella's "Cavenaugh's Surrender". I love kindle library books! :)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en-US&ie=UTF-8&q=youtube+whitby+simon+clark This is a youtube by a local(to me) horror author on where/how he gets his inspiration. Some good shots of the graveyard at Whitby which the other lacked. The London Underground book has made me a bit curious. The library has a copy on the shelves so I will pick it up later today.

For those of you planning to read Stokers Dracula I thought a travel video of the village of Whitby might be of interest. I read the book for the first time after out first visit. I know it is not a very professional one but it feels more like what we see when we visit there then the others I tried. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCx_3dNgXKE Edited one more time, hope this works.

We switched countries too. We live in a medium sized village and can walk to two butcher's, a fruit and veg, and a small grocery. Twenty minutes from "real" shopping. An hour to great shopping. So country to us from where we were but like it. When asked what I miss most about the US the answer that rolls off my tongue is my family and Target! Nothing as good here. I used to have a Target 5 minutes away!

Wonder Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne is wonderful. It makes a fabulous read aloud.

Usbourne Greek Myths was a huge favorite. Ds kept it in the car and read it many many times. :)

We use abeka for math. Dd stopped after Algebra 1 only because I was irritated with abeka shipping policies--I know that sounds a bit over the top but their overseas rates were insane. Last year I bought the rest for ds off ebay. Good solid spiral that my Saxon hating son will tolerate. Black and white with full pages was too much. Abeka has color and better spacing. I have heard Saxon is changing. At one point it was a SWB pick I think. In the first edition WTM she definately recommends the language skills abeka track. Also Cathy Duffy used to recommend doing abeka and Singapore together which is what we did. She felt it made the most complete math program for elementary. I think this board tend to get caught up in the new stuff because it is more fun.

Basically I am doing my weekly Sunday not post so I can easily find the thread. I have had a busy couple of days and haven't been able to settle on any book. Trying to finish "Blameless" by Gail Carriger the third book in the Soulless series.

Coursera has been a huge blessing here. Dd just started the Greek History/ Lit this week and loved it. Might be an idea.