When we both have it, we plan to have a little challenge/accountability thing set up. Since neither of us has found it yet, we don't know exactly what that will look like. Since we're on opposite coasts, it will probably be via email. Side note: I set up a notebook for my family, where we keep track of our personal bests on the Wii Sports events. We're not competitive ......;)

My mother in law just completed several weeks of radiation therapy. In the family waiting area at the hospital, each table had a jigsaw puzzle set up. As the patients and families came back day after day, we would work on the puzzles, just kind of picking at them. The bigger puzzles would be there for days at a time, the smaller ones would get done in a day.

You're welcome to fine tune your rep skills on me too. ;)

I was told I could choose the text, so I looked at several, including Saxon. I REALLY disliked the Saxon because it jumps around so much. For example, look at this group of 10 lessons (from the Table of Contents): Lesson 24 Freely Falling Bodies Lesson 25 Radian Measure * Angular Speed and Acceleration Lesson 26 Fluid Pressure * Weight, Density, and Pressure * Fluids at Rest * Pascal's Principle Lesson 27 Inclined Plane Lesson 28 Gravitational Theory Lesson 29 Gravitational Potential Energy * Kinetic Energy * Conservation of Mechanical Energy Lesson 30 Conservation of Momentum Lesson 31 Snell's Law Lesson 32 Ideal Gases * Using the Gas Law Lesson 33 Two-Body Tension Problems Also, while I recognize that Physics is very much about math, the samples of Saxon lessons that I saw seemed to not explain the science behind the math very well. I liked the BJU text, but I couldn't make it work for our co-op year. I simply didn't like the Abeka text. I ended up using Apologia, and it was fine. I know there are topics, though, that aren't even touched on that I learned in high school -- for example, basic fluids and thermodynamics. I'm in the process of reworking my lesson plans for this co-op year. I'll be doing more supplementing from some websites I've found, as well as writing my own versions of several of the labs. (The labs as written are fine for one student at home, but we have the luxury of having more resources at co-op, so I want to take advantage of that.) HTH

Could be. My dh's nephew and his wife quit homeschooling and sent their kids back to ps because of the lunches.

Thank you!! That explanation in the sticky is great. I finally get it. I'm going to give you a rep point just for practice, even though I don't believe it will count for anything.

I was going to say something similar! I once heard Joyce Herzog say that asking young boys to sit still and pay attention was asking the impossible -- that it takes all of their attention to sit still. I have been less than consistent with requiring narration or even asking comprehension questions after read alouds, but my guys have always had very high scores in the listening portion of the Stanford test.

I was 28; dh was 45 and had been previously married. We had our 20th anniversary last year.

We love Sam's Club for glasses. My youngest wears a special prescription which costs extra at all the other places.

It's good you're thinking ahead. Keep your eyes out for a unit and snag it when you see one -- I imagine they'll be tougher to find around Christmas. My guys are older than yours, so I don't have any recommendations for games. Mom and Dad (and kids) really enjoy the Wii Sports that came with the unit, though. And I wouldn't discount your 2yo from the action -- I'd bet he does better than you're thinking. You'll definitely want to get at least one extra remote and a charging station for the remotes.

Our church has partnered with this ministry to host counseling training sessions. I have taken several of the courses and plan to continue. There is lots of good info on their site. http://www.graceharborministries.org/index.html

That's right -- last night!! There were pictures in the paper this morning. Sometimes we have a group get together at our church to pool our fireworks and shoot them off. We have ice cream while waiting for it to get dark.

I was just missing Santa Cruz the other day. I grew up in the Campbell area, but my grandparents had a cabin in Boulder Creek. We spent lots of time in those mountains and on the beaches when I was a kid. Before we started having kids of our own, dh and I spent a lot of time on the golf courses in that area.

She told me the other day that she couldn't see to the end of her street because of the smoke. She lives in Folsom.

What is "rep"? I can usually figure these things out, but this one has me stumpled.

I just saw these today -- on sale for 50% off!!

[quote name=mommaduck;323294What faiths make up the group and is there a dominating one or is it pretty evenly mixed? (Look Christian' date=' but what kinds?) Are there other large families in the group?[/quote] Definitely Christian -- there is a statement of faith that must be signed. It's a pretty basic statement, I think -- not geared to one particular denomination. Yes, there are several large families. I know of one with 11 children. HTH

I belong to a co-op that meets in Greer. Here's a link to our website: www.upstatecoop.org There is general info there, and you can contact our director for more info. I'd also be glad to answer what questions I can. I teach two classes at the high school level; my two younger sons have attended classes the past two years. I don't have any direct experience with elementary level classes.

I teach Apologia Physics at our co-op. For lab write-ups, my main concerns are the summary of data collected, the calculations performed, and the conclusions reached. The conclusions are most important, especially any explanation of why the results deviated from the theoretical expectations. The text isn't really set up such that it's appropriate to follow the whole Hypothesis model of experimentation. Right after the lab procedure in the text, he tells them what they should have experienced. And our schedule is such that it's not practical to have the students read up to, but not beyond, the experiment before each class meeting. I specifically tell my students to NOT spend time re-writing the procedure. And I'm not a stickler for form -- I need their name at the top along with Experiment Number or Title. I want it to be neat and understandable. I tell them that when they get to college, there will likely be very specific requirements that they need to follow.

I have (on my other computer) the list of problems that Mr. Jacobs assigns for homework. I believe it's for the 3rd edition of his text. He sent me both his standard set and the set he uses for Honors level students. I'm happy to pass it along if it helps.

getting from the words to the appropriate equation is a VERY difficult step for many, if not most, Algebra students. I encourage my students to draw pictures. For percent problems, pie charts are often helpful. My example (because I can't see yours on this page): A bicycle is on sale for 20% off. If the price is now $192, what was the original price? I would draw a circle with a slice of about 20%, and shade in the rest. I would then show that the shaded portion represents the $192. From this point, there are several ways that students can visualize the solution: some will see that 80% of the original cost = 192 some will see that 192 is 4 times the slice of savings others will see other ways of relating the numbers I like to have my students use simple numbers and calculations that they can easily do, then apply those same techniques and principles to the actual problem. In this example, I would ask them, "If the sale price is $80, what was the original price?" Or I might have them approach it "backwards" -- "If the original price was $100, what's the sale price?" When they can verbalize how they solve that problem, they can usually apply it to the more difficult numbers. Also, there is an inexpensive book titled "Painless Math Word Problmems" which gives some good tips and lots of examples for different types of problems -- percents, rates, proportions, etc. I've seen it at Barnes and Noble. I second the recommendation to have your students set up the equations but not actually solve them. Spend your time working on the weakness. HTH

I speak up if it's a matter of safety, either for the child or others. If I hear foul language that offends me personally, I speak up. I don't usually step in when I hear a child being a jerk, even if it's to my own child. I speak to my friends' children if they're doing or saying something I know their parents would correct if they were around, and my friends do the same for me.

FWIW: We have a retired high school Spanish teacher who teaches Spanish at our co-op. She just did a review of the curricula available and has decided to stick with BJU. She had mentioned a couple of times that she'd prefer they taught a couple of things in a different order, but she hasn't found anything better out there now. Maybe some day she'll follow thru on her "threat" to write her own material ....

THANK YOU!!!!

YEP!!! It was very much a cutting-edge, innovative way to do a cop show. I loved it. I wish they would replay episodes on TV.