It's not so much about the routine... it's really "whattheheckhaveyoubothdonewithonemonthsworthofclothes!!!" At least if they had dirty clothes on the floor in their room because they didn't make it to the laundry room, then fine. But where are the clothes now? The same ones they would never fold and put away when they were clean? There is nowhere else to put the laundry hamper. It has nothing to do with style; the way this house is laid out there is no room. The only place would be in the middle of the living room and there is just no way I am having a laundry hamper in the middle of my living room.

I started a laundry thread last month about my girls putting all their clothes in the hamper. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/491706-help-me-find-a-solution-to-this-laundry-problem/?hl=laundry&do=findComment&comment=5259614 Several people suggested I move the hamper out of their room so I did. I moved it to the laundry room. I kind of forgot about things until I was putting laundry away and saw some girls clothes in it. I asked dh about it (he had run a few loads this past weekend) and turns out he accidentally washed the girls hamper. I asked him what was in it.... 4 items. Oh. my. word. That thread I started was dated October 18. I just assumed the girls were taking care of the clothes and trying to earn their hamper back. We had a HUGE talk about responsibility and taking care of clothes and what to do with clothes. Nothing new, but it was a stern review. Didn't work either. In almost one month, they have decided to not throw anything in the wash. Apparently the laundry hamper is too far for them to bother wanting clean clothes. Well, that was a fail. Now what? I feel like I need to treat them like they are toddlers again and watch them get dressed (well not literally) and hover over them to put clothes in the laundry and fold the ones that are still clean neatly in their dresser. I'm pretty angry right now. They are 12 and 9. Our house isn't enormous and the laundry room is not that far away. They have been putting their dirty, smelly clothes back in their clothes bins. I feel so defeated. In fact, I don't even know if I should be angry or cry right now. Laundry is really not that complicated. My oldest wants to take a hunting class when she's old enough. Is she kidding me? I'm going to let her yield a gun when she can't even deal with a dirty shirt??? Pfffffffft. So, back to square one. What now? Do I really need to hover over them? And what of all those dirty shirts? This is embarrassing. And yes, I realize I should probably have noticed this sooner. I really figured they were doing their laundry and taking care of things. I have a lot of things going on in my life right now to have this on the forefront of my mind. Ugh.

I know!! :willy_nilly: They definitely are not working the whole time and we have an hour long break for dinner and around 45min for lunch... but still. I know it shouldn't take this long. I have not found a schedule that works. Whatever I try seems to have some sort of flaw. I can list what all they are doing ... maybe that will help? I will list in a new post.... if I can get everyone settled and working. :unsure:

I hate to post this "out there" but I am feeling really sad for her and am hoping that the Hive can help. My dd12 has been struggling with greasy hair for the last year now. Before, she had great hair. I have been buying her shampoo with tea tree oil in it but it doesn't seem to be cutting it anymore. Her hair is just so gross and yuck, especially the bottom layers (you can't always see it on the top layer but can if you touch her hair or it swishes around. Her bangs are the ones that get greasy the first and the worst and they have caused her forehead to break out all the time (her forehead is also really greasy now because of this, but the rest of her face has really nice skin). I've never had this issue and I don't really have much of a clue anymore how to help her stay on top of this. It's gotten pretty bad and I'm sure if she was in PS she'd be "that" girl that the kids picked on because of her hair. :( Please Hive, help me help dd with this one!

One thing I'm running into this year is that history is not at all an area of interest, whereas science is. So, these guys could spend 5 hours doing science readings and related projects while 15 min of history would make them groan. I've been trying to find a more realistic balance. I have to have some sort of time slot for history or we would never do it. Things are so much different this time around than with my oldest.

In an ideal (for you) week, how much time do you think should be spent studying history and science - for a 4th grader and a 2nd grader (can be different amounts for each age)?? Also, if you do a program like TOG and there is independent reading involved, when would you expect the reading to get done? Meaning, if you allot 45min on Mon, Wed, Fri and "X" book needed to get read, would your child read the book during what would be "history" time or on their own time? Let's assume you have a child who doesn't love history and does not read historical fiction for "fun". ;). What if they don't read fast enough and can't get done? Is it homework then or do you carry over into the next week? Or skip the end of the book? I'm trying to get a feel as to where my expectations fall in comparison to what others do. :)

2 players.

Thanks everyone. I don't know that we are having problems with the text at this point, I'm just trying to gauge if I am doing enough with it and glean some gems as to how to get to the most out of it. We are only on chapter 3 so there is plenty of time to have challenges with it. ;) (we just received this at the end of October, it hasn't taken us 10 weeks to do two chapters! ;)) I decided not to have dd outline it but she is taking notes as we read through the text together. Sometimes she does the reading herself and we discuss what she read. She does the review questions in writing for her binder and I plan to go over past questions as we move along. It seems to be fairly straight forward so far- but like I mentioned, we are only on chapter 3 so there is plenty of time to encounter difficulties. I hope I'm not making a mess of this course. She's doing well on the tests so far 90% and above. Time will tell, I guess. I do have a question about the vocabulary aspect- How did you cover the vocabulary words? I'm having dd write out the word in her notebook and the definition and using that to study from. Is that enough? I'm not quite sure what else to do.

We are having a good academic year so far. The kids are eager to learn and compliant about doing their work. However, we are not progressing as much as I would like and this problem is twofold. One, my kids are highly distractible. One child will comment how cute the puppy looks and next thing I know all 4 of them are petting it or at least staring at it. Before I know it, 15 minutes has gone by. This happens often. If it's not the puppy, it's the mailman outside, or the fish, or .... well, you get the point. How on earth do I cut this out? I've tried punishing the one who distracts everyone else but it's hard to keep track of and then I get tears. "Well, I didn't MEAN to get them all to look" blah blah blah. Clearly that is not solving anything. I know I can't be the only mom who has this issue. Truth be told, this is likely sucking up to two hours of our day each and every day. Honestly. We all sit down and start around 9:30 each day but by the time 8:00pm rolls around most days we are still not done. But, it's not like they are working the whole time because inevitably, they have been distracted by _____ for long periods of time or so many different times that add up to one long period of time. My next problem? All the kids' subjects are very teacher intensive and they need me more often than I am free. For example, my oldest 3 do R&S grammar. That program doesn't really teach itself. Well, it does, but then it is a TON of writing for them and they complain. But if I sit and do it orally with them, it's 20min of time x 3 = one hour. And I need to find things to keep the other 2 working on independently while I do grammar with the one. I eventually run out of things for my kids to do independently. I am having a difficult time juggling four of them this year. Yes, my 7th grader is very independent but she needs me for a lot of things simply because they are more complicated- BJU science, for example. Even WWS2 is not very independent. She can do it on her own but gets more out of it when I spend the time to do aspects of it with her. This all takes time and my younger 3 can't do science on their own, nor can they do their writing programs 100% on their own (one is doing CC and the other is doing IEW). I find it very difficult to keep them all going when they all need me so much. The biggest challenge has been my K'er who needs me constantly. I feel like I can never leave his side and this has caused the others to wait for me and fall behind. So, I stopped working with him as much and now he is falling behind and not reading yet. Round and round we go. I don't even have that big of a family. 4 kids is not many to be teaching yet for some reason I'm finding it very complicated. What am I missing? Most days I can't get around to teaching Latin because we just run out of time. And I'm running 3 Latin programs. SF for my oldest, LC for middle, and PL for smallest. Ugh. I feel like they sit around waiting for me to teach them their lesson or review with them. If I make them review on their own, they think they know the material when they really don't and we have had to back track weeks of lessons because they didn't really know the material. I also have a child who is a complete dawdler. It doesn't help when I try to time things so I work with one child and others are independent and then it's this child's turn to work with me and this child is no where near ready for time with me. Often I make this child put the undone work away for homework so that I can continue with their lesson in the next subject but sadly, we never seem to get back around to the "homework" and that translates to picking up the next day. Do that enough times and we end up behind. Not horribly behind. A week behind sometimes, before I say enough and make this child work Saturday and Sunday. But that's no fun for anyone when we can't go swimming or to the park because one child needs to do work. (child is not old enough to stay home alone and I don't always have dh around to stay home with them). So how does it all come together? I really need some tips. ETA: My school aged kids are grades K, 2, 4, 7

Yup. And not only that, but in my area it is almost impossible to find figures for the "old" Skylanders Giants. :glare: If my kids want more characters we have to buy the new version or find the characters used. Argh!

There are a couple of sentences in dd's last composition that I'm unsure of and I'm hoping I can get some input if I post them here. They don't seem grammatically correct to me but I'm having a hard time helping her reword them and explaining why they are not correct. They are: His father was a teacher in Wales, where the boy immigrated and drew an early, yet profound, inspiration from its coast and mountains. He wrote mostly in ballad form of the sea and the country of Wales, and some of his works were set to music by Sir Edward Elgar. This one I think is correct, but am adding it in just in case it is not: Moreover, with the recurrent publication of more volumes of poetry, he became hailed as England's leading poet and successfully printed an astounding two-dozen poetical novels within the first two decades of his career. TIA!

... nm. :) I sat down with her and went through it (took 2 hours!) but we got most of it figured out.

Yes, I considered adding in IEW concepts. :) I don't really want to because if I'm going to go through all that- making up checklists and all that IEW entails, I may as well use IEW this year instead of CC. :unsure: I'm looking for another way to approach this without having to blend the two programs together... or if perhaps this is a sign that CC isn't going to work for her. Or, perhaps, I am missing the point and short concise retellings are the goal for this level. Hers just sounds so... blah. :eek: (no, I don't tell her this- I'm more encouraging when I talk to her about her writing)

My dd (grade 4) is using Classical Composition Fable for the first time. She chose it after looking over several programs, including IEW (which she did last year) and CAP's new writing program. She can do the outlining just fine but the problem comes when she does her rewrites. She sticks exactly to the outline when she rewrites the fable and her stories become short little 6 sentence rewrites. They are dull and lifeless. Then she goes in and adds the descriptions that the lesson requires of her but since there are 3 of them- you guessed it- in go 3 sentences. Done. :wacko: She ends with her 9 sentence long story, changes a word or two and calls it done. This is my dd who doesn't like writing. She's fairly good at it when she wants to be but if she can get away with saying things (in writing) in as few words as possible, she will. I think she chose CC because she can write an entire story (fable) in 5 or so sentences. But her writing sounds so flat. The stories make sense but there is nothing to them, if that makes sense. I have been trying to get her to add description work on sentence structures (we are concurrently using Kilgallon) but I'm not exactly sure what all I can do to get her to change how she's working through CC. How can I get her to spruce up her writing a bit? It often ends up sounding just like the original but with a lower vocabulary word choice. I'm not feeling like we are really going anywhere with this program. I guess my biggest issues are twofold: her stories are very short - almost too "to the point", and her vocabulary and sentence structure is weak. Her stories read like she has no imagination. :( FWIW, we are also using WWE4 at the same time as I want her to really hone in those skills before I start her into WWS next year.

I'm looking at getting something different for my boys this Christmas. They really like building things with blocks, Legos, Gears, Gears, Gears Crazy Creatures, Tinker Toy (although these were used as swords more often than not). I'm looking at getting them some K'Nex. One set would be a regular set of around 700 or so pieces, and the other set would be a special Mario themed set, similar to this (just to get the interest level up, my boys are Mario fanatics): Before I go spending a ton of money on K'Nex however, I'd like to hear from real children :p just how good, or not, these toys really are. Thanks!

Whoops. NM. I confused boondoggle with something else.

I was wondering the same thing. :) I tried to research the model that Costco carries and best I can tell, it is a model made for Costco so it is a bit difficult to compare. The description says it can do 9 cups of flour and 11 dozen cookies. The "other" 600 Pro is rated for 14 cups and 13 dozen cookies so the motor must be slightly less (that's my guess and understanding). The accessories are different too. The Costco machine come with white coated bread hook and mixer blade while the other units have the solid steel one and Costco adds in another head while the others have the spill guard/pour spout. ETA: hmmm. I just went to the Costco site and it says this mixer can do 14 cups. I read the above info somewhere (the box?!) but now I don't know where. The Costco one makes no mention of a direct drive engine and all steel parts and the website says it weighs 25lb while amazon says the kitchenaid pro weighs 31. How accurate tis allis, I don't know. It's confusing me a bit. I've been contemplating making the jump to purchase one of these so have been keeping an eye out. I did recently see the other 600 pro listed for less but I didn't jump on it and now the sale is over. :( I wish I hadn't hesitated. From what I have been seeing of KA prices lately, it's decent but not spectacular. The Costco model is also not quite what the other model is, which seems to be typical for products I have found at Costco. Don't get me wrong- I love Costco (probably a little too much, as evidenced by how much we spend there each week) but their electronics and appliances seem to always be slightly "off" than what all the other stores sell, making direct comparisons hard.

I have not done any kind of formal preschool with my kids. If they show interest in sitting with us, I give them R&S preschool books or something similar to work on but that's the extent of it. I don't require them to do seat work before K. I read to them, they play games, cut, glue, all those skills but I have not ever spent time teaching my preschool aged kids anything formal. I let them play knowing that eventually those days will pass. They have all, however, used the math manipulatives and done all sorts of preschool activities, just not any written work. It has served me well so far- my first three started K not knowing how to read or form (all) their letters but by November all were reading and writing at least basic CVC words. And they could write all their letters (capital and lowercase) with ease and accuracy. By the beginning of grade 2 the older three kids had all read the Narnia series (and other books at that level) so I'm not thinking that a late start has been bad for them, but perhaps I am mistaken? Enter child #4. He is my oldest to start K. In the past we've informally gone over letter sounds and his skills seemed on par with what the older kids had done at his age. He can recognize numbers and can count well. We started Saxon Phonics K and it has been a disaster. He has only learned 5 letters so far (we are on lesson 18 only because I keep having to take 2-3 days for each lesson to sink in) and yet he keeps getting them confused. I actually stopped all school (he did art, science and history with us instead) for a while because I didn't know what to do and it was getting frustrating for both of us. The letters he has learned are L, O, G, H, T. Most days he gets the sounds correct but other days are a disaster. L was the first letter, learned back in September and he still gets it wrong when I ask him what sound L makes. We review each letter EVERY day. It's like it's just not sinking in at all. And every time I add a new letter (which is painfully slow) he seems to forget what sound the other letters make. His favorite answer is "buh" but he hasn't even "learned" B or the "buh" sound. Or he will get mixed up between the sounds (say G says the "h" sound and that T says "guh" etc). I don't really know what's going on. He really does want to learn. He's eager and begs to do more and more each day but clearly it's not sinking in. His penmanship, thankfully, is coming along. I have not been in a situation like this before where one of the kiddos simply could not remember what sound the letters make. Usually it's the blending that they have a problem with. I don't want to get all worked up that he's behind but all my other kids were reading by this point and I know the kids in K here are reading too. Heck, I go on the preK and K board and it seems like most 3 year olds are way ahead of this one's skills. So what do you all suggest I do with him? Should I add in some preschool workbooks? Which ones? He is still working through the last two R&S books but those don't go over the letter skills I am looking to enforce. I could really use some ideas. I feel bad for not having started formal learning with this one sooner but I had done this 3 times- and it's not like I did absolutely nothing with him for the last two years. I'm definitely going to start formal work with my #5 at a lot younger age. :sad:

I wanted to do the DVD or online option but I much preferred the newest edition of the books (and bought those) so we are on our own for this course. :)

Would you mind sharing with me how you used the texts in your homeschool? Did you follow the schedule in the teachers guide? Did you read the text to your child? With your child? Did your child read to themselves? How did you have your child interact with the text? (Outlining, notes, just the chapter questions?) What did you get your child to do to get the most out of the text? Did you read the text then teach the material? Introduce the topic first? Let the text do all the teaching? Any tips, tricks, recommendations and ideas are very wanted. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. Thanks! FWIW this is my first time using anything by BJU and I am using Life science with a 7th grader.

Would you mind sharing with me how you used the texts in your homeschool? Did you follow the schedule in the teachers guide? Did you read the text to your child? With your child? Did your child read to themselves? How did you have your child interact with the text? (Outlining, notes, just the chapter questions?) What did you get your child to do to get the most out of the text? Did you read the text then teach the material? Introduce the topic first? Let the text do all the teaching? Any tips, tricks, recommendations and ideas are very wanted. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. Thanks! FWIW this is my first time using anything by BJU and I am using Life science with a 7th grader.

I didn't have pain then at all either and my issues with coffee did resolve. This was a couple of years ago. I thought I would mention it as something to keep an eye on. I don't mean to worry you.

I'm quite sure that when I posted here before about the same thing happening to me, dear Kalanamak suggested it was gallbladder related. Have you had any other gallbladder related issues? ((Hugs)) I hope it's not that for you. I'm having serious pain from my gallbladder lately (no other digestion issues) and I wouldn't wish gallbladder pain on anyone. Ugh!

I don't think one is better than the other. Oil of oregano can be quite potent and sometimes burns a little in the oil form. For that reason, I prefer the capsules. I've been using it for years and in my experience both work equally well. I did have a naturopath tell me that it is quite strong and will harm your body's good bacteria along with the bad (it's also great for fighting candida and yeast infections) and that one should also take a good probiotic to replenish tour good bacteria when using oil of oregano (although not at the same time).

I want to be able to make bread since a loaf from our bread maker is no longer big enough to feed all the kids in the morning. I do a fair amount of GF baking (no bread so far) and I would love to make fresh pasta, both GF and non GF. But I haven't decided if I would make fresh pasta often or if it would be a novelty accessory that spends 364 days in the cupboard. :) I don't need to make tons of loaves of bread at once and rarely make more than 4 dozen muffins in a batch. As the kids grow, I can see making more and more bread, however. My girls are really getting into baking so I can see them using it quite a bit. Thanks for all the responses. They have been very helpful. I always sort of thought Bosch was "the" machine to have but it sounds like I may be happier with a KA. I don't need the blender accessory as I already have a VitaMix. :)