I am on my phone so I can't see your signature or how old your kids are. What grade are you looking at? I have done Apologia's Astronomy book 3 times now and my kids were either in 2nd or 3rd or 4th grade. I found I had to supplement a fair bit for the 4th grader to make it meatier. It is the easiest of the Apologia elementary series and I wouldn't say that it's middle shool level. :) I just thought I would throw it out there. :-/ For my middle school child (8th) next year we are doing parts of BJU earth and Signs and Seasons to cover astronomy. There is another reasource I bought along the lines of Signs and Seasons but I can't remember what and I am out of state at the moment and can't check, sorry. If you are determined to do the Apologia book and want something off to round out the rest of the year, I would recommend doing one of Ellen McHenry's courses. They are more middle school level and well loved on this board. We've done a couple of them and enjoyed them. What topic are you looking to do for the rest of the year? That might make it easier to make suggestions. :). The Apologia Anatomy book is one of the more difficult ones and a middle shool child could easily get through it along with Astonomy. The Botany one is also more challenging and lots of hands-on, interesting learning. We've used those two as well with good success.

Yup! We've raised them from egg sacks a couple of times. Great fun!!

The title says it all. With summer BBQ season upon us I'm finding we are having a steady stream of relatives and friends over for meals. I could use some dessert ideas- the more inexpensive the better and I need to feed a crowd most of the time. ;)

If it was an important camp for my kids I would send them but I would visit and thrift store and buy an all "new" wardrobe to pack for camp and a bag. Everything would then go in the garbage after camp without a second thought or hesitation. :) Of course, one could worry about thrift store shopping too... But I've heard bed bugs can be at new clothing stores as well so....

I have a counsellor I do see. But she doesn't have personal experience. She's helpful but not. Does that make sense? I do have friends. I am not alone in that regard. But I can't talk about this. Wow. No. How weird would that be? lol And of course, I am looking to take a conversation to PM. :) Wow. Life is really. really. really. hard sometimes. :crying:

Thank you, Debbi. Your kindness has touched me today.

Anyone here deal with depression, medication and subsequent personality changes? Anyone willing to talk with me privately about it or at least offer me a shoulder to cry on? I don't know if I have the strength to go this alone anymore. No, I'm not a danger to myself. No, I am not the one who is depressed. :) Yes, I see a counsellor, but the depression isn't my issue. But it affects me. In ways no one should have to endure. So, after that cheery intro to the topic- any takers? Anyone BTDT or just feel called to be a friend today? I could sure use one. Please. I know it's not looked at in high regard on this board- but please don't quote me. I truly need to delete this later. Thank you.

I'm surprised it got as many responses as it did, but glad that they were all mostly friendly. :) What surprises me most is how many people agree (95%!!) on the same choice!!

I would like to talk to some moms who have boys who are close in age- around a 2 year gap or so, with no sibling in between them. I don't like to too many post personal details on the internet so I am hoping that there are some moms here who would be willing to take it to PM with me. Nothing deep and dark but I could use some guidance, commiseration ;) or BTDT WTR to raising boy siblings. TIA

Wait. What? :eek: Who are you calling older, exactly? :toetap05: :sneaky2: :001_tt2: :smilielol5:

I like the look of it. I have always liked those kinds of tubs. But looking at it in this picture i cant help but shudder at the thought of how to keep the exterior of it clean. All those grooves for dust to sit. Oh dear.!! And cleaning the side against the wall? :svengo: I would love this tub in someone else's house. ;)

Thanks, Cat. That was not an awesome experience. I'm ok with whatever it is as long as it's not contagious. I have too many kids for this to have to go through right now and the timing is awful. I feel fine, other than the worry, but I do have a weird heaviness in my stomach, which I sometimes get when my gallbladder takes offence to something I have eaten. :-/ No nausea though. Just weirdly uncomfortable.

I was having dinner with my family. It was a late one but we had a late lunch. I was feeling perfectly fine. I have had issues with my gallbladder but against my better thinking decided to have fries (made at home). I have a low functioning gallbladder, no stones. I finally sat down to eat a piece of fish and all of a sudden was overwhelmed with nausea... so much so that I had to run to the bathroom. But despite many (ahem) attempts, nothing came out. (sort of like when you have a stomach virus but have nothing left inside, except I had a lot of fries and some fish so I know my stomach was not empty). Now I feel a bit shaky from the experience (I have really bad emitophobia) but other than that, perfectly fine. I feel like I could just go on with life like nothing happened but my stomach, not mid like near belly button feels a bit "full and off". What just happened? Gallbladder thing? Please tell me I don't have a weird stomach virus.

What if one of the bedrooms or bathrooms is a gender specific color- like princess purple or baby blue and the tenant has a child of the opposite gender or no child at all? So, not a situation where the paint color was neutral to begin with. Does that change your mind on who should pay for a new paint job?

If you rent a house and you want to paint it (and landlord gives permission) do you expect that the landlord would then pay for the job- either paint and/or labor to do if pros are hired out vs. the tenant doing it themselves. Would you expect the landlord to split it? What percentage? For the sake of this situation, let's make it clear that the entire house was freshly painted and/or touched up upon taking possession so "in need of paint or an ugly job" are not the reason- it's simply a color preference issue. If you are a landlord and your tenant asked you if they could repaint, would you expect to pay for some of those costs? How much would you be willing to cover? How much should the landlord pay in a situation like this? If you're a landlord and your tenant asked, would you agree to them repainting the entire house (if they didn't like the color, not because it was poorly done or in need of a fresh coat)? Would you require that professional painters be hired or do you care if the tenants just went at it themselves? As a landlord would you care what color the house would then become? Can a landlord insist to have final say on color in a situation like this? How much say would the tenant get?

It sounds like a great idea. And I've read enough of your posts to get to "know" you a bit and I think you would do a great job. However, I will be very honest: at $10 per class, one chapter per week, I would not pay $720 for someone to do SOTW with my child for a year. And given that I have 3 who could take your classes I certainly couldn't afford $2160 per year!! I don't think that all the chapters in SOTW warrant all the extra work and a cost of $20 per chapter. Some chapters my kids listen to the audiobook (borrowed from the library) and color a page while I cook supper and we call it done. :) I truly don't mean to sound negative about it. I live in a very high COL area. People pay big $$ for their kids to be in enrichment classes but I would be willing to bet that most homeschoolers here would balk at that kind of cost. :( for a child to do all 4 SOTW books over time that would cost almost $3000! Ack Also, for the younger kids I think 1.5 hours is long for day #2. My kids do map work and I insist on effort and quality but I think you would find the kids done and restless long before the time was up, especially on day two, unless you add in another activity or craft.

Yes. This. I would also see a chiro :D but I would want to get it documented first. I'm sorry this happened to you. :grouphug:

I have no idea what you are talking about because clearly I missed the original thread. But you seem pretty pleased so I will celebrate with you. :D

Does your dog sleep on your bed? How big is your dog? How about cats? Anyone sleep with their cat? Dh and I don't sleep with a dog on our bed but we have one who sure would love to. (we don't allow the dog on any of our furniture) The cat has bed privileges but only because he's smaller. But Oh those puppy eyes! They make me feel so guilty!

I've been doing SM all along with this one child and we are currently 3/4 of the way through 4B. It's been pretty good. But I think it could be substantially better. For one, this child likes to take shortcuts. This is a problem with her more so than SM but it's happening and it makes her get the wrong answers. She won't write down her steps or show her work and tries to do everything mentally but she's not able to do so. Then I can't help her at all because I don't know where she went wrong and she can't remember what she did. (she's easily distracted as well, which doesn't help) I am working on making her write down her work but she claims to "forget" to do do. This child does not seem to have long-term retention. She does well on the daily lessons (when not skipping steps or trying to do it all in her head, even the multi-step word problems) but I'm noticing it's not sticking. I decided to order the test book for 4B and have her work through that since we are winding down the textbook work. She was doing a test per day since it was all review and lo and behold, she was failing. 30% on one 25% on another. :huh: These were all concepts she did fine on during the workbook work. Now, the work book work was a few months ago now- Jan/Feb but this was a big drop in her level of retention. She was frustrated with herself and in tears when she saw how poorly she did. I don't like a program that spirals too much (like Saxon) as I think she won't focus for long enough but my limited exposure to BJU would seem that it may be a good fit for her. I don't know what the grade 5 BJU would be like but I know things ramp up in SM 5a and I don't want this child to lose her mathematical confidence. Would I be happy with BJU? Is it to the same level of SM? Many people I know IRL seem to hold SM in high esteem. I haven't heard the same of BJU, but to be fair, I haven't heard anything about BJU :laugh: (good or bad). I very much like the *idea* of SM but I'm starting to think it may not be the best idea any more. I hate jumping ship but what I saw on her test scores these past few weeks has me worried. She does not have test anxiety. She tried her best but she simply could not remember how to do the work. I'm not really willing to shop around for a bunch of math programs. I feel that we should maybe give BJU a try or stick it out with SM. Thoughts?

Is ADHD a controversial subject? I'm really ignorant about this, I'm sorry. After doing some (but not a ton) of reading and some assessments I have been wondering about this re: one of my kids. Yesterday I was at the park with a woman I know so I talked to her about it. She scoffed and said, "I don't believe in ADHD." At the time I didn't know what to make of it so I just changed the subject and moved on. I do think it would explain a lot of things and a lot of the behaviours I am seeing in my child, but I also realize that there are several other possibilities. I'll admit, I don't know a lot about ADHD. I know I've heard people say it's diagnosed too often (and too many kids are on meds because of that) but to say one doesn't believe in it? Is it not really a "real" disorder? I'm confused. I hope this isn't controversial as I don't want to stir anything up here. I'm asking because I don't know.

Ah. Can they be used for small critters? I need to look into this. We have a few of those around here. :)

My fourth grader did Word Roots by CTC this year and while she did fine on the daily assignments, come time for the reviews everything she had done was in one ear out the other. Neither her, nor my 8yo rising 2nd grader are intuitive when it comes to vocabulary and simply reading to them above their levels has helped much, if at all. I really need some sort of recommendation to help these two (5th and 3rd in the fall) with their vocabulary. My second grade is especially awful. When asked to describe anything he's still at the "big" "small" stage- even my K'er can use better words to describe some objects. What have you used that actually sticks. I'm getting a bit concerned because my older child is getting, well, older, and since she will be using WWS next year I know it will be demanding. She does currently use a thesaurus to edit her writing but I would also like to build on her "word bank" inside her head.

I'm doing a spring cleaning of sorts and going through our filing cabinet and clearing things that are out dated. I have shredded a lot of old bank statements and credit card statements, etc. I have a cross-cut shredder so the pieces are small vs. long strips but now I have several large white plastic bags full. Other than just taking to the recycle bin, is there anything I can do with these?

It's been a while since I've checked out the Outdoor Hour Challenge blog and now I see that it has gone to a subscription based idea. Does anyone still use her materials? Do you feel that it is worth the $45 for the Ultimate Naturalist level? Does she ever have a sale where one could get the "U.N" level for less? I'm all ears to whatever anyone can share about their experience with this. I really need a kick in the pants to get some more nature studies in with my kids before they are all grown up. :(