This has not been our experience. We just flew this past weekend with Southwest. All seven of us were roughly together (the littler ones were right with us, the oldest three were either in front of us or next to us. We flew last ear with Virgin America and were together with no problems. Our experience has been that people are generally very happy to relocate in order to allow family members to be together. I would never want to sit next to someone else's 2 year old...I can't imagine that happens very often :D

I have read the 1st edition once straight through and have returned to different sections multiple times over the years. I never felt compelled to purchase newer editions.

I am currently doing Year 1 UG with a 3rd grader. He is a solid but S-L-O-W reader, so I make some of the reading independent and some of it read-aloud. That particular week you mentioned I read Pyramid aloud and we alternated pages in the Usborne. By the end of the year I hope to have him reading everything independently.

They are a really big hit here with my 8 and 4 year old's. We have three sets and some expansion pieces. My older kids will also occasionally get involved playing with them. They have been well worth the money here.

Downton Abbey and Merlin were recent favorites here.

I grew 8 million or so last year, so I feel your pain :-) I add them to mashed potatoes...50/50. Add lots of butter, salt, and pepper. All the family ate them happily.

I try to make a big pot of soup over the weekend (chicken corn chowder, Minestrone, chicken noodle, chili) and then serve it for 2 or 3 lunches that week. A slab of crusty bread or corn bread to go with it and everyone is sated and happy. Other things we do consistently: peanut butter roll ups (whole wheat tortillas w/ PB) grilled cheese and tomato soup whole wheat pasta w/ butter and cheese home made pizza (I make the pizza dough ahead of time) pancakes (I usually triple a recipe of whole wheat pancakes over the weekend and then reheat for lunch)

I have used CW for 6 years and have completed through Chreia. I think it is a fantastic writing program and will most definitely stick with it for the long haul. That being said, my oldest two are taking the year off from CW this year...mostly for my sake. I decided to streamline my own teaching schedule this year by having my oldest two work on Writing Aids assignments for TOG, as well as some creative writing assignments...especially since my 6th grade dd is doing Homer this year, which is especially time consuming. To answer your other questions, I have used Harvey's grammar as recommended in CW and work on spelling in the context of their writing. We do not use a separate spelling program.

This was going to be my question, as well. We must minimize the screen that shows us, or my kids act like crazy people...playing for the camera.

The Henty books are really well done. My oldest history-loving son has read many of them and enjoys them very much. They are historical fiction and are full of action and adventure and great vocabulary.

I would say the majority of the time I call him "Love" or "Sweets".

My dd11's poster-sized family tree of the Patriarchs a Random House Webster's college dictionary all the books pertaining to Classical Writing Homer A my laptop an empty glass

My freshman is using this course for the base of an Intro. to Linguistics credit this year. I have fleshed it out by including all of the essential reading recommendations listed in the Course Guidebook. So each week he watches the lecture while taking notes, turns the notes into an outline which he compares with the outline in the Course Guidebook, and writes a summary of the week's topic. He will be assigned a mid-term paper and a final paper. The required books for the year are: Language: An Introduction by Sapir Phonetic Symbol Guide by Pullum and Ladusaw Word and Rules by Pinker The Language Instinct by Pinker Atoms of Language by Baker Language: Structure and Use by Finegan Introduction to Historical Linguistics by Arlotto The Mother Tongue by Bryson How Children Learn Language by O'Grady Power of Babelby McWhorter The Story of Writing by Robinson Saramaccan Grammar by McWhorter and Good Each week also has a "Questions to Consider" section in the Course Guidebook. I may begin assigning a question to be answered each week, but have not yet done so. Currently, he reviews these orally. HTH,

My current 6th grader is doing D-level.

I am blessedly out of the baby/toddler stage around here, but I remember those days well. Here are some of the necessities to keeping us on track in those days: * Plypen time for the 16 mo. old. This was crucial for me. Play music or a simple book on CD and work him up to 60 minutes of independent play time every morning. My littles always did this in their bedroom. My now 4 year old still has 60 minutes of room time every day. *High-chair and/or table time. Until my little ones turned 2 they had 30 minutes or so every day of high-chair time...and after 2 they would have table time. Color Wonder markers, measuring cups, puzzles, etc. *Have your olders take turns playing with the youngers one-on-one. Have the play be specific...building block towers, Play-Doh, puzzles, Duplos, etc. *Break up the time they spend with you...for instance...go over your oldest's math lesson and let her go to do her independent worksheet. At that point switch to the next and go over a grammar lesson. Send her off to do some copywork independently while beginning a lesson with the next. If I tried to do all teacher-intensive work in one sitting with each kid there would be LOTS of chaotic down time for everyone. Work on training with the younger two at this time, so that they will be less disruptive. And remember, in a couple of years the landscape will look a bit different :001_smile:

I am currently on my 5th trip through PP. One of the reasons I love it so much is the thoroughness and completeness. It has plenty of work with prefixes, suffixes and reading multi-syllable words, in my opinion. We usually jump into ETC 4-6 for review and then call phonics done. Switch to spelling if you desire and have her real aloud. Fluency and speed will come.

I have been using LfC for years now and I would agree with some of the pp's. Right now, just memorize. The context comes later and will then be much easier because the memorization will be done. Also, the maxim is simply a common Latin saying and may have nothing to do with the vocabulary you are learning. It's just a fun little quip to memorize. What helped us immensely early on was stretching each LfC chapter out over 2 weeks. We would watch the video on day 1 and then spend the remainder of the 2 weeks practicing with the worksheets and the Activity Book. It helped to make things less frenzied. HTH,

We always bring a large container of homemade trail mix (peanuts, cashews, almonds, raisins, M&M's, coconut, pumpkin seeds). I keep a handful of small plastic cups in the container for dispensing. We also bring dried fruit, dry cereal (Cheerios, Chex, etc.), and beef jerky.

We stated with tinted lip gloss (pinks or neutrals) at 10 and mascara at 13. That's as far as we've gotten :001_smile:

My daughters were looking last year for volunteer opportunities. We wound up finding a woman at church who was in the process of adopting her 5th child through the foster system. Her husband worked long hours and her oldest twin boys were 6, so not a lot of help. They arranged with her to come by once a week for 2 hours to help in whatever way she needed. They did everything: chop veggies for the week's planned meals, ironing, cleaning floors and bathrooms, making copies of homeschool materials, etc. The arrangement was great and only stopped recently when they moved out of state. Maybe you could find a similar one-on-one opportunity?

Mine is about all kinds of stuff...mostly family-related, but a little of everything.

I like to make soup ahead of time for those days. Then all I have to do is heat it up. Healthy, quick, and often better tasting after a day or two in the fridge.

I have a similar recipe w/ cranberries, but it has some OJ in it. The orange/cranberry combo is lovely.

I begin with my youngest two while my oldest three work independently. Then I cycle through the older set.

Yes, I think that's a great plan.