MATH: last year she went to Kumon classes twice a week and did 2 page worksheets daily (7 days a week), and Time 4 Learning math, and daily drills that took all of 2 min. I'm open to all new math curric. We are pulling the girls out of Kumon because it's no longer a good match and is so crazy expensive. Her sister is starting Teaching Textbooks this fall, I'm hoping it will work for my 2nd grader in 3rd grade. I just need something to get her through this one year. She is totally comfortable with math, in Kumon she's doing double digit subtraction and has memorized multiplication facts though 10. Time 4 Learning was just a fun way to keep up with all around math skills. Any suggestions? LANG. ARTS: I was thinking she could finish Emma Serl Primary Language Lessons, it works fine and she seems to like it. Zaner B. cursive & printing books. Poetry memorization is quick, easy and works. She picked up an old Wordly Wise workbook at the end of the year and finished it, I could get more of those. I was thinking this reading log could be good writing practice http://www.thehomeschoolshop.com/sh-reading.htm. Am I repeating or missing anything? SO. STUDIES and SCIENCE are covered by Winter promise SEA & SKY. ARTS: Artistic Pursuits, piano and violin classes continued and french cont. in the car (Pimsleur) and translating french children's songs to english. Because S&S is so time consuming (I think) I'm worried about to heavy of a math and L.A. program. She loves to work and I don't want to wreck that. I definitaly want S&S to be our main focus next year. She repeated K so some of her work is at 3rd grade level. Some of the classes she's interested in for fall are fencing, home school days at the ice skating rink, chess, and science classes at the nature center. It always seems like to much stuff but when school starts it seems like it all gets done so fast. We also don't do everything everyday, and the classes are spread out randomly over 9 months. Thanks in advance for any insight :)

We use Pimsleur too. We also do Ecoutez Parlez, I don't know how she would feel about those workbook pages, you either like them or you don't. Just listening to the cd's can be helpful, it's different stuff than Pimsleur. We also do homemade flash cards. We listen to this cd,http://www.imaginedition.com/french_books_music.htm (the top one) in the fall I'm planning to translate them into english with the girls. I keep waiting for something inappropriate to come up on the Pimsleur cd's, did you ever come across a bar conversation, or anything like that?

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My 10 yo daughter is stubborn, she's a lot like my husband. He is SO STUBBORN. I've known him since I was 16, and 20 years later I'm still surprised at how hard headed he can be! I also greatly admire some of the things he has done with it. My daughter hasn't gotten any better or worse over the years. I've set the standards for what I expect and things run fairly smooth. For example she doesn't have to like dinner every night, she just has to eat it. I make sure to cook her favorite dishes to even it all out. I don't tolerate stubborn behavior that looks or sounds rude. But if she paints herself in a corner with a bad mood, I help her out. It's hard for her to be like that sometimes too. I rarely ask her if she wants to do or go to XYZ because if she is even in a little stubborn funk she'll say no. I limit her options and opinions & in the end I think she appreciates it, and generally she has a good time. It's a dance I guess, and it can be exhausting for me. I would never want to break her spirit, for someone who can be such a pill, she is a gentle soul. I KNOW with guidance, it can help her be great at whatever she does in life. I like women women like that, cultured and tough as nails.

I know my inlaws let the kids use a regular knife to prep. but I am not quite ready for that at home. My 10 year old bakes without any supervision, she also does all of the clean up. I started her with easy things like boxed corn bread, bisquick, pigs in a blanket etc. Yesterday she baked chocolate chip cookies on her own (I take them out of the hot oven). I also have my girls peel veggies for me. Now I'm teaching them to put together a grocery list for a recipe they want to try. I keep thinking there are knives at Halloween time that are child proof for carving pumpkins, I'll look for one this fall for my 7 year old.

I'm so glad this thread came back! Now that I've committed to 'Sea & Sky' next year I need to find a few poems to go with that. Any suggestions? At the moment I'm loving this one: http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/104053-Herbert--Ashley-Asquith-A-Ship-Sails-up-to-Bideford. Rosie, I LOVE your new favorite poem!

Hatchet is a fun read, but if I remember right there is a lot of anger about the parents divorce and hinting at the boy having seen his mom cheating on the father. I've been holding off on this one because of that. Maybe someone has read it more recently and can confirm, did he see his mom kissing another man?

YES!! I think I am. I managed my first year of having lupus (the sadness that is) by going to Gelsons every other day for a slice of cake or a brownie. I justified it by the fact that the slices were so darn small! Now I live next to a market that has these yummy/nasty chocolate chip cookies for only $.33. Everyday is hard for me so almost everyday I find a reason to run to the store. I tell myself as long as I only have one it's fine, I'm emotional eating with a dash of moderation. I sit in the car and eat it, and tell myself all the stress will be gone when I'm done with this little piece of heaven. And you know what, I always feel better. :D I know I should be on some amazing diet that would practically cure me (yeah right!), but I've already made so many sacrifices. I NEED that cookie in my life right now, it's better than an anti depressant. I know, I tried it, the cookie totally works better for me.

Cinder, I really appreciate you going back to look at the workbooks! Are you saying I could use the experiments and avoid teaching young earth science(talking about the glad weather book here)? I would simply not read the bible parts? I have no problem with books that take the time to honor God, but being that we are Muslim and do not teach young earth science, I don't want to waste time or money if this is an obvious bad match for us. Is the information that you read each day SO specific that it would be hard to change the books out? For instance using this book:http://www.amazon.com/Ocean-American-Museum-Natural-History/dp/0756636922/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243975985&sr=1-1 instead of using The Ocean Book. Will I be scrambling to find a paragraph on microscopic blah blah of the Indian Ocean? Or is it like ok lets read about what ever looks interesting in 'Ocean'. Can you tell it will work out just fine(even if you think it's near impossible to secularize), and that it's time to start enjoying summer vacation? :D I've got a pile of chick flicks here and a tub of chocolate ice cream, I'm just wanting to feel like it's all worked out for Sep. and it's time to chill:001_smile: thanks-

I'm relieved to here that about the Glad books, I was hoping to find some stuff at Acorn Naturalist, they always have something different. I live near their store so I can really pour over their selection. Does it matter if the experiment is something different than what we would have done in Glad. Will that throw us off somehow? thanks again

I use Cover FX, and LOVE it. Besides having to cover up my lupus marks, it has reduced my break outs in a major way. Here is the website: http://www.coverfxmakeup.com/ I use this to wash my face:http://uk.lizearle.com/products_details.php?range=1&groupid=1&mnuid= if you like natural products Liz Earle is very accountable with ingredients.

Willow I've never done a time line. Much less one that will have to be adapted from the start. Have you done S&S timeline? Any suggestions on how to start it since I do not teach creationism? Are those the dates the time line starts with? Jump into thanks for the heads up on the weather book. So far I've only ordered the sailing/ocean books. Do you think the ocean book I picked will do? Would you suggest I find something to replace the Glad books? Thanks so much:)

Thank you for all of your replies:). I will definitely be joining the yahoo group. Here is what I've changed out: 'Planet Earth' I'm actually going to use. It seems to specialized of a book to give up, I'll just work around the CC. Hopefully that will go ok? 'The Ocean Book' I'm using http://www.amazon.com/Ocean-American-Museum-Natural-History/dp/0756636922/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243830064&sr=1-1 'Dragons of the Deep' I've switched to http://www.amazon.com/Chased-Sea-Monsters-Nigel-Marven/dp/0756603757 'The Weather Book' for http://www.amazon.com/Weather-Seymour-Simon/dp/0060884398 'Glad Scientist Books' I'm thinking I could easily use other experiments from library books I'll omit 'Raiders from the Sea' and 'Our Place in Space'. Although I wonder if 'Raiders' alienates non Christians or if it simply tells about how her faith kept her strong and brave. It looks like a good book. Any thoughts on that? I'm not sure where S&S starts their time line. So I may have to tweak that also. Over all I've got a great feeling about next year. Nothing ever seems to go the way I plan anyways. Any other ideas or feed back would be appreciated.:D

I'd like to do the Winter Promise program 'Adventures in the Sea & Sky'. I'm looking to replace the Creationist books for non religious ones. Has anyone done this, or used the religious ones and found that it was easy to work around. I'm also wondering if by switching some of the books out, do you think it would become a big pain? I don't mind the time it takes each day to keep up with this program, but I don't want to be stressing, trying to figure out what I should be doing each morning.

I feel much better about my survival skills, now that I've read this (over and over:tongue_smilie:) http://www.amazon.com/Zombie-Survival-Guide-Complete-Protection/dp/1400049628/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242454252&sr=8-1

I've been working to get Spencerian Cursive added as a vendor at our charter school. My 10yo is so excited to bump it up a notch. I think the whole family will give it a go. http://www.spencerian.com/

I'm planning to do botany next year. Rainbow resources has a bunch of stuff, so do Montessori companies, such as: http://www.montessoriservices.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=105_3320 I can't wait to grow mushrooms!

A lot of new workbooks are coming out in July. My girls have been going to Kumon math classes for a few years now. We are planning to take them out of the classes for the summer and buy these more advanced workbooks. I agree they just look kind of fun! Today the kids came home from class and told their dad they don't want to stop classes in the summer. Crazy kids:lol:!!

Some of our favorites this year: http://www.amazon.com/Bat-Poet-Randall-Jarrell/dp/0062050842 http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Family-Michael-Capua-Books/dp/0062059041/ref=pd_sim_b_1 http://www.amazon.com/Naya-Nuki-Shoshoni-Girl-Who/dp/0801088682/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240986057&sr=1-1

Wooden Soldier has a few all yellow dresses. They're expensive but well made.

We started with Pimsleur cd's in the car. These teach conversation skills. We love this set. I've since added Ecoutez Parlez which is met with slightly less enthusiasm. Ecoutez has a workbook that could be too hard for little ones to do alone. For me I want the girls (10 & 7) to get really comfortable hearing the language and using words and phrases casually through the day. I found a french music cd through a Waldorf company, we listen to people like Jacques Brel, and Carla Bruni almost daily. Oh! I've also made flash cards for all our words and phrases. We do one of these things every day, but it's always light and fun.

continued from last post... The point is, climates can arise within any culture, where extremism, and in turn, brutality can arise. This tends to be in relation to economic, factors - i.e. shortfall of resources, and poverty, can make a country enter into an expansionist phase, very often using religion as a justification or incentive to its populous for such a war. Likewise, poverty and hopelessness, and dramatic changes in the status quo, can compel more people to turn towards extremist ideas, or anti social behavior. And in the latter regard, there's actually a lot of similarity between the Russian Nihilists of the late 1800's and the modern day extremists within the Muslim world. The modern era, where old ways are being turned in on themselves, and tradition falls by the wayside, tends to exacerbate these problems. New ideas spring up, that are enacted with fanatical zeal in an effort to combat certain ills - whether it be the onset of communism, and the abuses that resulted with that experiment, or the neo or should I say pseudo fundamentalist Muslims, who for all their talk of representing a "Pure Islam" are essentially non traditional, modernist aberration of the Faith - who are not grounded in the centuries of scholarship, or tradition of the valid Islamic schools of Law. And though these things arise in the vacuum left after the collapse of Empire, and later, the end of the Cold War - Im not suggesting it is purely a fault of the West. Clearly, there are extremist elements, within the Muslim world, who are pushing to indoctrinate as many people as they can, into their hate filled vision of reality and utilizing the circumstances of the post colonial era to achieve their ends. My point is - you ask how a culture that was once so vibrant and advanced, can now have its holy lands ruled by a dynasty who in 1987, bulldozed a 12th century christian church. The question has a very simple, and historically factual answer, that is tied to the above mentioned subjects. Colonialism, and extremist / modernist elements - which in this case, united to create a perfect storm that continues to plague the world today. And that is the case of a small, cult like group, known as the Wahhabiyya, who all schools of Law within Islam (within both Sunni and Shi'i spheres) condemned at their outset, as being heretical. The British, in their early efforts to destabilize the Ottoman Empire, and jockey for control of the Middle East, gave backing to this cult, which in turn led to them seizing and then occupying the Hijaz and the rest of what would become 'Saudi' Arabia in an alliance with the House Of Saud. With the discovery of oil, the untold wealth which they were then able to amass, and the prestige that holding the keys to the Ka'bah has within the Muslim world, allowed them to both subtly and overtly influence the spread of their doctrine under the guise of 'purifying and strengthening the faith.' To those who say there isn't outrage within the Muslim world at this occurrence. I would say you most likely have that opinion because you have not studied the history of it (seen the battles that were fought to try and defeat these extremists - battles which were unfortunately lost due to their british funding, and now vast oil wealth). Battles which continue to be fought in the intellectual sphere, and in the form of public outrage across the Muslim world, when elements in Saudi Arabia, want to dig up Muhammad"s (sal) tomb for instance. The destruction of archeological finds are by no means limited to Christian or Jewish sites. The Saudi regime has been steadily destroying Muslim sites ever since coming to power. So when we talk about violence in the Muslim world, lets first off differentiate between what are legitimate forms of resistance against foreign occupation (and any similar political struggle that any nation in the world would feel justified in fighting), to those things which occur in any society by criminal elements or otherwise, and lastly, those things that are done in the name of religion, by people whose motivation is how they read or interpret Islamic Law. Even in the latter, there are debates within such countries, amongst their law makers, and religious scholars about such things (there is not, for instance, one uniform view amongst all judges, within one country, about what should be illegal, and what the punishments should be). And like the growth and development of all societies, it is an ongoing process within those countries. Lastly, there is the minority extremist position, that unfortunately has become entrenched in some countries (like Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan) but even then, it must be remembered that there are prominent members of those societies, who are trying to change things from within. The same as any society which is having problems. I personally feel, as I think I've expressed numerous times on this board, but will reiterate again now, that as the world becomes smaller, and traditional ways of life tend to get subsumed in an ever dominating materialist culture (with all of the resulting problems described above) - it is important for people of faith, to seek a commonality with each other, to confront fanaticism and intolerance in all of its forms, and push forward for the common good.

Well, first of all - i guess we have to determine if we are talking about the actual religion of Islam, or a broader 'culture' across the Muslim world (which to the outsider may seem to be one uniform entity, but is in actuality many different cultures with an overall Islamic veneer, who have all been influenced by Islam in their own unique way, but have all developed their own unique culture, with different levels of Quranic influence - developing for 800 to a thousand years before (generally speaking) being thrust into colonial domination for several more centuries, and then finally into the modernism of this era, which few traditional societies were prepared for (be they Muslim or otherwise). And in that vast list of cultures, are we talking Arab culture? Because that in itself, is a huge list of countries, with various backgrounds and differences among themselves - be they ethnic or religious (whether sectarian divides within Islam, or actual separate religious affiliations - Muslim, Christian, Druze, Mandaen, Yazidi, Alawi etc). And even then, are we talking the marginally religious within society, the devout, the non religious socialist element, or just the vast amount of young people, who are like young people everywhere, tied into pop culture - listening to pop music, wanting western clothes and so on. And that is just giving a rough breakdown of the Arab world. What about the Iranians or Turks? How about Central Asia, West and East Africa, or the Indian Subcontinent, China, Malaysia and Indonesia, all of whom have very distinct Islamiclly influenced cultures, with all of the same sub catogories mentioned above? You mention a host of atrocities occurring across many Muslim societies, as if they're an ever present occurrence throughout the Muslim world. If you actually look at the roughly 50 or so Muslim majority countries, as well as countries such as China and India (whose minority Muslim population combined is over 150 million strong) - it becomes quickly evident, that occurrences of even the most violent nature, are not any more representative of life across that large region, and diverse population (nor a reflection of the religion practices to whatever degree by these people) than is the increasingly violent nature of say Russia, and the attacks against immigrants there by youth striving for an ethnically pure (and religiously Orthodox Christian nation) is indicative of some underlying tenant in Eastern Orthodoxy. The fact is - the more traditional, religious societies are for the most part, living in the shadow of collapse (of a former high civilization)- which is in large degree, rooted first in the weakening of those societies during the colonial era, combined with the West (who benefited from the large amounts of wealth obtained during their period of world dominance) being the first to modernize, industrialize etc (and having already gone through its growing pains to a large extent). For instance - people love to condemn China and her environmental disregard, as if its an inherent Chinese trait, as opposed to China's industrialization coming a hundred years later than the West's, and without the gradual/natural relation between development of implementation of such technology that occurred , in say, America, who with even that benefit, still managed to destroy large parts of its own environment, not to mention the world. The continued dominance of the West, in relation to these countries, and the economic and political vunerabilty these countries are in vis-a-vis the West, with its emmense wealth and exagerated demand for natural resources (whether oil, or drugs, or human beings) is still unduly influencing the stagnation and or decline of many such societies (see drug wars in Mexico, the propping up of dictatorships in Oil rich countries, and the trafficing of women in South East Asia, and Eastern Europe). At yet, even then, its far too easy as an outsider to look in from afar (at examples of individual crimes or mob mentality violence) and think it is reflective of the entire population - when in reality, most people are living descent lives, practicing their religion (when they have one), loving their families and so on). But back to the specifics of the Muslim world. The list of attrocities, is by no means occuring in the majority of Muslim countries, let alone from the majority of the population. And in some countries, with say, honor killings, the practice is not confined to Muslims within those countries, and in fact, is a non religious negative cultural occurrence that runs counter to Islam. The lopsided aspect of this conversation, seems to me, to be that negative things which happen within the west, which though now secular in orientation, still springs forth from a christian root - are not thought of by westerners to reflect upon their essential religious teachings (rightly so), but when observing reports of events that happen within the Muslim world (which very often are not even rooted in religious justification, but may be political, or criminal actions condemned even within the broader society they occurred in) the westerner still perceives that they are reflective of the broader religion of said country or countries. The first justification someone will give in response to this will be, yes - but in the west, we have a secular society, as opposed to the Muslim world, which is religious in nature. However, the argument then, should not be of Islam in relation to Christianity, rather - of religion versus secularism (Europe in large part adopted a secular society, in response to barbaric and oppressive conditions formerly practiced by the Church, when European society was under its control). And in that conversation, you will find plenty within the Muslim world, who are in favor of secularism (and in fact, very few of the countries with Muslim majorities, actually have an "Islamic" government). So in that regard, its important to keep the issue clear, that we are no longer comparing the religious law of say, Islam, Christianity and Judaism - but the notion of religious law in general, versus secular law. In regards to the larger worldwide cultures that spring forth, from say Islam and Christianity - and the level of violence exerted by those cultures - I do not think it is fair nor accurate to suggest that those within the Christian sphere of influence, only have a "past" problem with intolerance or violence (ending 150 years ago). Or that when occurring in modern times is somehow not connected or tied to the "official" religion, nor mainstream aspect of it (since that is the same argument you reject when presented in defense of the Muslim world population). The genocide of Bosnian Muslims was done by Orthodox Serbian Christians, under an influence of their religious perceptions which perceived a historical battle between the Cross and The Crescent. Does that mean that the majority of Orthodox Christians, let alone Serbians, condone genocide? No, of course not. But if we Muslims have to have our conscience weighed down by acts of extremists from within our faith, then Christians can certainly have that weigh upon theirs as well. Likewise - although the Nazi Party was clearly rooted in the Occult, most historians recognize that aspects of anti-semitism present in German society (rooted in the virulent teachings of Martin Luther with regards to the Jews (do I need to quote those passages that read like a manual for the holocaust?) which made that society an easy breeding ground for the rise of the Nazi Party and ensuing holocaust. Just as notions of racial superiority against Aborigines, Native American's, Africans, etc were tied into Biblical interpretations (however false) and connected in a similar manner to racial policies that led to Genocide against American Indians (in North, Central and South America, well into the 1900's); the forced sterilization and kidnapping of children in Australia (in an attempt to gradually wipe out that native population); and last but not least, the Apartheid system in South Africa. (continued in following post due to size limitations)

I have my eyebrows threaded. I try to get them done once every 3-4 weeks. I like it so much more than waxing and plucking.

helena's husband here. i know i still have some more questions to follow up on, which insha'allah, i'll try to get to tomorrow and over the weekend in the order they came in. not that im the only person answering them by any means, just for the people who are waiting on a reply that no one else has answered yet, or was specifically address to me, that I'll be back at it soon. Schedule is not permitting me the time today.