We use ours a lot. We listen to it in the car after we watch the DVD. We usually listen to it 2 or 3 times per lesson and then occasionally listen to previous lessons for review. Each lesson on the CD is fairly short, so we can cover it in a short jaunt to the store.

My dad gave us a bunch of the posters that come with the National Geographic magazines. They are fun because we can coordinate them with what we are studying. There was a fun Jamestown poster/map and also one of sunken treasure. We also have a bunch of Latin posters on the wall (from Memoria Press). They are a huge help with learning Latin. We also have a poster of Van Gogh's bedroom.

We have had good luck with an initial guideline of "every other day after 3:30 p.m". That gives the kids a break from each other but also gives them plenty of time together and it is an easy schedule for everyone to understand. Of course, we can always say "no" on those days as well, but at least it gives a preliminary schedule to start with, so they aren't coming over every day. It is definitely harder when there is a younger one that comes along as well -- usually one of the older kids ends up taking them home early or I send everyone home because the younger wants to tag along with me. They also take turns coming to our house versus going to their house. After awhile they get tired of each other, so they may go for days or weeks without seeing each other. I also send them outside frequently. I definitely would not feel guilty about limiting their time at your house to whatever you feel you can handle. I also put them to work if I need help or even do a science experiment together (I never get around to them so I figure get some homeschooling done while there is another child around to make it more fun)

Costco

Dh and I are planning to take our two boys to France to live for 3-4 months. We were in France for a week last fall and had a lot of fun with the language etc. Dh has his own consulting business so as long as he has good internet connection and can be relatively close to an airport for occasional trips to the US it would be manageable. Has anyone done this? Any suggestions re what region in France to stay -- even specific accomodations? We would like to stay in a smaller town, even on a farm. Also, we hate to leave our dog for that long -- is it even reasonable to consider taking him? Thanks!

My husband refuses to see a female physician for his regular doctor. He has seen female docs but doesn't want a female for his primary care physician.

We had a terrific tour as well. Our guide was an older lady and she was very interactive with my kids and so informative. We even met one of the state representatives. Definitely a highlight of our trip.

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If so, do you like it? And how skilled are the musicians in your home? We are thinking of replacing our old family upright piano and we are debating between a studio upright and a baby grand. My kids and I have taken piano lessons for 3 years and we have fun with it but are not naturally talented musicians but I have tried to make music important in our home. We plan on continuing lessons indefinitely. We like the look and sound of the baby grands, but feel that may be too "grand" (sorry!) for our situation. Anyway, any thoughts or experiences with this would be appreciated. Thanks!

I love Perry Mason. I watch it every day :)

We just made Boonta waffles this morning from the Star Wars Cookbook II that we got from the library. There is also Star Wars Cookbook and Star Wars Party Book. We got all of them at the library. The party book has party themes with games, decorations and snacks. One is specifically for a movie marathon. Most of the stuff seems pretty doable. We are making the Darth Maul dip for tonight.

My husband has his own business as a management consultant and wears dress shirts and slacks or dockers when he meets with clients. I drop off his dress shirts for laundry at the cleaners when I take the kids to piano and pick them up later in the week when I am grocery shopping or the following week when I take the kids to piano. Light starch keeps the shirts looking nice longer. I have worked hard to try and iron them myself but am not good at it. For me taking the shirts to the cleaners is worth it because there is no comparison to my home ironing. People definitely notice. We buy wrinkle free pants and usually just hang those up as soon as they come out of the dryer. Frequent washing is hard on dockers and some of them end up looking shabby sooner than others. I would love to find a reliable brand that looks good wash after wash.

I loved this quote from an article that I just read about girls and bullying (written by a school counselor). "Many see this (bullying) as a natural part of girlhood and growing up. Parents, teachers and friends say, 'toughen up, it's just the way girls are, just ignore them.' This seldom works and is not true. Kind, healthy, confident girls do not behave this way." The full article is at http://www.foodforthoughtcda.com. I don't know much about the author but I liked what he had to say in the article and he also had a couple of books that he recommends reading on this topic.

We watched Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery (Ken Burns) on Netflix and enjoyed it. Also there is Drive Thru History America's Founders (I have that in my queue -- haven't watched it yet). The Drive Thru episode says it focuses on "how the faith of the founders inspired their politics" and has on location shooting. We loved the John Adams miniseries but we had to fast forward through a few scenes for our kids. We also enjoyed Centennial (James Michener). It was made for TV in 1978 and traces the beginning of a town in Colorado from 1795 to modern days. It isn't rated and it is hard for me to say how appropriate it is -- there were a number of things that could be issues depending on your viewpoint -- we fast forwarded through an Indian massacre. I am not sure how politically correct it is -- I just try to explain to my kids what we believe versus how things were commonly portrayed at the time the movie was made.

We just checked out your blog -- so fun and beautiful photos!

The Gonzaga Bulldogs are playing and we have tickets!

I adhere to TWTM's recommendations pretty closely but I have deviated from using the abridged classics somewhat. I really like the idea of waiting to read the originals and have substituted some children's classics from Ambleside and other lists instead. We did really enjoy the Shakespeare for Kids series and performed Hamlet in our co-op. My kids continue to enjoy them and I think the books will help provide familiarity with the stories and also take away some of the intimidation factor when they are older. It has also enabled us to attend Twelfth Night and have a better understanding of it and enjoy it more. One thing that surprised me with my kids was that they actually wanted to read some of the abridgements (e.g. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) so I let them -- it only took 20 minutes or something anyway. Also, they took one look at Little Women and asked for the abridgement. So at this point, I use my judgment but try to go with unabridged books when possible. Also, if reading the unabridged seems like too much we listen to it on CD (we are doing this with Tom Sawyer) or even have one of the kids read a book aloud. One of my sons felt intimidated when he looked at Heidi, so he has been reading it to the rest of us and it has been great. He has a separate time for assigned reading and we do the read aloud in addition more for fun. As a final comment, we loved the abridged version of Kidnapped on CD that SWB recommends. It was terrific.

We have listened to some chunks of the audio books all at once and then have gone back and done the related work. Once the kids start listening they like to keep going, so I think that it could be fun to listen to them all at once. When we listen in the car, I like to stop the CD after certain sections and then we can discuss what we just heard. We can all ask each other for clarification on what we heard (did he say...?) and also tell what our reactions are to the history. Part of the reason that I like to stop the CD from time to time is that the CDs talk about history in chronological order and so skip from country to country which can be a little disorienting to listen to straight through. It might be fun to have a little mini globe or world map in the car so the kids can orient themselves as to what they are listening to. If you have access to a SOTW activity guide it might be fun to get a bunch of the recommended books from the library and just have them around for fun reading during the summer.

Over the last month we have been working on (slowly) trying to eat more naturally. We do pretty well for a while and then slip into convenience over health when we are busy. The last few weeks we have really focused on eliminating artificial colors from our diets. In particular "caramel color" which has been in the news lately as a carcinogen. Not only is it in soda pop, but also low sodium beef broth, a-1 sauce, onion soup mix, bran buds and purchased bbq sauce. I also found artificial color in noodles -- not anatto but yellow #5 (or some number). Aren't Bran Buds brown enough already without adding caramel color? And noodles -- these were homestyle -- do we really need artificial color?

I am the guardian for my nephew who is 18 and a senior in high school and he does the same thing regarding completing homework and then not turning it in. It is completely bizarre and foreign to me to do that. Our piano teacher and her husband are both public school teachers and they said that kids are allowed to turn in their homework extremely late and still get credit for it. Any teachers that try and buck the system and require kids to turn the homework in on time can't succeed because (at least in our district) allowing late homework starts early in grade school. Her solution is that she isn't going to allow her kids to turn in homework late, even if the teacher allows it. I like that idea, but it involves daily monitoring to make sure the kids turn in the work. Doing homework and not turning it in is something that I will never understand, so I totally sympathize. I'll look forward to seeing others' insights about this.

Has anyone participated in these? They sound fun and I was thinking of registering my kids for the Hamlet one in Lincoln Park. If we did it we would would combine it with some other Seattle activites. Any comments or suggestions where to stay near the park if we do this? Thanks.

We just used scissors --my son helped. He hated Spelling Workout, so he was ecstatic to have a new spelling program, especially one that wasn't workbook oriented. You just need the first set of the alphabet for the first part of level one, so I started with those and cut out the rest as we needed them. The one mistake I made was not getting a big enough white board -- so we can't get the entire alphabet across the top of the board

There was a good article in the Wall Street Journal on November 16 2010 about braces, especially for younger kids and whether they are needed at the age or whether they will need to be repeated when the kids are older as well. Sorry that I am unable to get a link for it. Obviously it isn't a replacement for orthodontic advice but it gives you an idea of whether the braces are for cosmetic (the article mentions that there is an assumption that parents want their kids to look perfect at a young age rather than waiting for the teen years) purposes for the young kids which will then have to be repeated when they are teens, thus increasing the total cost and time in braces.

On another thread about piano, one person (sorry, I forget who!) suggested getting fun piano books to have around, just like you would books to read. I found some on Rainbow for $6.95 each and they have songs at my sons' level such as Scooby Do Where Are You? etc. We have been having fun with those because it adds something other than the work of playing for practice. I wonder if the teacher would be open to adding one fun song per week as well as the regular assigned songs. It could make the whole lesson more palatable.

For the 4th grade reading list SWB recommends The Jungle Book illustrated by Robert Ingpen but I can't figure out if it is just the Jungle Book or if it is the Jungle Book plus some short stories because it includes Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. Is Rikki-Tikki-Tavi part of the Jungle Book? My son is reading the Robert Ingpen edition right now and it also includes The White Seal which he didn't like and I am wondering if he can skip some of the stories. Also, I am just curious. Thanks!