There is definitely a double standard. I have always thought that grown men should at some point stop looking at 19 year old girls. I thought their tastes should grow with them. Now I'm "old" and I'm surprised that I still find 19 year old young men attractive. It actually does surprise me. I quite enjoyed that fence post, but the whole time I was looking at it I was thinking that if it were my dh looking at pictures of a young lady in a bikini top I'd probably be questioning why he was looking at someone so young.

Same here. I really wish that my in-laws and my mom and my sister lived next door, too. I love my family and proximity would be really nice. My sister and mom live in the same condo building but on different floors. They both enjoy the ability to pop over for a visit without a huge amount of planning. I'd love it if my kids were close enough for that. My mom misses the kids and wishes we lived close enough for them to come over to her house after "school" for cookies and milk. However, I also know that it's important to walk through a door when it opens - that's why we're here and I'll be fully supportive of any one of my kids who decides to move somewhere else. I'll just miss them : ) Sarah

I really like the way that my church has things set up. I like having the kids in the service with us for worship and prayer. We recently had a family focus for the last 6 services where there was almost a mini-sermon while the kids were still in the service and it was about families. The kids are dismissed just before the sermon and they go to their Sunday school classes. I like the fact that they are being engaged in an age appropriate way. I think they probably get more out of the teacing in their classes than they would in the main service. My 8 year old, in particular, always comes out of Sunday school talking about the Bible and what he learned. Next Sunday our Pastor is talking about divorce, remarriage, and adultery - not exactly what I need my 6 and 8 year olds learning about. My 12 year old dd would be old enough (imo) to benefit from the main service, but she's really connecting in a positive way to the leader of her class and to the other girls. It's been wonderful to have the opportunity for her to make friends with other girls who share the same faith and values. We're new to the area and I'm more than happy that she's growing in her faith with a solid group who have become an encouragement and inspiration to her. So sure, for her my focus is social but she's still learning and growing in the Lord and I'm purposeful with her training at home so I think we're good.

Yes! This is how I feel, too. 99% of my children's spiritual instruction does happen at home but I appreciate the fact that what we're teaching at home is being reinforced at church. Our church does have an element of family worship. The kids are in with us for the first half hour and then they leave for Sunday school. I wasn't impressed with our last church (full kids' program, no kids in the sanctuary) as it seemed more about entertainment and crowd control. The church we're in now has the same teachers each week and the classes are small. I'm happy to have the kids hearing the same types of things from church that they hear at home - it just backs up and reinforces what we're already teaching to them. I certainly would not hand over the spiritual education of my children to someone else - they learn it and live it every day with me and it's too important to delegate to someone else. However, I do see a benefit to having them participate in a Sunday school class for an hour each week in addition to spiritual discipleship at home and family worship at church.

The only podcast I listen to is from The Christian Educator. I've really enjoyed the latest series on teaching with a Christian worldview. A bonus for new listeners is that he'll send you a free copy of Discipling this Generation for a Digital World if you email him and tell him how you came across his podcast. That book was probably the most thought provoking book I've read on what kind of world our kids will be entering into and how we can prepare them for the future.

I fully agree with this. Growing up, my Dad paid child support and I never would have expected my mother to put it into a savings account for me to use at a later date. That money was to assist with clothing, housing, food, and other costs of raising my sister and I. Even after my mom remarried I wouldn't have expected that money to have been set aside. Raising kids costs a lot of money and child support is meant to contribute to that.

Debra Bell's book, The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling is fantastic. Another one I recommend is actually called Homeschool Methods. It's a compilation and each method of homeschooling is written about by an expert in that approach. I sometimes get frustrated when one author tries to write about all methods because sometimes a bias can show through or a misunderstanding of a method.

I think the Memoria Press online courses are great. However, let me just say: 12 year olds do not self-regulate. I thought I had a very mature, self-motivated 12 year old. I even had a time on the schedule for her to do her Latin. Both semesters (I thought I had learned from the first semester) she got very far behind and had to work almost non-stop in order to catch up in time. Ugh. It wasn't pretty.

You're never too old to Twinkle : ) The Suzuki method is fantastic and works for adults as well. If you're not yet reading music then it's going to be much easier to just concentrate on learning the violin and then be able to slowly add in note reading over time. That way your playing level will not be impeded by your reading level and your reading level will catch up eventually. Violin is hard. Then again, I wasn't really wanting to learn it. Part of our Suzuki program included parent lessons for the child's first year of lessons. I had one son who started the year after the other son so I was in lessons for the two years. There are a lot of very unnatural things about playing a violin - like hand position, finger angles, bow grip, holding the violin up, etc. However, it's certainly not impossible. There was a man (probably mid-forties) who started violin with our teacher the same year my first son started and he moved very quickly through the repetoire and with great skill. He was very motivated and loved to play. I heard him last year at one of our concerts and he was sounded great.

My boys enjoy practicing most of the time. I've read a lot of Suzuki books and I take advantage of what I've learned from them. I also have a great box of Suzuki practice games. My first ds plays violin because he loves the music. He's usually the easiest at practice time. We do have a firm routine - practice happens right after breakfast. If I waited until he was busy playing or doing something else he would probably be less than happy about practicing. I don't normally have to resort to extreme measures to make practicing enjoyable for this ds - he enjoys progress and loves his music. He's 8 and practices for an hour each day. My next ds is the potential problem. He tells me he wants to quit violin about once a month. I remind him that he can quit as soon as he turns 18. He's also the first one to pull his violin out as soon as there's someone new to play for - the kid *loves* an audience. He also loves games...any game. He especially loves games where he's the only one playing so he knows he's going to win. Practice becomes easy when I pull out my box of games. In fact, I often have trouble stopping him when we're playing games. He's 6 and practices anywhere from half an hour to an hour per day. I have learned a lot from the books I've read about the Suzuki method. There's a strong focus on creating an environment that fosters enjoyment of practicing. The book, Helping Parents Practice, has some great ideas: http://yespublishing.com/

I really appreciate the biblical integration of TOG. I also love that I can use SOTW with TOG. I am not a fan of Diana Waring. She actually has a workshop on teaching from a Christian perspective that comes down quite hard against the classical method. I don't think she really understands that classical homeschoolers can also teach from a very Christian worldview. Also, Diana Waring has some ideas that she is quite passionate about that I'm not really sold on. She holds tight to the verse about there being nothing new under the sun and has interpreted that to mean that all of our technology today is old and was present on earth before the flood. She also points to some archeological finds as proof of this - but it's very sketchy proof. Like the rock that someone found with a sparkplug in it (funny enough, near a Ford factory). No one could really verify that this was authentic and, surprise, it was eventually lost, but she insists that it also proves that there is nothing new under the sun. I really really do not want to use faulty logic to "prove" biblical teaching. I would much rather say something like, "wouldn't it be cool if there were sparkplugs before the flood?" emphasizing the fact that we don't really know that this particular piece of "evidence" was real or not. And her enthusiasm is a little too lively for me. Give me the SOTW CDs any day (Barbara or Jim - they're both fantastic).

I think that Singapore 6B will prepare a student to move into *any* pre-algebra program without any difficulty. In fact, the student would likely move quickly through a lot of the material presented.

The majority of the list of things "not covered" are actually covered in depth in NEM. One of the advantages to Singapore is that it is not "a mile wide and an inch deep". They don't try to cycle through every concept all the way through the grade levels, instead, time is spent going deeper into the concepts that they do cover. My dd went through the entire primary math series with no supplementation. She dabbled in Right Start geometry while in 6A/6B, but that was really our only supplementation. I definitely would not have spent more time covering things which we hit on quite sufficiently when we reached NEM 1. I'm glad that we had the time and the mental focus to really get in depth with the concepts that Singapore presented and I definitely wouldn't change anything. As for drill, I emphasized the thinking strategies that Singapore teaches. Sarah

Will you pass some of that summer over this way, Cleo? My end of Canada is still stuck in March right now. Brrr.

I have a child who struggles with spelling. I tried implementing SWR but eventually dropped it (great program, just not do-able for me). Now we're using All About Spelling and I'm really impressed. We have finished level 1 and are a few lessons in to level 2. I wrote about why I quit SWR and I also wrote a review of AAS on my blog.

I remember when I worked at Denny's as a teen I'd have nightmares about going around my section with an empty coffee pot or dropping a whole tray of food. Last night I had my first WTM dream. I think it was brought on by reading SWB's blog. She had one entry where she listed questions that people asked in letters and it was really funny. In my dream I was going through a drive thru and buying her latest book (no idea what the title was). She was the one manning the drive-thru and I had to give her a list of my questions - all of which were really dumb (like "What was the historical significance of the world's major earthquakes?"). Thankfully, she was kind to me and even signed the book. I think this means I spend too much time here. Please share your WTM dreams to make me feel better. I'm not the only one who dreams WTM stuff, right?

A friend of mine might be moving next door and we've already talked about how fun it would be to do some things together. We've been part of the same co-op for two years and already spend every Friday there. Next year, co-ops will be happening on a smaller scale so it won't be a weekly commitment all year long. She has an only and thinks it would be nice to have my ds come over to do Right Start math with her daughter. They're in the same grade (though ds has been doing Sinapore, not RS) so I think it would work out really well. Then we could have their dd over for something else. I think that as long as your teaching philosophies are similar and you can agree on some areas that you'd each like to tackle that it could work out really well.

AAS 4 may be out as early as July!! The author left a comment on my blog after I wrote about dropping SWR for AAS.

I'm a little late, but I think it's worth it. Two year olds get into all kinds of things, but this was one thing I didn't think he was capable of.

Ours is up. It's late, but it's up.

Thanks for posting this! We were so close to being there. Dd came in 3rd at the Regional (for the second year in a row). 1st gets to go to Washington. We'll be watching for inspiration - she still has two more years to compete.

I'm really impressed with Singapore's Speed Maths Strategies. It develops speed and accuracy through thinking strategies. I think it would be a great complement to a program that is conceptually based. I wrote a short review of it and included a photo and a link on my blog.

We have to start first thing or we just don't get anything done. Here's our morning schedule: 7am - everyone up, rooms cleaned, dressed, etc. Then they go down to eat. 7:30 - boy number 1 begins violin practice (other kids finish eating, clean kitchen, etc.) 8:00 - older dd (12) begins Latin, French, and anything she needs to finish up. 8:30 - boy number 2 begins violin practice. Boy number 1 then gets his independent work and begins. 9:30 - This is when I feel school really begins. We sit down together for Bible, memory, science reading, geography, and Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends (it hasn't worked, yet).

Mine are two years apart (grades K and 2) and I combine for quite a few things already. We combine the easy things (history, literature read alouds, science, Bible, memorization, geography), but we also combine spelling and I'm very, very tempted to combine math next year. My K student is a little quicker and my grade 2 student needs a little more time with things. They both just finished All About Spelling level 1 and it was lovely to sit and do it with both of them togther. I really wouldn't want to be teaching two levels of it on top of everything else. My Ker used the letter tiles to spell his words and my older ds wrote his words down in a notebook. They both have the same level of mastery with the rules and the phonograms and they're both using what they've learned in their everyday writing. My ds (gr 2) is really intrigued by younger ds' math program. Younger ds is working through Right Start B and loving every minute of it. Older ds is just starting Singapore 3A. I've been toying with the idea of doing level C with both of them in September and then having older ds continue to work through Singapore. They already play the RS games together. Actually, that's another really nice thing about having kids close together...they play all of their educational game together and that frees me up to go and do other things. I plan to start First Language Lessons 3 with them both in September. If my younger one isn't quite ready for it then I can always pick it up again with him in a couple of years, but I have a feeling that he'll do just fine.

While the thought of my 11 yo boy learning about masturbation at youth group makes me freak out, I actually am hoping that our youth group will address various issues that youth will come up against. If it's clear that members of the youth group are engaging in culturally acceptable behavior that isn't glorifying God then I hope that the youth group leaders are bold enough to bring it up and *teach* the youth about what scripture says and how to live their lives in a God-honouring way. I don't want my kids going to youth group and being told that serious relationships between young teens are Ok, or that dressing provocatively is Ok, or that gossiping about other kids is Ok. I'm discipling my children here at home and I would expect that they would also be discipled by the youth pastors - that means, to me, that they're not just dealing with scripture but they're actively teaching the kids how that scripture applies to the lives and the culture they are living in. I want my kids to know what it means to be a Christian out there in today's world. And I don't want them just to hear it from me - I want our church to be calling them to live their lives according to scripture as well.