Thank you, Drew! Now, if you just had the book on Amazon so I could purchase it with the credit I have sitting there ;) (I know that isn't possible with this type of publishing).

I have decided to do classical for a couple of main reasons: 1) classical seems more simplistic to me, and I'm having to learn as we go; and 2) we are not Catholic, so the only exposure she would likely have in the next 20 years or so would be in college where they almost always use classical pronunciation. They only problem with this is a lot of the materials for younger children, particularly audio resources, are in the ecclesiastical pronunciation.

I wouldn't allow my child to post pictures of themselves on a public blog. The primary reason is there are just too many creeps out there who collect, manipulate and/or repost photos to other creeps. I have seen it happen to friends of mine, where pictures were posted to message boards or flickr f*tish groups. A lesser reason is if there is personal information on the blog so her location can be determined, it could lead to a stalker being able to identify her in person.

I spent way too much time working on this, so I thought I would share the wealth. Greek bingo It is a PDF of four bingo cards for lowercase Greek letters. Just print out an extra card and cut up the letters to play. One of the cards has the letters in order to help beginners out. I'm not sure if you will have to have the font for the PDF to print correctly. If so, the name of the font is SIL Galatia. If it would be helpful, I could change all the letters to uppercase for additional practice. Enjoy!

I have had it happen more often at the college library compared to the city library. A phone call is usually all it takes for them to look for and eventually find the book I turned in. It is frustrating, though. If I had the money to buy the book, I wouldn't be checking it out of the library...

English Breakfast has recently replaced Earl Grey as my favorite.

I think the server was overwhelmed. The audio started breaking up for me, so I left the room and tried to come back in. The server kept timing out for me. I finally got back in. I came in late, but I enjoyed the portion of the session I did get to hear. OT, but does anyone know other sites that offer free lectures like this? I know classicalhomeschooling.org does monthly lectures. Any other ones I should check out?

Sounds fascinating! We won't be back from church until about 8:30 p.m., but I hope to attend late.

Mario Party is great for a family game, as up to 4 people can play together. It is one of our favorites.

My almost 7yo and 4yo are loving the game (so am I!). The 4yo needs the nunchuck to move the character and instructions from time to time. The 7yo is reading fine and doesn't need any help playing. My DH loves to fish, and I have my own character :)

My children are the same ages as yours, with birthdays coming up in a month. The oldest is required to participate in the singing and prayer portions of the service. During the sermon, she gets a small cereal snack and is allowed to read Bible story books or color. The youngest is encouraged to participate, but she can color or read books at any time. They are both required to sit in the pew and not talk. I hope to phase the "entertainment" out when the youngest is mature enough to do without. We attend both the morning and evening worship service, which are each an hour.

I think I read in the Mary Pride homeschool series that as long as you had access to a library, pencil and paper, that you had all you "needed" to homeschool. Store-bought curriculum can make it incredibly easier (and sometimes better), but it is not impossible to go without. Another important factor is your personal level of education. If you barely got by in school or received a poor education, it is going to be harder to teach concepts you struggled with or are unfamiliar to you. If you are a college graduate with a high GPA, odds are you're going to have a greater knowledge base from which to draw (I only use this as an illustration, as I know you can be well educated without going to college). I spend much, much less on curriculum than a majority of the people on this board. I follow the original WTM recommendations more than the more recent ones, because they are based less on curriculum packages. I have several reference books (for free through a couple of Usborne parties or from the used bookstore) and some used curriculum I've found either at local sales or on Ebay. We check out a ton of library books, and we use the Internet when applicable. I am completely confident that the education my daughter is receiving from me is far superior to what she would receive in public school. Tip: Our used bookstore has a free bin outside, which is where lots of older edition textbooks end up. If you know any teachers in the school system, you may be able to pick up old texts for free as well. Textbooks are useful reference books, even if you don't prefer that style of teaching.

I have to put away the read-alouds we are going to cover for school. Otherwise, DD has little interest in reading them (she knows what happens).

Leftover Easter Eggs that didn't get tossed? (Yes, I've had this happen...several months later)

Your 4yo can play Animal Crossing? I have a 3yo, fixing to be 4yo, that I would love to find something non-competitive that she would be able to play. She does a decent job at bowling and golf on Wii Sports, but she is discouraged by losing all the time (even though she has fun). We rented Mario/Sonic at the Olympic Games, but it was really difficult for all of us. My 6yo and I love Mario Kart, but my DH doesn't care for it. The 4yo likes it, but it is too hard for her as well. She gets turned around going the wrong way or stuck in a wall a lot.

We have what I consider an excellent pediatrician and he always does a brief exam on the area in question for well-checks. Usually, it is just a "peek," but my 6yo got a more thorough "look" when blood was showing up in her urine. She had no problems with it. I don't think naked well-checks always = creepy pediatrician, but I would definitely starting looking elsewhere because of the comments that were made.

I think it really varies from county to county. The best thing to do is to investigate what Master Gardeners are doing in your area. Find out what their schedule for the year is. You will quickly be able to find out if they are "active." In some places, they just turn out to be 4-H volunteers, etc., and very little gardening is actually done, and you can be a 4-H volunteer for free.

Thanks for the resource! I just read a book from our local college library called "Taking Inquiry Outdoors: Reading, Writing, and Science Beyond the Classroom Walls" edited by Barbara Bourne. It is basically a collection of different teachers' experiences in applying inquiry science methods to nature study. Although it is about classroom experiences, I was still able to glean a lot from the book.

You can get a free site on Yahoo! (http://geocities.yahoo.com/home) and many other sites. Most of them have templates for you to publish your web site. If you want a specific domain name, http://www.(domain name).com, then you have to pay extra. If you want to do it on your own, it requires registering a domain name and finding someone to host your site (called web hosting). If you go with a local company for web hosting, they would probably help get you started with a basic web site. They could also help you register your domain name.

Thanks for sharing this. We are starting our last year of Miquon, and I'm a little unsure of where to go next. Cost is a huge factor for us, and I cannot believe the price of many programs (once you add teacher's manuals, workbooks, texts, etc.). I found the Ray's Arithmetic series on Google books for free, so we may tinker around with that. I don't want to compromise my daughter's education, but we cannot spend that much on a single subject :(

From what I understand, the market got flooded with "extra" gas when U.S. reserves were released during the gas shortage in the southeast. That drove prices down. Now that OPEC has cut production again, whenever everything levels out, gas prices will go back up.

Although it is no help, I just want you to know I share your concerns. Our kids have only been watched by one of our parents (except one time - one of them was watched by our minister and his wife, very old family friends). We've been blessed to have our families so close. I suspect another reason I feel this way is I never had a babysitter outside of family, either. It freaks me out to send my kids to Sunday school at a church we are visiting out-of-town.

We only have to pay our co-pay on well-baby visits, so we've gone to all of them except for one that wasn't covered (15 months maybe). We have postponed the yearly checks until after flu season to avoid sickness. These well-checks caught consecutive hernias in my 6yo (years 5 and 6) when they weren't visible (to a parent anyway) and she had no symptoms. Because of their location, she could have easily lost an ovary or worse. I'm not trying to scare you into going, but I want you to know they aren't always pointless. A seemingly healthy child can still have something really wrong with them.

I can easily see a 8yo struggling about the salvation of her new non-believing family, if you go with that flavor of Christianity. However, she may also question God in the death of her family. I was raised in a conservative Christian household where no contemporary Christian music was permitted. I wasn't allowed to listen to music with swearing or heavily sexual themes. I had to wear dresses or skirts to church, at least on Sunday and usually Wednesday. Otherwise, I couldn't wear bare mid-riffs, short skirts or shorts, low-cut shirts, tight clothing. I think 8yo would be young to choose other clothing than what she was raised to wear. An older pre-teen would have more temptations with that.

My daughter has worn out the Usborne Book of World History (not to be confused with the Internet-linked encyclopedias). It has lots of pictures and just enough text on each page.