I can't believe this never happened in my classroom, lol, it probably should have! If you do try again, maybe it should be outside :001_smile:.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing!

:grouphug:

:bigear::lurk5:

The HWT workbooks do include some copywork, not right away but later on. THe cursive used in the Memoria Press books is beautiful, and they also have cursive copybooks.

We also use LoF as a supplement, I would not be comfortable using it as a stand alone.

http://www.amblesideonline.org/00.shtml Everything on this list has been a big hit in our house!

I love HWT, my dysgraphic sons have done really well with it. My kids also love starfall, especially on a tablet. Do you have a sensory table, or could you create something similiar? Sensory activities are great for keeping little hands busy, and are wonderful for children with sensory issues as are often seen with autism. You can fill it with various materials. When I taught preschool I would use seasonal items. I would fill it with fabric leaves and hide acorns, or I would bury rubber sea creatures in sand, or fill it with soapy water and play dishes. I would put playdough in it as well. Ripping paper in the table was also very popular, and in spring I would put paper "grass" from easter baskets and hide rubber insects. HTH!

I agree with your position that you need to do whatever you can do to make sure you have no regrets and are proud of your own behavior. Other people's behavior causes us grief, but it should never be the cause for our own behavior. We need to do the right thing regardless of how others are treating us, because at the end of the day we need to look at ourselves in the mirror. Good luck, I hope your family can find some healing during this difficult time.

Morphine. LOL. I would use an ice pack, I was always nervous about putting anything on my incision before it was fully healed.

Caffeine. But, the more effective way is to eat right, have some "quiet time" every day, and when I read at night I find I am more peaceful. Also, when I get lax with my prayers my stress really ramps up, so a consistent prayer life can also help. This is usually part of my "quiet time." I also find gardening and yard work to be therapuetic, even though I am not very good at it, but I rarely get around to it! :grouphug:

It looks like Chicken Pox, I would take her in to have it confirmed by your physician so she can avoid having to have the Chicken Pox vaccine later. If it is the Pox, you can take comfort knowing she probably won't get Shingles later on in life, you are less likely to get it if you actually have the illness rather than the vaccine. My husband ended up with Shingles last year, it was horrible.

I have a Kindle Fire, it works well for our needs, but it has very little memory for apps and documents. The cloud is great, but I like to download books online. I would like to get an Ipad and use the Kindle app on it, but that probably won't happen.

My oldest hates it, my youngest 3 love it. We listen to audio books, which makes it a lot more bearable to be in the car.

The Catholic mass is, according to doctrine, a celebration of the Last Supper, which was a Seder meal, exaclty as it happened when Christ celebrated it. That is, Catholics believe that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, just as they did when Christ instituted the sacrament at the Last Supper. The prayers, music, and other forms may change, but the sacrafice remains the same: "By celebrating the Last Supper with his apostles in the course of the Passover meal, Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning. Jesus' passing over to his father by his death and Resurrection, the new Passover, is anticipated in the Supper and celebrated in the Eucharist, which fulfills the Jewish Passover and anticipates the final Passover of the Church in the glory of the kingdom. According to this fairly straightforward teaching, the Catholic Mass is the transformation and completion of the Jewish Passover." http://www.stlouisparish.org/pdfs/lectures/Jewish%20Passover%20--%20Catholic%20Mass.pdf So, the Catholic Mass is not a rejection of Jewish customs, but the fullfillment of these customs the way God Himself intended them to be fullfilled, "Do this in memory of me." Another reason why the Apostles eventually found it necessary to completely break from Judaism is the simple fact that the Jews were persecuting Christians, and the Jews rejected Christianity it as a blasphemous cult. Paul himself was arresting and persecuting Christians when he experienced his conversion.

This is a beautiful thought, and it made me wish that I enjoyed ironing!

Now I wish I didn't have an avatar :tongue_smilie:

I have BTDT several times. I also have had to "fake it till you make it" at times, but my husband also had to "woo" me all over again, and I him. We can't really go out for date nights, but we have date nights at home. We have always made sure our kids are in bed by 8pm so we can have grown up time. When things were really bad, grown up time usually meant he sat on his computer while I worked on homeschooling plans and we ignored each other. When we have had to make a concious effort to fall back in love, we would make sure to spend a few nights a week after the kids were in bed focusing on having fun together. This works much better if we avoid watching movies and actually talk and flirt with each other. Sometimes we will order take out and eat it together at the table as if we are out on a date, and we have even gotten dressed up to do this like we are at a nice restaurant. Of course, if you can actually go out to a restaurant once in a while, that would be great as well :). I just want to say that you deserve real credit for working it out. I truly think that the only difference between divorced couples and couples that are still together is simply a refusal to give up. I am not trying to insult divorced couples, my mother has been divorced three times, but many people give up when they could fix their problems given more time and effort. I always remind myself that if I had given up when I really wanted too, I would have missed some of the amazing moments that came after, and I wouldn't have all of my wonderful children here with me today. In the end, the hard times have been totally worth it!

MCP Phonics are easy to use workbooks. Explode the Code is also well liked by many people. Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading is a very solid phonics program, and All About Reading is excellent as well. Don Potter also has traditional phonics programs that are in the public domain available on his website www.donpotter.net, and one of the members here created some free online phonics lessons based on traditional phonics programs at www.thephonicspage.org We also use Artisitc Pursuits, which is excellent. I have also heard great things about Atelier Art, which uses DVD's, but it was a bit too pricey for us. HTH!

I also liked Living Memory by Andrew Campbell, it uses a binder system that is similiar to what is suggested by Simply Charlotte Mason. I have a hard time staying on top of memory work, which is part of the reason I am using the Memoria Press lesson plans next year, to keep me accountable in this area.

The mainlesson site is the free site run by the publisher Yesterday's Classics. The publisher has the books free online, but you can also buy the printed books or the ebooks, which are formatted quite nicely for the Kindle. I bought this package with the $99.00 code, which makes it less than a dollar a book. It was worth it for me, because I was tired of downloading the free books from Amazon and google books that were really poorly formatted. These are actually pdf's, but they work really well for my Kindle Fire, some of the books even have color illustrations. We used AO as our main curriculum last year, so that made it worth it for us as well. It is also so nice to have all the books right there on my Kindle, much more portable. They have great customer service as well, the coupon code had actually expired when I tried to use it, but I wasn't aware of that. They got back to me right away and honored the discounted price anyway. Great company.

Thanks, this is great!

I think everyone needs a bit of quiet, restful time for their mental health. By quiet I don't mean silence, although there are certainly days where I crave a few minutes of silence. You can do this alone, or as a family. We like to have a family read aloud every night. I also have "rest time" every afternoon where the little ones nap and the older ones need to do a quiet activity for 20 minutes. This could be reading, a puzzle, legos. I don't care as long as everyone is quiet, as in not talking. We often play some kind of soothing music during this time as well. I know a lot of mom's who are craftier than me like to knit or sew for relaxation as well. I think of this as similiar to families who used to sit around the fire at night quietly enjoying each other's company while they read, or sewed, or played music.

I am VeritasMama, I have 6 kids, 4 great boys and two girls at the end. The boys are 11, 10, 7 and 5 years old, respectively. The girls are 2 yo and 8 months old. I don't think of my family as large, but most others do. We are Catholic, but I would probably have 6 children even if I happened to be Methodist :001_smile:. Two of my boys have some learning difficulties, namely some dyslexic tendencies and dysgraphia. I have a degree in education and taught preschool for several years in a private school setting. My oldest two are back in private school after homeschooling for two years. My 7 year old is still homeschooling and always has. My 5 yo will be going to a private school for Kindergarten this year, and he will be afterschooling with his older brothers. I plan on homeschooling my girls all the way through. I am an ecclectic homeschooler who uses LCC, WTM resources as well as Ambleside Online, Mater Amabilis, MODG and some other Catholic curriculum thrown in with the kitchen sink. For math we love us some Singapore along with LOF. This year I am planning on switching to Memoria Press for our core lesson plans along with CHC for religion. I am trying to take a break from planning every little thing myself :tongue_smilie:.