I pulled my daughter out of public school in sixth grade. What I failed to realize was that she really needed that "de-schooling" time. Unfortunately, I had signed her up for a charter school and we didn't have an opportunity for some down time. We ended up dumping the charter school and taking the last month and a half of the school year, plus the whole summer off. It helped a lot. Now, if my daughter starts giving me any trouble, I will drive past the public school and say, "I need to stop here and see what we need to do to enroll you." She immediately stops giving me a hard time and does her work with no complaints. For a while anyway. LOL She really, really does not want to go back to public school! Jeannie

My daughter's kindergarten teacher taught them that "the Sneaky E makes the vowel say its name." She's in 2nd now and I can say something about "silent E" and she looks at me funny. But if I say "sneaky E" she remembers. Sometimes all it takes is a catchy name, I guess. Good luck! Jeannie

My FIL is very tech savvy! Works on people's computers and everything. Builds his own, etc. My dad and stepmom, on the other hand, don't even turn their cell phones on unless they're going to make a call. My stepmother didn't even know if was her own phone ringing when she got a call on it. Furthermore, when she asked me about text messages, she didn't understand how you typed a message on a phone and why she couldn't get one on her house phone. LOL Then she asks me for advice about a computer. She asked me how expensive a computer would be and I told her it depended on what she wanted to do with it. My husband plays MMOs so he has to have a screamin' machine. Her answer......"Well, we want to get internet, and we want to get E bay. Oh, and we also want to get emails.":banghead: This smiley shows exactly how I felt at this point in the conversation! Jeannie

To date, I've washed three of my DH's flash drives. Apparently, those things can really take a beating.....er...washing....and keep working! I have a rule in my house. If you bring me your laundry and there's something in the pockets, it's mine. Including cash. That usually inspires my DS to empty his pockets. J

Don't you wish that people could see themselves sometimes? Like on hidden camera. I hope that people would be appalled at their behavior to complete strangers. What in the world made that woman think that you even wanted her opinion?! Of course, she's probably the product of public schooling. With her sterling example, I'm sure you'll head right out to the nearest school and enroll your son immediately! Good grief! After thinking about this post for a little while, I was thinking I might have raised a fuss, called the police and complained that a complete stranger was verbally attacking my child, that kind of thing. But, knowing the media, they'd probably put some kind of nutty spin on it..."homeschoolers arrest concerned senior citizen! Film at eleven!" Jeannie

DS (20) is giving Dad a DS game. DD (12) is giving Dad a DS case. DD (7) is giving Dad a stuffed Eeyore. J

Our older corgi didn't really settle down till he was about 14 months old. Now if the 10 month old corgi would just stop eating the carpet! Lots of exercise really helps with these dogs. Of course, I've watched the older Corgi wear out five kids and keep going. Good luck! J

Wow. What else can I say? BTW, I am going to hijack that quote "cheese slid off her cracker"--that's great. That's better than my old fave--"one fry short of a happy meal." I'm glad you're not in jail! You probably should have asked her what mental hospital she had escaped from so you could give her cab fare back to where she belongs! J

I'm just going to throw this out there! Maybe Phonics Pathways is not the best way to go for you. This is my first year teaching phonics, but I do remember having phonics in school. I also remember that my DS (20) didn't have them and to this day has phonics-related problems. Needless to say, I am not a fan of the sight-word strategy. This year we are using Rod & Staff phonics. I have to say we really enjoy it. Any time we come upon something that I know there are exceptions to, I have learned to not worry about it because it will come up a little later in the program. My DD (7 3/4) is really learning the material and is remembering it. I am seeing a huge improvement in her spelling as she learns phonics. She is a major phonetic speller and learning all the variations of ways to spell the sounds has increased her retention of the correct spelling of tricky words. And don't worry, my kids can't hear the short "e" sound as different from the short "i" sound either. LOL I can but only because as a child I made a conscious choice to learn to speak as well as possible. My dad is a hillbilly and my mom is a hick. Nice people, love my relatives, but serious accents. I don't think they knew what to do with me. Jeannie

We lived in Allen, which is northeast of Dallas in the Plano/Frisco area. It is a beautiful, clean town. Lots of civic pride. And not very big. Just under 100,000 if I am not mistaken. As I understand it, houses are a bit high around there but it's such a nice town! Plano is mostly really nice as well. As a matter of fact, I believe Plano just got voted best town to live in or something a few months ago. Texas has very lenient homeschooling laws. I don't remember them precisely, but no portfolios or mandatory testing for sure. I can't remember if you are supposed to send in a letter of intent or not. Good luck! jeannie

This is wonderful to hear! Thanks! J

We tried 4H this year only to discover that there isn't really anything for the "Cloverbuds" (this age group). I was really disappointed. According to our Ag rep, there is no formal program for them, no books they can work through, nothing. I still don't know why I paid three dollars for her membership. My older daughter was disappointed and bored and my little one (7) was thoroughly confused. She couldn't figure out why I had dragged her there. And to top it off, my older one still hasn't received her project book and it's been three months. We figured God was trying to tell us something and dropped out.:glare: J

The great thing about rare snow IMHO is that it is a special occasion. My sister lives in Minnesota and they have so much snow that it's no big deal. Here in Louisiana, it is always magical! jeannie

Yikes, I just saw that I ended my sentence (and my post) with a preposition. :eek: May the grammar gods forgive me! jeannie

I don't know if this will help or not but here goes: I found a book called Painless Grammar at Borders. The author is Rebecca Elliott, Ph.D. It costs less than ten dollars so it's not a big investment. It really explains things like you described in a very humorous but understandable way. I usually hate books that try to be funny because they fail miserably and don't explain things very well. This one is great. And it's written on a level that kids from most age groups would find it informative without being boring. Anyway, it might be worth it to look into this book. Your son would be able to go through each little lesson on his own, or just focus on the parts he had trouble with. Jeannie

bump I'd like to know as well Jeannie

I have a dd who is 7. Your daughter's behavior sounds pretty normal to me. My 7 yo is my third, so I've been through this with her brother (now 20) and her sister (now 12). She is starting to develop a real sense of ownership and territory. Lots of little kids go through the "mine" phase but when they get to be your daughter's age, they really do understand "mine" in a real sense. I was the third of four children and one of my brothers was extremely destructive. My first memory is of being three years old and locking myself out of my bedroom because I had gotten 2 prizes in my box of cracker jacks (I'm really dating myself here) and I knew my brother would steal them. I was three and I KNEW that my 5 yo brother would steal from me. At Christmas, he'd break his toys, break my other brother's the next day, then start on my toys and my sister's toys. With childhood memories like these, property and ownership is a big deal to me. LOL As far as your daughter only obeying out of fear and not respect, I have always kind of figured that's the way it works. When your children are small, they learn to mind or they have a time out, or a spanking, or whatever. They would much rather be doing what you told them they couldn't. When they get older, hopefully, they obey you from habit and respect. I'd be a lot more worried if she was 15 and only obeyed you out of fear. Jeannie

My dd (12) loves the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. She is eagerly awaiting the next one. I have read them and I think they are funny. I'm not sure the kid in the books quite learns the lesson that I think he should, but I realized that my daughter was only getting enjoyment from the book, not learning any habits. And they are very funny. Jeannie

I second the idea of gift cards. I distinctly remember my dear pastor and his wife (now deceased) discussing all the lovely knick knacks in their house. I was commenting on how many they had and they told me that they felt they had too many but she had received so many as gifts from church members over the years. Every time she had gotten rid of one, the giver would come over and immediately notice that it was not on display and become offended. People always seem to forget that once you give it away, it isn't yours anymore and you don't have any right to complain if it's given away. Anyway, that just came to mind when I read the post so I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents' worth. Jeannie

bump I would like to see the answers to this thread. Jeannie

I just tried to get my DD (12) to read this book. I loved it! She is not into it and I have decided to give up on it for now (she's been nibbling on it for about six weeks now!) and try again later. I understand what you mean about the negative tone towards the Puritans. I think you'll see that the main character's opinion of the Puritans and her family change considerably toward the end of the book. She does find value in their beliefs and life style. She becomes a great deal less self-centered by the end of the book and learns to see the good instead of only the negative. I loved this book as a teenager and it was even more wonderful when I read it again as an adult. My dd is so stubborn about books. Argh! Jeannie

My sister needed intensive speech therapy as a child. Unfortunately, she only got what the public schools offered. That was many years ago and it was woefully inadequate. As an adult, she is extremely difficult to understand. She does not articulate. As one of her friends puts it, "She sounds like her mouth is full of marbles." Also, no one worked with her at home. She pronounced "glue" as "blue" till she was about ten. I know how hard it is for my sister to communicate effectively with people. If she'd had more intensive therapy or my parents had pushed more, she would probably have responded and progressed so much more. My sister is not the sharpest knife in the drawer anyway, but she comes across as much less intelligent than she is due to her speech issues. In light of that I would think the sooner you get therapy for him the better. Jeannie

I've been in this situation myself. You will have two choices....confront him and resolve it, or let it become a bigger and bigger problem. In our situation, we decided that my husband would talk to the friend. That way, it was a man to man kind of thing. DH told the friend flat out, we feel like you are taking advantage of us and we are not your parents. You need to contribute or find somewhere else. In your situation, I think you should definitely include the fact that you'd like to get your DD back into her room very soon. Maybe even mention that you are getting ready to do some remodeling in there as soon as he gets his own place. At least put it into his head that you guys expect him to move on. Good luck! Jeannie

Thank you, thank you, thank you for these links! I have been searching for study guides (that won't cost me an arm and a leg) and these look really good. I hate searching the web. I stink at it! LOL Jeannie

We have two Pembroke Welsh Corgis. A male, sable colored, named Sam (short for Samwise Gamgee) and a tri-colored (like you described) female named (what else?) Rosie. People familiar with Lord of the Rings get that connection. Everybody else just says, oh, cute names! Ok, I really wanted another one named Frodo but two is plenty. They are really energetic and if you have children, get ready for them to be herded. Sam really enjoyed herding the coffee table for a while. He'd run round and round it about twenty times. They are high energy dogs and need to get outside and run in the yard a bunch, especially as puppies. But they are the cutest things. They always look like they are smiling. Other names we considered were Basil, Simon, Gizmo, Gremlin...hmmm....I'm stumped. Rosie's father was named Elvis, which I thought was a great name, especially for a tri-color. Oh, we also considered Jarome and Iggy for names. (Jarome Iginla-my son's favorite hockey team is the Calgary Flames). Good luck with the name choosing! You might have to wait till you get him home and see what his personality is like. Jeannie