In 8th grade, yes 8th grade, I wrote a 16 page paper (although double spaced). That was our research paper and it was a private school. During 7th & 8th grade we had to turn in 5 pages a week and 5 finished pieces every quarter that had to be at least 5 pages long each. Someone on another forum recognized this as some sort of specific schooling theory. I can't say what it is but I will say that it sure worked for me! Then I went to public high school and my senior AP English research paper only had to be 6 pages long and had less requirements than the 8th grade paper. Needless to say it was that 8th grade paper (and all the other writing in junior high) that prepared me for college. I did not graduate but I did 3 years as a BS major in meteorology and there were several papers we were required to write. I think I would have failed miserably if I'd only had what I learned in high school to fall back on. My oldest is only in 3rd grade and has dysgraphia so I can't say just how much writing we'll do when it comes to junior high and high school but I do know we'll have a focus on it for sure.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! At first I was going to try the hollow door idea listed above but then the lady who runs the IKEA shopping service got back to me and it's only $60 for the 2 tables & 6 legs! I know that's still a lot but $60 is actually the price I had in my head for how much I thought the online IKEA shipping would be. For some reason with the stress of moving & all the related stressful things that go along with it this table thing was REALLY upsetting me. I think I was just focusing my general frustrations on this one object.

Interesting new twist: I just found a company in the area who's entire business model is taking local orders and then making a trip to IKEA twice a month and picking up the items for apparently much cheaper than the ridiculous $299 IKEA shipping fee. I'm not sure on the exact price yet since it depends on what you're getting...which I guess makes sense because the more space it takes up in their vehicle(s) the less space they have for other orders but I'm going to call them today and get a quote.

We just moved and were lucky enough to find a house with an extra room to use as a homeschool room. I am so over-joyed since we had been using the kitchen table which was OK but also a pain in the butt as I'm sure many of you know. I found this set up: http://thepioneerwom...m-table-review/ I want it. I want it bad. It would be the absolute PERFECT set up. I was looking for something we could all sit at yet would still give each child a "dedicated" place. I needed some storage and I wanted to be able to sit comfortably at it as well and be able to go back and forth between the kids. Closest IKEA to me is 300 miles away so I happily added everything to my online shopping cart thinking shipping would be expensive but not awful. Uh, yeah, it's awful. $299! And the whole system itself was $338 so shipping is almost the cost of the actual product. I am so so bummed. Dh suggested actually driving to the 300 miles away IKEA but that's just absurd. After you add up the cost in gas for his truck plus stops and what-not it'd probably end up costing us close to $300 anyways. Are there other systems that are similar but not IKEA? We start school up again on Monday....the kids have had 4 weeks "off" during the move and I'm so disappointed that right now we'll still be stuck at the kitchen table, surrounded by boxes, and with zilch for storage at the moment. I'm stressing out :(

My ds is happiest in a crowd of people. When he was a baby and was fussy the answer was always to take him out to the mall or a crowded restaurant. So we sent him to public school thinking he could never be HS'd. He did not flourish. Instead he floundered because he did not get enough social interaction. It was kindergarten, full day, but they only had 1 recess. They never did group work. They were not allowed to talk during lunch. Recess was often cancelled due to weather and they were all put in a dark room to watch a movie (some of which terrified my ds and gave him nightmares for months). After several months my ds could only tell me the names of the kids who sat right next to him. He's a super friendly kid who makes friends with everyone - it was crazy to us that he didn't even know the names of the other kids! We pulled him at xmas break and he didn't care. That's when we knew we made the right decision because typically my ds FREAKS out if we have to take him away from a group of people. He has had so much more social interaction since being HS'd (he's in 3rd grade now and says he never wants to go back to public school). We do our school work in the morning and then we've got time for the park and other activities. We just moved, like just last week, so we don't have any activities right now but in the past we've always had things like: baseball, bowling league, scouts, dance classes, basketball, etc.

I specifically remember being taught digraphs in 2nd grade which would have been about 1987 I think for me. I went to a very academic private school. I have lots of memories of learning to read and I know that my kids have been taught these things at least a year or two before I was. My dd, in kindy, has already been taught the sounds of /th/ and /sh/ and will be learning the others over the next few weeks. She's reading books that would have been a late 1st grade level back when I was in school.

I got better results with Chalene Extreme than P90x but I'm talking muscle/firmness results and not weight loss. After doing p90x I could do a few pull ups without a chair which I thought was pretty darn cool. Then I took time off from weight training for a bit and then I got Chalene Extreme because I just couldn't stand the thought of doing p90x again (I had to really force myself through it because I found it ridiculously boring). After doing Chalene Extreme I could do loads of pulls ups even though you never even do pull ups in her workouts and I could lift much heavier. My muscles made quite the transformation from Chalene. I find her personality a bit irritating but she gets the job done. Overall I'm still an Insanity junky though. I can't not do Insanity or, well, I go insane lol. ETA: you need really light weights for 30 Day Shred. Like 2-3 lb weights. Or soup cans work too, that's what I started with.

Beach Body is the name of a company that puts out many successful workout videos/series. For the most part a person could pick any of their products and if they stick with it they will find success. Honestly I think one of the absolute best workout videos to start with is Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. It's just 20 minutes which helped me immensely when I first started because in my head it was easy to say, "I can do anything for 20 minutes" whereas the 35-55 min videos out there were intimidating to me. It's also only $10 at Walmart. And best of all people see results from it - mostly in the form of firming up. When I first started to get healthy I did it every other day for about 6 months and ended up losing about 20 lbs overall (the weight did not start to come off though until about 6-8 weeks into it). It really boosted my confidence and made me feel comfortable branching out to the harder, and more expensive, workouts.

Except for Insanity or Asylum workouts. Those are all super high impact with no alternates. Chalene Extreme has low impact alternatives.

I am GF although I was GF for a few years before finally getting fit. My dd & dh have celiacs disease. I went GF when dd was diagnosed because she was nursing and then I discovered that being GF made my psoriasis go away so I've stuck with it. Technically they say Shakeology is GF but it's not a chance me nor dh wanted to take. They say they've had it tested and because the barley grass is harvested early it is GF. I do live a mostly whole foods lifestyle and, as with GF, had been for a few years before getting fit and losing weight/sizes. So I think that helps a lot and is probably why I did not need to diet. My dh bounces back and forth with his weight loss but he also just can't let go of things like candy, fruit snacks, soda, chips, and other processed foods. Anyways I think if you can go GF without subbing in a bunch of the pre-packaged GF substitutes then you end up much closer to a non-processed food lifestyle. Once you're used to that it's much easier to make another leap and go totally, or almost totally, unprocessed.

My fitness level was not very good when I started either. I had done a few months of the 30 Day Shred but that was it. When I started Insanity I couldn't get through the entire workout. It took a few weeks before I could finish an entire workout (still taking way more breaks than they took!) and it was a few months before I could do the warm up all the way through. Anyways, long story to just encourage you to push through. I think with any workout the important thing is doing as much as you can (safely) and then trying to go just a teensiest bit further the next time you do it. I did join the forums and they were helpful at times although sometimes kind of slow. And I got some weird friend requests on there lol.

I haven't done Turbo Fire but a friend of mine loves it. I've done Chalene Extreme, Insanity, and P90x. Chalene Extreme actually gave me WAY better results than p90x (and it's only half the time, 30ish min workouts compared to 60 mins). Overall though I'm an Insanity girl. I've been doing it for almost 2 yrs straight with only a few breaks here or there. When doing another program like Chalene Extreme I sub the Insanity workouts for the cardio workouts. I've gone from a size 12 to a size 2 using these and nope, never dieted.

Here's the recipe I use for the cilantro lime brown rice http://www.sideofsneakers.com/2012/01/04/cilantro-lime-rice/ Also, the method linked on that site for cooking brown rice comes out so awesome! I wish I had discovered it eons ago instead of just a few months ago. As for carbs: going low carb does definitely work for some people but for others it doesn't make much difference. For me I just eat whole unprocessed foods. I've done low carb before and it didn't do much for me plus it was a lifestyle I could not stick with whereas I can stick with whole unprocessed. A lot of "dieting" is just finding something that you can actually do for the rest of your life, kwim?

I put black beans in my omelet sometimes. That would be an easy way to add beans to your breakfast. We're doing burrito bowls tonight for dinner like they have at chipotle. I love making them because I don't like to eat meat very often but dh wants it every night and the bowls are "build your own" so everyone gets what they want. I make cilantro lime brown rice, cook up black beans and garlic, chop up an avocado, tomato, salsa, and then I've got some carne asada steak that I cooked up for dh. Oh and the kids and dh also usually have cheese and plain yogurt (I make it myself) on top but I find that it's just as good without so I don't usually add those. I try to keep dairy to a minimum as well - if I eat too much it makes me feel bloated and slow.

Yep, I just use canned. I try to find organic when I can but that's almost impossible in my middle of nowhere town so I usually just get a can of the low sodium.

Roasted chickpeas are good too although full of fiber so be careful because they are addicting lol. I toss in olive oil, salt & pepper, and then roast at about 350 for 45 mins to an hour.

Whenever I've done just running I always gain weight. If I run and do at least 3 days a week of strength training though then my weight or sizes go down. Also sometimes when you eat more your salt intake goes up and then you tend to bloat a bit more. Or at least that's how it is for me. I've also noticed that I "gain" a few pounds the day before I ovulate and I remain bloated until about a week before my period starts.

How many calories are you burning? Are we talking workouts that burn 200 calories or workouts that burn like 800 calories? You're not eating enough for sure. Also if you're building muscle the scale may not go down. If it makes you feel any better when going from a size 8 to a size 2 I only lost about 7 lbs. Overall for me, I tend to lose weight first but not inches. I started my journey as a size 12, 168 lbs. I started working out and lost 20 lbs and I was now a size....12 :( Granted those 12's fit better than before but I was still bummed. Then I added in strength training and more intense workouts and that's when the weight and sizes finally started coming off. Then towards the end I guess I built a lot of muscle but size-wise I kept decreasing. Now I'm 130 lbs and a size 2 (and 5'7"). In high school I was 130 lbs and a size 12 - for me, weight training makes all the difference. I also consume approx 1800-2000 calories a day to lose weight and around 2200-2400 a day to maintain. However I do Insanity workouts where I burn around 600-800 calories and every other day I do Chalene Extreme weight training workouts (not sure on the calorie burn on those as I've never checked but I'm thinking prob under 200 calories).

I think sometimes you have to just find one that looks good to you and then try it out. I think often it depends on the kid. My 8 yr old ds has been using a mastery curriculum (MUS) ever since kindy and it's awesome for him. He has done outstanding with this type. So naturally that's what I started my 5 yr old dd on and naturally it turned out to be all wrong for her :001_huh: So, on the suggestions of many here on the forums, I tried out MEP this week and so far it's going much better. I don't know yet if this will be the right fit for her but I can tell already that it's a better fit than MUS was. One thing about mastery vs spiral is that you have to be prepared for how your child will "compare" to their public school counterparts. My 8 yr old doing the mastery curriculum is both way ahead and way behind from his peers in different areas. He can do some pretty complicated arithmetic that they won't learn for another year or two however there are also concepts that he won't learn for another year or two that they've already been exposed to (things like decimals and fractions for example). That issue used to bother me when we didn't think we'd be HSing for the long haul. I was worried he'd be behind when he went back to public school.

We do MUS & BA. Ds has done solely MUS up until this year when we added in BA. Ds is in 3rd grade and working through delta. He's doing BA 3A right now. The first chapter of BA has been really challenging for him since he has not yet learned much of any geometry at all. Personally I like that he has something that finally challenges him a bit. He works through MUS quickly. It takes him 10 minutes at the most to do 2 worksheet pages and usually gets them all correct. He averages 2 MUS lessons a week which puts him at doing about 2 levels a year. I like that BA has slowed him down. It takes him much longer to work on BA and it really makes him think hard. I would never use just BA as a stand alone personally but I do like it as a supplement.

Probably not the most helpful advice but my 5 yr old is having issues with number recognition although she can count and understands the concept of, for example, what 6 socks would be although if she saw the number 6 she would say it's either a 6, 9, or 8. So for us, we kept pushing along and went ahead into place value doing only 1 side of worksheet every day and also using it throughout the day (for example when saying it's Oct 31 we got the blocks out and put the tens & units in the right places). Although it drives me crazy the MUS way of saying numbers like "onety-five" or "threety-two" has really helped dd. Last week we switched away from MUS to MEP but just because MUS doesn't seem to be a good fit for her. It bores her. She was able to grasp the place value concept though. Remember too that MUS Primer is not mastery but more a covering of topics. All the other levels of MUS are mastery in that you shouldn't move on until it is mastered but it's not so with Primer.

Ha! Me too! I don't know why but the baby thing bothers me, esp when the kid is obviously only a month or two old. I once had BOTH parents (not dressed up btw) hold up pillowcases!

My grandma is a lefty. She taught my mom who is right-handed but since my grandma taught her she learned to do it left-handed. Then my mom taught me so I also tie my shoes left handed even though I'm right handed. Really I think it's just as easy to go either way - it's just the actual process that gets really confusing for kids.

Have you ever considered having him evaluated? When you say blends you mean sounds like "spl" correct? Or do you mean sounds like "sh?" I would have concerns regarding a possible LD in a 5th grader who cannot yet do blends. Many LDs have a direct effect on the the ability to memorize things. My ds, 3rd grade, will be evaluated soon for dyslexia. He can read and spell quite well but he's got plenty of the other signs including a hard time with rote memorization.

If MUS is your primary math curriculum, how much time per day do you spend on it? The "how much time" threads for math always throw me because ds spends a WAY shorter time on math than all the other replies. However I'm also usually one of the only MUS responders. So I'm just curious. How long do you spend in a typical day?