Heh. Well, um, not so's you'd notice. Not on weekends, anyhow. :blink: I'm just sayin'. Lots of DePauw benefits (they are 30 mins away) without any of the DePauw distractions during the week.

Absolutely true. And there's a point of respect to think about -- I was always horrified as a child when my mother shared private foibles about me in front of her friends. As mamas, we do share this stuff. But we run a big risk of pushing our child away and hurting his heart if we do that where he can hear. It's hurtful. I mean, I want to teach my child discretion about private family matters by more than demanding he keep his counsel away from the house. Modeling it is a pretty important part of that. Once again, Laura, thank you for the reminder to pull the child toward me and not push her away. I often get too cavalier about taking care with tender feelings.

My wonderful optometrist from childhood told me that early readers tend to *want* to read more and do, and that this is a factor. He says that in his practice he prescribes glasses quite often and sometimes for the first time to law and medical students who become myopic because of the massive increase in the quantity of their reading.

You do exactly what you're doing. And you just shrug, and smile and say, "Isn't that the funniest? That's just 'his thing,' I guess. We're just kinda standing back and watching to see where he'll go with it. Hey, did you hear about that controlled burn they're doing over in Unicoi? I almost didn't get to sleep last night because of the smoke. Did it affect you over your way?" And I love the "picks his nose" line! That's great. It puts the other mom at ease immediately. There are people who will think you are pushing your child, of course. And they will think that your hand on his back is doing just that, pushing, when in reality you are just trying to grab on for dear life and keep up. But it's all good. Just be humble and ready for the time that he frustrates the daylights out of you because he can't figure out how to possibly tie his shoes, or (like my friend Paula whose very brilliant son is now grown and married and a successful graphic designer) find out when you go to repaint his bedroom that he's picked his nose AND he's wiped his boogers behind his bed. Every night. For, oh, five years or so. I can remember her telling me a story about him when I had a very little baby (my eldest) about when he was three and he kept riding his tricycle into the [active for traffic] alley. She says she would scold him and scold him, then finally just spanked him because of the danger, then FINALLY, when she figured it was just too many spankings and starting to border on abuse, she asked him, "Aaron, WHY are you riding your tricycle into the alley when you *know* you're going to get a spanking??" She says he looked her dead in the eye and said, "Because it's *worth* it." Hoo boy. That scared me and taught me to not underestimate the scary and not mature thought processes of a bright 3 y/o! (And yes, she did at that point just take the tricycle away, which would be the first choice of many of us, but hey, it was her first kid and he was three. And she was not prepared for that level of reasoning! LOL)

He learns to hold a tray in the cafeteria. He learns to cut curves and a straight line. He learns to hold a crayon and color within the lines and hone his fine motor skills. He learns not to annoy other people. He learns to wait his turn. He plays pretend on the playground. He learns to open his little milk carton (a useful skill, lol). He listens to stories and enjoys picture books and explores art and music. He plants seeds and paints with shaving cream on the tabletop. He dresses up like a fireman. He runs around making noises like a firetruck and learns when it's appropriate to do that and when it's appropriate to use an indoor voice. My ds had similar rote abilities and some higher order thinking going on in K, but he has such fond memories of kindergarten that he took me aside last summer (he's 19) and begged me to send our 4 y/o to K this fall instead of keeping her home. I admit we've had off-the-chart amazing public kindergarten experiences for our kids, and that's probably not the norm. But even a brilliant kid may have a good time for three or four hours with a group of age-mates. And there's certainly no pressure academically. Just fun -- if it's the right program.

No, but does your library have an online feature that allows you to borrow audiobooks for a couple of weeks? Also, Audible.com will have specials running with a freebie.

Wow, Cathy, good to "see" you again!

Oh my goodness, Colleen, you are right. And I am clearly being stupid. Thank you so much for pointing this out. I'll delete my post and ask Deb to delete her reply to me.

Is there something that restricts you from going out for 15 mins a day? Latitude, perhaps? Because I wouldn't supplement vitamin D. I'd just go out in the sun without a hat for 15 mins and let my body do what it's designed/evolved to do. (And I have no actual intelligent answer to your question, lol!)

Yes. And follows a 4-year history cycle.

Right, they are hybrids. Which is why you have to save heirloom seeds.

Nothing of value to add, but I'm watching this thread and this topic with great interest. Thanks for posting this, Virginia Dawn.

I didn't do it all the way through, and I stand in awe of you all who do it and do it so very well. Hugs to you, my friend. The grief that comes out as snarling and anger is pretty normal. It does get less acute, though.

Ugh! Did she have a garden out yet?

No, but he might miss out on the benefits of building without instructions if you don't just dump them in the tub and forgo the instructions. :D Honestly, there's nothing to say he's going to be deprived. He can use the instruction papers and dig out pieces and parts and then put the sets together in later years, if he wants. And other sets can be purchased, just for his instruction-following benefit. It's still early days. Dump. Be free!

Sweet! Jessica, you are a font of lovely esoteric resources. Thanks, dahling.

And then on the other hand, it's possible to go down these roads and not be uber-competitive or team-focused. Dd was in gymnastics for three years and to this day will speak of how the lessons she learned from merely challenging herself once or twice a week have affected her focus and body sense and discipline. So you don't have to go for "best" in the field. I do understand what you're saying, though. We made enormous sacrifices of time, money, and family for ds's music. Who knew that joining a choir and a few years of violin lessons would have started something so intense, but? (And that was a fairly low-cost, non-time-intensive option -- back then.) It's unpredictable where life takes you. I wish we had had such a vision so firmly in place regarding time/money/commitment when we were considering stuff back then. Although I guess I know we were walking the right path, and I really should not second-guess our decisions. However, I will say that we just found out from his fraternity website that among the (actual) prestigious awards and acknowledgments from both in-house awards and scholarships from his college and from elsewhere among his fraternity brothers, he holds the 2009 Guitar Hero Championship title for the school. So it was all worth it, I reckon. :glare: :willy_nilly: :blink: :eek: :smilielol5:

Don't discount Wabash. :D

I don't care for Pooh, either. And we like the *idea* of Winnie the Pooh, but not so much the stories. Most of the other stuff is pretty much on track, though, barring a personal preference or two. And a few I'd prefer to save til later, mostly because I think some themes are too intense for young children. I prefer this sequence from Highlands Latin School. At little more age-appropriate (for my family) in the younger years.

But now you're talking about divination. And the real world of using such an item, not the fictional backdrop that was (it appears) set up to sneak past sleeping eyes what some consider the Eternal Story of redemptive love. The American edition of the first book skewed the whole series, IMO. HP and the Philosopher's Stone has a classical meaning, with medieval alchemy as symbol and metaphor. "Sorcerer's Stone" is just silly -- there is no such thing in literature as a "sorcerer's stone." But the notion of a refining substance that takes the base and turns it into the refined and purified has a deeper connotation and one that was not to be missed in the trials and tribulations and the battling of evil that was the HP saga. Pity, really, that Scholastic thought so little of the American audience that they wouldn't use a word associated with "philosophy" on their cover. Pitiful and not unexpected, I suppose. But some of the foreshadowing was lost in that crazy choice. And a whole lot of folks would not touch a book with "sorcerer" in the title. Ok, and you weren't speaking to me, but I answered anyway. LOL What was the question again?

I'd probably be tempted to go with History Odyssey for all three for history, then add in literature as you like according to their needs. Definitely ancients -- such fun! Singapore for math for the eldest sounds perfect. And just follow your bliss in science. Classical Home Education has some dandy stuff, and the Great Science Adventures or R.E.A.L. Science would keep them all together, but working on their own level once again.

We used Churchill's Birth of Britain and Van Loon's Story of America as spines. And btw, both dd and I LOVED Dark Frigate. Definitely worth reading. I *think* we added Macauley's Ship and then watched Master and Commander to flesh out the vocabulary a bit, but it's been awhile ago, so I may be making that up! We dropped the more obviously religious/evangelical books that seemed to be tacked on, if I'm recalling the right core. (Though I think we did plough through the Wesley book.) I beefed up the added books and left the main spine as the Usborne text, though I think it's a bit on the young-ish side. Lots of layers using an easier spine was how I approached it. Added in Ivanhoe and Merchant of Venice and The Hiding Place with a supplement on Judaism and prejudice/persecution somewhere in there. Added... hmm. Watership Down and something else, then compared and contrasted leadership styles. Oh. It was an Arthur book. Once and Future King, maybe? Not sure. I think we added 1066: The Year of the Conquest. I'm not the person to ask, though, about changing Sonlight. I'm very bad about adding too much to the mix. And some things are only tangentially related to the study at hand. There's too much to add, and not enough hours in the day. And not enough time in the life, as I knew I needed to add what I could before dd left me. *sniff* We don't either of us regret those 3.5 years of amazingly hard work, but it wouldn't sustain long-term, and doesn't work for everyone.

And my case (such as it is) is that Colleen is spot on correct.

Old post. Mea culpa.

No, but I think one could argue that while a young adults can and certainly do engage in complex research and rigorous scholarship, their respective brains may still have a ways to go until they reach full maturity. It's not a personal *slam* on anyone's intelligence or maturity. It's merely a physiological phenomenon. And, as with everything on the developmental spectrum, there will be statistical outliers. But I say this as a person who, in her twenties, would have scoffed at such a notion. So while I understand what you're saying and why you're saying it, I have a different perspective now.