You're right, I don't want the link. But, I knew I always wanted a ferret, now I know why! :D

We are doing it twice a week. We also do Evan-Moor Beginning Geography (also twice a week, on the same days) for mapping practice. I don't really make an effort to tie in the geography to anything else, it just happens naturally. DD is really interested in other places, so when she hears a new country mentioned (in a book, on TV, on the radio, from an adult...) she wants to know where it is, so we look it up. We have a globe sitting in the dining room in easy access, so it takes about 30 seconds. She also spends time just looking at the globe on her own, for fun, or if she needs a minute break from schoolwork. I guess I do make an effort in that I try to make sure we're reading books from all over, and that leads to a lot of looking at the globe for the countries mentioned. It wouldn't work as well if we were just reading books from the United States. :tongue_smilie: But we did that long before we did the continent blobs.

I am definitely more of a mountain person. I *love* being on a cabin, high up in the mountains, with no one else around for miles. Breathing clean air. Only the sounds of nature. It's relaxing just thinking about it!!! :D (Just to prove it- I live about 20 minutes from Ocean City, and have been to the beach exactly zero times this year. :lol: Last year I went exactly- you guessed it, zero times. :tongue_smilie: )

Okay, seriously, after reading your list of things.... I feel things crawling on me. :svengo:I'm going to need a location on where you live, so I can never, ever move anywhere even close. Hundreds of spiders blown in on the wind?!?!?! :eek: I like all of these options. Especially number two. I've always wanted a flamethrower!! :lol: Now a legitimate reason to get one. (Although, I'm not sure that handing a terrified person a flamethrower is exactly the *best* idea, but hey, let's go with it anyway!)

French: I've had 3 different French professors, one for many semesters, two for a semester each. All three are from various parts of the United States. The one I have studied with most spent a lot of time in France while she was working on her degree, and she's young, so it was fairly recent. Spanish: I've had 4 different Spanish professors. The first from the United States, but spent an extended time and is married to a Colombian. The second was from Uruguay. The third was from the United States. The last from Chile. I think my French is much stronger, and part of that has to do with the teachers. I actually think it is easier when you are first learning a language to learn from a non-native speaker. Native speakers aren't always aware of all the grammar rules, why they say it this way instead of that way, they just do it, because it's always been done that way. Now that I'm further along in my language studies, I make an effort to listen to native speakers from all over (in both languages), I'm hoping that will improve my pronunciation! :D

....oh. I'm sorry. Rigor is supposed to mean no creativity? I'm sure my daughter is glad that I didn't know that until just now. :lol: Between planned activities and her own unsupervised activities, she probably spends more time on creative-type stuff then any other one thing, (including sleeping, eating, so-called "rigorous" schoolwork...). And I would consider us rigorous schoolers. :D I agree that rigor and creativity often complement each other well, and one can be the basis to better the other.

:D This is definitely on the list. She's a saver- so I was going to look for some sort of big box to wrap all the old electronics in together and she can just keep them in it. Oh, good idea. I'll try sending out an email to the local homeschool email list and see what comes up.

Some time ago, I read here that some of you had children who liked to take things apart. (As in, old electronics, toys, etc.). DD would LOVE that. In fear for my life (and/or permanently being ignored by half the board), I won't mention WHAT holiday, but for a certain winter holiday, I was thinking of getting her a small tool set, and a box of things to take apart. This would necessitate getting lucky at the thrift shop, because I'm obviously not going to buy brand new electronics for her to take apart! :lol: All this to ask- what are some good things for her to take apart, and is there anything I should avoid (because it would be too difficult, boring, or unsafe)? I never took things apart as a child, I just read..... :tongue_smilie:

Oh that poor girl. :grouphug: If they are determined to do the deed that night and she is absolutely grossed out at the idea of the uhm... you know, stuff, being spread all over, someone could casually mention to her that the shower is good for rinsing it away before anyone sees it. (:lol: Yes, while doing the deed. Although for a first time.... :001_huh:) They could also lay towels out, leave the lights off, get it done, then get in a candlelight shower together to clean off. All without turning the lights on- which could be quite shocking- like a crime scene. :lol: The towels are easy to roll up and tuck away to clean later. But someone should definitely mention to her that even if she *thinks* she's done, or very, very light- that s*x has a way of bringing the flow back, sometimes heavily!! ...... and none of this was written from experience. Just, uhm, a guess. :D :leaving:

We have cable, but nearly everything we watch is DVRed first, and therefore we fast forward through the commercials. It's amazing how much difference it has made in DD's attitude towards "stuff." I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself.

I don't assign "homework" because, well, it's all "homework." Except for the stuff we don't actually do at home, like all the work we do at the library, or the park, or wherever. :lol: But I do give assignments. I want DD to have experience getting assignments and being responsible to get them done. For now these are simple assignments, a set number of workbook pages, or a copywork section, etc. But as she gets older the assignments will become progressively harder, eventually turning into research projects and such. I don't police these assignments at all, other then reminders of when they are due ("Remember: two days until such-and-such is due". I give them to her, with a due date, it is up to her to get it done. If she wants to do a page a day, good on her. If she wants to wait until the night before it's due and rush through it, well, that's a lesson for her. She hasn't yet missed out on anything. I'm honestly looking forward to the day when she has an uncompleted assignment due on a day when a friend comes knocking at the door, or a dance class day. Guess who will be missing out? (Evil mommy much?!?!? :lol:) These assignments are more about teaching her to budget her time, and giving her some responsibility for her own education more so than the actual assignment itself.

:iagree: with both of the above. My daughter will sometimes be unable to give a good narrative of what we've just read, or explain to me really well what the experiment we just did means, but then the crazy child will pop up 6 months later and start explaining to someone ELSE about how we read this book and did this experiment and she learned that blahblahblah. :glare: (Or like on Jeopardy the other night when she could answer a question on Galileo from the 1 book we read about him a couple weeks ago. :tongue_smilie:I didn't even think she was paying attention that day!!!) But for me science and history is more about laying a foundation, so that when we start serious history and science study she has an idea of what those subjects are. And they add so much fun into our school!

Well, as someone who very rarely leaves my DD for an evening, and even at 6.5 years old she has only been away from me for up to 3 days, and that is with her grandparents at their house (and at the insistence and begging of all three of them- DD and both of my parents! :lol:) I say- Leave him. and try your best to relax and enjoy yourself, and focus on DH. You are absolutely right- You both deserve a trip. 5 days together isn't much. And I think that the people saying that bring along a 2 year old will drastically change the dynamics of the trip are absolutely correct. Plus, I see it all the time as the mother of one child vs. my friends who all have 2 or more. It is so easy to take one child places. Dinner, sight seeing, etc. When you add a second child, even if both children are super easy alone, it becomes so much more difficult when they are together. Seriously. 5 days. He'll be perfectly fine with your sister. He'll have his siblings, and you said yourself that your sister is a great mother and he will have a wonderful time. In 6 months he won't even remember the time you were gone, but you and DH will still remember the 5 days of togetherness!!!

:blink::svengo::scared: If someone could come get me off my roof, that would be wonderful...... (I'm quite literally snake phobic. I have panic attacks and nightmares after seeing them on TV. I'm pretty sure I would drop dead at the site of a 17 ft long one of these things. Oh my gosh.) Am I safe in Maryland?????? And to think I was considering a grad school in Florida. Maybe not..... :leaving:

This. We're grazers too. We do eat a sit down dinner many nights, probably 5 out of 7, but everything else is eaten in small meals throughout the day. My big thing, especially with the treat things, is that I only buy them once a _________ (depending on how much I've determined is reasonable). You can eat/drink it all in one sitting, or spread it all out throughout the whole period, I'm not going to police you. But if you eat up all the food you like in the first week and have "nothing to eat" (read it in a super-whiny voice), then it's not my issue! It works well. It didn't take DD long to catch on to the program. :lol:

If I google my name, a porn star comes up. It's not me. I swear!! :tongue_smilie:

We do schoolwork in places other than home all the time. At the public library, at my university library, in the lobby before dance class, at the park, waiting for doctors appointments, etc.etc.etc. :D I simplify things by getting the subjects done at home that have a lot of extras. We don't bring All About Spelling out with us, because it would be too much work to bring the whiteboard, the cards, and the tiles out with us. We don't usually do art out because, well, it's a mess. :lol: If we're using math manipulatives, we do it at home. Pretty much the only things I take out are workbooks. We *may* do a little cutting and pasting, a little coloring, but for the most part if it doesn't fit in DD's bookbag, it doesn't go.

I'm not married. But if and when I do get married, I won't be changing my last name. DD has my last name. I'm starting a career under this name, and since there are no prospects on the horizon :lol:, I will hopefully be established under my maiden name, with publications and name recognition in my field. But most important to me is that DD has my last name. I don't want her to be an outsider in her own family. If I get married and more children come along, we can figure out the issue of last name for them then.

bumpity, bump bump bump. :D

I love the Larousse dictionaries. I have quite a few different types and use them in a couple different languages. It was the brand suggested to me by three different professors, and I've found them to be very good quality.

:lol: She'd love these. I'll buy a stack with our next batch of curriculum and call it done. Thanks everyone! We aren't required to do testing, and the only requirement listed is "English" :001_huh:. I've got literature, spelling, phonics, poetry, copywork.... so, plenty of *stuff* that falls under English. I guess. (What the heck is "English". Sort of a category like "Social Studies," which I also have to teach :lol:) It'll be my first year doing portfolio review, so I'm really not sure what all they will be looking for. I guess if they make a big stink at my first review, I'll go ahead and get a grammar program before the second review.

Don't be in awe. You know what was missing in that list of all that I'm doing? Sleep. Precious, wonderful sleep!!!!! :lol: (You'll notice I'm up at 5:30 am planning.... :tongue_smilie:) Plus I have my mom, who lives with us. She can't do any of the schooling, but she will be taking DD to most of her activities this coming year, and although we normally split the cooking and cleaning, when I'm extra busy she takes over completely with that kind of stuff. I guess I was just freaking out that I'd go in for my review and the reviewer would immediately drag DD off to public school for not knowing what part of speech "jump" is. :D

:grouphug: Could you try a different type of sling? Or just a different type of carry in the sling? When DD was a baby, she hated the first sling I tried, but absolutely adored the second. It was like night and day! Once I put her in the second carrier, she would stay in it happily for hours. And, now I'm out of help because it was (or it just feels like it was) so long ago, and I've forgotten which type it was. But I know I could carry her multiple ways, and once she was able to hold her head up, she loved to be on my chest facing forward. The best of both worlds- the safety of Mommy, with the excitement of all the new things to see. :D

If you start grammar anytime after 3rd grade or so, do you teach your children the simple things like what a noun and verb is before then? I had planned on doing grammar this coming year. But really... our year is sort of packed. It is my senior year, I'm taking 23-24 credits both semesters and finishing up my honors thesis, I'm hopefully presenting at a couple of research conferences, I'm applying for grad schools, we'll be preparing for a long distance move, getting ready for my graduation, DD has violin and 4 dance classes, plus homeschool P.E and maybe one more activity.... I can either add grammar, or Spanish. We're already doing French, so a second foreign language isn't really a *necessity* but.... DD really, really, REALLY wants to learn Spanish. I'm quite convinced that holding off a year on grammar won't be the death of her education. But seriously though. No one is going to ask her what a noun is right? :lol: Should I go wake her up and tell her right now to be sure that I've taught her? I'm pretty sure the shock of being woken up will cement the experience in her mind. "Oh I know what a noun is. This one time, Mommy woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me......" (Okay, I'm all over the place with this post. I should go to bed. I'm exhausted and rambling. My point was- I think I'm going to wait on formal grammar. Should I teach DD the concepts like nouns, verbs, etc. or is it okay to wait another year, when she'll be somewhere in between 2nd and 3rd grade. What have you done? If she should know them now, I'm concerned that they won't get taught without a curriculum, I'm just a little disorganized. If you couldn't tell. :D)

Thank you for asking. I kept wondering myself, but was just too lazy to try and find out. :lol: