:iagree: I haven't been here in a LONG time, Abbeyej, but we go WAY back. This was the first thread I saw tonight. Wow. It's like going back to the house you lived in when you were young, and everything seems so ... different! (I was going to say "small," but there was just too much going on in that thought, so I reconsidered :D!)

The Tallis Canon ("All Praise to Thee, My God, This Night") over and over and over. And over. All verses. And over. (Plus a few I made up just for ds.)

I am so glad that you're back to share your wisdom with so many more families in the living room. I offered sincere (although clumsy) condolences many months ago, and still have a heart that is heavy for you and yours. He is not forgotten. Reading: Bitter Lemons, by Lawrence Durrell (a wonderfully written account (from 1957) of the author's move to Cyprus) - highly recommended, even if only for the evocative language, the vocabulary that's making me reach for a dictionary, and the deft turn-of-phrase.

I agree with JudoMom and Crissy: http://www.amyjosoap.com (Amy's a WTM mom!) I have sent her soaps as gifts that were GREATLY appreciated, and I have kept a fair amount for myself. It's really good soap!

I usually write ya'll (contraction of ya all (grammar rules notwithstanding)). My dh is a linguist and he would agree that language is dynamic, not static, and thus, ya'll will eventually make its way into the language. My problem is that my email "auto-correcter" is apparently not from the same part of the south that I am: it consistently changes my "ya'll" to "y'all!" Maybe you're right, Daisy, and I should just stop writing it altogether!

Yup.

Hi, Laura, Welcome to hs'ing! We have done most of our hs'ing in MD under an umbrella group, but did have one year with the county (Montgomery). My understanding is that it really depends on what county you're in. Our co-op was in Howard County (but our review was in MoCo), and they seemed to be more strict from what I've heard. At any rate, it looks like your 5 yr old will be the "reviewed" child, and when my son was that age, the reviewer about fell off the seat with how many read alouds we'd done that first "semester." I think we had four single-spaced pages (2 columns each) of books we'd read (keep your printouts from the library, if you're using the MD Public Libraries), along with regular seatwork-type items. My Mont. Co. reviewer was very nice, and not at all antagonistic towards hs'ing. I have heard that some in other counties might be more adversarial (read: picky). As I've heard moms of older kids talk about it, it seems that they want to see an example or two of writing and of math at the beginning and the end of the semester. If you're just working on handwriting/spelling, for example, just take the workbook that you've used to show progress along the way. Many moms will take pics of (e.g.) field trips, PE-type activities, etc., since these might be the most difficult to document - or you could have your dd draw a pic and narrate the activity. Make sure that you have a "health" unit of some sort each time (I recall doing a food pyramid, and having my ds cut out pics from each group and glue them to the chart). If you have items like lapbooks that show ongoing learning of a topic, those seem to be well-received, too. One other tidbit: do not give them more than they're asking for, even if you've just done a stunning unit about astrophysics or whatever --- if it's not 'required', then you just (potentially) make it harder / more stringent for every OTHER homeschooler out there. :) Document well and thoroughly, but don't worry about it - I'm sure you'll do fine! From what you have written in your siggy that your dd is doing, you're very similar to where we were 8 years ago. (PS - the reason we switched to an umbrella from portfolio review was that dh thought it would be easier --- however, my umbrella wanted monthly summaries of each week, and quarterly evals, etc. To me, it was more time-consuming and made me feel guilty since I was always 'behind'! The portfolio review took several hours to compile (for me), but only once per semester.)

Check this site: ellenskitchen.com (or this page: http://ellenskitchen.com/bigpots/plan/quan100.html) She mentions "hot dog chili" (or sauerkraut), and says you should count on ~1/4 cup per person. I can't imagine that you could get THAT much on a hot dog, considering all the other condiments/toppings you have. So maybe 1/8 cup of the beef topping and 1/8 cup coleslaw? HTH!

Not to hijack the OP, but we just had this recipe (below), and it was a HUGE winner in our house (not ... ahem... very healthy, but REALLY good). It looks involved, but really was easy. It has the cheese under the sauce, and I had my doubts, but ... really good! Chicago Deep Dish Pizza Ingredients Dough 3 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal 1 1/2 teaspoons table salt 2 teaspoons sugar 2 1/4 teaspoons instant or rapid-rise yeast 1 1/4 cups water, room temperature 3 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted, plus 4 tablespoons, softened 1 teaspoon plus 4 tablespoons olive oil Sauce 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (I used less.) 1/4 cup grated onion , from 1 medium onion (grate on box grater) 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano Table salt 2 medium garlic cloves , minced or pressed through garlic press (about 2 teaspoons) 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes 1/4 teaspoon sugar 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh basil leaves 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil Ground black pepper Toppings 1 pound mozzarella cheese, shredded (about 4 cups) (I used less, but next time will use even less, although the pizza wasn't greasy - I just don't like that much cheese.) 1/2 ounce grated Parmesan cheese (about 1/4 cup) Instructions 1. FOR THE DOUGH: Mix flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, and yeast in bowl of stand mixer fitted with dough hook on low speed until incorporated, about 1 minute. Add water and melted butter and mix on low speed until fully combined, 1 to 2 minutes, scraping sides and bottom of bowl occasionally. Increase speed to medium and knead until dough is glossy and smooth and pulls away from sides of bowl, 4 to 5 minutes. (Dough will only pull away from sides while mixer is on. When mixer is off, dough will fall back to sides.) 2. Using fingers, coat large bowl with 1 teaspoon olive oil, rubbing excess oil from fingers onto blade of rubber spatula. Using oiled spatula, transfer dough to bowl, turning once to oil top; cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let rise at room temperature until nearly doubled in volume, 45 to 60 minutes. 3. FOR THE SAUCE: While dough rises, heat butter in medium saucepan over medium heat until melted. Add onion, oregano, and 1/2 teaspoon salt; cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid has evaporated and onion is golden brown, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in tomatoes and sugar, increase heat to high, and bring to simmer. Lower heat to medium-low and simmer until reduced to 2 1/2 cups, 25 to 30 minutes. Off heat, stir in basil and oil, then season with salt and pepper. 4. TO LAMINATE THE DOUGH (This was the key, I think, to having a flaky pizza crust, not a bready one. However, it wasn't TOO flaky - I really hate a "short" crust for pizza.): Adjust oven rack to lower position and heat oven to 425 degrees. Using rubber spatula, turn dough out onto dry work surface and roll into 15- by 12-inch rec-tangle. Using offset spatula, spread softened butter over surface of dough, leaving 1/2-inch border along edges. Starting at short end, roll dough into tight cylinder. With seam side down, flatten cylinder into 18- by 4-inch rectangle. Cut rectangle in half crosswise. Working with 1 half, fold into thirds like business letter; pinch seams together to form ball. Repeat with remaining half. Return balls to oiled bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let rise in refrigerator until nearly doubled in volume, 40 to 50 minutes. 5. Coat two 9-inch round cake pans with 2 tablespoons olive oil each. Transfer 1 dough ball to dry work surface and roll out into 13-inch disk about 1/4 inch thick. Transfer dough to pan by rolling dough loosely around rolling pin and unrolling into pan. Lightly press dough into pan, working into corners and 1 inch up sides. If dough resists stretching, let it relax 5 minutes before trying again. Repeat with remaining dough ball. 6. For each pizza, sprinkle 2 cups mozzarella evenly over surface of dough. If you're adding toppings, add them on top of the cheese and under the sauce.)Spread 1 1/4 cups tomato sauce over cheese and sprinkle 2 tablespoons Parmesan over sauce. Bake until crust is golden brown, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove pizza from oven and let rest 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

I don't know that I'd say it's "offensive," and I don't think I'm a prude, but it's just coarse and unnecessary, imo. I would probably try hard to not give my business to that company, too.

"Oh, hi, Dr. ABC. We only see Dr. XYZ. We'll reschedule! Bye!" As a doc, I ASSURE YOU that you are not hurting ANYONE'S feelings. Dr. ABC is doing a happy dance inside since he now has extra free time to catch up on paperwork! (No lengthy explanation needed: if you talk too much, you're taking up HIS time :)!) Ask the staff to put a big note on your chart: Dr. XYZ ONLY.

Admittedly a bit different here, since dh is a linguist, but he and ds have been (very casually) learning !Xhosa, and he and I are planning on learning Swahili (well, he probably already learned it when I wasn't looking). Dh is not here right now to ask, but I think he would say that Welsh is a GREAT language to learn. (At least that's what he thought when he learned it :), and when I first met him and saw a Welsh flag up in his den, I was intrigued :)) The more languages you learn, the easier it is to learn the next one --- even if they don't seem particularly related. Sure, Spanish and Mandarin might be more "useful," (maybe, someday) but if your child is really interested in learning Welsh, then the study of it will come more easily. I'm not necessarily advocating "delight-driven learning" for basics, but for a foreign language? Why NOT?

Apparently, it's more than I thought, given the number of things I have on the For Sale board that say "never used." Ugh.

:iagree: with bugs. We used Prentice Hall Science Explorers and they seemed to be the correct depth for my ds. (I have one earth science one available on the FS board: Inside Earth ISBN 0132011492 $8.) We usually did 3-4 of these books per year; I think some folks do 2, some do 5 (we never could have finished 5!).

LOL! I had the same thing happen with a 5 year old: "You don't clean very often, do you?" I decided to laugh (and hope that she was just overwhelmed by the number of books in the house, not the dust bunnies)! If I spent all my time cleaning to perfection, I'd never have arranged the playdate in the first place....

I will echo what many others have said: Colonial Williamsburg is lovely at Christmas. They could stay in one of the colonial houses, stroll up and down DoG street - there are wonderful Christmas decorations on the colonial houses (competitions every year for wreaths, etc.), nice romantic restaurants. If that's too "girly" for either of them, there's also the gunsmith or the blacksmith (etc.), LOL. When you're there, you can just feel that you're in your own 'bubble', which seems (imo) nice for a honeymoon.

Excellent! I knew someone would know how to make umlauts and would give us some real modern-day German! :)

Well, not just because I have these listed on the For Sale board (ahem), but because they lend themselves, in my opinion, to multilevel co-ops, I'd recommend Great Science Adventures. I believe that they are recommended for K-8, at different mastery levels. http://www.commonsensepress.com/greatscience/about.htm (I have The World of Space, The World of Plants, The World of Tools and Technology, and The World of Insects and Arachnids available. :) Feel free to PM, if you're interested, although the website has some samples available.)

I know this!! I love being married to a linguist - here's what he said: "goose" is a very old Germanic word (from IndoEuropean) that had an irregular plural. This word underwent sound changes that were common to irregular Germanic plurals. (Sort of purse your lips and say "goooosen" > "geeeeesen" > "geese"; all apologies to those who know how to write such things). (Similarly, "mouse" is an old Germanic word; its plural had a sound change to "mice.") "moose" is an Algonquian word that was borrowed into English in the 17th century; thus it never underwent those Germanic sound changes. (Dh also points out that if enough people start saying "meese," then it will - presto chango - become "meese.")

PMing you right now. Let me know if you can't read the link that I'm sending you, please.

Praying for peace for you and your children, Heather, and healing for your dh.

We did Maryland history - can't recall whether we took 15 or 30 wks to cover it, but we ended up with a wonderful lapbook! All my notes, etc. are on a previous computer, but as best I can remember: The whole back was a flag of MD that the kids (this was a co-op class) colored while we read something or other to them. This formed a pocket, but ... I don't know what we put into the pocket! Maybe field trip brochures? The whole front (where the two flaps came together) was covered with (homemade) stickers of the state flower, animal, bird, game, etc. (as you mentioned). Inside we added an extra page or two. What I remember was one page full of "matchbook" folded papers, each with a name/pic of a famous Marylander on the outside, and a very brief (maybe 2 sentences) "bio" of that person on the inside. We had about 20 of these. Somewhere near that, we made a really cool fold-out timeline of Maryland history (the whole thing folded into a flat square, but when pulled out, was a diagonal accordian-like piece of paper - maybe you could google Dinah Zike's instructions - I can't recall what it was called.) We also had several overlay maps of the state - one with the counties numbers (and then labelled on a chart below the map), one (over the basemap, printed on vellum) with the waterways, one (also vellum) with the topograhy (which wd work beautifully with Colorado!). These were all colored in various ways. We had a whole section on the Chesapeake Bay watershed - I recall a big wheel that you could spin (on a central brad) to show what was predator and what was prey (or something like that - also would be easily adaptable to the wonderful wildlife you have in CO!) or where a certain animal was in the foodchain. (Sorry these are not more specific, but maybe my vague recollections will spark something wonderful for you!). We took pictures of each child with a lab we did of things that pollute the Bay. (before and after pics of an aquarium filled with water --- based on http://www.vaswcd.org/documents/Education/Sixth%20Grade%20Watershed%20Curriculum.pdf (starting at pp 37) - it was a very graphic demo that the kids seemed to really like.) We also had a (appx) 20-question "quiz" along one of the inside flaps - fun facts about MD or something like that - a piece of paper folded in half longways, with the questions written on the outside, and cuts between the ??, so you could lift up the ?? and see the answer underneath (on the uncut part of the paper). We had a section about politics - where the kids looked up their senators and delegates, their district number, etc. I know there was more, but maybe this will give you some ideas. At the end of the class, we decorated a big cake to look like the MD flag. (Google the flag and you'll see what nuts we were!) Have fun! I loved all the lapbooks we made over the years, even if my non-crafty son didn't so much!

Before we married (almost 19 yrs ago), we decided that we had a "rule" that if one of us ever wanted to pray about something, the other would immediately drop what he or she was doing and stop and pray. That sounds sort of silly, but it's been important to me to have that knowledge that my dh would drop everything for something that I thought was impt. We also pray many nights or mornings together. One thing that we also have is what I think of as a "blessing box." It's an old, wooden loose tea box that was my great-grandmother's. I put a bunch of slips of paper in there, and over the years, we have added little notes about specific answers to prayer or special blessings -- usually about "big" things. It's been a real blessing to me to have this record of God's faithfulness to us over the years - and it's been really fun to look in the box every so often and find that dh has added something on his own. I would encourage you to try to pray with your dh, even if it seems awkward or even embarrassing at first - and praying a(n already written out) prayer (or reading through a Psalm as prayer) as Patty Joanna mentioned might make it easier at first!