:iagree:

I was going to suggest a Kindle. My dh would love to have one, I'm sure. I'm thinking about getting him one for Christmas.

:iagree:

I am up about 7:15; I take my shower, then I wake EK about 7:30. She dresses and eats breakfast while watching television from 7:30-8:00. Meanwhile, I have my coffee and do a little tidying up and making sure I have everything ready for the school day. My additional student arrives around 8:15, and we start school at 8:30 sharp.

:lol: He's right, of course.

ER has a photographic memory, so he had a fairly easy time with Apologia Biology, but he still spent a bit more that 30 minutes on it each day--more like 45 minutes per day most days. He didn't have to do much studying to prepare for tests, and still wound up with a high A average for the year. But even he--like most people--was slowed down a bit by Module 6.

:iagree:

Ack! I completely forgot about Homer! :001_huh:

:iagree:

The way I learned the multiplication facts was by writing them out every. single. day when I was in 6th grade. Our teacher provided unlined paper, and when we first went into her classroom, we knew we were supposed to get a sheet of that paper and start writing. We wrote the 0's thru 6's one day and 7's thru 12's the next, and so on. We had to write out each and every fact: 0 x 0 = 0 0 x 1 = 0 0 x 2 = 0... all the way through 12 x 10 = 120 12 x 11 = 132 12 x 12 = 144 To this day, I know the multiplication facts backward and forward, and I can do timed drills faster than anyone I know. When I taught in PS, one of my classes one year was the lowest achieving group of 6th grade math students. When the school year started, none of them knew the math facts, so I used the same method my 6th grade teacher used, and I had my students write out the multiplication tables every day. It was s-l-o-w at first, and they had to copy the facts from a handout, but the repetition worked, and they learned the facts through and through. They learned them so well that the teacher of the top group asked my my secret because her math students didn't know the multiplication facts as well as mine did! So guess which method I used to teach the multiplication facts to my own dc? :D

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson AND Frankenstein by Mary Shelley along with The Deadliest Monster by Jeff Baldwin at least one tragedy (my pick would be Hamlet) and one comedy (my pick would be Twelfth Night) by William Shakespeare something by Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, or Great Expectations?) Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Silas Marner by George Eliot To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte Mere Christianity or The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis The Hobbit (and The Lord of the Rings trilogy) by J.R.R. Tolkien The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald something by Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility?)

:iagree: Exactly.

:iagree:

:iagree:

Me too!

Canon cameras are very good. Here's one in your price range at B&H Photo/Video, which is a great place to order; we have found that they usually have the best prices on the electronics items we are looking for.

I would just use graph paper. You can have your kids copy problems from the math book onto the graph paper. I did find this site that has printable pages with 2-digit x 2-digit problems on grids, but it might be the same page you already found.

I guess I'm somewhere in the middle. When one of us has a fever or has been throwing up, we stay away from people until there's been no fever or vomiting for 24+ hours. When one of them has the sniffles (without fever), we generally go about our routine, unless we know we're going to be in close quarters with people, in particular those whose immune systems may be compromised--the elderly, the very young, etc. When the kids were babies/toddlers, whenever they were sick, even if it was only the sniffles, we kept them away from the church nursery or other situations where they would be around other little ones, and expected the other parents to do the same (although more often than not they didn't :glare:). As the kids grew older, it became less of a big deal. Littles don't know to cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze, and they often share slobbery toys, so the germs spread a lot faster among young ones than older ones. It irritates the stew out of me, though, for parents to say, "She was throwing up during the night last night, but she hasn't thrown up this morning, so we brought her anyway," or "He had a fever this morning, but I gave him some Tylenol and he's fine now." Grrrr!!! I heard both of those a LOT when I was a PS teacher, but also at church and a few homeschool outings.

I saw a news piece about civet coffee a few years, and I have to say I wasn't tempted either, mainly due to the price. It's incredibly expensive! This is the report I saw on CNN. (It includes a picture of a civet, in case you're curious.)

:lol: (Me too!)

I don't dislike the idea of K-Cups, but I am wondering if it would be worth it to get a Keurig if I'm going to be making the coffee the same way I make it already anyway. To me, the appeal of the Keurig is the convenience of the prepackaged cups, so if I'm going to have to measure & grind my own coffee, I don't see how that would be much different from what I'm already doing with my current coffee maker. It would kind of defeat the purpose of the Keurig, right? I doubt I would use a Keurig for heating water because we have a Hot Shot that we already use for heating water (FAST) for tea, hot chocolate, instant oatmeal, etc.

After hearing a whole bunch of people talking about how much they love their Keurigs, I decided that I wanted one, and I've already put it on my Christmas list. :D BUT... it has occurred to me that with a Keurig I can't easily adjust the strength of my coffee if I simply use the little premeasured cups. Dh & I like our coffee pretty strong, and I am not going to be happy if we splurge on a Keurig only to find out that the coffee tastes too weak. FWIW, I drink only decaf, and I MUCH prefer flavored coffees to plain. Hazelnut is our "everyday coffee", and our special occasion coffee is usually Christmas blend or caramel flavored. I don't ever buy plain coffee except when my mom visits. I only buy whole bean coffee (usually from Fresh Market, rather than the prepackaged brands in the grocery store). So, if we get a Keurig, are we going to be able to brew coffee to our liking without having to use extra (and expensive) premeasured cups? Or are we going to have to use the reusable K-Cup filter and use only our own fresh-ground coffee? If so, wouldn't we be better off to just stick with our current coffee maker rather than getting a Keurig? :confused:

In a word... no. At least, not in the forseeable future, and even after that, I don't think it's likely. It would take a MAJOR change from the "me first", entitlement, "I want it NOW" mentality that seems to permeate most Americans' way of thinking. Personally, I don't think that's likely.

Thanks, all!