Yea, ours is completely homemade. Someone had given me several rolls of old adding machine tape, so I stretched that all over the room after dividing it into 100 year increments (we're doing Ancients this year). Then I got some 3x5 index cards and cut them in half and they write the date across the top, whatever it was that happened on the bottom half and stick it to the wall with masking tape. It's not creative and beautiful, but it is a timeline.

I'll play. What I thought was allergies all these months.... anxiety. I'm having anxiety attacks which are causing my throat to close up and my chest to tighten. So now what? I'm having anxiety over having anxiety.

At 11:00am. Or thereabouts. That's when we have our memory time (we memorize a poem a month) and read aloud. I have to schedule it or it wouldn't get done.

Is she against joining some sort of charter? Some are more stringent than others and she may like the independent aspect of not being involved in one, but if you join a charter, they provide all the curriculum. I am a former school teacher, so I kind of know what I'm doing, but I just wouldn't feel like I could give my kids a quality education without some sort of curriculum in certain subjects, esp. math and grammar.

That's wonderful. My children are not independent readers at all, but they adore being read to. They could spend hours being read aloud to.

I love brooches. I don't wear dresses, so I don't wear them that way, but I have a couple I wear on the lapel of my black winter wool coat. Brooches are very classy and elegant.

I think I tackled it. Got school done. DS1 just finished his history. That child has done wore me out! I made a double batch of banana bread. Got rid of the bananas that were over ripe on the countertop. Made breadsticks for the spaghetti for dinner tonight. Dh has a meeting at church so it's just the kids and me at home this evening.

I don't have one. I wish I did.

Get on him every single time. Consequences, too. Although my 7 year old dd doesn't let her older (10 yr. old) brother pick on her. She just screams at him, this blood curdling scream and he's started leaving her alone. Lol. I don't interfere with that relationship anymore.

I realize that the whole cursive thing is an example, and not his point, but cursive ultimately got dropped with us because it was a battle I just was not willing to fight. However, I completely agree with what he says regarding the training of the mind. It comes from the progressive-utilitarian approach to education. We now educate children to be good citizens and good workers. And everything they are taught must fit that paradigm. It's the old, " why do I have to learn algebra, I'll never use it," argument. We believe that unless education is "useful" it is worthless. I've discovered something amazing this year about my 10 year old son, who many people have whispered ADD about.... he calms down if his mind is challenged. Latin, math, logic....

Well, my oldest is doing FFL this year after doing PL and LC1 pretty much full time as written. He's a fifth grader, too. I would say he does well with Latin, he's got a very logical mind and he's smart. With that said, he's right where he should be. I think First Form is definitely more hard-core than the preceding two courses. I wouldn't do a half-baked job of the introductory courses and then put them in second year at that age. That's asking for trouble. I'm pretty much a stickler for rules, though. I don't skip much in a curriculum unless it's obvious my kid has mastered it already. I figure, if I'm going to spend my time and money on something, I want to do it right.

I am a first born and dh is sort of last born. He's last of 4 boys and then 5 years later his sister was born.

Wasn't she "That Girl"?

I know. I should read that book. I've always even curious if birth order is a genetic type of thing or conditioning. My children are all adopted. They were all very young when we adopted them, but the order they come in our family is not the order they are in their biological families. I've always wondered if that made any kind of difference.

Except.... that he's number two. And his older brother can do everything he sets his hand to with ease.

Oh mercy. That sounds exactly like my 9 year old. Yesterday we had a 2 hour sob fest because of math problems he got wrong. He hates being put on the spot for anything, even asking him a question can cause him to shut down. So, he got these math problems wrong and was a complete and utter wreck. I tried to give him tools to correct them, etc. nothing helped. Finally, we put it away until after supper, got it out again, I gave him a nudge in the right direction and he finished the whole page, correctly, in 10 minutes. It's very difficult to teach him because I don't know if he truly doesn't understand a concept, or if he's just shutting down due to it being new and he gets nervous.

I've got 5 kids - 5th, 4th, 2nd, preschool and the little one just runs around muttering " sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt".

Regarding the friending ... some people friend every one they ever thought they knew. This chick I sort of knew in early elementary school friended me. I accepted, just because.... I don't know why. I hadn't thought about her in 35 years. I don't think FB friending means a lot initially. Of course it can get sticky. Regarding the lunch thing.... I just took it as some off-hand comment. Like, "oh you were in my town, we could have done lunch..." (Not really, but it sounds like a nice thing to say).

I would be interested in that, too. Fine Arts is my bugaboo. This year my plan is to do it one day a week, 3 days a month from Artistic Pursuits and the last day is music. I'll just read to them a short bio of a composer and listen to some music. Not a great plan but better than what I had been doing which was nothing.

I read Peter the Great by Massie a couple of years ago. fascinating read.

Wow. Has it been a year already? Those were the best of times. (Spoken as one who did not participate in that thread, sometimes I just cannot reach the level of wittiness required! And I do mean that with all possible sincerity!)

I had the same problem with my 10 year old ds. He hated to read. But, we're doing Ancients this year and I have a pretty good pack of boy friendly books and for some reason, he's into them. One thing I've been doing is, I will read one chapter aloud and the chapters of this particular book (Hittite Warrior by Joanne Williamson) all end with cliffhangers. So, he has to go through 2 chapters a day and if he wants to know what happens, he has to read it himself. Which he's actually been doing. I also ask for an oral summary and he's been doing a good job at that. I don't think he would do the reading if I didn't tease him by reading some of it aloud first each day. He loves to be read aloud to.

I really really wish I were laid back. But I'm not. I need a plan. I like plans. I like to know where I'm going and how. It makes me nervous when I don't have a plan. I feel for you!

I do, but I don't really need it. I just kind of like it.

Part of the problem is that we can't do it "exactly" like it says. We have no 15 foot stairwell to hang the pendulum from, so we improvised and tried a tree branch. Well, trying to get the rope over the tree branch was an ordeal because we don't have tall ladder. Well, we actually have a very tall ladder, but neither of us can handle that one. So, we tied the end of a rope to a tennis racket and tried throwing that over the branch. The racket got stuck in the tree, just to keep the hula hoop company that's been stuck up there for months. And then we were to check the pendulum every 15-20 minutes. The darn thing wouldn't keep swinging for longer than about a minute. By then, all the kids were out watching and it started to get chaotic, so we just quit. But, that's ok. DS seemed to have a good time. On to next week.