I am type B and my DH and Mom are O's. I like the B recommendation for dairy because I love the stuff. I had saliva and GI hormone and allergy testing done recenty and the result were almost right on track with his recommendation for Type B. It showed alot of problems he said I would have when not on the eating plan for my type. I'd like to get the children typed to see which of them have mine and which DH's. I wonder if their natural aversions to certain foods would be consistant with their types? I have some who love dairy like me and some who won't even eat ice cream! Anyone else have experience with this eating plan?

I took the kids to Kroger with me and showed them all the gluten free stuff available. Brownie mix (it was Yummy!), bread mix, pizza dough mix, cereal bars, frozen pizzas, etc. That helped them to know that we weren't going to starve or go without many of our favorites. 3 Mousketeers and Reeces Peanut Butter cups are also gluten free. I am the only one who has dietary concerns that needs to be gluten free, but my mom, grandmother, FIL are all Type 2 diabetic and I talked to the kids about how we all need to be healthier and avoid future health problems. Chances are that whatever health concern is causing you to go gluten free will one day be a problem for at least some of your children. HTH

Have you read this? Anyone follow it? My mom passed it along to me and said it's helping lots of her health issues. The section on my blood type nailed several health issues I've had/am having. Just wondering if any of you have had similiar success, I'm a bit of a skeptic by nature. :001_smile:

Sounds like that mom should be missing a few meals :001_huh: My chores are posted on the wall along with the kids' - I was late to lunch today because I hadn't switched the laundry yet!

If a man will not work, he shall not eat. This has worked well in my house. It is printed out in large type above the chore board.

we were relocated here in June and now DH will lose his job in January. He's interviewing and looking for something else.

This is my 4th year with CC. We started when my 4th grade twins were in 1st. We moved after that first year and I tried doing it at home since there wasn't a group in my area, but it just wasn't the same so I started a group in our new town. Now we've moved again and I started another new group! We only use the memory work in CC as a supplement to the curriculum I use at home. Our history at home does not line up with CC, but I have seen over the years that as we study things at home, they are fleshing out what we have learned through the CC sentence or timeline. Last year in Cycle 3 we learned the sentence "In 1789 in New York, George Washington....." and in CHOW several weeks later we read about the French Revolution in 1789. My daughter lit up and said "That's when George Washington became President!" Several times when going through a museum we have come accross information from a history sentence and the kids get excited and recite the info they learned. This is helping them to cement the info in their head and build on their "pegs" of information. My 4yo boy walks around the house singing about the Pax Romana. He doesn't understand it at yet, but that info is stored and waiting for him when he needs it. You didn't ask advice for curriculum, but I found a science curr this year that I love and is going along nicely with CC. We don't cover the same things the same week of the CC memory work, but it builds nicely together. It is "God's Design for Life" by Answers in Genesis. Each lesson has a section for 3 different age levels (PK - upper elementary) so we are all doing it together. HTH

I watched a video that Pudewa did (an overview of the IEW program) and he suggested sitting with them while they write the sentences and giving them as much help as they need. I have found that since I started out giving them LOTS of help in seeing what would make a good sentence from their own thoughts and the KWO, they are picking up on it and are more able to write the sentences themselves. Now they are writing the sentences on their own and I go over it with them and make suggestions. We've been at this for about 8 weeks using the Ancient History based writing lessons. I have seen remarkable improvement. HTH

they love playmobil. They have the Eagle Castle and another castle that folds together. We have lots of "guys" and horses. They spend hours playing with this stuff. It does have a lot of little pieces and I have a hard time getting the Eagle casle to stay put together so they mostly play with the guys and the front of the castle with their building blocks.

we were in a cc group and then moved to another state and I started one there. 2 years later we moved to another state and I've just started one here. What state are you in?

I'm doing Essentials with my 4th grade girls now and it is very intense and a lot of work. Have you talked with your Essentials tutor or program director about this? The tutor gives assignments each week but it is totally up to you, the mother and teacher, on how much to cover at home. I would back down on the mastery charts and memory work and maybe do the task sheets orally or on the white board with you depending on what difficulities your DS is having. You can skip task 5 and 6 completely. How many weeks are you into the program? I think it was really designed to be mastered over a 3 year period and anything you get in one year is still a lot of grammar. I assume you were referring to the Challenge program for grade 7 and up. They use Latin's Not So Tough books 3 and 4 in challenge A and do not assume any previous exosure to Latin except the Foundations memory work - so if you dropped Latin at home and just worked on the declensions each week I think you would be OK.

and it seems the biggest problem is her bringing in new "collections" of stuff. She can't stand for anything to be thrown away because she "can use it for something." She shares a room with a neat freak twin sister and there is a constant battle. I've found that I have to get involved and help with the room every couple of weeks to get some things into the garbage can. I wish we had a place big enough for her to store all of her treasures, but we just don't. They each have a under the bed storage container for treasures and if it doesn't fit it has to go away. We are also going to be cleaning out everyone's room in a couple of weeks to allow for a few Christmas presents to be brought in. When we get the rooms cleaned out they really do enjoy it better and can be more creative because they can find thier stuff! I just need to do a better job of checking up on them and having time set aside for purging.

they are science adventure stories with an emphasis on creation. Here's the website Jonathan Park

We are trying to put together a last minute inexpensive Disney trip. I know, LOL. We have a place to stay for free with friends, we got reasonable plane fare and rental car. Now I need tickets to the park. There are 6 of us, me and DH and the dc are 9, 9, 6 4. Any ideas on deeply discounted tickets to the park? I've tried several websites but their prices don't seem very discounted from what you pay at the gate. Thanks

:lol:

DH and I offer a separate incentive at home. We told them we would give them $5 per subject memorized. Last time we did Cycle 1 my girls were 1st grade. In January they pick which subjects they want to go for and we only studied those subjects at home. They opted out of timeline and geography and had 6 subjects memorized by the end of the year. We still offer the money but they are in 4th now and have to try for MM as well. We did have a 6 yo MM in the program a few years ago, so it really depends on the child and how much emphasis is placed on the memory work at home

My twin girls (4th grade) are in Essentials and all 4 (age 9, 9, 6, 4) are in Foundations and here's what we're doing with it at home... Bible & Breakfast - Dad reads a devotion each am and we work on the Bible portion of CC and also their Bible drill verses Latin - we're using Latin for Children at home Math - Saxon, I spend 30 minutes with 6yo while the girls practice music and then spend 30 minutes with girls while 6yo and 4yo play legos Science - we're using God's Design for Life (from Answers in Genensis) and it is going along very nicely with the CC science for this year CC Memory Work - while I'm preparing lunch, the girls help the boys with the CC Memory work for the week. I quiz them and go over the geography maps before we eat. Preschool & Math - while the others complete their math sheets from the morning lesson, I do some preschool stuff with the 4yo. History - we're using MOH vol 1 Essentials - while the boys are resting, I go through our Essentials assignments with the girls. We just finished week 2 so we haven't had any task sheets yet. Our first day working at home, I go over the OMT lesson and we do the exercises orally or on the dry erase board Then the girls sit down with their Essentials notebooks and practice their mastery sheets. I have them all in page protectors with the key on the reverse side of each sheet. They use a dry erase marker and complete each sheet we've introduced so far. Next we do the editing exercise. I have them go through and find all the errors they can then we talk about the ones they missed. With going over the same exercise each day, they are really picking up a lot of stuff. IEW - first day working at home we talk about the new dress ups for the week and finish filling in the worksheet in the book. Over the rest of the week we finish the draft, I edit and we type a final copy and mark it according to the checklist. We've drawn pictures to go with the 2 poems. I am pretty much following the suggested schedule in the Essentials guide for these elements of our school day. It's on page A35 of the Essentials guide. HTH

My 4th grade girls just finished the 2nd poem, too. It was fun and easy way to get started with writing. It was neat to see how they each took the same outline and came up with totally different poems. I never thought writing would be fun!

that you don't need everything in the kit for 1st grade, some of it is used in other grade levels of the program, but it is packaged all together for your convenience through out the program. HTH

If I could do Kindergarten over, I would use curriculum from Heart of Dakota.

I used SL, SOTW and MFW. I found something else (from someone here on the board) that combines the best parts of them and is very CM - it's Heart of Dakota. Take a look at the website. You can download a whole week's lesson plan. It's very laid out for you, good books to read, fun activities that aren't too complicated, integrates Bible and all subjects together. Heart of Dakota HTH Dawn

Her twin sister does. Is that something that can it be taught? I know some curriculum claims to teach mental math, but does it do so for a child who doesn't have a natural bent for mental math? Is it possible that she just isn't going to get it or is there something more I could be doing for her? We have used MUS from Alpha to Gamma. She knows her math facts pretty well, she just doesn't get how to think mathematically to solve a problem. We have been taking a practice Stanford test. One of the questions was "you are number 11 in a line of 30 people, how many people are in front of you?" She just stared at the page. She was trying to figure out what to do with that "30". Another problem was that there were 120 books and each book had 325 pages. How many pages in all? She added 120 + 325. Another problem is her attention span. She is easily distracted and when she gets distracted in the middle of a math problem she loses her place or just skips the rest of that problem and starts the next. My Ker is using Singapore this year and I was thinking of combining Singapore with MUS or switching them altogether. I have also looked at TT's 4th grade math. I let this DD so some sample lessons on the computer and she seemed to enjoy it, but I've read a lot of mixed reviews on that one. LOL! Any advice here?

I do not use the CC work as our spine at home and it has worked out great for us. As we cover things in our curriculum at home, we will come across something that was a history sentence, science question or timeline card and they get all excited and say "we know about that" - and start reciting what they've memorized about it - it really makes the memory work come alive and hleps them make connections. A few weeks ago in CHOW we read about the French Revolution and the date coordinated with our history sentence about George Washington becoming the first President in 1789. DD8 immediately made the connection and we were able to talk about Lafayette coming over to help with our Revolution and going home to fight in his own. Same thing when we come across stuff in CC that we've already studied at home. I think it's a great way to reinforce what we're learning. SWB talks about setting "memory pegs" in their minds and I can see it working through our CC work. Another plus has been when we visit museums and they recognize something we've memorized and can talk about it. Plenty of parents use the CC work for their spine, but I like a curriculum that is put together and comes in a nice little (or not so little) box. We have been using Sonlight, but are switching to HOD for next year. We are also starting Essentials next year with my older 2, so I'm not sure about adding any extra LA yet. HTH

they look good, but I haven't ordered any yet.

What is the difference, which one do I need? Also - my Kindergarten DS finished MUS Primer before Christmas. I was just going to have him do some printed Alpha worksheets from the MUS website, but he wants a "math book". I was thinking of switching him over a Singapore text. Should I get the Earlybird or the 1a/1b set? He loves math and I thought this would cover some of the stuff MUS doesn't. Thanks