Praying for Frankie this morning. Will keep checking back for progress. Poor guy! What wonderful friends he has! Fund raiser ideas: Try to find a blow up jumping pit for kids -- sell tickets for at the fund raiser Get donations for raffles Pie auctions silent auctions fall carnival activities American Idol contest (of course, call it something different like Arkansas Idol) Basketball tournament Schwans (how do you spell that?) fundraisers Appoint someone willing to put a lot of time into getting to word out to family, friends, and people of the community.

Thank you, (enlarsh? and tttigerr?) for understanding. It is not a huge risk for us either; I have had three children with my condition. Risk of death is slim, but still there and pregnancy is difficult. Most of the time I do not want another pregnancy, but those rare, and, yes, INSANE moments when I do want another are unbearable. We are considering adoption. That has been part of our plan since before we even knew I had a health condition.

I know it is ultimately my own decision, but I would like to hear your thoughts. Would you plan it if you already had three children? We are a Christian home and believe that God will lead us in the right direction, even if it does not end the way we hope. Please be gentle.

We just started Ellen McHenry's The Elements and we love it! We have only done the first few lessons, but so far it looks just great. It started out with charting the different ingredients of several common recipies and showing how they use a lot of the same ingredients, just in different amounts. Then she took the same principle and applied it to the different elments and explained how a few elements can be used in different amounts to make many different things. So simple, yet still instructive.

I use a lot of coupons, but have found it tedious to clip them from papers. I use a few from papers, but I buy most of mine off of ebay for a low price. For instance, we go through a lot of yogurt in our house so I buy 20 coupons for yogurt for about $1-2. The coupons are doubled, so I still save a lot by using them. This works great for larger families who may buy a lot of one thing.

We were exactly where you are going into the third grade. The first part of the year I am afraid I made school a little boring because we did a LOT of copy work and dictation. When I was satisfied with his handwriting (we were well into January), we started Handwriting Without Tears Cursive writing. It was not nearly as beautiful as others, but it worked. I also forced him to do some fine motor activities. He has always hated coloring, so we found some ways to make him enjoy those activities more: mazes, dot-to-dots, drawing pictures of stories we read to made up. The pictures were not expected to be great. As long as he was gripping the writing tool, I was happy. This year, going into the 4th grade, his handwriting is still too big, but much more satisfying to his mother.

I liked Happy Phonics. It is a system using games to teach the phonic sounds. One drawback--to keep the cost lower you have to cut out a lot of the stuff yourself. We use a file box to store the games so that they are easy to look up. I will be using it again this year to teach my K. We used it k-2nd.

Oh, I love Sabrina! I forgot about that one!

Awesome! Thanks for the links!

We have used MUS for several years, but it is a little dull and we always need supplementation to remember the math facts. Is there a program that implements games or games to purchase separately that make it more enjoyable. Maybe a book of games. Limited budget working with 4th grade and k boys. We will be using Times Tales this year.

Ella Enchanted I second August Rush. Although it does have implied premarital resulting in pregnancy, it does open up the opportunity to discuss the risks and results of poor choices and the benefits of waiting. Love comes Softly series Robin Hood (not really chick flick, but I love it!) One Night with the King (sounds bad, but nothing inappropriate) Nativity

I am looking for ideas for all subjects. For math we just use flash cards and we have a few games such as Presto Chango. We are looking for ideas adaptable to any subject: History Science Math Grammar Latin (although we have not even picked out a curriculum for this yet) Spelling And others that I am sure I have left out. I have found a few ideas by doing searches. My kids LOVE songs, but I am not good at making them up. Thanks for your suggestions!

I need ideas to make memorization fun! My children are boys ages 4 and 9 (4th grade). Books! Links! Ideas! Games! Anything! I know what I want them to memorize, I just need to make them enjoy it! I am just not creative in the area of education. I know some people can pull this stuff out of thin air, but, "Not I," said the boring mom! Thanks!

WOW! I didn't realize the terms "natural" and "speller" could co-exist. We us AAS. Love it. We progressed through level one in about a month. Level two in about two months, and are now starting level three. We have always been horrible spellers (yes, I am, too), but after moving through AAS I realize that we just didn't have the rules mastered. You can move through it at your own pace, master the rules and move on. It is designed for all students, not just poor spellers. I cannot say that my spelling has improved any. I do not remember the rules as easily as my son. I have to ask him what the rules are as we review. It reinforces his learning and makes him feel good to be teaching me.