Um, yeah. You may be onto something there.....

School is starting again. This means we have co op, soccer, girl scouts, cub scouts, piano, ice skating, karate, field trips, and the list goes on and on and on. I want to stay home. I want to be a free spirit and not have a schedule. My kids are the opposite. They want friends to see on a regular basis, to learn skills that I cannot teach, and to get out of the house sometimes. I'm sitting her twitching looking at my schedule. Not only that, but my oldest suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder. At best, our home is tense, but during our worst times, I'm up all night worried that she is dead or doing drugs or hanging with the wrong crowd, or she's run away or broken the law or she's in her room freaking out about something minor. She's gotten into an alternative school program that will allow her to graduate on time despite lacking credits, but our public school buses will not bring her home at the end of the day, so I'll need to pick her up every day at 3. Nothing can be done about this. I just need to suck it up and deal with it. Sure, we'll do school at 8pm some nights but my kids don't seem to mind. I just needed to vent a bit.

Wow. I am probably the most socially awkward person around, so my response is probably not appropriate but my inclination would be to say "why do you say that?" and act all confused about why she thinks homeschooled kids are "out of the loop" Actually, she is probably just clueless. Maybe she'll learn a little something during this photo shoot. Maybe it will influence her in a really positive way.

Look what I found! It's no book but it's just perfect for younger kids. I just played the game and it's a great introduction to this topic. http://www.fireoflondon.org.uk/

This looks perfect! I'll check my library. Thanks! Any more suggestions?

I have lots and lots of science books, and of course the internet offers tons of information. I have books that cover all of the topics in the book list for NOEO Chemistry 1, but I don't have the exact book titles. Is it possible to substitute and read the books we have/use internet resources, or do I really need to buy more books?

We're going to be studying SOTW 3, ch 12 next week and I would love some historical fiction relating to the great fire of London for younger kids. My kids are typical for their age/sometimes struggling...so it needs to be simple. Any suggestions?

For this price, it's hard to go wrong! I have three little ones. One of them is bound to fall in love with this. My only hesitation is that it's only drawing lessons. My dd likes to paint and make things with clay.

Check homeaway.com too. We always find places to stay there and they usually work out to be way less than a typical hotel.

Does anyone have any suggestions beyond what is mentioned in the activity guide? I'm looking for an independent reading level of 1-3rd grade.

Thanks! This really helps!

Only when my teenager is in the car with the little ones. Otherwise, if I get out of the car, they get out with me, no matter what.

Same thing happened to us last year. My three youngest got rabies shots. At the time, the only human rabies deaths were caused by undetected bat bites. Anytime a child is sleeping in a room where there have been bats, the rabies shot is recommended.

Have you never seen the video of a carjacker stealing a car in front of a mom while she paid at a gas station? Seriously. There is nothing that would make it safe to leave a child in a car alone. Especially in a public place.

Even for 2 minutes, that is incredibly dangerous. You and he are both lucky nothing unfortunate happened. Have you ever seen the website http://www.kidsandcars.org? You may want to check it out to find out what can and does happen when little ones are left alone in and around cars. Much more than you think. I have to stop now before I get ugly.

Thanks everyone. Yes, we did go to UAB's Callahan Eye Hospital. Our pediatric ophthalmologist was the one who referred us. Both doctors have said that they suspect it's just an odd abnormality that isn't a big deal but both want to see him again in 6 months to see if there are any changes. BTW- Dr. Metz, the pediatric ophthalmologist that sees my son is amazing. He's like the kid whisperer. He takes his time and is gentle and gets the kids to sit still and cooperate like no doctor I've ever seen before. I know that hereditary color blindness is caused by abnormalities in the cones; however, there are other types of non-hereditary color blindness that occur as a result of optic nerve damage. I guess what I'm worried about at the moment is the possibility that his color blindness is getting worse, which would be an indicator of a connection between the optic nerve abnormality. In this case it wouldn't be the hereditary type and that would worry me. My fear is that the optic nerve damage will get worse or is a symptom of something bad.

I am wondering if I should be concerned. My 6 year old is colorblind. Not a big deal. However, when the dr. looked at his optic nerve, it is abnormal. It sorta kinda looked like the optic nerve of a kid with glaucoma....but not really....our doctor is a bit confused about what might cause this abnormality, as he's never seen it before. We went to see a glaucoma specialist, but he said there is no glaucoma. I understand that these two could be totally unrelated and that color blindness is not that uncommon. Until now I've thought he only confused green/orange. Today he's working on a math page that requires him to do a math problem, then color each little piece according to the answer. One of the colors is gray and he cannot seem to figure out which crayon to use. He actually seems to get all of his colors mixed up. I am so confused. Giving him this worksheet was a mistake, but he wanted to do it because my dd was doing one, so I made a copy for him to do as well. He also has a hard time noticing details. If I ask him to pick something up and hand it to me, half the time he can't find it. I've always thought it was just part of his quirkiness or just a boy thing, so I let it go. Thoughts?

Okay, I feel better now. Yes. Picture books. That has been my goal this year. Lots and lots of picture books.

Thank you! This is very helpful. I wonder if there is a curriculum that includes ideas such as this.

Yep, we've done the other two books and it was just as painful. This year I have been accumulating lots more living books and my daughter is old enough to have assigned reading, so the books she is reading do pertain to the time period. However, getting them to know basic facts is going to be hard. In CHOW, we read the chapter about King James. The ONLY thing they learned was that he dubbed his favorite cut of meat "Sir Loin". We had steak that night and I told them it was a sirloin steak and they giggled all through dinner. But that was it, lol. Oh, and they liked learning about the black death last year, lol. Ugh...... Are there other world history books that we could read as supplements? Maybe I can add those too.

I'm not sure why, but they don't seem to enjoy it very much. They do enjoy it when I paraphrase after reading. It is almost as if their brains just turn off when I begin reading. They retain bits and pieces and put the pieces back together all wrong. For instance, after reading SOTW 3, ch 3, they told me that King James was arrested for trying to blow up a building.... huh??? I am not quite sure what to do. I have been supplementing with other books and also reading CHOW to them, so they do get the gist of some of the history I'm trying to teach, but SOTW is just not working out. I hate to shelve it completely. Do you think it's a waste of time to keep reading it daily even though they get nothing from it? I thought about buying the audio book and just having them listen to that in the car whenever we happen to be in the car. Meanwhile, I can supplement with easy readers, CHOW, and lower level living books. Maybe someday they'll catch up to SOTW?

I think the key is to not offer books that are going to cost so much to ship. I see it like this- I can order a book on Amazon for an about $4.00 including shipping and that is if the book in question is being offered for .01, and many of them are. or I can list lighter weight books on pbs and spend $2.50 or less on one credit and get the books that way. On the rare occasion I happen to find just the right book at the thrift store i count myself lucky and remove that book from my wishlist. I have found that I can buy credits for 2.40 from people who have more than they can use. Since you are looking for less expensive books, make a point to list things that can be mailed for under $2, such as 6 oz books that can be mailed via first class mail. That way you aren't paying so much. Add books to your wish list that you need later and just order as they pop up in the system. I have had great luck finding many of the recommended reading from SOTW 3, but I only look for a grade 2-3 Independent reading level right now. Bookmooch is good too. You can even get points just for listing books and they have a browser add-on that allows you to click a little "mooch" button when you are looking at a book on Amazon. It will connect you to the site to see if there are any copies available and offer the option to add the book to your wishlist.

I just stumbled across this thread and wow! I'm so impressed! I only wish she had early modern times SOTW 3.

Thanks so much for sharing! This is so helpful!

That's it!!!! Thanks! But while we're at it, keep posting download sites! This will be a very useful thread.