19%.... I actually scored lower than I expected to.

We have Hanukkah and Christmas here. The kids are super excited about the overlap this month, but I really enjoy the years with a week or two separating the holidays.

I'm so glad to see that they will be going away! Frankly, I'm not too thrilled with Barbie, but my dh has an aunt who collects classic Barbies, sews the clothes, restores the hair.... the whole deal. And it's actually really amazing and she has created a business out of it, so I am glad to have my daughter have a chance to see this sort of thing in a positive light. But I have held firm on the no Bratz doll rule, despite her cousins having them, and she has been very unhappy about it.

Our last day is the 17th.... because we have out-of-town visitors on the 18th, and I figured it would just be an easy place to stop before we get too involved in the Hanukkah and Christmas activities. We will start back on January 7th so that we can get back into our routine gradually, with a half week to start back.

If I had to assess what a group of 25 or 30 students knew about Ancient Greece, or Pilgrims, or scientific discoveries of the Renaissance, I would probably assign big papers some of the time, too..... But you only need to assess how well your kids are learning, and have the time and student-teacher ratio to assess them through in-depth discussions and hands-on projects that a classroom teacher could only dream of. You can follow up on questions that arise instead of planning according to a testing calendar, allowing for the sort of love of learning and desire to acquire more knowledge that is what colleges really look for. Of course, knowing all that is true doesn't always make that sort of phone call more pleasant......

I'm down to half of what I used to send, and I don't really add much to what's printed inside. I used to make much more of an effort. The only one that even gets pictures of the kids is my grandmother who doesn't have a computer -- I've given up on the holiday portrait thing as well since it seems so much easier to post pictures online throughout the year. I would probably cut my list even shorter, but I don't have the courage to cut the folks my mother-in-law had me copy from her address book the year dh and I got married.:001_smile:

Raising Your Spirited Child helped me understand a lot of what I had never considered about my own personality, which has done wonders for how I perceive and interact with my kids.

My daughter has been enjoying the quizzes here, which someone on these boards mentioned a couple of months ago. She is reading on a 3rd/4th grade level, so I'm not sure what the quizzes are like for higher reading levels. Your son could always try out one on a book he knows well. The downside to these is that there are no writing activities, it's just basic comprehension and might be simpler than you're looking for.

I'm the oldest, with sisters ranging from 17 months younger, to 13 1/2 years younger. And due to divorce and remarriage, we were raised in two households. Now that we are all adults the two I'm closest to are the one just 17 months younger than me, and the one 11 years younger and raised in a different home.... So I would have to say that factors such as personality and common interests have more influence on how close siblings end up. That being said, I really wanted my kids to be spaced closely, and they are 23 months apart, which seems to work out perfectly here. They have a big brother, my stepson, who is several years older than both of them, but even that relationship seems to benefit all of the kids -- he spoils them with attention and love, and they adore their big brother.

I placed an order with them on Sunday afternoon, chose the free shipping, and it was sent out this morning. The original estimated shipping date when I placed the order was the 12th, so I'm pretty thrilled.

I became my family's primary breadwinner as soon as I finished high school, which I had finished early so that I could save money for college..... So in about one month I finished high school, added a full-time job to the 2 part-time jobs I was aready working, and realized that I was definitely not going to be heading off to college the following fall. You would think that all of that would have made me feel "grown up," but what really did the trick was being responsible for giving my younger sisters nice family dinners, holiday gifts, little birthday parties and the like during that difficult period. I wish I felt like less of a grownup sometimes now.

My dh leaves hours before the kids are up and usually gets home after they are in bed (though not always asleep). We've also had some stretches where he was only home on weekends, and through it all there hasn't been a lot of money for babysitters. I absolutely need to have time to myself both before they get up and after they go to sleep. Sometimes I take a short nap, just half an hour while they watch Arthur on pbs, just so that I will be awake enough to enjoy the evening once I've tucked them in. I used to feel guilty about it, but now I just feel like it makes me a better mother.

Not only do the new lightbulbs save money over time, they save the trouble of hauling out a stool to replace bulbs all the time! If I had thought through how convenient they would be, I would have balked less at the initial cost. We already do a lot of what has been mentioned. I'd add that food costs can be cut drastically if you plan your menus around what is in season and on sale, especially when you combine sales and coupons. I stock up on staples as they are on sale, then fill out the menu with the best bargains I find each week. I wash almost everything in cold water, use store-brand detergent, and use less than the directions say. I sort my clothes by weight before drying which really cuts down on how much time my dryer runs.

I wouldn't worry too much. My 5 year old dd never really seemed to enjoy coloring, but has always enjoyed drawing and writing. My 3 year old ds loves to color, and can do so almost as neatly as his big sister. Coloring is a great way to develop the muscles used in writing, but it's definitely not the only way.

We give our old toys that are still in decent shape to our community center. They have a family playroom that makes good use of them (and my kids enjoy being able to visit their old things!).

I forgot felt boards! You can get some very nice sets of pre-cut felts with all sorts of themes, or make your own to go with favorite stories and themes if you are crafty. My 3 year old ds makes up elaborate stories by mixing all of our sets together.

Is Saturday morning open? You could pick up a bagel bundle with tasty cream cheese spreads from whatever bagel place you have nearby, make a big pot of coffee, and put on a holiday movie for any kids that need a bit of entertainment while the grownups chat. Or you could meet for coffee and pastries almost any hour of the day.

My dh is the primary wage earner, and has never gotten involved in choosing curriculum or doing any teaching, since he assumes I know best. This actually used to bother me, but now I take it as a compliment. He actually just started teaching dd to play chess, which I don't play, and I see that as a positive thing for their relationship, so now I'm trying to think of other things he could teach the kids in an informal manner. He leaves for work a few hours before they wake up, and most days of the week he arrives home while they are getting ready for bed, the other days after they are in bed, so he doesn't really have much time with the kids aside from on the weekend.

Last year I did K with my (then) 4 year old dd, and we had a fantastic year. We used: ETC 1 - 3, Headsprout Early Reading (all 80 lessons) Singapore EB 2A, 2B, the first half of PM 1A Daily copywork (4x per week, copying a 6 - 10 word sentence from our read-alouds, predominantly Little House, Oz, and Narnia books, poetry by R. L. Stevenson) DK's Children Just Like Me. memorized the names and locations of the continents and oceans, covered the history of holidays as they came up using age-appropriate literature Nature study and science classes through our natural history museum, plus hands-on exploration at the science center. Weekly ballet/tap classes. Twice weekly playdates. Monthly symphony concerts and/or gallery visits for arts appreciation. Tons of hands-on exploration with playdough/sand/craft materials/math manipulatives. We enjoyed the year and she really flourished!

The Charlie Brown cd is the new favorite around here! When I was a classroom teacher I had a great Julie Andrews Christmas album on lp that I played all month long. I requested something that just might (fingers crossed!) be the same one from the library, but it hasn't come in yet.

I always add a couple of bay leaves to my bean soups. It makes a world of difference. Sometimes I add rosemary when I have fresh around. I often add a splash of good vinegar (red wine or balsamic) if I think it needs some acidity at the end of cooking.

My 3 year old ds loves any and every building toy. He is able to handle the regular size legos and k'nex, so we have gone ahead and allowed those. He loves puzzles, and needs increasingly complex ones. For my 5 year old dd, last year's big hit was the Playmobol take-along dollhouse. Both kids still use it most days, and have gotten very creative with it (it is now an animal rescue home filled with toys from various other sets and the original family "runs" the home and takes care of the rescued animals). Tangrams are a favorite of hers, as are craft and cooking materials. If you want something that seems more academic, DK has some games that might fit. I think one might be called "Silly Sentences" and encourages emergent readers to fit together sentences that are broken down into puzzle pieces to make various combinations. Playdough, sandbox toys, and fingerpaint are always winners here. This year both kids really want an ant farm, so I'm probably going to give that a try.

I finished high school early, as did one of my sisters. My district permitted grade-skipping, but my elementary school principal did not allow it at all, and I did not want to switch schools. Looking back, skipping earlier would have been less awkward for me than the patchwork subject acceleration we had to arrange each year. We are still working out exactly how we will classify dd once we have to file paperwork, but we started her K curriculum a year earlier than she could have started ps, and the past couple of years have been very successful, so I have no regrets there.

The one that always worried me was never flip a light switch on and off rapidly because it can start an electrical fire. I still get nervous when I catch my kids playing with a light switch. Also, I remember being told never to go under the bleachers with a boy, and I had no idea what my mother meant by that for years. I wasn't naive, I just had no clue what bleachers had to do with anything:confused1:

My 5 year old is pretty cute, but she also loves rice, especially drenched in soy sauce.