My kids liked the World Book "Building blocks of science" comic books better. My library owns them. I don't -- waaay too expensive to buy. There are ten, I believe.

How does it handle all the sidebars?

Even if it takes less than 30 seconds, and you were able to do 2 tasks per minute straight for an hour, it would only net $6 at that rate (5c per half-minute). I just don't see it as a way to make more than a few dollars. The whole thing, frankly, strikes me as utterly bizarre.

I was tired of Beast Academy and abandoned 3A in the spring, only to finish it up after a 5-6 mo delay! Despite thinking my kid knew multiplication, I concluded a THOROUGH review was in order. I have channeled my inner Sgt. Rote, but the exercises in 3B are doing the trick to firm up the flab! I am very pleased with 3B, whereas I posted several times that it seemed disappointing. Well, it's not. ha! I don't have 3C and didn't think I wanted it. I was wrong, it appears.

They are definitely nice to address two problems with physical books: the font size (too small) and a heavy/awkward book.

Aha! That must be it. Thanks for pointing this out. I didn't realize that writing tips included spam, so I was absolutely mystified as to why I got an ad for yearbooks from Brave Writer. I looked at the bottom of an email she'd sent, and there was a place to update my preferences. I had to click to get a link through which I could update what I wanted to receive from her. There were three choices: General Interest, BraveWriter Newsletter List, and BraveWriter Offers. I had the second two checked. I unchecked the offers box. We'll see what happens.

I do think the state has an interest in making sure its citizens are educated. And personal responsibility ends when destruction of one's child begins. Everyone who talks about how parents know best for their children forget the parents who don't. WILKES-BARRE, PA. — A couple were convicted Friday of sexually abusing their young son, who testified he had frequent sexual encounters with his mom while his dad offered him instructions or tips on what to do. The 14-year-old boy told jurors at his parents' sex abuse trial that he began having intercourse with his mom on his eighth birthday, about a year after his dad began showing him pornography. http://www.clarionle...-son-dad-helped Here's a different family. The couple [Paul Alan Drake, 45, and JoAnn Marie Drake, 44] reportedly locked their 13-year-old adopted daughter and 14-year-old adopted son in the basement for three to four weeks, feeding them under a locked door and allowing them out only to attend school, according to police reports. http://ankeny.patch....ids-in-basement http://blogs.desmoin...?nclick_check=1 For some people, school is a refuge and a break from horrible abuse. Some people need intervention. Not all parents know what they are doing. Some parents have alcohol and drug abuse problems, and others are mentally ill. To say, let one, two, or dozens, or hundreds, or thousands, or millions of children suffer, in the name of parental freedom seems to me to miss the point. I think we already have too many children who've been given the "freedom" to fail, and too many adults, too. We seem to have no problem as a society, the home of the brave, no less, in having the largest per capita incarceration rate in the world. Guess what -- those without a high school diploma are disproportionately represented in that prison population, and all that imprisonment is mighty expensive! California now spends more than 10% of its budget on prisons, and less than 8% on education. How awful. Isn't it possible we could SAVE ourselves some of this expense and some of this horror (both the crimes and pain of the victims AND the unpleasant impacts of imprisonment on the innocent including the children of prisoners) by investing in measures that prevent crime and promote everything that is good? Some freedoms require fighting for, not passivity. I think we should fight for the rights of our children -- by which I mean, all children -- to succeed. There's enough failure and hardship already.

I have, but they usually involve child prodigies, or other such geniuses. I just read an article about a homeschooled boy in Pennsylvania who had been groomed by his father to have sex with his mother from the age of eight, which went on for years, and he never knew this was wrong. Somehow it was implied that the kid didn't know this was wrong because he'd been homeschooled; I was rather troubled by this idea given that a) it's not really his job for a victim, much less a child, to know something wrong, and it's also not really the job of a school or a kid's classmates to point out that incest and child molestation are wrong, it's the responsibility of the parents and potential abusers to know something is wrong and not do it, and b ) Pennsylvania is a higher regulation state and it didn't stop this anyway. But no matter how exceptional the freaky homeschoolers are, whether they are victims or perpetrators of crimes, or just weird, I am tired of it. And I wish freaks wouldn't use homeschooling as a cover for their devious activities. Also, in some cases, someone is really a truant or a victim of educational neglect, and the use of the term "homeschooling" to describe complete educational neglect irritates me.

I received an email on Monday from Julie Bogart of Brave Writer, saying she was starting a daily writing tip email list (free). I thought I'd try it out. I, obviously, am also on some other email mailing list of hers. This morning I received my daily writing tip AND (separately) an advertisement, clearly NOT written by her, about a company selling "Yearbooks for your homeschool." The sender is listed as Julie Bogart of Brave Writer. I was less than pleased and replied to the email to inquire why she had sent this to me. Did anyone else get this? Do you know anything more about it, namely, does she normally forward such spam? I was surprised.

I said I very much disagree that services such as healthcare and education should be commercialized, and I very strongly believe it is in the societal best interest to provide a free, decent education to all children living in that country. I find the idea that we are just separate people whose lives have no impact on each other, to be frightening, inaccurate, and incredibly sad. Helping others, and educating other people's children, is what makes a society great. And you said It is my understanding that this is a fundamental tenet of Ayn Rand, who was a real person, so I do know of at least one person who believe(s) this, and her beliefs are in accord with what some libertarians believe. She said. "The fact that a man has no claim on others (i.e., that it is not their moral duty to help him and that he cannot demand their help as his right) does not preclude or prohibit good will among men and does not make it immoral to offer or to accept voluntary, non-sacrificial assistance." This idea that one person has no claim on another is essentially what I was speaking of. I would just like to clarify with a few specific examples of why I am under the impression that some people -- whatever their political persuasion is -- have said that they believe healthcare and education (and as I said later, emergency assistance after a disaster) are not the government's problem but the individual's: Schools Rick Santorum: public school system is anachronistic http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/us/politics/santorum-criticizes-education-system-and-obama.html?_r=0 Glenn Beck: "darn right, we should abolish public schools" http://mediamatters.org/video/2010/06/22/beck-we-are-being-indoctrinated-from-dawn-until/166564 David Harmer, CA tea party adherant : Government should exit the business of funding and running schools. http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Teach-Our-Children-Well-Parents-are-united-2708240.php Healthcare During Republican primary debates, Wolf Blitzer asked a hypothetical about an uninsured man in a coma. Some members of the audience screamed "Yeah!" to the proposal that he should be allowed to die, untreated. Ron Paul, who is a doctor, did not say this. http://abcnews.go.com/politics/t/blogEntry?id=14509997 Nicholas Kristof wrote an article about an uninsured friend's death. He wrote a followup on the reaction: "I was taken aback by how many readers were savagely unsympathetic." He goes on to say "Pew Research Center polling has found that the proportion of Republicans who agree that “it is the responsibility of the government to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves†has slipped from 58 percent in 2007 to just 40 percent." http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/opinion/kristof-scotts-story-and-the-election.html?ref=sunday The idea of abolishing free government education or leaving the needy without government assistance seems to be a different beast ENTIRELY than saying schools are ineffective at x, y, z and let's do this, or some program doesn't reach who it should. This is about defunding them because of a belief that it's "not my problem" and that those who feel the urge can donate to charity. Happy Thanksgiving.

Probably so. Thanks for clarifying the SDA vegetarian thing. I had been a bit confused after seeing apparently meat eating SDAs and also outspoken vegetarian SDAs who seemed to say their religion required it. Glad to have that figured out. Whew.

Given that conservatives appear to have contradictory idealogies and/or a variety of different views that have changed over time (from the support of Billy Graham of Roe v Wade to the opposition of a raped woman's right to end a pregnancy that will kill her and the fetus, to the idea of limited government in all things...except in the bedroom) I was not attempting to define what a conservative is. I was thinking of various well-known conservatives who have opposed things such as the Department of Education (such as Michele Bachman on why she believes the Dept of Ed should be eliminated: "Because the Constitution does not specifically enumerate nor does it give to the federal government the role and duty to superintend over education that historically has been held by the parents and by local communities and by state governments") as well as various lesser-known folk who do think the government should have nothing to do with healthcare or education or saving American citizens from natural disasters like hurricanes and floods. I've read several such things on the blogs written by or linked to members of this very board. So I take their statements at face value; I am not trying to misinterpret them.

I took your question to mean a system of dietary laws rather than merely narrowly slaughter only, since koshering meat also includes salting it, as well as choice of animal. The prohibition against blood transfusions among Jehovah's Witnesses grew out of the Biblical prohibition of drinking /ingesting blood, as far as I know. There are also groups that are vegetarian such as Seventh Day Adventists. I think the Eastern Orthodox church members' vegetarian fasts have already been discussed. The Amish and Mennonite certainly appear to enjoy and eat a lot of pork, but I wonder if their lifestyle implicitly supports local slaughter versus factory farmed meat or to what degree this is important to them? There are some Amish people who sell at my local farmers' market. I picked up a brochure from them that was about their meat that they sell and the conditions they use, and it also included information against corn fed meat, I think, and genetically modified products and things like Corn Flakes. I know "Amish raised" meat commands a higher price, and I regularly see Amish raised halal chicken. So their presumably non-factory environment is resumed to be a plus. Is this religious, though, or an outgrowth of their agrarian culture?

Thiis is entirely charming!

I get the impression new ones don't last.

I find young kids, including those who aren't speaking much, often enjoy listening to and eventually singing those easy, repetitive happy songs. Raffi songs are always winners. I think it's fun and easy to add this in, and WAY less annoying to repeat yourself a million times when you sing.

I very much disagree that services such as healthcare and education should be commercialized, and I very strongly believe it is in the societal best interest to provide a free, decent education to all children living in that country. I find the idea that we are just separate people whose lives have no impact on each other, to be frightening, inaccurate, and incredibly sad. Helping others, and educating other people's children, is what makes a society great.

I can say, I would like to have backup sometimes, to take a nap, eat my meal, or leave the house. Of course, everything has it's advantages and disadvantages. However, I do think having others around makes it easier to avoid total disaster, in some ways. I have seen posts on here that suggest that people living that way are not really grown up.

Okay, maybe homeschoolers could be a force of change or difference, but that assumes that everyone else has the same exact experience. But there are a lot of changes in education these days. For example, states are allowing online education for free. This isn't parental-directed homeschooling but it does introduce some differences. Also some people have enrollment in multiple places, such as at home and college, or at home and online, or at home and at the local public school, or at the public school and online. Magnet schools created some differences, and charter schools are also different, from both the model AND the differences in focus that some have (math, or arts, or whatever). So to me, the idea that homeschooling is the one and only way to break out of some straightjacket mold of public school is outmoded and inaccurate.

I can't find threads, but I did get really excited to be notified that someone quoted me! Hmm. I hated middle school. Maybe this is my second chance? Maybe not.

Oh. That is a big disappointment. I really want to like the update, but at least so far, not yet.

The Bosch Compact looks really cool, and hardly takes up any room -- at least it's a lot lighter than any Kitchen Aid, yet is supposed to be sturdy. It's a lot smaller than the giant Boschs. I haven't seen one in person, though. They are $200.

I think it was a bit of a gimmick - it also noted that they were fat free. ;)

Yeah, sorry, I grew up with a working mother and attended public school, and I am not a dropout. Furthermore, my lifestyle is totally different from my parents'. So being raised one way doesn't mean you grow up just like that. Even the evangelical Christian groups have a high attrition rate, so....Anyway being a productive member of society does not equal being a stay at home mom, either. Children of divorced families can be very stable and even (gasp!) stay married themselves. I hardly think I equate(d) "impact" with marching on Washington. A woman who works as a doctor or a teacher, for example, impacts her patients/students, not ONLY her own children. She can still be a concerned citizen and helpful neighbor and loving daughter. It doesn't take AWAY from her good citizenship to have a job, whereas a SAHM typically has a smaller sphere of influence, and the common implication that she must neglect her own children in order to do so, is, in my opinion, silly. Not to mention the non-homeschooling families are often getting government assistance: tax write-offs for their mortgages and charitable donations, social security for their retirement years, work for companies getting tax benefits, watching PBS, using public roads, and so on. I have a major problem with the idea that we only have stable families, or a homeschooling situation -- much less a situation of caring families -- by having a mother who does not work outside the home, and a never-married-to-anyone-else couple. And preferably conservative Christians. There are TONS of other sorts of homeschoolers *on this board*, and millions of other sorts of families that are not deadbeats.

I think having experience with kids-- lots of experience -- helps have a sense of what is actually involved. It is not the same, but it's not being clueless. I also think traditionally, parents were not responsible for their children 24 hours a day, seven days a week. People don't live in nuclear families; people live in extended families in many parts of this world to this day. Furthermore, living by oneself with kids and spouse is not really considered normal or ideal in many cultures. I think it helps new parents to be able to hand the screaming kid to the grandma or aunt, and take a break. I think it also prevents exhaustion and the sort of rage that can develop when children aren't sleeping or pee on the floor.