re the gnats, I had hundreds of them at the end of last summer, horribly damaging my plants roots. A friend recommended I water my plants with chamomile tea as a way to control them and it totally cleared up my infestation. Initially, I added a little cinnamon to the water as well, but a couple of my plants didn't like it and the chamomile seems to be working well as a maintenence/preventative alone.

Memorial/Awareness/Fundrasier Shirts for Chris Keith and Isaac Miller http://fosterhomeschoolclasses.blogspot.com/p/memorialawarenessfundrasier-shirts-for.html

Vance's DariFree http://www.gfcf-foods.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=1814&Click=4 It has a very mild, bland flavor and smells slightly sweet, sweeter than it tastes, actually. It makes fabulous puddings and ice cream too!

The Blue (not Light Blue) has worked well for us. It is arranged topically and includes instructional text. Light Blue is almost the exact same content, but arranged by grade. Golden is one page worksheets by grade with no instruction. Green is almost identical content to Golden except organized by topic rather than grade. It also does not include explanations.

The Pendragon Cycle

Interested too. HARTZ almost killed my cats so I am leery of using chem stuff on them again.

My 6th and 7th graders are about 1/3 of the way through Chem III. They like it, but often double up on days because it is a light program compared to what they are used to. They have commented that they would prefer the labs had more direction. Almost everything is included so we are getting it done which was always a challenge with other programs where I had to pull it together. I would not consider this a 1 yearhigh school level program as written.

Math Mammoth and Life of Fred. Sometimes Singapore for the word problems. We started with Miquon & Singapore. I like Singapore but my children both eventually struggled. For a while one kept using it while the other switched to MM. Then the one using Singapore switched to MUS. Then the one using MM asked to switch to MUS as well and made HUGE leaps forward. At times they hit a point where they are struggling with MUS and we go back to some of the MM Blue to get mastery of the topics. They prefer MUS and it seems to be working well as a spine. It is just not always enough imo. Sometimes they just need concepts explained a different way. Sometimes MUS doesn't cover concepts when when I think it should or in as much depth as I would prefer. We use LOF too, but just for fun. We do it together and I've purposely kept LOF slightly behind where they are otherwise. We are moving into Algebra now so figuring out all over again what to use!

We used them more when my kids were younger. The little books were a good way to ease my kids into taking notes, writing down their narrations, doing research etc. Somehow the little books make the writing seem more manageable or less intimidating to them. They are a lot of work. I cut most of them out (greatly prefered straight sided that I could do with my papercutter!). Eventually we switched to notebooking with pretty pages broken up with picture blocks etc and now they do well with plain paper.

We started with binders but my kids and I find them difficult to write in, I find them bulky and awkward and I can't tell you how many of those little reinforcing donut stickers we have gone through. I recieved a comb bind machine for Christmas after 3 years of asking and it is FABULOUS. We absolutely prefer having things bound to binders. My daughter likes keeping her books as is, my son asks to have the spines chopped and pages bound. He needs it to lay flat. I find things get done more that I can grab bound books rather than loose paper or binders. I have not had any problems comb binding items that were previously 3 hole punched. I've picked altered versions of books used over original bindings because I find them easier to use. I think that is a personal preference thing.

I see someone else already suggested Lial's, it was the first I thought of too. http://www.amazon.co...l/dp/032157270X Something that is going to cover your bases but move at a faster pace for an older student. I have friends who are very happy with JUMP. I've used Math Mammoth Blue series quite a bit to reinforce topics my children struggled with. My kids LOVED Timez Attack. They still play for fun sometimes. It is basically glorified flashcards, but sometimes that is what you need. Getting those facts down cold really helped everything else progress more smoothly for us. I regret listening to the people who told me not to stress it, that the facts would come in time, let them have cheatsheets etc. For one kid it did, my other used the sheets like a crutch and it held him back.

all of the above =)

We have been told dust mite allergy is often correlated with shellfish allergy as well.

Have you seen this article? Mother of all Food Allergies http://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476%2803%2900273-7/fulltext I read it when it was first published and it was such a relief to know there were other kids out there like mine and Drs who would take us seriously. My now teen is still elemental formula dependant. I know you have insurance issues but if something goes through, Dr. James Franciosi (Who Worked with Dr. Putnam who wrote the above article) recently moved down to Florida. We saw him for a while - he was amazing. http://findaprovider.nemours.org/Search/Profile/64878

We did it with 8-14 year olds. It took 1hr from set up to clean up. It was part of a 4 class series so that hour was dissecting the pellet, building/gluing skeletons on black paper and identifying the skeletons. The local CC hosts a science fair every year aimed at 5-12 year olds and one of the activities they have is owl pellet dissection. The kids probably spend about 10-20 min pulling apart the pellet, but they are mostly on their own with just a guide sheet. The local science museum did it as a 45 min class and they included children down to 5. IIRC, the younger ones needed more help identifying what they were looking for.

http://curriculumshare.com/ is another option if you are concerned about things you can't sell gooing to a good use.. Everything I've listed there has been gone within a week.

I wear my wedding band on one hand and the engagement ring on the other because it has to be balanced =) My diamond is actually in the wedding band and it is low profile, the engagement ring is molded platinum that looks like a ring of flowers. Both are nice and flat and smooth so I hardly know they are there. Most of my friends with the flashier rings stopped wearing them regularly about the time they had babies. Some came back later as the kids got older, some switched to other rings, some just don't wear them anymore. I don't think it is anything other than a personal preference/stage of life thing.

Last year was 25% off in March

I hate having to check 8 different places to make sure I didn't miss some important message since everyone I know seems to have a different way they prefer to communicate LOL

re the writing part, yeah, the philosophy seems to be that if you regularly expose children to examples of strong writing then they will naturally emulate that and need little formal writing instruction. I personally know a family that had that experience. Her children entered public school at the high school level with no writing instruction other than what is in LLATL and did amazingly well. Top of their classes. My children are a few years younger and I inherited her books when she moved on. My experience is that my children need more direct writing instruction. Despite the copious amount of fine literature that have read or had read to them, left to their own devices they tend to emulate Captain Underpants. :glare: That said I do still like the books. IME the more things something tried to do the less it does really well. As an overview, it works well. If you need more in depth work in a given area you will probably need to supplement.

We did lots of lapbooks when my children were younger. I wanted them to get in the habit of taking notes or writing down main thoughts from what we read or discussed. I guess narration, but not necessarily everything I would expect from verbal narration. Lapbooks were a way to break that down into doable chunks. The little books were not overwhelming the way a big blank sheet of paper was. I did most of the cutting with my paper cutter since square books work. We would generally save them and then glue a bunch at the end of the week. I added duct tape lips to the folded edge of manila folders and three hole punched them so we could store the lapbooks in bonders rather than doing the glue together accordian thing. As they get older and are more comfortable with writing more we have moved into notebooking. I have splurged on a few premade sets which they really like and sit down to design my own to fit in with topics. The concept behind it is the same, it breaks that big blank sheet of paper up into managable pieces =)

Day of the week depends on what day you have other stuff going on in your area. You don't want to compete with something else that will draw a large number of kids such as a Co-Op etc. If it is mornings you will get a younger crowd, early afternoon tends to be nap time but better for older students who need to get academics done in the AM as they seem to have no attention span for serious work after lunch. Either first thing in the AM or 1st thing after lunch tends to be easiest to schedule around though. re length, ITA, if this is a regular thing 90 min works well, less than that tends to feel rushed, longer and you start losing kids, especially the younger ones. Plus that is long enough for me to justify the trip, but not so long I am losing the whole day. For a one time thing or short series of sessions you can go longer but then it needs to be broken up with moving around, different activities, a break etc. re how often, I prefer monthly because that lets the teacher/docent get to know the kids and helps get a more indepth, directed experience but we have done 3 weekly classes or such. Weekly is harder to fit into the schedule. We've also done one time classes on specific topics but they tend to be the worst for fluff IMO. age range - right around 3rd grade/9 years old there seems to be a big jump in the kids average ability. The bigger the age range, the harder it is to make it work. The classes I have seen that have a 10plus/9 and under or pre-k through 3rd, 4th and up seem to do better than the ones that try to lump all the kids together. When they are lumped together you end up with either the olders being bored because it is taught to the youngers or the youngest being lost because is is being taught to the oldest. Ideally I would prefer even more age splits but that is not always possible do to their resources. Generally the age groups are kept soft so sibling groups can stay together and parents have leeway to shift where they think is most appropriate for their child. Many younger are ok in the older group, especially if they have older siblings. If in doubt, always teach towards the older end of the age group. I am always happy to follow up with my child afterwards and would far rather explain something that they missed than have them bored because it was too easy. Unless there is signifigant cost to the organization providing the class, most parents around here are not willing to pay more than $5 per student per session. They prefer to pay at the door or as close to the class as possible for in case something comes up and they are unable to make it. If you need payment earlier offering discounts for pre-payment or adding a nominal door fee helps. Family or season discounts are always welcome too especially in larger families where even a $5 fee can add up very quickly and become prohibitive. Hand on is popular here but more being able to interact with stuff than making junk. Experience type hands on or hands on that demonstrates something. I would also add opportunities for the students to interact and ask questions. I've been to too many of those things where the kids are facinated and want to learn more but they get shut down because it is not part of the planned lecture or such. We do not like busywork homework assignments such as crosswords, but do really appreciate when the teacher or docent takes the time to make a one page sheet with a summary of what was taught including terms that might be new, interesting facts, maybe a little bibliography so the kids know where to find more info. Topicwise, absolutely agree re something we can not duplicate at home. What is something they are in a unique position to share with the students? What is a further level of depth that the average source does not get to? What are details that you might not get to on a survey of the topic at home? My children stopped doing these type programs around 5th/6th grade. While I appreciated then when the kids were younger, as they got older they wanted more meat. The programs were no longer really teaching them anything. I noticed many others dropping out between 5th and 8th grade. In my area the peak student age for these programs is 2nd/3rd grade. Also, as others have said, the older they get, the more time their academics take and it is harder to justify taking the time for something "fun" especially when they have other ways they would prefer to spend their precious free time.

One cat I had liked stuffed animals, the bigger the better. He would wrestle with them and play fight. One day he got ahold of one of those huge valentine bears the size of a small toddler and somehow managed to run around the room with it. Out of the corner of my eye it looked like a little white man was running across the room. That got my heart racing. I had another one that carried a beanie baby kitten around with her everywhere. Most of them seem to prefer anything they can bat around on the floor though. We haven't had much luck with the toys on a string. They do not always get put away and then the cat chews through the string and takes off with the toy. We've also found poo-on-a-string in their litter box so I agree about being careful with things they might swallow.

not too much cheese, maybe 1/2 lb in a full sized Hamilton Beach, either 10 or 12 cup. I just got it maybe 3 week prior. I had been using it to chop veggies as my DH prefers them diced tiny in soup. It was the first time I tried cheese. I made some pie dough and play dough in it and it did fine with that. A piece of cheese got lodged somewhere that prevented it from spinning and before I could shut it down it started smoking and sparking etc. It was my first one in about 12 years. I had a mini cuisinart when my teen was a baby but that lasted less than 6 months too.

I tried to grate cheese in a food processor and it caught fire.