I have been sent free curriculum and other things out of the blue, and I am ever so grateful for that and intend to pass it forward every time I can. But there's a board member here who took my kids in and homeschooled them for a week when I was at the darkest point in my life. THAT is amazing.

Can you bring it up casually in a non-tattletale-y way? "Oh, speaking of Person Who Works In office, I heard her mom was selling too! It's so nice when non-parents help out. What troop is she selling for?"

Patience, independence, resiliency developed from learning how to take care of themselves, and how to handle delayed gratification.

The poll is HERE.

I love that. I read aloud with my grown-up friends too. Thanks everyone for making me feel less weird.

Answer this one! Please select EVERY age you would read to daily for fun and enjoyment (not because they can't read themselves).

Um, I posted that without the poll. Let me try again.

Poll coming.

Astronomy for All Ages by Philip Harrington and Edward Pascuzzi is a collection of activities, things like building your own spetroscope, finding constellations with a map and red-tinted flashlight, making an analemma, building a mini model solar system to show the scale of the distances between objects in space. Great explanations are included but you will probably still need to use the book as a jumping off point to research the topics demonstrated or observed in each activity. A quick scan just now to double check showed me several matter-of-fact references to billions and billions of years. It's not a history of the universe. It is a guide to the modern day sky that is not afraid to say that what we see up there is very old.

At those ages I would have spent that money on Lego, purchased by the pound on eBay, playsilks, and felt, floss, paint and wooden pegs to make characters.

I homeschool for socialization reasons.

That's what is hard, though. Restraining yourself about the exciting things is easier than not seeking aid and comfort with the hard things. IMHO. But people get annoyed at you when you say something like, "my son has read every YA book in the library and I don't know what to do next because he can't survive without reading material," or, "if I have to listen to him play that instrument for one more minute I am going to scream," or "I am losing my relationship with my eight-year-old because all he wants to talk about is calculus and I can't understand it." This will just seem like sneaky bragging. People tell you to be grateful for what you have.

:iagree:

Oh, also, you should definitely get that girl a subscription to MAKE magazine. Sooo much inspiration for anyone who likes programming and building things!

Ah. Well, there are a number of fun little kits out there, but the book I think my son would most recommend is 123 Robotics Experiments for the Evil Genius. It's pretty step-by-step. It's inexpensive used, parts are easily found, and it covers all your bases for learning to build your own bots. My son was born with a soldering iron in his hand, so I can't recommend any kind of pre-built robotics stuff. There are organizations in our area that offer one-off sessions with Lego Mindstorms to a small group, though. You get to play with the stuff and you don't have to invest in a kit before you have experience with it. Perhaps there's a Bits Bytes and Bots in your area.

Sometimes a local news agency will pick this sort of thing up as a human interest story and hassle the insurance company on your behalf.

I spent almost nothing last year, pulled it all together from what I had and what was cheap. This year I am ready to pay for what looks best or easiest. Give me an IG and all the necessary books. Give me an exciting box day. Give me online support and subscription. Oh yes. I'm with you.

Robotics is part mechanics, part electronics, and part programming. Does your daughter have experience in any of these fields? Does she have special interest in any of them?

Thanks for your feedback, everyone. When I pressed for his reasons to not allow it, he admitted that it was just hard for him to hear my voice on Valentine's Day. It looks like he is going to let the kids Skype with me for a bedtime call.

:iagree: The point for me was to create more people. Not that I think I'm the awesomest or anything, but I figured someone's gotta have kids so the species will carry on and I could do a fairly good job raising 'em.

How many videos and games are there? Is there one for each topic?

:lurk5:

It is thankfully not that fumbly for me. It had been with other connections, but my iMac at home to the kids' iPad at their dad's house has been perfectly smooth. If it was a pain, I wouldn't want to use it either.

Really, don't be sorry! I don't feel bad about it. It's good to get your feedback. I needed it. :001_smile:

My youngest son in particular, the one who most wants to spend ages on the phone with his mom every night anyway, had most of his teeth removed a couple of years ago because of rotting (due to fetal malnutrition which was due to premature disconnection of the placenta). It is tricky to understand what he's saying if I can't see his face. Sometimes it's tricky to make out what he's saying if I can see his face. If he says one new word in isolation I'm hosed. It's all context clues and previous experience with his adaptations.