Still trying to find some local homeschoolers in the Huron, Mitchell, DeSmet, Wolsey, SD area to get together for group activities, field trips and such. To that effect I am trying to get a little local co-op going. Fair City Christian Home Educators (FCCHE) will begin meeting at The Prairie Villa Estates Community Building in Huron, SD (Prairie Villa Estates is a mobile home village across from Kmart in Huron) on the last Thursday of each month, starting Feb. 27th from 6:30 to 7:30 pm. Our first meeting will be to assess the needs of the group and begin planning a few activities. Cookies, coffee and juice will be served. We hope that anyone who is homeschooling full or part-time or considering homeschooling will attend. We would love to find some more families to get together for arts & crafts classes, science labs, bowling, swimming or other activities and fun field trips. Lets form a community of local homeschool families for fun and fellowship. We are just getting this started and need the help of other local families to get it off the ground. For more info go to www.homeschool-life.com/sd/fcche

Rebecca, (Okay this is too fun, it's like writing a letter to yourself, since I am a Rebecca too.) Wonder if your 10 year old boy, would like to write to my 8 year old (who's not a big writer yet either... maybe they will blossom as they write to each other... son kids, especially boys need a "good reason" to be bothered to do so.) They are interested in similar things. Let's exchange info. Rebecca in South Dakota

I am so thankful to get so many replies. The more the merrier. We have decided to let both of our boys have 2 pen-pals each (an International pen-pal and a pen-pal from the USA. As both boys have requested this arrangement.) If we get more responses, hopefully we can match some other kids up with each other too. I see that couple mom's have already matched up their daughters as pen-pals, so let's keep this going for a bit and find some more kids long-distance buddies.

Hi Hedgehog, My boys are so thrilled with the number of responses we got for our request for pen-pals, that they have both decided they'd like to have an International pen-pal and another one in the States. (Of course, as mama-teacher... I don't mind a bit... it's double the practice in both creative writing and penmanship! Can't complain about that!) Sniff would be a good match for my older boy, I think due to their interests (he's a bit immature socially for his age due to the autism... on par with his little brother in many areas, but also less mature than his brother in others.) Let's exchange info. Rebecca (in South Dakota, USA)

OneStepAtATime, Except for the year in age difference, I think my oldest son may be the twin of yours. He hasn't dug into the American Picker's archive yet (he's still working his way through American Restoration.... but I gather they are similar), but otherwise their tv preferences seem to be mirror images. I am glad to find pen-pals for my kids here. I have toyed with the idea for posting such a request for a while and finally feel that their reading and writing levels are getting to the point this would be a useful tool. Let's exchange info and get these boys going on their long distance friendship.

It's been a while since I've been online here at TWTM, so if somebody had a similar thread going let me know. My sons, ages 8 and 10 are looking for penpals to write to. The would love to make new homeschooling friends this way and also improve their writing skills in the process. Oldest (10 yrs) has autism, but loves to write and draw. He loves art, science, history, aminals (especially farm animals and ocean life), tractors/farming equipment, trains/steam-powered vehicles and the like. And he adores Mythbusters tv show and cooking shows like Good Eats, Pioneer Woman and Iron Chef. My younger son (8 yrs.) loves trains, legos, cartoons/movies, dinosaurs, rabbits, baseball, archery and such. Both boys love educational history, engineering and science documentaries. They would like to find penpals of similar ages or with similar interests.

Only a child of this age who is extremely advanced for their age in math could figure this out. Most 3rd & 4th graders are just starting to master multiplication and division and perhaps some addition or subtraction of fractions. This sounds needlessly complicated even for a jr. high aged class and probably a bit challenging for high school age (the average student). I don't think I was even presented this kind of question in college. Seems like a lot of jumping through hoops to get the answer and most kids would see it as irrelevant anyway and would just look it up online or in an encyclopedia and memorize it for the test. This kind of thing is one of the things that irritates so many parents about public school (teaching to the test). I am unclear as to why a homeschool co-op is allowing a grad student to teach science to 3rd and 4th graders rather than one of the parents volunteering to teach science themselves in a much more fun way... nature walks (at night for astronomy would be awesome... my husband did that for our kids recently, while I got my youngest to sleep) to study various aspects of nature, the world and space (pond water experiments, bird watching, rocks & minerals and geology, plants and animals. In my opinion, 3rd and 4th graders should be learning the planet names, identifying visible constellations, some history on space exploration/NASA and understanding the cycles of the moon (the concept of a lunar eclipse too), orbit of Earth and maybe it's 2 nearest neighboring planets. Think back to what you studied about space at 9 or 10... give or take a grade level it was probably about right unless your kids are very advanced in math and science together. My own 10 year old absolutely could not do this kind of equation yet, even though he's very advanced in most areas of science (at least 3 years)... he also has some delays in math and is still trying to master addition and subtraction with borrowing and carrying and the counting of money correctly (the PS I pulled him out of last March was a huge failure in math, reading and science Pre-K to 12... more than 50% of the students in this small, rural school were NOT profiecent in math, reading AND science. They had him for 6 years and when I took him out to homeschool he was only reading on a beginning 1st grade level... 6 months of homeschool and he's now reading solidly on second grade level. More progress in 6 months than the PS made in 6 years. I think your grad student who's teaching the class has no basis in reality (or she's deliberately teaching from CommonCore to purposely confuse and discourage the kids from progressing in science... that may also be a possibility!) She has no idea what is appropriate for youngsters this age as a science curriculum. Search some of the NON-Common Core alligned curriculum providers texts for this age group to discover the typical traditional science coverage of space/astronomy at this grade level. If other kids in the group and also struggling and seem overly challenged by what the grad student teaching, by all means have a parent meeting to discuss it and consider a change ASAP. The educational elite realize very well that dumbed- down kids who are not properly educated and discouraged from learning by teachers who make learning needlessly complicated, are easier to control. That is essentially the battle that is going on in this country (and has been for over 100 years) for the hearts and minds of the people. It would amaze you what a 5th grader knew in 1912 compared to today... but it is not an overnight battle to get ALL of that back at once. The reason WHY they knew so much a century ago was because it was expected that all children would learn to be proficient readers and be proficient in math and that they could learn anything else they desired if and when they needed to... and also everything was taught methodically and sensibilely... not chaotically like it is now (for the distinct purpose of making it harder than it should be)... and the things that were taught had practical application in real life.

What is the age range of the rest of the kids in the group? early elementary, upper elem, middle school, high school. Maybe teach a class that would be for fun mostly. I don't know what hobbies and interests you have, but for instance, if you like scrapbooking and or computer scrapbooking, perhaps you could teach a yearbook class for some of the older kids to make a yearbook for your Co-op group. (Just an example to get you thinking a bit outside the box and something that would be less stressful and more fun than teaching Algebra or a Biology Lab for example.)

My Ds 10 is also more artist than reader too. We have trouble finding books he will read too, so far, all but the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books a total wash with him and "comic-like" readers like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles... I hate this because to me "that is not literature" and I personally find them very irritating and a bad example. We read a lot out loud, many of them classics like the Swiss Family Robinson... but he has reading difficulties anyway and it is a tough subject for him. It is slow going with some kids to get them to love reading and pushing too hard can turn them off completely.

If she likes horses, The Saddle Club series is a good one for girls of this age. Maybe lead her in with a drawing horses book.

Ideas for that partial can of pumpkin. Make oatmeal for breakfast for the kids and stir in the pumpkin, spices to taste and honey or maple syrup. My kids love that (and Mama is happy because they ate veggies for breakfast!). Alternately, you could stir it and some spices into pancake or waffle batter or use it in place of 1/2 of your oil (and maybe reducing the water if need be) to bake a cake for dessert (cream cheese icing would be excellent.) Me, I need to figure out a Dairy-Free, Soy-Free and Gluten-Free version of this stuff for my crew, due to multiple food allergies. Any ideas ladies (or gents)?

I wonder if she'd enjoy historical-fiction/auto-bigraphical stories like Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House Series about family life in the previous century. I very much enjoyed them at her age and the first few books of the series are fairly easy reading chapter books (easier, I think, than Magic Tree-house and the lot... and there is no magic or mystery really... the real magic is in the rich and wonderful story-telling and learning some great American history in the process.) The reading content and vocabulary of these books grows through the series along with the reader who is reading them and they can also be enjoyed by the whole family as reading out loud too. Perhaps find a channel with re-runs of the old Little House on the Prairie tv show with Melissa Gilbert as Laura to introduce the concept and get her excited about it and point out that Laura wrote a whole series of books based on her life in the late 1800's/early 1900's. Perhaps even entice her by giving both reading and history credit for her reading efforts. She may just fall in love with reading this way and become an avid reader. (I certainly did!)

Use Alpha-Phonics by Samuel L. Blumenfeld. We finally started making some progress with that (my autistic son has a 3 year delay in reading caused by his PS's use of sight words/look-say method.) In fact, I would recommend all of Mr. Blumenfeld's books, several of which are addressed directly to homeschool parents or tutors who are helping kids with special needs. Whatever you do... DO NOT USE SIGHT WORDS! (Unless your aim is to make the dsylexia and dysgraphia worse) Teaching cursive and phasing out printed handwriting (by requiring them to do work in cursive) helps with dysgraphia. If you have a kid just starting in handwiriting, go straight to cursive and skip the printing altogether. try using a 3/8 or 1/4 inch graph paper for math work (helps align numbers, space correctly and teaches good writing/sizing of digits (1 digit per box) . Get an actual textbook for math so they have to write out the problems, that helps with memorization. Also consider math copywork.