I only have one and it has a white background. And I bought it when I had a toddler and a baby. Bad idea! LOL Besides the dirtiness of it, my other problem is that it has frayed/split in some area (mostly the shoulder straps). I don't know if I'm particularly hard on it (I don't think so) or what. I was really disappointed that it happened. I've not found another pattern I really like since that one, so I haven't purchased any others. I think I'd try again if I ever did find another pattern I really like...but I am a bit hesitant now.

My kids love Popular. Mechanics for Kids. We got the DVDs from Amazon for about $25. They have learned quite a bit from them.

I used the paper version many years ago but switched to the app a couple years ago. I've used just the lite (free) version but I think I'm giong to spring for the paid version this year. While you can't see all week at a glance, its quite easy to flip ahead to later days. If you aren't sure the app is for you, I'd try the free version first. Its a two-week loop that you can just keep repeating beyond those two weeks.

If I had any clue as to what I was doing, I'd write my own curriculum for all these curriculum-less auditory learners!! :laugh: I've never looked at R&S but I will. The encouragement to keep prodding along is much appreciated! My daughter was slow in learning to read and I'm feeling "pressure" (my own doing, not others) to get him reading earlier to "prove" homeschooling. I know, I know! And thanks for the blog post--I'll read it tomorrow. :) I heard about Dancing Bears but I've never taken a look. I will--thank you! I have considered it...but I wanted to wait a bit longer to see if I can get him reading. If he isn't making progress by summer, I'll look into it further. I appreciate the suggestion. :) My library has Phonics Pathways & 100 Easy Lessons and I checked both out. I'm not sure I'm smart enough to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing on Phonics Pathways! :confused1: I may give 100 Easy Lessons a go next week and see how he does with it while I look at all these other choices.

My DS6 learns well from audio & DVDs. All of our other curriculum is working but I need some help with a curriculum for teaching him to read. We used AAR pre-1 last year and started AAR 1 this year. But he really resists it and didn't seem to be making much progress with it. ETC was a total failure. We've watched the Leap Frog word DVDs several times but he seems to make little connection to applying what he sees to actual books. He does know all the sounds & has retained them from AAR...but progressing to putting them together & retaining the words is slow. Any suggestions?

DH doesn't cook often (military, so late & odd hours are typical), so eating what he makes isn't really an issue. On the weekends he will make pancakes or waffles for the kids. I rarely eat breakfast, especially not something sweet, so I don't eat that most days. Sometimes I'll reheat it later. He knows I'm not a morning sweets person and is really making it because the kids beg him to each week. :) So he's not offended if I don't eat. Sometimes on the weekends he'll grill out or get an itch to do dinner. He'll ask what we have & what sounds good. If I have an opinion, I offer it and he usually goes with some variation of my suggestion. If I don't want much of what he cooks, I don't eat much of it and will eat more of the other side dishes. Ditto with him on the nights I cook. Or the kids. Not eating much of what the cook cooks and eating only enough to tide over until the next meal or snack isn't a problem or a lack of respect or whatever for us. We don't do multiple meals, though, because that adds to my workload and/or I don't want ingredients used up that are needed later in the week.

When a friend was trying to get me to join, she likened it to Facebook but with only pictures. I joined. I rarely post pictures and only go on every few days. But I do enjoy seeing the snippets of what others saw in their day.

Then that would really bother me, too. If you don't like what I plan each week, PLEASE make suggestions! I love to take into account what my family desires that week, if i can make it work. But if they don't contribute anything and then choose to complain (directly or indirectly), that would bother me. I totally understand not wanting what I planned sometimes. If I'm really having an aversion to it for some reason, I may save my part and reheat it another night and heat up leftovers/make a sandwich after the kids are in bed. But going to get food for myself to eat? No. Are the meals you generally make things he does like but just don't appeal to him on certain nights? Or are you making things he genuinely doesn't like? Is he open to figuring something out for this situation? A way to compromise? Maybe having a few standard easy side dishes that you could add in (his choice of which one) if the main dish doesn't appeal to him that night? Then he could make a sandwich or something later on? Or is it a matter of not seeing a problem with the situation, so refusing to even discuss solutions? :grouphug:

Does he not want to help with the menu? If he DID help with the menu, would he still change his mind on his way home from work because it isn't what he's "in the mood" for?

I'm making no claims, comparisons or whatnot with these articles, I just found them interesting. I haven't read anything about ebola in Nigeria until after hearing about it last night. Nigeria’s Actions Seem to Contain Ebola Outbreak Man Who Died of Ebola in Nigeria Was American Citizen: Wife

If you go click on 'People I may know' from the search box at the top and then, on the right, where it says 'current city', scroll down to 'other' and then you can put in just California.

You have received some great scripting ideas! When we have sitters, I have a write-up on anything they may need to know about each of our kiddos (transition troubles, favorite toys & foods, etc.). For your son who has a speech issue & smearing troubles, you could include that in the write-up. It would be a more FYI/reminder then anything she could perceive as against her parenting, since you said she can be sensitive. "As you know, X can be difficult to understand at times. His ST suggests A, B, C. If you have any troubles and I'm asleep, DD is great at understanding him." Or whatever.

Snacks for my younger two soccer teams (U6 & U8) are generally decent enough though more than they "need". Its usually a Quaker granola bar and something else (cheese stick, squeeze yogurt, etc.) and then some kind of pouch drink. My daughter's U10 team, though...the kids who are working much harder out there...the snacks after their games? This week they had a pack of double-stuff Oreos, last week was one of those bottle suckers that have the flavored powder in the bottle part and the week before that was a candy bar. We eat fairly decently and we don't have a lot of sweets through the week, so I'm not too bothered that the snacks aren't ones I'd choose. But Oreos, suckers and candy bars?!! Our new Awana church has a snack before it starts each week. Almost always quite sugary ones. Tonight, little cups of ice cream. Fine. But then they also had to add syrup to them. Then they each got a sweet in their classroom (Oreos or candy). THEN they had a cookie during their group lesson/story time (it related to the story somehow, they don't usually have treats during this part). One Sunday at our last church, they gave the preschoolers powdered doughnuts & cupcakes. In the same day. And it was just during one service! Now that my kids aren't preschoolers anymore, it seems that we have less instances where every activity has to have a snack. And for that I'm thankful. Not just because of what the snacks often were but also for the oneupmanship that seemed to go on when snacks were provided by parents. I didn't have the mental energy to keep up with that in high school, I really don't have it now. :laugh:

I have found this, too. It reminds me of parenting--in the early days of nursing and cuddling sleeping babies, lots of mamas have time to post on parenting forums, meet for playdates, etc. But, as a new mama, it was rare to encounter a mom to a child over 3, maybe 4. And so when I got past those ages, I felt lost on how to parent school-aged children because I hadn't seen it in action or read much on forums. Now I'm there with homeschooling. Several blogs I read in the early days have since chosen public or private school. The mamas I've been in co-op with had either younger children or older children but didn't have an academic-focus for them. So now I have 10yo and I'm starting to think ahead to middle school...and ACK. I have very few ideas how to do that and even fewer strong examples. I really appreciate the encouragement in this thread in the posts to keep my focus for strong academics. Its what I appreciate about this board. We're starting our eighth week this year and then a break...so this came at a good time. I need to feel refreshed and encouraged.

I'm not YEC but the ones I know who are YEC in the most devout way and have given it thought (rather than just going off of what they've been told) say that every variation of dinosaur was on the boat, but that the largest ones weren't in mature form. They don't believe that different dinosaurs lived at different times. A few of them also don't believe there are as many different kinds of dinosaurs as science would have us believe.

We did the exhibit at the Indy Children's Museum in July. We enjoyed it but I wouldn't pay full price for it, honestly. The member discounted tickets were about the price I'd say for getting our money's worth, maybe a bit underpriced.

When I tried to buy it, it told me the coupon wasn't valid anymore even though the link says today and tomorrow. I'll try again tomorrow, I guess.

Thank you! I chose the Brave Writer Poetry Guide. I am considering switching to BW next year and I hope this gives me a feel for the program more than what I've found from their samples.

Thanks!! Logic books are my last subject to finalize for next year. This will help!

Wonderful list! This year went really well but I felt so uninspired through most of it, like we were just plodding along and checking off the boxes. I'm going to make time to listen to these before our next year starts!

I've never received a confirmation e-mail and I've never found a way to view my order history on their site, either. I wish I could at least view my orders on their site.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

My 8yo DD & 5yo DS also enjoy Unscramble the States, Spot It and Rat-a-Tat-Cat.

Thanks! I'm having a tough time bringing together all the "extras" for SOTW next year (our first using it), so I appreciate it when other share. :)

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who was entirely frustrated with it. I don't know anyone IRL who uses it, so I thought maybe it just didn't work with the way my brain works. Glitchy, weird. Total disappointment and its too bad that it doesn't seem to be any better.