Like Farrar, we're big black bean fans. My littles are picky so we aren't terribly fancy about it. Just corn tortillas, black beans (drained), salsa (newsman's own), and whatever cheese is on hand. Sometimes I sprinkle in a little frozen corn. Heat for just a few minutes on each side and we're good to go. Sour cream on the side for some of my kids. For myself, the salsa is served on the side too, but it's a lot neater and "safer" (in terms of "spiciness") to hide it inside the tortillas for the kiddos. Usually fruit on the side, too. It's our Friday favorite. :-)

Hmmmm… well, in my determination to dig out of the morning blues we'd fallen into, I got up extra early this morning, dragged my sleep-deprived self into the schoolroom with a hot mug of coffee, and completed math and la with DD 5 and DD 4 before even sitting down for breakfast (I treated each of them to a cup of herbal tea while we worked, so they were utterly delighted with the new routine.) The others (DS 7, DD 2, and baby) tend to be sleeping or slow-starters, so my hope is that this helps me harness some previously-lost time. For today, anyway, it worked! I've really been cheating those two in my attempt to get the "more important" stuff done with DS 7, so while we didn't get to everything today (do we ever?), at least the majors were accomplished with everyone. And I had time to cook. Now, if that 7 month-old figures out how to move, I'll probably be back here begging for more advice. Oh, and we do enjoy morning meeting as often as we can get to it, so I'd definitely recommend it. DD 2 must. do. everything. the rest of us do, soooo…. she joins in. After each meeting, everyone gets a chocolate chip for good behavior / good work / memory mastery / etc., and this shameful bribery has really helped a lot. DD 2 takes it very seriously now, and we all giggle and wink at each other when she "recites" for us in her adorable little voice. Best wishes!

This is one I just discovered through WTM -- the focus is middle/high school.

Mt Hope Chronicles -- inspiring posts on educating classically + the.best.booklists.ever + stunning photography. curling up with my cozy newborn, a cup of coffee, and Heidi's delightful writing is truly therapeutic for me. :001_smile: Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood -- jam-packed with classical resources, reviews, ideas, and great info for navigating the classical (and specifically CC) world. I'm not a CCer, but this blog is top on my list.

Thanks! I'd already made a purchase based on a PP before I saw your post--- but plan to keep this brand in mind if the other doesn't work out.

Mine just arrived today (I got a couple in compact size for the kids' craft drawer). I never thought a stapler was something you could fall head-over-heels in love with, but I think I just did at first click! Time will tell on the jamming as kids use them, but I'm already planning to get another desktop size for myself. Thanks for such a great suggestion! ETA: just an fyi for anyone else who is curious: the compact stapler does open flat for stapling things like bulletin boards, and the compact comes in several assorted colors (though to actually choose the colors I wanted, I had to buy from an ebay seller who offered that option). The loading mechanism differs from traditional staplers but is really easy once you figure it out.

Arg! Pulled out my 13 inch purple cow for the first time in a couple of months, and it's suddenly refusing to feed (and making terrible clicking noises as well). Soft rattle sound when I shake it, but as far as I can tell there is no way to go in after whatever may be floating around in there. It's 2am, I'm trying to finish a project, and I'm grumpy. :angry: Anyone know of a magical cure? I can't find a single thing online. And if not, what options are out there these days for laminators that you'd recommend? Purple Cows not making them anymore??? (Their website doesn't have a single laminator listed :blink:.) I bought this one about 2.5 years ago, I think, so well beyond the warranty anyway. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Thank you! I'd never heard of this, and the reviews out there look great. I'm pleased that it has it's own unique patented design… already went ahead and bought one!

Thanks! I wish I could do a staple-free stapler, but we often need to staple through more than just a few sheets. DS 7 currently wants to be a librarian/author/illustrator/publisher when he grows up…lots of big book production going on. :001_rolleyes:

My oh-so-creative children staple things incessantly, but I'm about ready to throw our growing pile of staplers through the window… they are constantly jammed. Swingline, Staples, Ace Pilot…. it doesn't seem to matter (though Ace Pilot works fine for me, just not the kids). In fact, the expensive one that was plastered with stickers "guaranteeing it to never jam!" is hands-down the worst. It jams on me about 25% of the time and it takes tweezers and minor surgery to extract the jammed staple. :cursing: Has anyone else had the same experience? Or found something that can withstand pre-K / primary students? Or could it by any chance be my staples causing the problem (target generic brand)? One I haven't tried is Poppin… any reviews on that? (I couldn't find any reviews online re: performance, especially with children). Thoughts? help?

:bigear:

Ditto on the money management… so helpful to see your system with your middlers. Mine are still little but my system of tossing birthday/tooth fairy money into a ziploc is definitely in need of tweaking. Thanks for giving me ideas! Following. (Starbucks listed as a goal? Brilliant. How could I not follow? :001_smile: )

you just described my whole.week. right down to those durn "b's,"d's,' and "ea's." DS couldn't even read "the" today without sounding it out. aaaagooooonnnny. at least it's friday?? (((hugs!))) and lots of chocolate to you.

After my failed attempt at digital last year, I've switched over to this and have really loved it. It gives me a lot of freedom to customize and save the pages before printing, and while you wouldn't have to print it out, I wanted to; like you, I record our plans after the fact, not before, and I wanted pen-and-paper. The editable pdf file is a one-time $20 fee, so while there are still printing and binding costs for me, it was a low-risk purchase and I'm so delighted that it's reusable. I printed out a separate planner for each of my school-age children (though you can also choose to record everyone together), then I re-ordered them to my liking before binding them into one book at Staples, so my only complaint so far is that the page numbering on the pdf file isn't editable. But this is a super-minor complaint. I just divided the children's sections with colored card stock so I can skip around easily from child to child. So far I've really loved organizing my records with it, and it's pretty, too. :001_smile:

You've officially inspired me. Thanks for the tip on the rain pants! (How have I never heard of such things??) Do you find Under Armor (or anything like it) to be helpful? We are in New England and the cold is an issue for my kids. I'd pay for it if I was fairly confident it would help. :-)

So far we've used 100EZ first with our children, then moved on to Spalding. 100EZ does introduce long "e" very early on, adding short "e" much later, and several other long vowels appear very early on as well. This does help tremendously with expanding the vocabulary used in the reading passages. Though I don't officially drill Spalding phonograms until they finish 100EZ, my children are taught from the beginning that the vowels make multiple sounds, and that 100EZ's phonetic markings are there to help them out until they are more comfortable with the rules governing those sounds. Then, when they start moving away from the phonetic markings in the latter half of 100EZ, I've always taught my children to assume a vowel is short unless there is a reason (such as silent "e," or an open syllable, or the fact that a vowel is part of 2+ letter phonogram) to lengthen it. So from this perspective it may be easier, at least in the mind of some creators of phonics programs, for a child to learn short vowels first, then become accustomed to the "rules" that can cause a vowel to be lengthened? Just a guess. For practical purposes, though, vocabulary in readers is definitely limited until long vowels are introduced.

:bigear: finding this thread extremely helpful… thanks for all the words of wisdom!

It's easy to miss dyslexia… there are a lot of misperceptions about it; I highly recommend this as you wrestle with the best direction to turn.

Another thing that has helped me (type A neat freak that I am): Pack away toys that are especially problematic, just for a while. All my toddlers have gone through a Dump and Destroy phase of play-style, and it drives.me.batty. My 2.5 year-old's idea of fun is to spread every play-kitchen toy out on the family floor. Then move on to something else. She's too little to successfully pick it all back up by herself (though she's great at smaller chores), and I hate to make the olders responsible for it all the time, so somewhere around my third-trimester last spring I just packed all but a few of the 8,763 pieces of bleepity-bleep kitchen stuff away. And no one minded too much. (The olders just started using imaginary ketchup and imaginary pasta.) And I now had enough reserve patience to tolerate the smaller messes with a smile. And enough energy to teach my olders about routines and responsibilities instead of scream at them. Happy medium for us all.

My house looks like a bomb went off most of the time, too. :001_smile: My oldest, ds7, is just now starting to "remember" routines, and this is after tens of thousands of "lessons" from me over the years, so I understand the frustration. One thing that has helped in our house is the use of something (besides my screaming voice) to trigger ds into action. So his morning routine was posted in our bathroom in a series of pictures. And his chores (including simple tasks like teeth brushing, or tidying up) are picture tags on a chart that he pulls off when the job is done. I may still need to tell him to check his chart, but then the chart guides him from there. In your case, perhaps you could create a small "after dinner" flip-chart like the ones here and here, showing the two or three things he needs to complete when the meal is done? He can even keep it right at the table with him, if it helps. The same might work for establishing other routines too… though I'd limit how many tasks you tackle at a time. Let him work on mastering just a few before adding more responsibilities. Simple practice sessions have also helped us. Ten minutes at the start of summer on "how to shut the back door" (including hands-on practice for each kiddo) eliminated a lot of yelling on my part too. Twenty minutes on "how to walk through the kitchen without swatting at mommy's apron and making it fall to the floor" eliminated that problem for me too. 6 is young still--- don't worry! There's hope for your little guy yet! :D (edited for typos and to include additional links)

OP - given your own experience, I can totally understand your concern. But along with other PPs, I've really seen and experienced the opposite. Certainly children among homeschoolers aren't homogenous -- they have a variety of personality traits just like those in b+m schools. But in most cases (and admittedly this is anecdotal), the hs students I know are far more confident socially, have excellent social skills across all age groups, and demonstrate greater maturity in group settings and in decision-making. And I think your statement above, bolded, is the primary reason for this. Often parents of b+m students have a school-centered approach to education, including social education; they assume the child will learn these skills though school (in fact, some believe they can't learn them any other way), and they fail to recognize the primary importance of the family unit at home. But social skills are best learned, I believe, within the context of a healthy family environment at home. Not that children in b+m schools can't succeed; but just that those who do succeed socially are often successful primarily because of their healthy family structure at home, not because they are exposed to 250 same-aged peers for 8+ hours a day at school. (And I should note that, by "succeed," I mean a confident mastery of social skills and a healthy, virtuous understanding and appreciation of others, as well as of their own place in the community around them; I do not mean being successfully extroverted (the world needs introverts! check out this for a great read on the topic), and I definitely do not mean successfully scrambling to the top of the popularity ladder :001_smile: ) Soooo…. perhaps you are "over thinking" as you say, but I think you are actually doing a fabulous job processing all this. It's important stuff to consider! :thumbup1:

Sounds a lot like our first morning time this fall! Bravo on jumping in. :hurray: I'd just encourage you to stick with it. Make it fun. Use music or dance or something else appealing to pull everyone together. And set boundaries at the beginning and remind them often. (We have "sit-on-your-own-seat-by-yourself" policy because 4 children climbing on me while I'm simultaneously nursing and reading poetry doesn't exactly put me in a good frame of mind.) And reward yourself and the kids for a job well done. Chocolate works here. :-) ETA: we have anywhere chairs found cheap on craigslist that are used as seats during MT… everyone on one couch would result in a dismal failure here. But carpet squares or bean bag chairs or pillows would work just as well if you feel you need to take a divide-and-conquer strategy.

I've taught 3 children with 100EZ, and am currently teaching 2 more. Of the three olders, one had no need to complete it (I think we abandoned it around lesson 80?). She understood decoding fairly intuitively and her reading took off quickly without any additional phonogram instruction. The other two completed the program; one was reading somewhat fluently by the end (but I wouldn't say at a 2nd grade level), and the other child (with dyslexia) still struggled by the end of the book but is now (at fifth grade) doing well. I agree that it isn't a complete phonics program, but in all fairness, the epilogue itself addresses this. It directs the teacher to continue to teach multi-letter phonograms that the book did not introduce. (For this, we moved on to WRTR and found it to be an easy transition.) The strengths of the program, I think, are: (gasp….!) the (infamous) crazy font at the beginning of the program. Multiple sounds for a single phonogram are eliminated at first, which really helps the child conquer reading in one small manageable step at a time. None of the children I taught had trouble transitioning from this as we progressed through the book toward a normal font. I did teach one of the major roles of silent "e" (to lengthen a preceding vowel) when it became appropriate in the book to explain its purpose. The book did not do this, and I wish it had. But otherwise I followed the book's content. the fact that it is not writing-centered. For a child who is developmentally ready to write (and enjoys it), writing is a big boost. But for all those kiddos who hate writing until they are 7 or 8 (or 12, or never), I see no reason to mix the two at the start. 100EZ let me teach my son to read years before he was ready to handle WRTR. the fact that it creates an automatic association between letter-symbol and sound (not symbol, then name, then sound). Yes, this means my DS (age 7) still occasionally uses a letter sound instead of name when reading the chart at the ophthalmologist's office. For the sake of fluency, I can live with that. :001_smile: the fact that it really is easy. Pull it off the shelf and you are ready to go; no prep (except learning the font before you use it the first time, which is also very easy), no manipulatives, no major expense to possibly regret later on.

I've always loved these for myself (erasers are refillable too); I bought them years ago and have never needed to replace them. That said, my children are still young and use only number 2s, so they haven't been kid-tested. The only problem I can foresee is constantly using up the erasers. If my own kids end up using them in the future, I'll probably just add cap erasers.

Mine are all little so I haven't faced this, but Cindy Rollins talks about it here. HTH! Rebecca