There's one GPS that uses a squirrel voice for directions. It's great up until it asks you to pull over in random places so it can go look for nuts...

I also think that there's something else going on here. I'd really love to hear what his parents have to say. And how did his sister study marine biology without algebra, physics, chemistry, or biology, considering all those things are integral parts of marine biology?

Yesterday, I was at Costco stocking up as one does ;) I was loading my cart with stuff and realized that for some things I am perfectly content buying store brand, but other items I will buy only name brands, despite there being a store brand equivalent. Paper towels are store brand, but tp and tissues only name brand. Soda is always Coke, but juices are store brand. The list of name brand only for us is: Northern TP Kleenex Tissues Coke Clif bars Crest and Aquafresh toothpastes Aleve Oral B toothbrushes Everything else, I buy store brands, but for those products I always buy namebrand. What are your name brand only purchases?

Our gps on our smartphones actually sounds angry when you disobey it. We decided once to take a quick sidetrip on a longer road trip, and it got quite shirty with us when we declined to turn left into a cow. We were all rolling at the really more and more desperate voice telling us to "turn left NOW!" We have a new saying: "It's all fun and games until someone p****s off the GPS!"

When my ds was in Montessori school they had him keep a daily notebook record of his activities and his lessons for the day. We did this for the first semester ds was home, gave it up last year, but I think I'm going to start it up again. This was just to get him used to recording his day, but this year I think I might use it to help him schedule his time a little bit more. I'm planning to have him write down his lessons by the day, with the goal to have him do a week's planning at a time by January.

Excellent! I may have to make a run to Target tomorrow to scope these out. For some reason I never think about Target for furniture-- thanks for the reminder!

I did something similar when I was a kid, except with another doll. My mother had me write letters to different Chambers of Commerce in different cites and places, asking for tourist brochures about that place, and then plan the doll trip using those. It taught me geography and how to write a proper letter!

OooOoo! Ours is doing this right now and the cat has hairballs. I won't even post a picture of what my floors look like right now :lol: The place is a wreck between the dog blowing his coat, the cat, and my decluttering. I need to get the vaccuum out once I can get rid of this headache.

Yeah, I do this all the time. I just bought a history curric that I'm now not sure about. I want to go back to SOTW, but it didn't work well for us last year, and I'm not sure that it'll work this year. Indecision is killing me now!

I'm looking for new bookshelves myself, but we're 800 miles from the nearest Ikea, and they don't drop ship here. Any suggestions for the Ikea-less?

Rats! Between that vid and the one about Roman toilets, I just ended up buying the DVD's for our history class :hurray:

This is a favorite technique in both sides of our extended families. I used to try to try to not acknowledge it, but I finally gave up and just started calling people out on it. I'm 42 years old; I don't have the time or energy for childish manipulation games any more.

I hated the salmon jerky too! I did, in fact, end up using it as cat treats :D

This past Fourth of July, DS had to ask me what it was all about... Yeah, I forgot to teach him about Independence Day. :svengo: In my defense, we were going to get to it last year, but we really got into the Vikings and skipped the American Revolution. At least he knows that Vikings didn't really wear horned helmets... :biggrinjester:

I hope he becomes more confident in his reading skills. I really hope he is able to nurture and expand his love of math. I want him to taste a foreign language for the first time and see what it feels like to him. I hope he will learn to love science and the natural world even more than he does now. I hope he learns about how history can fuel our imaginations. He wants to try to write and illustrate his own comic book this year, and I'm hoping I can help him achieve that goal.

Thanks folks, I appreciate the feedback. I guess that I'm getting neurotic as the beginning of school closes in! :coolgleamA: We just received some bad news last night that means we're going to be doing a lot of traveling in the next several months, and the idea of having to adjust to accommodate all of this makes me want to have some stability in our lives, but I don't think a rigid school schedule is one of those places that we're going to get it atm.

I need to go and get Staples Better Binders for Darth Kid's science notebook, but they're 7.99 right now. Will they go on sale for cheaper later?

I'm trying to plan for the next school year and I'm running into problems. While I'm great with saying, "Ok, on Monday we're going to do math, copywork, Latin, and science. On Tuesday, we're going to do math, Latin, geography, and language arts..." Where I'm not comfortable is specifying specifics, "We're going to do pages 37 and 38, and do this worksheet..." I'd rather leave that flexible, spending more time on certain subjects and projects or moving on as we need to, and mark down what we *did* not what we're *going* to do, if that makes sense. Do other folks do this or am I just feeling guilty over nothing again :lol: I know there's a couple of science labs that we're going to want to continue over a couple of days, but I keep feeling like I should have every day planned down to the nth degree.

I'm not going to talk you down-- I'm right up there with you! :lol: Except for the fact that my kid isn't really interested in much besides playing video games and watching cartoons, I'd be unschooling myself.

I shredded a crate full of old medical bills and papers today, moved the crate to the garage, and put a tub of school supplies in it's place under our china hutch! Tomorrow I'll tackle another crate of papers and then the crap stacked on the hutch itself. So far I've gotten rid of about 100 pounds of assorted junk.

Our schools start on the 13th I think. Either way, I'm not starting until they do!

Palmer maintains that we as teachers have to explore and understand ourselves; from this exploration, we can present the most authentic versions of ourselves and our engagements with the subjects we teach. The most effective teachers are the ones who can present tangible connections between ourselves, our teaching, and our students. This isn't a product of techniques, but of a deeper exploration of emotions and thoughts that connect us to our work and through that, to our students. It's an examination of integrity, authenticity, connections between our actions as teachers to the larger communities we and our students take part in every day. While I teach secular materials, this is helpful to focus me on the idea that those connections between student, teacher, and material is a real thing, and nurture the idea of openness to those spiritual connections.

We're not starting for another couple of weeks yet. We're all so lethargic and fatigued from the heat, there's no sense in trying to focus. I'm not ready for it to start either :P

We don't have a separate schoolroom, but I much prefer it this way. We homeschool at the heart of the house, the kitchen/dining room area, and I can keep my eye on everything that's going on. Every once in awhile, I really wish that I had a separate room, but when I think about it I much prefer it this way. Supplies and books are kept on a bookshelf and a three drawer cubby. I'm beginning to realize that we need a taller set of bookshelves though, so maybe next month we can get those set up. Textbooks and reference books are on the shelf, free reading books are in ds's room, and school supplies are in the cubbies. My blog has a good picture of our current set-up.