I thought I'd mention that the U.S. has media mail for sending bound printed material at significantly cheaper rates than other types of packages. If there are books that he will want at university but not over the U.S. summer / N.Z. winter, it might be worth bringing those along on this trip and having Grandma ship them at the beginning of the school year.

I'm using SOTW4 with dd11, dd8, and ds8 and have not felt a need to beef it up at all. There are 41 chapters, so we do not spend a full week on each. We read from the KHE and do some of the suggested books in the activity guide, oral discussion questions, mapwork, timeline, and written work (outlining for the oldest, and the tests for the younger). It's plenty for us! Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

The Accidental Pirates series by Claire Fayers is another one that my dragon lover has gotten into. I don't think the first book, Journey to the Magical North, has dragons, but they feature in the second book, Journey to Dragon Island. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

You might also try The Book of Dragons by E. Nesbit. We enjoyed these stories as read-alouds, but they weren't little boy dragon-crack the way Dragon Masters, How to Train Your Dragon, and Wings of Fire have been. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

Wings of Fire was a hit with my dragon-obsessed kids. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

I preferred a separate kitchen for all the years when I had toddlers and could gate them out of the kitchen while using the stove.

Putting in a pool I think that activity is better suited to a golf course.

My mom has done several trips with them and has been looking through their catalog for more. She has mentioned that she prefers the trips with a higher activity level. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

I am! I hope the weather cooperates. I watch most of SpaceX's launches on my computer and others from time to time. I also get emails telling me when the ISS should be visible overhead. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

It's sunny with highs in the low 70s here. Taxes can wait until we are back to our typical 50s and rainy. You can call it procrastinating on my taxes, I will call it working in the garden. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

The Ink Garden of Brother Theophane Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

I'm another who doesn't let her kids free range on food. We sit down together to eat 4x per day. I take requests into account when planning meals and generally try to provide healthy and tasty food in proper amounts for growing kids. When I have experimented with allowing the kids to get their own food, I keep finding wrappers, half-eaten sandwiches, banana peels, and apples with 2 bites missing scattered around the house. Sometimes swarms of ants find these bits before I do. Bleh. When I let the kids help themselves to food, I also found that they did not eat as much dinner and there was a lot of waste. We don't have any food allergies or extreme pickiness, so I can't speak to how I would handle those. Three of my kids are rather skinny, but not too the point where their doctor is concerned. The other three are more solidly built. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

There are travel vests that are a five point harness that connects up with the seat belt. They are fairly expensive but could solve your carpool issue and make life easier if you travel by plane and rent a car. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

For us, it worked best for me to head over quickly in the morning and start our loads, while the kids were home eating breakfast with Dad. I would set a timer and go back to pick up the clean, wet laundry right as it was finishing up. At home, I would hang as much out to dry as would for on the line and then start the rest in the dryer (usually a couple loads). Everyone would fold and put away clean, dry stuff in the evening. For a family of 8, I was doing laundry about every 5 days. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

You don't have to do a ton of juggling with Singapore - we would do the textbook lesson together aloud and then work through the first couple of workbook problems together and then the child would usually be able to finish the workbook page independently. Many topics are scheduled so that there is one lesson in the text and then several days of practice in the workbook. Singapore has some books with more challenging problems, which I viewed as optional. If you already own more of Math Mammoth, you can pull some word problems or puzzle corners from there every so often for a bit of extra challenge. I managed to do the 1st and 2nd grades of Singapore while I had babies, toddlers, and/or preschoolers. The teaching is usually pretty short and the workbooks were not hard for my kids to do semi-independently. It lines up pretty well with Math Mammoth if you ever want to switch back to it. My daughters both switched to MM3 after a couple years of Singapore.

I participated in a vaccine study as a young adult. It was one where safety had been established and they were looking at effectiveness. I was okay doing it for the extra money and possiblity of helping people avoid the disease in the future. I would have a harder time agreeing to something like that on behalf of my kids though. And to be honest, I have a hard enough time getting my kids to their regular check-ups that I would not be eager to add a bunch of extra medical appointments to our schedule. That said, go you, and I am glad there are people willing to take part in studies like this. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

Thanks for sharing! I'd come across some discussion of Glenn Doman's work about teaching kids to swim and saw a little bit about the early reading but just kind of glanced past it because my oldest child had such an awful experience of being taught with sight words and guessing. What you describe sounds like an entirely sight words approach, is that right? Have your kids moved into being able to sound out unfamiliar words, and was there anything you purposefully taught to make that happen?

Congratulations! When I was expecting twins, I said to my midwife at around 16 weeks that I was concerned that I was so much bigger than in my first pregnancy. And she said that it was really common for women to wonder about having twins with 2nd pregnancies because most women show sooner with 2nd babies. Then I found out at 20 weeks that it wasn't all in my head and I really was having twins. :-P I didn't feel movement any earlier than usual because the placentas were in front. I felt tireder than in my first pregnancy, but just attributed that to having a 2yo already. One thing that was different was that my midwife never had any trouble finding the heartbeat early on. She'd put down the Doppler, and baboom, baboom, baboom, there it was, every time. I was less sick with my twin pregnancy than with my first pregnancy, perhaps because I'd figured out some coping strategies, but more sick than with my subsequent singletons. Also, *big hug*. If this were me, I'd be absolutely freaking out.

Dd11 is 6th grade this year. She is doing: Beast Academy 5 Writing and Rhetoric book 5 Touch type read and spell CHOLL modern literature Sotw4 Build Your Library Darwin and Evolution (fall) The Science of Climate Change (spring) Duolingo Spanish Sculpture class at the local art center (fall) Drawing class at the local art center (spring) Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

Funny because I have often seen this played as a drinking game. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

Gotten my ears or any other body part pierced. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

My 23 and me results came back almost exactly like that too. Then when they recalculated everything a year ago, my Neanderthal percentile dropped to 84. I told my mom when I first got my results that there were no surprises except for that Neanderthal bit. She was sure it must be from my dad's side of the family. [emoji6] Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

Strangely enough, my news feed has a story, "Man booted from British Airways flight for wearing all his clothes to avoid baggage fee." So maybe don't try that. [emoji16] Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

The vehicle height is 82", so I can park in a 7' or taller garage.

You can get any of the three wheelbases with any of the three roof heights (theoretically, at least.) Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk