https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9V-zUlrhEE This is the most fun song I know, so I am going to use it for my ringtone as soon as I figure out how to do it.

OMGoodness....this is going to force me to figure out how to get something on my phone besides the (boring) Verizon ringtones. Do you all pay for all these?

http://www.npr.org/2014/05/12/311107696/tale-of-two-billboards-an-ozark-towns-struggle-to-unseat-hate I live in southern Missouri, very near the Arkansas border.

I have the same problem, but I have taught myself to narrow things down to some manageable level. This does not mean that I don't collect hundreds of books, though. I am afraid to post a picture of my living room bookshelves. Pretend you are at an ice cream shop where everything looks delicious. Then pick something like this: a language, history of something, a physical science, a life science, and an area of literature. Pick one of them to work on every day (I do French every day), and two for three days a week, and two for two days a week. After a couple of months, see what you really want to stick with, or have satisfied your curiosity about, or don't want to spend another bunch of money on buying every book on invertebrate zoology or whatever. This is what I had to do after years of being such a generalist that I drove myself crazy.

Well versed in ticks around the Ozarks, that does not look like one....more like a spider. Yukk.

Hello, Welcome. We are planning a move from Missouri to Georgia soon. I use the K-12 curriculum, which I totally love, but I have to pay for it here in Missouri. My daughter, who is a professor in Georgia, plans to use it for her middle school son, but will get it free. I've only been homeschooling one semester, my 4th grader, but it is going really well now. I just wish I had started earlier. We will be schooling through summer, taking off when we want. Good luck with your endeavor, and welcome to the forum. I have gotten so much interesting and great advice here.

There is just too much to learn and do not to teach in the summer! Anyway, I might get bored.... So far, I am planning entomology and geometry.

I find AP insufferable, myself. I would pay NOT to have to listen to him.

What level would you be teaching? We are doing geometry all summer, using a variety of materials.

I wouldn't worry about it. "Tests" are created by someone, somewhere, who doesn't know you child, may be much older (a generation removed, sometimes), and don't really prove anything, in the long run. Take this from someone with an age range in children from 10 to 48 (yes, seriously). You won't remember this a few years from now, and I would bet anything I own that she will turn out to be a happy and successful person, and probably a determined leader who listens to her own drummer.

Not sure I understand why "Bing" is signed in. Can anyone (Bing?) shed any light on this?

Without really knowing how many homeschoolers you are in contact with locally, I can't really say this definitively; however, I think the pool of people on these forums is probably much greater. When a question is asked, or a statement is made, about anything, the people who have a real interest one way or the other are the ones who respond. So, sometimes it appears that things are skewed one direction or the other. Read enough forums and enough responses, and it evens out quite a bit. I really could not live happily without the community here. Certainly, I could not be as effective as a teacher. I have come to depend on the insight and opinions offered by many, many experienced people.

I taught one of my foster children that y is just e's friend and helps out at the end of some words, while e is busy making the other vowel remember to say its name when it is at the end. That's all it took for him...he was in second grade, I think.

Go over the last parts, both of the paragraphs and the sentences, way more than the first parts. When you are in the car or at the supper table etc., say the lines but leave blanks to fill in the words. Leave more and more of it blank. Be sure you have memorized it yourself. Say the lines everywhere, all the time. Unfortunately, you will remember the paragraphs for years, but this works.

We have a nine-year-old and a ten-year-old. They go to bed at 8:00 sharp, EVERY night, including the weekends. Once in a while, they go to bed an hour early. They know when bedtime is and no one complains.

All of my adult children (professors among them) are voracious readers. They all know how to spell. They learned to spell from reading, despite being schooled in whatever the current phonics or whole language fad was at the time. It doesn't matter how you teach the i sound or the e sound or any other sound....they will eventually read it, recognize it, pronounce it, and spell it. That is only my opinion of course, but it has played out with five adult children.

Do you want samples of Palmer? That is what I write (and teach), and everyone compliments me on it. Send info and I will send a sample.

Our dogs are Thelma, Louise, Susie, Stella, Zooey, and Roc Our cats are: Lloyd, Scout, Lily, and Pearl Our parakeets are: Miss Green and Coward (he's yellow). Our chickens are: One and Two

Three of my six children play piano. Two of them are adults, one of them is 10. The two adults have thanked me many times for insisting they practice. They are both wonderful pianists. Kevin is in his 4th year of piano, loves classical music, plays wonderfully well, and hates to practice. Here is what I do: I sit near the piano and listen, making a couple of helpful suggestions (as helpful as a non-musician can make, that is) here and there, I provide him with "fun" music and sing along sometimes, play a lot of piano music on YouTube that he watches with me, talk about music a lot, and just tell him that he has to practice before he can be on the computer, no arguments. When he is older, he will thank me, just like the other kids!

Rosie, I am totally impressed! I am wondering if anyone reading these posts has ever gotten food poisoning from eating food from their own home? This must be a really rare occurrence, no matter what method or non-method of preservation is used. I have had really serious food poisoning after eating at a Chick-You-Know, and can never eat there again.

I am writing down and incorporating lots of these ideas...they're great. What about food items in the store brands? Some Great Value foods are good and others are not so good. I will try Finish Power Balls when I have used up the Palmolive. Where is everyone getting all the useful coupons?....I can never find them anywhere. Being Irish, I hate to admit that I don't like McCann's, either. One thing that really helps me here is a huge Amish/Mennonite discount grocery. They have everything from chia seeds to steel-cut oats in bulk and at very reasonable prices.

Have you tried Karate with her? It is calming, centered, quiet, and so much less stressful, I think. Possibly some of you have had other experiences with it, and I suppose it depends on the Karate school, but for my son it is wonderful.

Those are magnificent. I see you can get some of them from Amazon.

Do any of you use products that are less expensive but work as well or almost as well as name brand products? I really need to save a lot more money than I am saving, but I still want the dishes and clothes etc. clean, and the food to be good. What would you do with your savings? I am experimenting with Palmolive Eco Gel for the dishwasher versus Cascade Complete. So far, the results have been good and the product is about half the cost, but the verdict isn't in yet. I also (so far) like Suave Soft-Touch hairspray. Think if all of us could save $100 a month! What could we do with it? I think I would buy my child a great summer wardrobe by carefully garage sale and thrift shopping.

I bought a package of foam circles at WM. We have divided them into halves, thirds, fourths, sixths, eighths, tenths, and twelfths, and written the fraction on each piece with a Sharpie. These have worked like magic, and cost less than $3. This was much less than the hair replacer I thought I was going to need :laugh:!